As you're in Revelation chapter 2 this morning, I want you to
turn quickly, hold your finger there and go to Romans Chapter
11, Romans Chapter 11, Romans Chapter 11.
Follow along with me as I read this because it's important.
Why is there war in Israel? Why has Israel set out jets to
take on Iran? Good questions.
A Because Iran was going to have nuclear weapons, They said back
in 1979. The pledge of the Iran regime
was for the annihilation, the wiping out completely of Israel,
every Jew. And God shows us in his word
that Jesus is going to return to the nation of Israel.
It will still be there and he will rule from Jerusalem.
Jerusalem will still be there, but there's going to be a lot of
people in many churches today going, well, you know, God's
rejected Israel. This is not the Israel of the
Bible. I wanted to show you from the
word of God before we get into revelation, what the Bible says.
Romans Chapter 11, Paul the apostle says this.
I say then has God castaway his people question.
People are saying that in churches.
Well, you know, Israel's finished.
It's not the Israel or the Bible.
No, I've I've heard that and it just angers me a slight bit.
Paul says certainly not, for I also am an Israelite of the seat
of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
God has not castaway His people whom He foreknew or do you know,
not know what the Scriptures say of Elijah?
And it goes on. I'm going to stop there because
the events that are happening in Israel are preparing Israel for
the Tribulation. The church will be raptured.
We will have finished our mission Israel.
Then the clock ticks on the 70th year as Daniel prophesied.
There's been 69 lots of seven. The 70th year begins the last
seven year period and in that period Israel comes to the fore
and they begin to do what they should have been doing in the
1st place. We're the unnatural branch
crafted in and Israel will begin to proclaim the gospel. 144,000
and they're not Jehovah Witnesses, by the way, two
witnesses, Moses and Elijah. Maybe we don't know an Angel
will proclaim the gospel around the world that Israel is
becoming and is moving to the central focus of world politics.
Keep an eye on that. You should know this.
You should know the word of God. Book of Revelation, chapter 2.
What does Jesus think of his church?
This is Part 1 of A7, part series 7 churches, 7 letters.
Wednesday. We'll deal with Smyrna.
What does Jesus think of his church?
The church may have its critics. You only have to read and I get
basically the West Australian delivered.
It's it's about this thick. Yeah, you take out JB, Hi Fi and
the good guys and that's what you read.
I read the letters to the editor and there every Tom, Dick and
Harry has this say. Usually it's the same Tom, Dick
and Harry. And the church has its critics,
but the church has no rivals. Did you know that everyone has
their concept about the purpose of the church, why it exists,
how it should look and what it should do?
Maybe you do that this morning. Even atheists and agnostics,
people of the world have their opinion.
They're always telling us, well, if you're a Christian, you
should be doing this. If you're that's the church,
they should be doing that. And they're, they write these
letters. They have their opinion on the
subject. But more importantly I want to
ask what does Jesus think of the church, His church After all,
what things would cause Jesus to commend or criticise his church?
In chapters 2 to three of the Book of Revelation we will
discover in detail from Jesus own lips what he thinks.
There are many professing Christians that I run into him
often who say I don't need to go to church.
You know what, as I've gotten older in the Lord, I, I need to
watch my tolerance because my tolerance is getting less.
As you get older, you tolerate less.
But I think we've been playing it too smooth with so many
people when they say such things.
The biblical answer is where we need to go to such a statement
is this. You cannot say yes to Jesus
Christ and then say no to the church.
You can't do that. It's like saying no Lord, you
can't have Jesus as your Lord and say no Lord.
You can't do that cancels out one.
It was Jesus himself who established it.
There's a problem for people who say, yeah, well, no, I'm not in
the church. I don't.
I know, I know Jesus, but I don't need to go to church.
And the problem is there. The problem is not with God.
God hasn't changed. He says I'm the Lord God.
I change not, and the problem is not with his church, because
Jesus is the head of the church, what he runs, he says in Matthew
16. The gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. I will build my church.
So the problem is, is with that person.
That's where the problem sits and stays.
Jesus established the church. He gave us the model for it in
the book of Acts chapter 2 as the day of Pentecost the Holy
Spirit fell. Then the church was born.
Peter preached 3000. I added and it says and the Lord
added to what throughout the apostles ministries to Peter's
ministry to the church such such as should be signed.
God placed them into the church. How you treat the church is how
you treat Jesus Christ because Jesus is the head of the church.
Colossians chapter one, verse 18, it says, and he is the head
of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first born
from the dead, that in all things He may have the
preeminence. If your faith does not take you
to church, you need to seriously consider whether it will take
you to heaven. There are 7 letters to seven
churches. Jesus dictated to the apostle
John. John was the scribe.
He wrote down these 7 letters. There are 7 actual churches in
modern Turkey today. They existed at the time of the
writing. They were chosen specifically.
We touched on that on Wednesday when he picked Rome, when he
picked the Church of of a of a colossae, why didn't he pick the
Church of Jerusalem? Now he picked these seven
churches because they represented a perfect example, a
swab of all the churches. These seven churches cover and
provide a scripture panoramic, A scriptural panorama and
historical account of the period known as the Church Age, which
we're still in. The things which you've seen
Chapter 1 John saw Jesus, the things which are the period now
and the things to come. Revelation 4 on through the time
in which we're still living. The final application for these
7 letters is not only to the church, to the individuals in
the church, history of the church, the period we're living
in now, but it's also to you and I as individual believers, you
and I gathered here today, 2025, because the words mentioned at
the end of each letter by Jesus himself, He says he that has an
ear. If you're listening, you're
reading. Remember, this is the only book
that if you hear, read and carry out, you'll be blessed.
As we're going through the book, Book of Revelation, I'm getting
a blessing by reading it. You're getting a blessing by by
hearing it. And then we all will get a
blessing as we live it out. The words mentioned are he that
has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit, the Holy Spirit says
unto the churches. Plural.
In other words, there's an NB here, a note notation.
Are you listening? Are you listening?
Study of each of these letters reveal a template.
There's a model structure with each letter followed by Jesus.
We have some slides, but apparently I put them, did them
and they're not going up. But anyway, that's lovely.
Took me ages to do them and they'll have these slides as we.
What they have is they have all this stuff on there anyway, but
they're not up there. I will kill someone after the
service. They have a description of Jesus
Christ given by himself, and I actually outline and define the
flavour and theme of the letter. Then there's a positive
affirmation is stated. Then there's a corrective or
exhaustive statement made, and after that an eternal
motivation. Ephesus covers a period in
history. The period covered by Ephesus in
that period of church history is from the birth of the early
church, the Pentecost 33 AD, through to 100 AD in 97 AD.
When the apostle John wrote this book, the church sadly was
already in a mess just a few years later.
The book of Acts presents the model of the way the church is
to be operate in operation. What we're to do, and it was
decreed to operate by this model.
But Acts, the period of Acts covers only a period of
approximately 30 years. 60 years later, John is on the Isle of
Patmos, exiled. The purity of the church has
suffered. It's been compromised.
Wolves have already entered the church, false teaching has come,
and Satan found out that if he persecuted the church, it just
grew and prospered. But if he attended the church
and joined it and became a member, he could bring it down.
Satan knows the importance of the church, so much so in fact,
that Jesus says in verse 5 of chapter 2.
Remember therefore, from where you are fallen, where you once
were, and repent, and do the first works what you used to do,
or else I will come unto you quickly, suddenly, and I will
remove thy Candlestick out of his place, except you repent,
unless you repent. In other words, the church's
existence will be ignominiously terminated.
You ever driven around? I used to grow.
I grew up in Sacramento, Helen, and I grew up in that area.
You ever driven around certain areas that used to be a church,
that used to be a church? Look at that old building.
How many old buildings stand no longer churches?
What a shame. What happened, what went wrong?
Churches that were filled and overflowing and growing.
What went wrong is, is that the future of this church that one
day you'll drive past? I remember in secret it used to
be a church. Yeah.
I don't know. What?
What is it now? I don't know.
I think they do gym or something in there now.
I don't know what they do there now.
I think it's a coffee shop. Empty.
The church will lose its life, Jesus says, unless it gets back
to its first love, there will be no light in that church.
It'll have no reason for existence, and Jesus will shut
it down. Closed divine judgement that
would bring an end to the Ephesian church.
Jesus threatened that. The background to the city of
Ephesus is interesting. The name is significant, as will
be the name of each of these seven churches we study in this
series. Ephesus actually means darling.
I call Helen Ephesus all the time.
It refers to romantic love, which, as you will see, the
passion has been lost. It was the metropolis of Asia,
the gateway, the centre of trade and business.
It was a harbour port. You say, Well, it's not a
harbour port now. It was the ocean came into
Ephesus, and Ephesus was a harbour.
It was a deeply Pagan city with idolatry and immorality, deeply
routed in its culture and everyday life.
These practises were due to its devotion to its religious
fervour. It contained one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. The Temple of Artemis or Diana
had a multi breasted colossus of a statue to a goddess of sex and
fertility. It was a city where John the
Apostle would spend his last days and die there along with
Mary the mother of Jesus. That's where she went to living
with John. It had a population at the time
of this riding of around 500,000 people deeply loyal to Rome.
It had an Amphitheatre which seats 30,000 people.
Helen and I have have sat in that Amphitheatre.
It still exists. You can sit there and you can
have plagues and everything and else, but it was a place of
worship down on the amp and you can hear every word without the
use of any electronic microphones or anything like
that. All could hear.
Jesus title at the beginning of each letter here tells us the
sort of letter that he's writing these things says he that holds
the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of
the 7 golden candlesticks. Candlesticks.
The title that he's saying is this is who I am and this is
where I draw. This is about my relationship
with you as a church. It's intimate church is not a a
club, a place where you gather where it's just you know, a
mixture of this. This is the place where God is
intimate with the body of Christ connected to, speaks to our
heart, touches our spirit and hopefully, Lord willing, we the
same in return, worship, hear his voice, sense his spirit.
Verse one to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus right these
things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
He walks in the middle in the midst of the 7 golden
lampstands. We know what they are.
It's the seven churches, it's the church.
Imagine yourself as the pastor receiving a letter from Jesus
about your church. This letter evaluates the church
you pastor. Ephesus was the only church to
receive letters from 2 apostles. Paul wrote the letter to the
Ephesians, John wrote Revelation, and in John's letter
from Jesus it came some 35 years after Paul's letter.
Verse one we see Jesus gives himself the same description
that he gave himself as John saw him in chapter 1 and it reminds
us, you and I, this is about church that Jesus walks in the
midst of his church. You know who comes to Calvary
Chapel Secret Arbour every service Jesus Christ Bible tells
us that the Holy Spirit is here. Every service the Bible says
where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there.
The Bible says in the book of Psalms, I dwell in the midst of
the praises of my people. When you're away, you're missing
out on someone who is the church, not Jesus Christ, Son of
God. Wow, what Rd did he sit in?
He was in every Rd. Did you know the Bible also
tells us that angels are watching over every service that
we have peer in, wanting to know about what's going on with us
and what Jesus is saying to us. Again, to those who claim to be
Christians and tell us that they're not into going to
church, we need to remind them that Jesus indeed is.
He's into going to church. He's there all the time.
He's in the midst of it. He is into going to church and
he walks in the midst of his churches.
Jesus in each letter says, I know, I know all about you.
I know all about this church. He knows all about Calvary
Chapel, Secret Harbour. Absolutely.
Jesus knows full well what is going on in his churches.
In chapter 1, we're told his eyes were like flames of fire.
Remember that Reminding us that Jesus sees and he evaluates
everything that's going on in church.
Jesus evaluates everything that happens here.
AW Tozer made this great quote at the a convention, I think it
was a Southern Baptist. He said if God were to take the
Holy Spirit out of this world, much of what the church is doing
would go right on and nobody would know the difference.
In other words, God's not in it, and we're doing stuff that God's
not even asked us to do. Programme after programme,
gathering after gathering, this and that, this and that.
God's. That's not the role of the
church. As a matter of fact, when we get
to the last Church of the Church of Lattice here, he's outside
the church and they just jamming on the inside.
He says you don't even know what's going on.
They were so busy doing their church thing.
God wasn't there. Jesus says in verse 2, I know
your works, I know your labour, I know your patience that you
cannot bear those who are evil and you have tested those who
say they are apostles and are not man, that's pretty popular.
You know, there's a lot of there's more apostles around
today than there was in the Bible.
Self made, self appointed and have found them liars and you
have persevered and have patience and have laboured.
It's toiling. Why?
For my name's sake and have not become weary.
Bible tells us not to be weary and well doing.
Jesus commends the Church of Ephesus for being a serving
church. He was a serving church.
We try to be a serving church. We're trying to have every
individual here, no matter how old you are, serving the Lord.
Jesus says this was a serving church.
He says I know your works, I know what you do.
And then Jesus complimented Ephesus for being a sacrificing
church. I know you're exhaustive
labourers, those who come and serve and exhaust themselves.
What do you mean? I've been doing this, I've been
doing that, I've been doing that.
Exhausting labourers. He was commended for being a
steadfast church. I know your patience.
You know we gather on a Wednesday.
We continue to pray, we continue to pray.
Rain comes, it gets cold, winter.
We continue to turn up, we continue to pray, we continue to
endure. Jesus commanded Ephesus for
being a spiritual church. You cannot bear evil.
Jesus said this church, false teachers, you've kept out.
That's part of our role. Every now and then I hear
someone coming in and saying certain stuff and that's when
I'm not very tolerant. I can tell you, I go, I said,
what are you? What are you saying?
And I'm on to him because someone comes in here and want
to tell you. I want to get someone's ear and
say, you know, that's when you know, we're going to go through
the tribulation period. You know, we're you know that
the Antichrist we're going to be around when the Antichrist
around, you know, this is, you know, you don't need the Bible.
You need this and the Bible. OK, Where are you from?
Who are you? That's the role of the passes.
We're here to maintain that there's no falseness coming into
this place and bringing dribble because it sounds good, but it's
to seek and to lure your way. Paul had spoken to the church
elders at Ephesus when he met with him as he was leaving
Ephesus and he is on his way to Jerusalem in Acts chapter 20.
Paul said in Acts chapter 20 verse 29.
For I know this, Paul said, that after I leave my departure,
savage wolves will come in among you.
They go to church not sparing the flock.
Also, from among yourselves, men will rise up speaking perverse
things to draw away disciples after themselves.
There's always people who want to come here and they want to
gather their own grip. I'm having a little study.
I'm doing this, and they're always get lost.
You want to have a study? Get down the beach and find
people who don't know the Lord. But don't come in here and seek
to draw away people to come and join your little Bible study
because that's not on, because they want to draw people to
themselves. They're not drawing them to
Christ. Otherwise they'd still be here
to draw away disciples after themselves.
Paul then says, therefore, based on all this, watch, remember for
three years I said this, I've been saying this over and over.
How often, parents, do you warn your kids about bad things and
bad people? Over and over and over.
For three years Paul did this. I did not cease to warn everyone
night and day with tears. Now, 30 years later, Jesus
commended the Church of Ephesus for keeping these false teachers
out. It booted them out.
Verse 6. Drop down to verse 6.
But this you have that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate. You know, God hates certain
things in the book of Proverbs. God hates the six things.
No 7 things proud looking goes on.
One of the things that he hates is those who come to bring
division in the body of Christ. He hates that the dangerous
group Nicolaitans literally means Nicolaitans means to
conquer the people. It means clergy of a laity.
They were a group of misapplied scriptures to bring confusion to
the churches. Jesus gives this church 7 words
of commendation. You're good at this, you're good
at that, you're good at this. And then in verse, in verses 2
and three, but now in verse 4, Jesus is but we have a problem.
You have a problem. I have a problem with you and he
raises his complaint about the church.
Verse four. Look at it.
Nevertheless, I have this against you.
This is Jesus Christ speaking. You've left your first love.
It's important to Jesus and I want you to think those of you
who are married, this is a classic study for the year to
see where marriages fall apart and how they fall apart.
Why Paul talked about marriage, husbands and wives and their
relationship to one another being so similar to our
relationship with God. Jesus complaint was you have
left your first love. In other words, you no longer
love me like you did in the beginning.
Men you've met the lady you're going to marry, you're working,
you come home from work. What do you do?
Shower, Shave, Cologne, comb your hair, dress up, go out
there, open the door, close the door, politely take them out.
Do all this after you're married, works for dinner.
And in the end, as we move along the line, what happens is you
have two individuals living single lives, indifferent to one
another, who have taken one another for granted.
And the marriage is only a name, only same.
If you and I had the chance to go back in time and visit the
church, you would have been impressed by it, man.
That church, that emphasis, it is man, it is a great place.
Man, What a great church. Everyone's hard working,
everyone's serving that so active.
That's got so many programmes on.
There was a lot of going on there man.
They had everything on, but Jesus seized the heart and what
he saw was a problem with the motives.
The church was not operating out of love.
Vance Havner said. The church has no greater need
today than to fall in love with Jesus all over again.
That will fix your marriage, by the way, to fall in love all
over again. Ephesus appeared healthy on the
surface. To the outside observer, it was
about Church's thumping. They were serving, they were
sacrificing, they were steadfast, they were separated.
But it didn't know it had a serious heart problem.
I've had a heart problem. Didn't know I had it.
I'm all right, Helen said. Don't look good, just just need
a glass of milk or something. Nah, End up down the hospital.
First time ever in an ambulance. Off they go.
You had a stroke? Heart problem.
You can be super fit on the outside and within you.
Your heart can be blocked with cholesterol things and you don't
even know you can drop dead in a minute and having the greatest
surgeon right next to you would not change a thing.
It was a spiritual heart problem.
And a spiritual heart problem for believers is extremely
serious. They were doing the right
things, but with the wrong motive.
Devotion had turned into dull duty.
Oh, man, I'm in Sunday school again.
Oh, no, I'm on worship this week, haven't I?
Haven't I got a time off? When's the school holidays so I
can get out of this? And here we go, we're singing
the same song. I'm not lazing my hands, I'm too
tired. Hell, how many songs we got to
go? When's he finishing worship and
waned into work? Love had lost its passion and
become a labour. Someone once said the problem is
not that churches are filled with empty seats, but the seats
are filled with empty hearted people.
Right down this morning before the Lord, ask yourself a couple
questions. Why do I do what I do?
Why do I serve? Why do I sin?
Why do I share? Why do I give?
If your motive is not because of your love for God, then
something is seriously wrong and God knows, Paul says in One
Corinthians 13. Though I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels, but have not love.
I've become sounding brass or a clanging symbol, just noise.
Though I have the gift of prophecy, woo and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge and thought.
I have all faiths so that I can remove mountains but have not
love. I am nothing, nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, oh he's a good
giver. And though I give my body to be
burned but have not love, it profits me nothing.
You'll stand before God, Jesus says in Matthew 7 when he
returned, oh Jesus, oh man, great to see you.
I have prophesied man. I did this and I toured and I
was a missionary and Jesus says I don't even know you.
I don't know. You depart from me because
you're a worker of iniquity. That is a dangerous scripture.
Matthew 7 Ephesus had not lost their first love.
Jesus said they had left their first love.
Now I went to the beach yesterday and I'm getting old.
Got my surfboard there. Pull in.
See your pastors right down there.
I need a lock lock for my key in my car.
Drive around, don't get out of the car.
Drive home, go to the garage, get my lock, go back down
because you got to lock your car with your stuff.
Go for a surf, pull up I go. I don't have a leg rope.
I'm still driving. So drive around, go back to my
garage, get my leg rope. Is there anything else?
I've looked. You know, I've gone surfing.
I drove to Scarborough one time, Threw my wet suit in the towel
and everything. No surfboard.
I knew where they were and lost them, left them.
This was no accident. It was an action, a choice, or
choices over time. This was a case of neglect, and
neglect is the biggest killer of your relationship with God and
the biggest killer of your marriage and of parenting.
Do you know neglect causes more problems in our lives, in our
marriage, in our parenting than any other single failure?
When you neglect just Jesus looked right into the heart of
those at Ephesus and he detected the problem.
At Ephesus, the furnace was still there, but there was no
fire had gone out. This does not happen overnight.
Your relationship with God doesn't just oh, I'm on fire for
him and next day you're not doesn't.
It doesn't happen overnight. Your marriage doesn't fail
overnight. It can be a slow subtle motion,
but it is in this case, backsliding nonetheless.
King David, awesome guy, man, young guy, young kid, you know,
he's a young shepherd, sings Psalms, writes psalms, can play
music and he can kill a bear, kill a, you know, a lion and
he's protecting dad's sheep, loves the Lord with all his
heart. The Bible says man after God's
own heart. David then takes on Goliath.
He's just a little bit older. He becomes the hero of Israel.
He kills this 9 foot guy with a sling and a stone, knocks him
dead. Then David is anointed king
member by Samuel. Samuel comes down, all the sons
of Jesse are brought out. And isn't there another kid you
know? Well, he's just the one kid, you
know, the youngest he's out looking after.
Bring him in. He's the one pours the oil on
him. He's anointed.
You're the king of Israel. And from that moment, King Saul
hunts him down. What's that?
Kill him. He's jealous of him, but even
when he's hiding from him and Saul goes into The Cave and
we've been to those caves and Saul comes in and David has the
the opportunity to kill him and rid be rid of being chased
around. He just cuts off a bit of cloth
of of Saul's robe. And then I later on said, Saul,
I got look at this. I got this.
I couldn't look. I'm not after you.
I could have had you. And he writes many great psalms
during the period that Saul is after him.
And then eventually Saul dies in battle with John Jonathan, and
David becomes the true king. And David then has a time in his
life when he should be out leading his army.
He should have been leading his family.
He should have been going to church, should have been doing
what he should have been doing. He's up on the rooftop.
His men are out doing what they're doing.
They're serving the Lord. David spots a woman and you know
the story from there. He ends up sleeping with one of
his soldiers wives. She falls pregnant.
Then David has her husband Uriah killed in battle.
Adultery, murder. You know what?
In that period no songs of praise are written.
Nothing. Nothing is written by David
until he repents Psalm 51 and he writes, Have mercy upon the old
God. I acknowledge my sin against
you. Purge me with hyssop.
Restore me to the joy of your salvation.
You're here today and churches dull.
God hasn't changed, The Bible hasn't changed, the Holy Spirit
hasn't changed. What's the problem?
You see what happened to David? Life became easy, he slipped
into spiritual, neutral, coasted, no psalms are written,
and he becomes idle and he falls greatly.
Oh, if David could have had that time back again, don't you
think? This question this morning I
want to ask you, are you nurturing or neglecting your
relationship with God? Are you nurturing, building it
up, fueling it, fellowship, read, prayer, serving?
Or are you neglecting you're just doing your thing and you
turn up here for an hour and a half on a Sunday?
Well, that's a bit rough. No, it's the truth.
Now Jesus gives us the cure for the heart problem.
The solution, verse 5. Remember, therefore, from where
you have fallen, what you once were and how you once lived with
me. Repent.
Do the first works. Go back to doing like guys.
Shower, shave Cologne. Open the door.
Close the door. Be polite.
Yes, Sir. No, Sir.
Let me do this for you. Oh, no, no, that's fine.
I can do this. I can do this now.
I'm not doing that. You can do that.
Or else I'll come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from
its place unless you repent. All of our labour must be a
labour of love. That's what parenting is, and
it's what serving the Lord is. I love labouring for the Lord.
Remember Jacob? Jacob.
What a great guy. What a moral guy this guy is.
Yes, we know he was shifty, but he laboured for seven years for
the hand of Rachel in marriage. Seven years, no pay.
Just can't put that aside. Seven years because he loved us
so much. It says so.
Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed only a
few days to him because of the love he had for her.
Genesis 2930. That's what it is.
This is not. This is.
I love doing this. All of our labour must be a
labour of love. Remember how thrilled and how
excited you were when you first saved?
I do. Tuesday night.
We got saved That Saturday and Friday.
Helen and I drove and we went to every brother and sister and our
families. I have a big family.
Helen has a small family. We went to them anyway.
We said guess what? What We became Christians
Tuesday night. We prayed and received Christ as
our Lord and Saviour. No good for you.
No one was interested, but we had to tell them we were
pursing. And then I remember going to
Perth, The Good Bible Society was in Saint George's Terrace
and buying our first Bibles. Wow, had a zipper on them, $20
each. That's a lot of money back then.
And getting there by myself, this is.
And reading it and see what it says.
Let's see what it says here. And every church service, every
church service. We lived in Spearwood and our
church was in Big Park. Don't come to me and say, oh,
it's such a long way. Don't please come near me.
We went to morning, evening prayer, you name it, Sunday
school, you name it. Because we were believers.
Now our lives have changed and we've kept that labour of love
40 odd years later. Can't give you away how old I
am. I know you, I know I look 30.
But three times over you automatically shared your face.
Remember when you're first born again, what's happened?
You're bursting. You read your Bible because it
was God speaking to you. And this has never happened to
you. Did you?
Have you ever read this? Yeah, I read that too.
You went to every service. The church was possible.
Open. Is it open?
Oh, when's it open? Next.
I want to go. How can we serve in any way?
You could not get enough of the Lord.
Your life had changed. All things are passed away. 2
Corinthians 517 and all things have become new.
Jesus says repent. Do the first works, go back to
what you should be doing, what you did do change direction from
where your life is heading right now.
If you've been backsliding or growing cold spiritually, you
must confess to the Lord and seek His forgiveness.
The word repent means change something, change your mind,
change your attitude. You know, there are always
backsliders, not only out in the world and away from the church,
they're obvious to us. But there are also backsliders
within the church just like those in Ephesus.
Their inward passion has gone out.
Jesus says return, get back to the way things were with the
Lord before it's too late. That's a warning from Jesus.
Remember, Peter, Peter, you know he denied the Lord.
How many times did he deny the Lord?
Three times. Jesus restored him, didn't he?
But Jesus asked Peter just one question that time as he's
cooking him breakfast on a beach.
One question. But he asked the same question
three times. Same question three times.
Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?
It says in John 2115. Let me read it.
So when they'd eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon, Peter,
Simon son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?
Peter said yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
He said, feed my lamps said to him a second time.
Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?
Yes, Lord, you know that I love you tend my sheep.
The third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?
Peter was grieved because he had said to him the third time, do
you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you
know all things, you know that I love you.
I want to ask you the same question if Jesus asked you
right now, because that love is going to be the first
commandment that you love the Lord your God with what?
All, all, all, or otherwise you're not, or else Jesus said
he would remove the lampstand. If you lose your love for Jesus,
it's only a matter of time until you lose your light in your
school, in your family, at your work, and in your community and
in your marriage. It's dark and in your service
for the church. Jesus gave us 2 choices.
Revival or removal, Change or be changed.
The church that leaves its love will soon lose its light.
I've been to Ephesus. How long have we walked the
streets of Ephesus? It's there.
You can go and walk the ruins of Ephesus.
There's no church there anymore. It's just an empty facade
building. There's no one there.
Malaria broke out. The river dammed up where the
boats used to come up into Emphasis and the port, and they
would sail off. Now you go.
Well, Emphasis. It's a couple of KS in there.
Yeah, the water used to come in. Well, what happened?
The light went out. The river dammed up, malaria
came and people had to leave. God closed the light on Ephesus.
Verse 7. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of
life. That's eternal life, which is in
the midst of the paradise of God, and you'll be in heaven.
Heaven and eternal life.