I have a question I wanna start off with, and actually before I do that, I failed to read the entire passage. I was gonna do that before I prayed, but hey, we can do it right now, it's just as good. So would you just stand and honor this word, the word of the Lord? We are gonna be looking at Revelation chapter two, verses one through seven, and this is the way that it reads. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you. that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, and unless you repent, Yet this you have. You hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you for putting up with my forgetfulness on that. So now here's my question. If Jesus were to write a letter to our individual church, what do you think he'd say? Would he be affirming, commending us for the things that we do well? Do you suppose that it might be filled with things that would put us to shame? Or would it be a little of both? Think of it for just a moment, what it would be like to have the risen Christ himself dictating a message addressing the strengths and weaknesses of living water lapine. We don't really need to wonder very long because he has written such a letter. In fact, he wrote seven letters. And they are just as much to those seven original churches as they are to us. Now we can easily see from the names and the primary characteristics of these seven churches that he's writing these seven letters to, that they align fairly well, each one with a corresponding particular era of church history. The sequence of this order in which each of these letters is presented parallels the sequence of distinct church periods, from Pentecost, when the church was born, to the rapture, when the church was ceased to exist. There are seven letters and there are seven definite church eras. The seven letters and the seven periods of church history align themselves well enough to send a good picture for us to understand that these letters are describing church history down through the ages. but I have to be very honest with you here. I need to acknowledge it is not a perfect one-to-one alignment. Some characteristics that will be pointed out into one church concerning one of the church in its letters, and therefore it looks like it should be corresponding to only this particular church era, is really true about all seven periods of church history, from Pentecost to the rapture. This happens a couple of times in the letters. What is written to some of the churches describes the entire history of the church on earth. For example, I want you to look with me at what was written to the sixth church, the Philadelphia church, and would therefore initially seem like a description of the sixth period of church history, but actually this describes all of the periods of church history. I'm referring to Revelation chapter three and verse 10, which says this. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth. Now that was written to the sixth church, the church at Philadelphia. And this phrase that we see here, the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole world, what is that? That's the tribulation. It hasn't happened yet. Now the period of church history that the sixth letter is going to describe, that period of church history has already come and gone. We're no longer in the Philadelphia period. Today, we are in the seventh and final period, which is described by the letter to Laodicea. So Revelation 3.10 cannot only pertain to the sixth period of church history. They didn't experience the tribulation. and the believers who were alive during that time period are not going to be the only believers who will escape the tribulation. So here is my point. As we get ready to study these individual letters, we are going to see some amazing correlations to definite events that were happening in these first century churches. and how accurately they also point and describe a corresponding era of church history. In general, we'll see primary characteristics of specific time periods, but we will also see as well some general characteristics of the entire church history. Now, we need to stay on our toes, folks. We do have the advantage, however, of looking back to understand which is which because of our perspective from recorded history. There is enough one-to-one correspondence that we would be foolish to ignore it by what we see from world history, looking back, and yet there are also broader descriptions of the entire church history that we need to understand from light of other scriptures. Thankfully, we have tools. You know, I think God wants to make sure that we stay humble as we study this book of Revelation, don't you? We've got to. Now, there are things that I want to make clear about the letters to the seven churches before we dive into our first ladder today. Number one, these ladders reveal the character of the entire church. down through the ages. And number two, these letters reveal general character of seven distinct periods of church history. But why is this? Why? So we can prepare what to expect. And that's so you and I can gauge where we are now. We live today during the period described in the last letter, the seventh church at Laodicea. We are in the seventh and final period of the church history before Christ returns. And I think God wants us to know this is where we are, that Christ's return is very eminent. I marvel at this. and I hope you do too. Now, here's the third thing I want to point out about these seven letters to the seven churches. These letters are not only written as descriptions about church history, they are that. They are also written to instruct and warn individual believers. Now, where I'm getting that very clearly is the way all seven letters Conclude, they conclude with the same phrase at the end of the letters. He, that's singular, not plural. He, every individual, who has ears, let him hear. Every individual in every period of church age, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. That one is plural. In other words, individual believers are to pay attention to what every letter says. All of the letters pertain to us, not just the letter that corresponds to our particular era of church history, and in this case, the Laodicean letter. Now, as we get into the first letter today, the letter to the church at Ephesus, we need to know that this letter is also for us. We need to glean from it the intended instruction that it has for you and I. Well, let's dive in now to the first letter to the church at Ephesus. It corresponds to the period of church history, that first period from Pentecost when the church was born to the time when the last apostle, John, died. And so this period that is spoken of and kind of points to and gives us a feel for where we are in our history, this is the first period that was from about 30 AD to about 100 AD. And so as we pick up today with these letters that begin in chapter two, verse one, I'm actually gonna put on the screen here, verse 20 of the previous chapter, because that gives us the context of what he mentions in the first verse of chapter two. You'll see the last verse of chapter one, he says, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven lampstands are the seven churches. And we need that information as we go on now into chapter two, verse one. So now that we know what these lampstands are and what these angels are and so forth. So here we go. Revelation two, verse one. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand. who walks among the seven golden lampstands, which we know to be the churches. Now, because Jesus has such authority and stands among the churches, he knows everything as he walks among the seven golden lampstands. He's inspecting it. He's on an inspection tour. There is no praiseworthy quality or secret sin that escapes his notice. And because he loves his church, Jesus will commend what is right and he will condemn what is wrong. We see him do this in each of the letters. Yours and my inspection of the church today might be quite different. We might look and see that there's a wave of church activity today all across our nation and many parts of the world. Huge churches are filled to capacity every Sunday with vigorous, exciting worship services. Huge churches are filled. And that might not be commendable to Christ, however. Church membership, church buildings, church attendance, church work. These were all at an all-time high before COVID. But come on, you have to admit that the morals of the country were and are at an all-time low. When church activity and membership grows statistically, but the church members do not grow in spiritual proportion, and society as a whole is not affected by it, that might not be commendable in Christ's evaluation. The greatest need of the church today is not more members, more buildings, more money. And don't crucify me for this, please. But the supreme issue is not even missions or evangelism. What we see in Revelation chapter two and three is that it is repentance and revival. That is the greatest need of the church. Revival is simply a return to normal New Testament Christianity. Please hear me carefully on this. Most of Christendom today is so subnormal. And if we ever became normal, we would look very abnormal. Real Christianity is unusual. Revival is nothing less than a new beginning in obedience to God. A breaking of heart and getting down in the dust before him with deep humility and forsaking of sin. Revival breaks the power of the world and of sin over Christians. The charm of the world is broken and the power of sin is overcome. Truths to which our hearts are unresponsive suddenly become living truths. whereas mind and conscience, it might assent to truth. Yeah, yeah, that sounds true. When revival comes, obedience to truth is the one thing that matters. To many, revivals begin with the assumption that the present church is in good shape, That might be far from true. The church needs time out to tune up. We're so busy building a bigger orchestra that we cannot stop to tune our instruments. We're too busy chopping wood to sharpen the ax. and we're too busy mixing metaphors. We're just too occupied to submit to spiritual examination. Yet we've never needed spiritual examination more. We need to face the Christ of the candlesticks, the Lord of the lampstands, calling the church to repentance. Now, this is what we're gonna be doing over the course of the next several weeks as we get into these seven letters, folks. Let's take a look at verses two and three now in this letter to the church at Ephesus. I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance. and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake, and you have not grown weary. Wow! What a church! The things they are commended for, that's astounding! To begin with, this was a serving church, but busy doing the works of the Lord, no doubt their weekly schedule was filled with activities. It was also a sacrificing church. Now the word labor means to toil to the point of exhaustion. The Ephesian Christians paid a price to serve the Lord. The church at Ephesus was an energetic church for the Lord. Commentator, Bible commentator, Rod Mattoon writes, they did not just attend church, They labored for Christ. You know, there are three groups of people in every church. We have the shirkers, who do nothing. They let others do the work and the giving. Then we have the jerkers who start out fine. They give a jerk or two and then they run out of gas spiritually. They become indifferent and unreliable. And then we have the workers. They work. Ephesus was a working church. God knew that the Ephesians were faithful in their work and he commends them for their labor. They were workers, not shirkers. They got the job done and also they were a steadfast assembly. The word patience carries the meaning of endurance under trial. They kept going when the going got tough. Now Paul founded the church at Ephesus around AD 52. And around AD 65, Timothy became its pastor. Ephesus is where Paul wrote his letters, 1 and 2 Timothy. Tradition says sometime after Timothy was pastor there, John, the writer of Revelation, became its pastor. So what I'm trying to show you is here, they had great leadership, solid, Now, in Acts chapter 19, we're told how the Christians in Ephesus were exposed to fierce opposition. They knew what it was to be despised and hated, and yet they were neither dispirited or dissuaded. Trade unions, you might remember from Acts chapter 19, the silversmiths and all were upset because the Christians were lowering their source of income and their sales and so forth, and so they tried to drive the Christians out of the city, but they stood firm for the cause of the gospel. In Acts 19 verse 10 of that chapter, it contains this summary of their overcoming when it says, all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. They overcame. Revelation 2.2 says they would not tolerate false teachers and people who claimed the high office of apostle who were really just fakers. They call them out on it. They forbid them from doing their evil work by exposing them and stopping them for their falseness. And we can summarize these nine good things about the Ephesian church by grouping them into some broad categories here, two broad categories, their deeds and their theology. This looks like a great church. Everything said about their deeds is good. They were working, toiling, patiently enduring. We saw that in verse two and three. Notice that everything said about their theology is good as well. They were recognizing the difference between good and evil, testing those who claim to be messengers over all the churches, apostles, and they were refusing to acknowledge liars. The believers at Ephesus were commended for being a suffering people who patiently bore their burdens and toiled without fainting. In the Greek word to describe them as hupomone, and that means to endure under extreme hardship. They did all this for the Lord's namesake. No matter how you examine this congregation, you might conclude that they were just about perfect. However, the one among the lampstands saw into their hearts as he does today. And he had a different diagnosis of them than what you or I might have. Verse four, but I have this against you, that you have not abandoned the love you first had. Certainly the church at Ephesus was solid, grounded in the truth, It was a church based and built on sound doctrine with the best leadership. They knew what they believed and they practiced it. Their purity of doctrine and persistent service is unquestionable. They had not committed adultery. They had not committed murder. They had not committed robbery. Yet, they had fallen. They had gotten so caught up in duty that they lost their devotion. Their labor was commendable, but their love was contemptible. Like Martha, they were so busy they had no time for Jesus. to sit at his feet. Their relationship with Christ was based on performance, not passion. They were far more occupied with the work of Christ than the person of Christ. And if we're to label this church, it would be the cold church. There is no more dangerous church or individual Christian than a church that does not labor out of love for the Lord. It will eventually become cold, pharisaical, and destructive. It is a terrible fall for Christians and a church to become so occupied and busy that their love for Christ fails. Few will ever survive this fall. Just think of it. It is possible to serve, to sacrifice and to suffer for Christ and yet not really love him. The Ephesian believers were so busy doing ministry that they were neglecting adoration. It's possible to be so caught up in church work and neglect the Savior. There is a difference between Christianity and churchianity. We should never be so busy working for the church that we lose sight of our devotion to Christ. Jesus wants more than anything else to have fellowship, sweet fellowship with us. And the church at Ephesus had forgotten that. Labor is no substitute for love. You know what else? Neither is doctrinal purity. That's not a substitute for our passion for Christ. The church must have both. if it is to please him. So here's the point. Sound doctrine and perseverance are inadequate without a love for Jesus. In the first steps of your Christian life, you may have had enthusiasm without knowledge. Can you remember back to the days when you first became a believer? Many of us had great enthusiasm, but we didn't have much knowledge. Do you now have knowledge without enthusiasm? What is first love? Verse four says, you left your first love. It's a devotion to Christ that so often characterizes the new believer. Fervent, personal, uninhibited, excited, openly display, I'll even throw in the word quirky. It's the honeymoon love of a husband and wife. We all understand the picture Jesus uses here, the passion of falling in love for the first time, the intensity of the first experience of love that often outshines any further feelings of love. The problem for this church is that they started off well enough as a lampstand, a witness for Christ. but they had lost their enthusiastic love for Christ. They did what was required of them, but their heart was no longer in it, and so their effectiveness as a light to the world was diminished. When our home life and our church life become a burden, There's something wrong with our relationship with Christ. There's the key. But when we get it straightened out, our home life and our church life straighten out also. So here's the remedy. It's given to us. I'm gonna read it in verse five in just a moment. Let me just give it to you in three simple words. It is, remember, repent, And repeat. So let's take a look at it. Revelation 2 verse 5, our remedy. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. Unless. you repent. Remember, we need to remember what it was like when we were joyously and lovingly devoted to Christ as new believers. We need to slow down and remember what Christ has done for us and that impact when it first made sense to us. Remember those wonderful honeymoon days when you were first saved. Remember what it was like when you first got saved, you couldn't get enough of Jesus. You were in your Bible regularly, you prayed, you went to church, you hung around, you fellowshiped with God's people, you couldn't get enough of it. Why is it that you can skip church now without it bothering you? You go through life without witnessing. When you were first saved, you told everybody. Now you're cautiously silent. I don't want to look like a freak. Have you left your first love? Like the Church of Ephesus, for many Christians, the honeymoon has been over for a long time. I remember what it was like when I first met my wife, Patty. She was a student finishing up her bachelor's degree at Fresno State. Patty had a statistics class that met in the evening. And I lived near the campus, and so I would walk over there, and I would walk up the hall back and forth and looking through the window and the door every time I would pass by it while she was in class trying to pay attention to the lecture. And Patty later told me that I was making quite a spectacle of myself. Classmates, even the professor would say, he's back. I couldn't wait for the class to be over or for it to take a 10 minute break so I could spend every second by her side and then later walk her to her car. I realize that I am telling you this at great personal risk to myself. I know when we get home she's going to say, what happened? But I openly showed a zealous love for her. Yes, and it was quite quirky. I didn't care that I was being made fun of by the professor and the students. First love is quirky. It's passionate, it's fervent, it's diligent, but it's disciplined. It's furious and it's all-consuming. There's a reckless enthusiasm about first love, isn't there? Reckless enthusiasm. It's not cold and calculating. A young lover buys his sweetheart a gift that he really can't afford. When you were a young Christian, you could not do too much for the Lord. There was no sacrifice too big. Like the poor widow with her two mites, you wanted to put in everything. Mary of Bethany did not count the cost, the high price perfume that she poured on the feet of Jesus and then wiped his feet with her hair. Only Judas grumbled about that because there was no love in his heart. And you know, there will always be church scrooges who consistently show great fear of those who overdo it. How long has it been since you felt this first love for Jesus? Do you remember what that was like? What made you feel so desperate, sell everything and follow Jesus kind of love? Maybe you feel that the things your church needs from you is a burden. Do we? I have to stay after church for another church meeting today. Isn't it somebody else's turn to clean up after the potluck or the church fellowship? Hey, you know, I've been a deacon, I've been an elder for 10 years now. I know, I know, there's nobody else stepping up. So I guess I'll do it for another year. The solution for these problems It's not merely to hope for more people to come alongside and help. So we don't have to be bothered with our continuing to go through the monotonous routines of serving the Lord. Nor do I believe the solution is for us to stop doing what have become like troublesome chores. No, the solution that we see here is for us to remember. When we meditate on our first love, we become people who want to lay down our lives for others, the way Jesus laid down his life for us. We become people who want to serve others the way our King serves us. And then, remember, and then repent. Second step of action that Jesus gives the church at Ephesus and to us is to repent. Turn away from the way of thinking that makes you Think that Jesus is presuming upon you. Repent, turn away from that. Turn away from the way of thinking that has made you lose sight of his worth. Turn away from the things that dull your appetite for his word. Turn away from the things that steal your time that you have for prayer. Turn away from the pride and the self-reliance that keeps you from the Bible and prayer for your need of Jesus. Well, I can handle this situation on my own. I don't need to pray, but turn away from that. Repent. What is it that keeps you from Bible study, prayer, and reliance on Christ? Your soul depends on your ability to repent of those things so that you might cultivate that first love. When my daughters were young, they did not want me to agree reluctantly to read books to them. or to half-heartedly listen to them when they would have problems and come home from school. My wife does not want me to reluctantly agree to take a day off so that I could spend time with her. Okay. Your spouse and your children can tell whether you're going through the motions. Plotting along. persevering, doing your duty for them. They would rather have you joyfully delighting and loving them by seeking their happiness and what is best for their souls. They want you to love them. And Jesus wants no less. He's not honored by joyless obedience that just plods along. Proclaiming that other things are more exciting than he is, more rewarding, more intriguing, more stimulating, that kind of perseverance doesn't please him. And you're not gonna be able to keep it up for very long either. Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction. If there is no change, there has been no repentance. Repentance produces a product. The work of genuine repentance is seen in actions Christians need to repent and return to their first love. We need to recognize that we've been on a wrong road and then turn around, turn back. That brings us to the third R, repeat, do the first works. Get back to serving God out of love and devotion for Him rather than mere duty. Remember, repent, and repeat. I didn't tell you this until now, but there is a fourth R. It's found in the last part of verse five. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Failure to repent will result in judgment. An outward thriving church will decline spiritually if it has left its first love for Christ. The organization may remain, but the light will be gone. Many churches are like that today. They have nice buildings, they have nice offerings, they have nice crowds, but they have no light. Ephesus experienced that judgment. The lamps which shone so bright with the best leadership there. That candle's been removed today. There is no church where Ephesus was. That's in modern day Turkey. The once great city of Ephesus now lays in ruin and rubble, and the gross darkness of Islam now wraps its deadly arms around it. Christ's admonition and appeal is just as appropriate to us today as it was to Ephesus. All over America, there are cold, dead, dried-up churches that were once great lighthouses for the Lord. Many no longer exist at all. The doors have just been shut. Their light and testimony has been snuffed out. You know, many of the colonial churches that we read of in our history books that helped with the birth of our nation, that saw that our nation was founded on Christian principles, they're now houses of worship for cult. Many of them on the East Coast. You go through New England, the vast majority of the churches there are Unitarian. They don't believe in the Trinity. They don't believe Jesus is God. They have become that. The light has been snuffed out. New England is full of them. Our Lord wanted us to take heed of this. He's warned us about this happening during the last days. Verse six. This you have. You hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. No one knows for certain who the Nicolaitans were. It's probable that this was a mere title because the word is very specific and it means those who rule over the people or try to rule over the people. And we saw in verse 2 here where he was commending them because they would not allow people to come in here and try to rule over them, saying, I am an apostle. They saw through that. So that's probably what this is a reference to, of the Nicolaitans. So the Nicolaitans, whose deeds Christ hates, this presumption of coming in with authority you don't have, I do believe these were those men who came in supposing themselves to have greater authority. They were spotted as phonies, that was good. The church today, though, we abound with all kinds of phony religious authorities who write books, who write internet blogs, and they go on television all over the place, and they need to be tested by the word of God. So often turns out that the fundamental and orthodox Christians become so severe in condemning false doctrine at gnashing teeth over every sniff of heresy that sometimes we end up without any love as we do that. You know, we can do the right thing in the wrong way. The main point of our passage today is religious activity without love calls for repentance. Verse seven. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God." So Christ stands among the lampstands, and he stood in that great church at Ephesus, and he tells us, as he told them, what to do. Remember, repent, and repeat. Let us remember how we loved Christ as young Christians before we met too many Bible scholars to fill in with our lacking knowledge, which diminished our love. There are Christians in churches that boast of being mature when they're really spiritually frostbitten. Remember our first love for the Lord before it degenerated into a cold orthodoxy or a mechanical church work. Let us repent, turn, confess, and go back and ask God to fill our hearts with the love of God, that he would shed it abroad by the Holy Spirit. Let us repeat, let us do again the first works that we used to do when our orthodoxy was hot in faith, and a loving heart and do our church work from that spirit, not just labor. With every church and every member, the message is repent or else. Let's pray.