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will soon cease, whether in the case of an individual or of a church. Once the hearts of the people of Ephesus had been warm with enthusiastic love for the Saviour, but their affection had cooled. Note the solemn warning and exhortation which follow this ac cusation by the Lord Jesus. 5. Exhortation. "Remember there fore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works,” Re member the time when you were first saved and a burning love for the Sav iour filled your heart? If you have allowed that love to grow cold, get down upon your knees in repentance today and return to that first affection. 6. Threat. The Lord uttered a threat as to what He would do if the Ephe sian church disregarded His words: “Or else I will come unto thee quick'y, and will remove thy candlestick out-of his place, except thou repent.” The Lord did not state that He would oblit erate the church, but that He would remove its candlestick, that is, its testi mony for Christ and its power to il luminate Him. The apostle Paul throws a clearer light on this in the famous thirteenth chapter of his first epist'e to the Corinthians. Here he in dicates that the greatest labor without love as its compelling motive is com pletely ineffectual and unacceptable to Him. 7. Promise. Before reaching the con cluding promise, there is a parenthesis in verse six of this chapter in which the Lord makes reference to the Ephesians’ hating “the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.” This same group is also mentioned in the letter to Pergamos, and can better be considered in connection with that epis tle. The word indicates those who “overcome” or “ conquer the people.” A striking example of their attitude and teaching is the case of the over bearing Diotrephes, to whom reference is made in the third Epistle of John. T HE LORD Jesus Christ makes it very clear in each letter what will happen if His exhortation is disre garded, and His command disobeyed. He also gives a promise as to the bless ing which will follow if His warning is received and acted upon. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (2:7). Some will not heed, but to each one who has an ear to hear the Spirit’s voice, this promise is given. “The overcomer,” the one who overcomes the fault men tioned, will be given precious spiritual food; he will eat of the “ tree of life.” The Christian whose heart is warm with love for the Saviour may con tinually partake of a feast of good things, food to eat which the world and the worldly Christians “ know not of.”
teaching to be sure It agreed with God’s Word. If it did not, they rejected the teacher as a liar. In this present day of apostasy, how greatly needed is this kind of discernment. Men who pre tend to be ministers of Christ are able in some instances to insinuate them selves into the pulpits of our great de nominations, where they actually deny the Word of God without being called to account for it. Many church mem bers are so unacquainted with the Scripture that they do not know whether or not a sermon is in accord ance with the teachings of the Bible. Shame upon us! Let us learn a lesson from the church at Ephesus. "OUT THE praise from the Lord for -*-* the church at Ephesus did not end even here. He continued with the words, “Thou hast borne, and hast pa tience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and' hast not fainted.” The labor of this church was so great that the Lord mentions it more than once in these strong terms. The-reason for their diligence—the one great cause for which they were working—is ex plained in the words: “For my name’s sake,” We hear a great deal today about loyalty to the church, but what we need first is loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If a Christian is completely faithful tp the Saviour, his service in the church will be perfectly adjusted and unselfishly fulfilled. 4. Complaint. After all of this adula tion, it would appear that nothing could be wrong with such a church as the one at Ephesus. But the next word is surprising: “Nevertheless.” The Lord in His love is obliged to say in all faithfulness: “Nevertheless I have this against thee', because thou hast left thy first love.” In our Authorized English Version of the Scriptures, the statement is greatly weakened by the addition of the word “somewhat”—“I have somewhat against thee.” But this word is printed in italics,' indicating that it was not in the original manu script, but added by the translators (as they thought) to complete the sense in the English. This was a fearful de nunciation. If I, as a husband, am a good provider and work hard for my family, would that satisfy my wife, if she found that my love for her was growing cold? Would she consider that failure an insignificant thihg? A thou sand times no! Love is the most im portant thing of all in a home, and it is of greatest value to the Lord too. If any word is to be added here, let us employ the word “this” as I have done above. Weymouth thus translates this verse: “Yet I have this against you— that you no longer love Me as you did at first.” If you are a Christian, the first thing that Jesus Christ wants from you is supreme love for Him. If this is lacking, all work done for Him is unacceptable. If love is lacking, it is very likely that labor for His cause
of His appearance in chapter one. But each description is different, and em phasizes the special feature of Christ’s person or character which that particu lar church needed to recognize. He is depicted as the One holding the seven stars (or pastors) in His right hand. How beautiful is this picture! In a very real way, the pastor of the church is in the hand of Christ, and is directly responsible to Him for the shepherding of His flock. Our Lord is also described as the One walking in the midst of the candlesticks. I be lieve that this is the picture of seven individual candlesticks, not one candle stick with seven lamps as was used in •the Tabernacle. Mark these seven churches on a map of Asia, and you will find that they form a rough circle. The work of a candlestick is to give illumination, not in order that people may see it, but that surrounding ob jects may be illuminated. Here we see that Christ is the Object seen in the light of the candlesticks. The task of the Church is to present Christ to the view of a lost world. 3. Commendation of Good Works (2:2,3). Our Lord first commends Ephesus for good works, as indicated in verse two, “I know_thy works.” Oh, if we could only get a firm grasp of the fact that Christ knows us through and through, and that He is in thor ough sympathy with what we are do ing for Him! In the case of the church at Ephesus, the first item in the list is their “labour,” which is a stronger word than work, indicating hard, tedi ous exertion. Thank God for Christians who are. willing to work long and hard for the cause of Christ. They are all too few today. Beyond this, our Lord speaks- of the “patience!’ of this church. After they had labored for a while, they did not cease even in the face of discouragement, but continued their service patiently. Then the Lord says, “I know . . . how thou canst not bear them which are evil" (2:2). Today we find that churches are often little concerned about the fact that their members are living wicked, Christ- dishonoring lives. Such was not the case in Ephesus. They believed firmly in salvation by faith, but they likewise insisted that believers should give evi dence of their faith by consistent Christian lives. They sought to be clean vessels, “meet for the Master’s use.” There are further commendations by the Lord. “Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.” Even in this early day, at the close of the first cen tury, false teachers, emissaries of Sa tan, “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” had arisen, claiming to be apostles of Christ. The church at Ephesus knew this; before accepting any man as a messenger of Christ, they, tested his
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