We come to you, O God, the divine author of scripture. We thank you for what we have just read. We thank you for the truth of your word that we have just sung. And we thank you, too, for what we are preparing to read in the letters, the words of you, our God, to your church. And we ask, O Lord, that as we come to read, that we would submit ourselves humbly under your word, and that in your light we would see light. We ask these things all through Christ. Amen. Revelation chapter 2. We'll come tonight to read verses, consider verses 1 through 7. For quick reference, page 1028, if you'd like to use a pew Bible. Now let's stand for this reading of God's word. Revelation 2, beginning at verse 1, this is again the word of the Lord. 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 name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love 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 unless you repent. Yet this you have, you hate the works 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." As far as the reading of God's word, you can be seated. Well, as we announced this morning, we're beginning. a new series of sermons during Lord's Day evenings on the seven churches that are addressed by the Apostle John in the book of Revelation. And this will take us through chapters two and three, so it's not our aim to cover the entirety of the book, but just really the letters, the churches rather, that are addressed in these letters. And the book as a whole is written as a letter. It is addressed, John, to the seven churches. And then we have letters specific to these individual churches in chapters 2 and chapter 3. The churches that we'll consider were located in Asia, verse 4 again of chapter 1, John to the seven churches that are in Asia, or Asia Minor, it is what we know as modern day Turkey, really the western portion, and they're listed, the churches are, in order that in the order that perhaps a courier would take and deliver the letters. The church in Ephesus is who we find first. This letter addressed to them is a church that was located, a city, Ephesus located really as the best port of entry into Asia Minor. It is there on the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey above the larger Mediterranean. So it makes sense for Ephesus to be the first church. And then you go up to Smyrna and to Pergamum and all the way around to Laodicea in somewhat of a clockwise motion. And so they're given in that order. And so the city of Ephesus The church in the city of Ephesus is who we come to first. The city was visited by Paul in his second missionary journey. We can read about that in Acts chapter 18. He found already present there some disciples, but elders were established in the church, and you might remember There is that moving scene, an emotional scene in Acts chapter 20 where Paul addresses the Ephesian elders there. He has them come to him and he warns them about wolves who would infiltrate the flock. He exhorts them to shepherd the flock who is among them. Paul went on to address the church in his letter to them, the book of Ephesians written to the church in Ephesus. And then we also learn in the pastoral epistles that Timothy was left there for a time to give oversight to the church to further strengthen and establish it in his ministry there. Really we know more about the church in Ephesus than we do any of the others that are mentioned here in Revelation that we will consider. And so it's this church that John is now addressing at the beginning of chapter two. As we'll see, the church at Ephesus had much to commend it. Namely, they were very precise in their doctrine. They had great doctrinal discernment, and yet at the same time, not all was well. There was an important piece, a central piece that was missing. Something was neglected. It had been forgotten, even abandoned, as verse 4 says, and that is their love. the love they had at first or as it can be translated their first love. And so what we'll see this evening as we consider what the church is to be commended for as well as what it lacked, we'll see this truth that the church of Jesus Christ must maintain its love along with doctrinal fidelity. The church of Jesus Christ must maintain its love along with doctrinal fidelity. We'll organize our thoughts around three main headings to elaborate on that statement. We'll see first of all that the church is comforted in the first three verses and then what the Lord says to them in verse six. We'll see in verses four and five that the church is rebuked. and then in verse four that the church is rebuked, and then in verses five and seven that the church is exhorted. The church is comforted, rebuked, and exhorted. There are a number of ways the church is comforted here. First, the church is comforted by Christ's power. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand. Now, chapter two opens with a reference to some of the imagery that we find in chapter 1. If you remember the content of Revelation chapter 1, John receives this vision of the exalted Christ. And we're to remember that Revelation in the visions, in the imagery, it is somewhat of a picture book. It's as though we are being spoken to in sign language, we might say. The Lord is drawing on these illusions from the Old Testament. These signs in order to communicate these truths and the first vision that John receives is a vision of the exalted Christ and he says in chapter 1 verse 13 that when he saw Christ he was one like a son of man. You might remember that language from the book of Daniel. Daniel, in chapter 7, verse 13 and 14, he receives this vision of the Son of Man, the King whose dominion would be everlasting, would have no end. And of course, this is speaking of Christ who was to come. And so John sees the Son of Man and he's given this vision and the vision It's not so much to tell us what Christ looks like as it depicts him, that he has white hair or feet like bronze or eyes with flames of fire. It's not so much to tell us what he looks like so much as it is to tell us what he is like. And one of the things that is communicated in this vision is that Christ is powerful, that Christ is sovereign. He is the one who holds the stars, as it were, in his hand. But at the end of chapter one, we have an interpretive note on those stars. The stars, the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, these seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. The angel of the church in Ephesus now picking up in chapter two is the one who is addressed. Of course, the entire church is addressed. Verse 7, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. But the church is addressed through this representative angel or messenger. And the word angel, of course, we think of the heavenly hosts of God's angels, but the term, of course, means messenger. The angels are God's messengers. So some understand that there is a sort of heavenly counterpart to the church on earth with an angelic figure, but many understand, and I would be inclined to this understanding as well, That it's not so much that there's this sort of guardian angel that's understood here, as it is a messenger who is representative of the church. In other words, the bishop or the pastor. The one who is responsible for bringing God's message to his people. To the angel in the church of Ephesus. It's of great comfort to know that the Lord holds the stars in his hands, that he is the sovereign king of heaven and earth. But it is of particular comfort to the church and even to pastors of the church to know that they too are in the Lord's hand, they're objects of his care. So the church here first is comforted by Christ's power. But then also in verse one the church is comforted, we might say, by Christ's presence. by his presence. It's the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, also who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Again, the imagery that is spoken of here is drawn from what we see in chapter 1, where in verse 13, the seven lampstands are depicted. And when John sees this one who is like the Son of Man, that's where he is in the midst of those lampstands. And again, we have that interpretive note in verse 20. The stars are the angels or the messengers of the churches, but the golden lampstands are the seven churches. And so here we have not only that the Lord is powerful, but he is very much present. He is with his people, like the priests. This is temple imagery. the priestly custodians in the tabernacle and in the temple who would make sure that the lampstand was lit. So also the great high priest of the church is in the midst, he ministers in the heavenly sanctuaries we've seen in the book of Hebrews, but he is also very present among his people. He sees them, he knows them, he's keenly aware of the challenges that they faced and he ministers to his church with his very presence. So the church is comforted by Christ's power, by Christ's presence. And then finally, the church is comforted by Christ's praise. He has something to say, a word of commendation to them. His power, his presence, but also he has words. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the stars and who walks among the lampstands. Now this, as we've said, the Lord is giving his message to the church through this representative angel or messenger. It is a letter to the angel the church in Ephesus write, but it's more than a letter. We've seen Christ's priestly ministry depicted here, but now his prophetic ministry is highlighted as well. He has something to say to the church and it's the words of him, Christ, who is in verse 7. These words also are the words of the Spirit. Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The Lord continues to minister to his church by his word in his prophetic office. And what is it that he has to say to them? As a way of perhaps understanding the structure here, there's a practice of giving criticism that's known as the compliment sandwich. The idea is that if you have to confront someone with a criticism, You should begin with a compliment, so you sort of ease into it. You should end with a compliment, so you leave on a good note and you sandwich the criticism in between. Now, of course, the Lord of the church is not bound to such things and neither is he necessarily concerned with such things. For instance, he will sharply rebuke, directly rebuke churches without having any word of commendation for them. But in order to see the structure here, there is sort of a sandwich. The Lord gives a compliment to them in verses 2 and 3, and he will give the rebuke to them beginning at verse 4, but there is another compliment that comes in verse 6. And so we'll consider it here, this commendation, this praise that Christ has for the church as a way of comforting them before we get to the rebuke that's sandwiched in between. The church in Ephesus is to be commended. And so here they are, recipients of the Lord's recognition, his acknowledgement for good. He says in verse two, I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance. They have labored hard and even tirelessly. Verse number three says that you've endured patiently, you've been bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary, tireless, was their effort, was their labor, was their toil. They were those who had rejected evil. He says you cannot bear with those who were evil. They were those who had tried, those who called themselves apostles and were not. They found them to be false and they rejected false doctrine. Of course when we think of the apostles we think of the immediate apostles commissioned by Christ but there were others who are sort of in that circle, their close associates who were sometimes numbered with the apostles, those like Barnabas and James but this is not them. These are those who say they are apostles, those who are sent but they are not, they are false. And so they have been able to discern, they have a doctrinal acumen, they have this gift of discerning truth from error and they've been tireless in it. Perhaps these are like those that Paul refers to pejoratively as the super apostles as he writes to the church in Corinth. Well, we'll get to the rebuke again in a minute. Verse number six, there is another commendation, another praise that Christ has for the church. He says, yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. It was largely believed that the Nicolaitans were what we might call syncretists. They were those who thought that Christians could participate at least to some degree with the idolatrous practices and worship that were so prevalent. in Ephesus and they were prevalent. The city was dominated by pagan worship. It housed the great temple to Diana or Artemis. There were thousands of priests and priestesses. There was sexual immorality involved with this. There was also temples that were dedicated to the Roman imperial cult and the city's economy was heavily dependent. on the commerce that was associated with the temple. And you might remember in Acts 19, this is what got Paul into trouble. Because when people began to come to faith in Christ, when they abandoned their idols to serve the living and true God, this was not good for business in Ephesus. But the church in Ephesus here had a godly intolerance for these things. They, as he says in verse six, they hated the things that Christ hated and they were commended by the Lord for it. Now, we mentioned earlier how Paul called to him the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 and how he told him of the wolves who would arise among them who would not spare the flock. It seems that the church in Ephesus took this very seriously, that they responded appropriately They were those who were doctrinally sound. They were a doctrinally sound church and they were tireless in their pursuit of the truth, even as they were enduring this trial of false teachers. Now, of course, we should seek the things, we should pursue the things that the Lord commends the church in Ephesus for. The church is built on this solid rock of faithful teaching. We are, as the author of Hebrews exhorts us, we are to hold fast to our confession of faith. We cannot tolerate false teaching. It's not to gain a foothold in the door. So as the pillar and the ground of the truth in every age, the church is to be like the church at Ephesus here. labor tirelessly to be faithful doctrinally. And this is where we might be tempted as reformed Christians to pat ourselves on the back because that is what confessional Presbyterians are known for, for their doctrinal precision. But before we do, let us hasten on to see the rebuke. So the church is comforted with Christ's power, his presence, his praise as he commends the church. But then in verse 4 we see that the church is rebuked. But this I have against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. So all we've seen so far is good, it's commendable, and yet the Lord still has something against them. It's a lack of love, it's a lovelessness, it's an abandonment of their first love. There is a debate as you might imagine as to what their first love was because it's not explicitly stated here and there are all sorts of possibilities and suggestions that are given. Some suppose that it was that they had lost their love for one another perhaps in their pursuit of truth and through church discipline they had become overly harsh and suspicious even of one another. Others, one of the best commentators on the book of Revelation believes that the love lost here that was in mind is like the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles and it failed in this. This is what is communicated here with them being called a lampstand. that their witness to Christ, they had lost it. They had no concern for the lost in that view. I certainly don't think that's beyond the realm of possibility and I plan to make application as we conclude in a moment in that very thing. And yet it's hard for me to be persuaded that that's the only thing or the primary thing That's in mind here. Part of the reason is because part of being a witness to Christ in the world is maintaining sound doctrine, which they did. Well, they abandoned their first love. What is to be our first love? We heard this morning in the words of Christ in his summary of the law. that the great commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. Of course, the second, he says, is like unto it, to love our neighbor as ourselves. So I don't think this is to the omission of love for one another or love for the lost, but primarily our love chiefly is to be for Christ. And it is possible, isn't it, to be doctrinally sound and to lack love. It is possible to do good and even godly works apart from love. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 tells us how love is to be central. He says, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I'm like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers, understand all mysteries, have all knowledge, have all faith, even to remove mountains, but have not love, I'm nothing. If I give away all that I have and deliver up my body to be burned, but I don't have love, he says, it profits me nothing. So love, of course, is to be central. And we are to have not only love for God but, of course, love for one another. Jesus says in John's Gospel that this is the way the world will know that we are his disciples by our love for one another. And also a love for the lost as Paul considered himself to be a debtor to all men, to the Greek and the barbarian alike. As he sought to, as he said here, knowing the terror of the Lord, persuading men, or as we read earlier in 2 Corinthians, persuading men to be reconciled to God, constrained by the love of Christ to do this. And if God so loved the world that he gave his only son, then certainly we are to be concerned with our fellow man. We are to desire that they be delivered from the guilt and the tyranny and the enslavement and the corruption of sin, to be reconciled to their creator, to be returned to the true bishop and shepherd of their souls. This has perhaps a more direct application for us because it is one of the great temptations of the reformed churches. Because people of our ilk are often scholarly and bookish. Sometimes we can be satisfied believing that we have loved the Lord our God with all of our minds and yet we neglect at times the heart. Being content with being right and yet lacking love. Neil Stewart refers to this like a beach ball on a cocktail stick. You know, a big brain with nothing underneath. Scholars for God without hearts for God. You remember, I know, what the Lord Jesus asked Peter when he restored him after his denial three times. Three times so that it grieved Peter that he would ask him this a third time. But what was it? Do you love me, Peter? Do you love me? Do you love me? The church in Ephesus had abandoned their first love. So the church is comforted, the church is rebuked. Finally, in verses 5 and 7, the church here is exhorted. Despite their lack of love, the good news is there is a way back. Christ provides for them and he tells them in verse 5 that they are to remember from where they have fallen. They are to repent. They're to do what they did at the first. Their first works. And if they fail to do this, the Lord says that He will come to them. He threatens them with a visitation that will not be pleasant. I will come to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. That is to say that their witness to Christ will be extinguished as a church. From what we can gather from the writings of Ignatius, the second century church father, there is the indication that the church did respond with repentance and at least for a time that they continued to shine for Christ as a lampstand. But yet there is this threat. As our confession says, when we read the threatenings of God, we are to respond with trembling and also with repentance. As we speak of this coming, Christ says, I will come to you. As we think of the coming of Christ, of course, our minds are directed towards the final coming. Christ's second coming. coming at the last day to deliver His saints, to judge the earth, to usher in the final manifestation of the new heavens and the new earth where the bodies of His people of all will be resurrected. At the same time, as we await that, there are instances in Scripture that refer to comings of Christ. He said He would come and judge Israel within a generation and he did just that. He did it through the Romans but this was God's judgment upon apostate Israel as the city was overthrown and the temple was destroyed. And here we have another example of a visitation of Christ, a coming in judgment. This time to his church. And we can gather from this that for unrepentant churches, according to our Lord, that there are times when it is better for those lampstands to be extinguished and not to continue any longer. But that is not, of course, the Lord's intention, is it? He calls them to repentance. And we're to remember that with the words of Peter, that judgment first must begin at the house of God. And so we are called to repentance, but we also can understand here that the Lord does at times get angry with his church. He loves his church. He is zealous with his church. And he will not allow her to go on unrepentantly without chastisement. But for those who will hear what he is saying, verse seven, he who has an ear, let him hear. what the Spirit says to the churches, those who will hear and who will respond with repentance, those who, in verse 7, to the one who conquers, that is to say, who will overcome and overcome in this sense, this lovelessness. These are those who will enjoy the Lord's blessing. We must not neglect here the ministry of the Spirit of Christ here. Those who are born again by the spirit are those who the spirit has given an ear to hear. And it is only through the power of Christ by his spirit that we can overcome. It is certainly not a conquering that we can bring up in the flesh. And so we are to continue to struggle with sin. to battle it, to put it to death. This is what Paul says in Romans 8, that if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, then you will live. This is another way of saying the same thing. God's blessing is attached here to those who will repent and conquer in this way by his power. Christ is not holding out something to his church that he does not intend for them, that he will not also equip them to do. So we continue to struggle with sin, but not just the sins that we are opposed to by our own disposition, not just false doctrine, not just sexual immorality, not just the obvious things, not just the external things, but also the internal things. And as it is in this case, a lack of love, we are to be battling and repenting of all sin. And especially a lack of love, if this is a chief thing, a central thing. And it's so vital. And to those who overcome in this way, Christ promises. He promised to them that they will inherit the blessing of a restoration to life in communion with God. And it's presented here in Edenic language. as he promises to give to them, to grant to them to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. So the church of Jesus Christ must maintain its love along with doctrinal fidelity. The church in Ephesus had much to commend it, yet there was also reason for a rebuke from her Lord and yet Christ graciously provides for them the way. an opportunity to return. A lack of love is not something to thumb our nose at. I'm sure we tire of hearing those platitudes of doctrine isn't important and all you need is love. Love we say in that sense is so often misunderstood and that usually those who overemphasize love usually due to the neglect of a doctrinal fidelity but the opposite is true that often those who are very concerned, who emphasize correct teaching, a precision in doctrine that of course is important that we can do so at the expense of love. But we're to understand here from all that the Lord says to the church in Ephesus that brethren these two things are not mutually exclusive. that we are to maintain and cultivate both a doctrinal fidelity, but we're to do so out of a love for Christ. That is to be what fuels the fire. And so let us pursue these things that the Lord commends the church for, but also let us correct, seek to correct the things that the Lord rebukes the church for. We are to maintain a faithful witness with an acumen for sound teaching. We are to hold fast to our confession. We stand in a long proven line with a wonderful heritage. I can't count how many times in my own personal wrestlings and struggles with questions biblically, doctrinally, theologically, I've wrestled through those things. and have become satisfied through the answers provided through the Protestant Reformed confession of the Christian faith. That I believe it is a faithful expression of what the scriptures teach. We are to be concerned, of course, with doctrinal integrity, but not at the expense or the neglect of love. Now the Lord hasn't given to us a letter addressed to the church at Ortega. He hasn't given to us a letter that speaks of things we're to be commended for and things that need to have attention through correction and repentance. I wonder how you would feel about that. I wonder how our elders and deacons would think about that. Would we want that? We should. We should want the Lord to expose in order to correct that we might pursue him in the way that he would want us to. But we don't have that. But what we do have is an understanding of what the Lord desires of his church by way of what he has written to these, our ancient brethren in Ephesus. And this is how the Lord works. This is how the Spirit of God works with the means of grace through them and to us. So as we close, I ask you, could it be that the Lord in this text has revealed to you that your love has cooled, that you have abandoned your first love? As I ask that question, I want to add this caveat. Because it is possible that we can load ourselves with an unnecessary burden of false guilt. As we grow in grace and just even in general maturity, we tend to balance out. And sometimes the zeal that we once had without knowledge, the Lord balances that out. He balances out our idiosyncrasies and our extremes. And sometimes we can mistake that to say, well, I don't have the zeal that I once had, so I must not love Christ like I did. I must have abandoned my first love. And so we need to be careful that we don't mistake that maturing and that seasoning, that marinating, that balancing out for an abandoning of love. But at the same time, we need to understand that it certainly is possible, as it was the case here with the church in Ephesus, that our Love has cooled. So was there a time when you were enamored with Christ, his person, his work? God's grace to you in him, that your heart was overflowing with love to Christ, and now you hear the truths of the gospel proclaimed and they pass over you and you're unfazed by them. They become routine. You're calloused to them. Or is it maybe that you've began to uncover things that you haven't seen before and you're now pursuing Christ as though he were a novelty? Trying to find some aspect of doctrine that you haven't learned yet just for intellectual stimulation? We're to pursue Christ out of a love and devotion to him. What about love for one another? Because we can't neglect this either. Was there a time when you were chomping at the bit for the next gathering of God's people for worship and fellowship and now not so much? Or was there a time when you were very concerned, burdened for those who are outside of Christ, You had a desire for them to come to know him and now you rarely give any thought to the condition of the souls of men. These are questions by way of self-examination that we should ask ourselves concerning our love or the lack thereof. This passage is a great warning for the church because it's dangerous to be loveless. But there's also a great comfort as well here. So don't leave without that because the Lord does provide the way back. And that way back is through repentance, a repentance that is, in verse 5, expressed in doing the works they did at first, the things they did at first. It is returning to the things we formerly did, perhaps when our love was hot for Christ. You see, for the church in Ephesus, this pathway to repentance, it is saying that the fire, the flame is not entirely gone, that the embers are still burning. And Isaiah tells us that the Lord Jesus will not break a bruised reed. He will not quench a smoldering wick. But if this is the case with us, if we have abandoned our first love and let us stoke those embers, let's do so by seeking communion with Christ. Let us do so by seeking the fellowship of his people and with being concerned with the redemptive good of others. Christ has provided the path, as I said a moment ago, He will not hold out to us something that he is not intending to give. With the path, he will also provide the power. Let's pray. Father, we come with thanksgiving for your word to your church, even when you must rebuke her. And we ask, O Lord, that we would take heed. We do long, O Lord, to pursue tirelessly to labor and to toil with patient endurance, to be able to discern truth from error. And we long, O Lord, to love the things you love, to hate the things you hate. And yet, O Lord, we know we cannot pursue these things apart from love. There is great danger here. We ask, O God, that you would rekindle in us those flames, that you would breathe upon them by your spirit. that we would grow and increase in our love, chiefly in our love for you as we ask these things in Jesus name, amen.