Ever wondered about the real implications of Revelation 2 in our lives as believers? Well, I promise you'll gain some deep insights in this podcast episode as we unpack the profound words of Jesus, who is omnipresent in every gathering of believers, applauds our endurance and discernment, but challenges us for straying from our first love. We tread on the path of understanding His message, referencing Matthew 18:20 and Psalms 119:105, to illuminate the cruciality of His presence in our lives and how His words are still poignant and essential for the church today.
In our spiritual discourse, we urge you to rediscover the significance of our purpose as believers and the dangers of losing sight of our core focus. While appreciating the value of hard work, we emphasize that salvation comes by grace and not by works alone. As we contemplate the role of the church in today's society, we underline the church's duty to rise amid adversity for Jesus loves us. As His followers, we ought to make our faith count and seek His blessings. Join us on this enlightening journey as we delve into the mysteries and wonders of our faith.
Ever wondered about the real implications of Revelation 2 in our lives as believers? Well, I promise you'll gain some deep insights in this podcast episode as we unpack the profound words of Jesus, who is omnipresent in every gathering of believers, applauds our endurance and discernment, but challenges us for straying from our first love. We tread on the path of understanding His message, referencing Matthew 18:20 and Psalms 119:105, to illuminate the cruciality of His presence in our lives and how His words are still poignant and essential for the church today.
In our spiritual discourse, we urge you to rediscover the significance of our purpose as believers and the dangers of losing sight of our core focus. While appreciating the value of hard work, we emphasize that salvation comes by grace and not by works alone. As we contemplate the role of the church in today's society, we underline the church's duty to rise amid adversity for Jesus loves us. As His followers, we ought to make our faith count and seek His blessings. Join us on this enlightening journey as we delve into the mysteries and wonders of our faith.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I give you thanks for today. I give you thanks for new focus. I give you thanks for your Son, who reaches and stretches and is always there for us, but he's a gentleman and he will be there until the day that we come. The decision gets made by us as to whether or not we come. That is the gift of free will given by God's grace, and I give you thanks for that. Today I pray for everyone, within the sound of my voice, that this message would be a gift to them, that it would be not so much revolutionary as eye-opening to them, that they would find something within their own walk that this message absolutely applies to, because God's Word applies to everything. God's Word applies to everything because God's Word was written with us in mind, us individually, not though it was from thousands of years ago, but thus was written for them as well. But it was written for us individually, by name. God knows us by name. Lord, god, I give you thanks for that. As we open your Word today, may your words be spoken, and not my own. In Jesus' name, amen. Good morning, gang. I pray this message finds you well and resting in the peace of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Here we are at the beginning of chapter 2, and I will admit that this is the first time I've actually recorded anything in probably eight weeks, six or eight weeks, as new messages have come up onto the podcast and we're working to rebuild audience base. I've been I don't want to say otherwise occupied, but that's the only word that comes to mind, and I'm sorry about that. But I thank you for your prayers. I thank you for all things, including my dog, evidently. I thank you for him as well. I thank you for all things that you've done for me, for my family, through prayers around the world. And with that let's get started. We're in the beginning of chapter 2, the book of Revelation. As we begin the letters to the churches Now, do you guys recall me asking you to think about what kind of letter you would receive from Jesus?
Speaker 1:What did you come up with? I'm curious. I'd love to know. As for me, I know what I'd like to say. I'd like to say the church in Philadelphia, and for those of you who've read ahead, you know what I'm saying. But in moments of honesty and gross clarity, I can't make that claim at all, and I dare say everyone listening to me is in the same boat, and that's OK.
Speaker 1:These letters are instructional to the church of the first century and they are also representative of the church today. That's the beauty of God's Word it is timeless. It reaches all of us, regardless of date or year. Open your Bibles if you can, and if you haven't. To Revelation 2, verse 1, let's read the entire section.
Speaker 1:And again, this is Jesus dictating a letter for John to give to the church. It says to the angel of the church of Ephesus write these things, says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven gold lampstands. I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot pair those who are evil, that you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. You have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless, I have this against you that you left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do your first works, or else I will come and quickly remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. But this you have that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaotans, which I also hate. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Speaker 1:That is Revelation, chapter two, verses one through seven. And it's powerful. It's powerful. It says to the angel in the church in Ephesus, right as we discussed earlier in this study, the angel here refers to the pastor of the believers in Ephesus. He's the leader, the servant and the under-ower of the congregation and as such, he is the recipient of the letter which he would then read to the congregation of believers. And that's how they used to do it. They used to get a letter from Paul or from, in this case, john, the Apostle, john, the last living apostle of Jesus Christ, the last living disciple of Jesus Christ, and they would read it and ingest it. And so Jesus then states that he holds the pastors, the seven stars those are the pastors of the seven churches in his right hand, as he is present, walking amongst the seven churches, which are the seven golden lampstands.
Speaker 1:Okay, turn over to Matthew 1820. This is a representation. This is a representation of Jesus' words and the Gospels Jesus said in Matthew 1820,. This is the new living translation for where two or more gathered together as my followers. I am there among them. That's Matthew 1820, that is the new living translation.
Speaker 1:I want you to think about that for a second. Jesus is with us Every time we share the gospel, in every small group, every gathering of believers. He is with us Further, for those who have accepted Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives inside us, guiding our steps. The Bible says. The Bible says he guides our steps. That's Psalm 119, verse 105. If you want to look at that for homework, it brings me peace every time I read it. In short, he's always with us. He therefore knows our victories and our failings.
Speaker 1:He gives the church in Ephesus a solid report card on what they've done. Well, listen to the list and see if the church today measures up Labor. Jesus says he knows their works. They work hard, they work really hard. They're patient. Things don't always work out for them. They really don't, and we're going to go into in the second where they actually were and how hard it was to be in Ephesus in the first century. But they were patient, they kept at it, they stayed, they stayed steadfast, and that's something that's going to come up in a moment too. They can't bear evil. Okay, so they see evil, they call it by its name and they do the best they can to eradicate it. And that's in point number four.
Speaker 1:They tested and uncovered false prophets. You know, when I was attending church in Colorado my church, my home church my pastor used to say all the time that I mean we were a large congregation, it was a big church and it was a big church that behaved as a little church. But that's a that's a different study altogether. The thing was, a pastor used to always say that if you came into this church with bad intentions, if you were a wolf in sheep's clothing to use the old trope if you were, if you were that, you'd be found out. You'd be found out and you'd be eradicated.
Speaker 1:If you were preaching a false gospel, if you were trying to gather followers for some false craziness and the Lord knows that there's thousands of different false theologies in this country alone, based, believe it or not, as they say, on Christianity, and I'm not going to mention names and I'm not going to, you know, get into all that, because that's a whole different universe altogether. However, I will tell you that that it becomes a difficulty because there's so many people getting ripped off. And what my pastor was saying was that no one was going to get ripped off in our church. To the best of our ability, we weren't going to allow you to get ripped off. And then he'd always say something else we're going to love you all the way to the curb. In other words, we're going to tell you the truth, we're going to try to help you understand where you've gone wrong and we're going to love you all the way to the curb. But if we have to leave you at the curb, we will. And that's what. That's what the church in Ephesus did. They, they, they love people all the way to the curb. They eradicated false prophets from the church. And how did they do that? They did that based on scripture, based on what they knew already from the Lord, from the disciples, from Paul. Okay, they, they did what they did because they knew what the truth was and they measured everything against that truth and they persevered. They persevered that's point five. They persevered in that. Okay, they were a dedicated church. It's a solid list of Recognition from the Lord. They worked hard, they were patient, they stood up against evil, weeded out false prophets from among them and they persevered.
Speaker 1:Sadly, the church in today by and large can't measure up to this list. When we look at the city of episodes, we see similarities to cities of today and Understand how hard it must have been for the church, as I said earlier, to stand under the pressure exerted against it. Ephesus is a port city In what is now Turkey. It was a Roman city, meaning that it practiced all of the pagan rites and rituals required by Rome. Okay Was known for a temple, the Roman goddess, little G Diana.
Speaker 1:So in the midst of the debauchery and the sin of everyday life stood the church. Make no mistake, that stand in those days Could most often, and did most often, cost one their life. Nevertheless, this is a common thread in the majority of the letters from Jesus in this section. He leads the letter by praising, and this is an amazing leadership technique that that you know he exhibits here. He tells them what they've done right and the list as we've set up here is is is quite impressive really, especially based on what we know about the church in Ephesus At the time, and and and the the absolute sin and ugliness that they were surrounded by. I'm a whole lot different than churches in Chicago or Denver or San Francisco or any big city that you might Think about or point to. The debauchery of today is is unbelievable and it's unmeasurable, to be honest. But so these are all good things.
Speaker 1:But Jesus says Nevertheless. Nevertheless and what is the nevertheless? Let's go back to that section and, starting in verse 4, he says nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do your first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove the lamp stand from its place unless you repent. It's verses 4 through 6, new King James version. You've left your first love. Hmm, you know it's.
Speaker 1:It's interesting as I was sitting down this morning to put this together. It's been written for a while. I just hadn't had a chance to record it as I sat here today and I went through my Bible study this morning and my divos and I prayed it's something that the Lord's been on me about for months Left my first love. I've left my first love and remember, friends, that we are the church, representative of the church, we are the body of Christ and therefore each one of us is the church. I've talked about it a hundred times church buildings are just that buildings of plaster and paint and that's all it's when the people of God inhabit the space that it becomes a church. So this letter absolutely points at each one of us.
Speaker 1:We can be working hard, oh lordy. We can be working hard. We can be attending church three times a week. We can be in our Bibles, we can be Working hard for the downtrodden, we can be involved in soup kitchens and we can be involved in homeless shelters and we can be involved in in, you know, in in, in Women's clinics and all kinds of different things. We can even be speaking out against the, the sin of Transgenderism and homosexuality, and we can be very vocal about those things, and we can be doing all of that work. We can be doing all of that work Just like Ephesus. Ephesus was busy, and the church today is busy too. And the question is are we too busy?
Speaker 1:The, the sin of the church in Ephesus, was a sin of omission. They forgot their why, and I think that we as Christians forget our why quite often. I know I have I've been called to the carpet just this morning for that very thing. Why do you do? Why do you get involved. Why are you involved? It's because of Jesus, their. Why is the same? Why that all believers have it's Jesus. And Jesus says remember from where you've fallen, repent and do your first works. The church without Jesus as its center is just a place, no matter how many good works are done there, there's nothing, and I mean nothing without the why. So that's, that's the first thing, but let's, let's dial that in a little bit more. You know, I look at the church today and I see a whole lot of activity.
Speaker 1:I also see a whole lot of bad theology in many places. First and foremost and the church in Ephesus would stand for this they would tell you that that God's intention was not to have you live a glorious and happy life where, where you're always successful and there's never any pain and there's never any suffering and there's never any negative anything. So many theologies today focus on that. That, that gospel, that false gospel of name it and claim it. Name it and claim it, gospel. I need millions. I'm gonna name it and claim it. I'm gonna claim this and I'm gonna claim that and I'm gonna claim the other thing. It doesn't work that way. Prosperity gospel is just that. It's a false flag. It's a ridiculous false flag and people are getting ripped off. People are getting ripped off and let's talk for a minute about the church at large. The church at large, regardless of the, the prosperity gospel folks, and the Mormons and the and the Jehovah Witnesses and again, whole other studies, right, regardless of those folks, the church at large, the Protestant church at large, the evangelical church at large, gets so focused in on stuff that's absolutely meaningless, meaningless.
Speaker 1:I, I, I, we argue amongst ourselves over, over secondary items. Somebody asked me once if you had to believe in the rapture in order to be saved. I believe the rapture. I think the scriptures are 100% clear on that fact. But no, you don't have to believe in the literal rapture in order to be saved. I'll explain it to you on the way up. That's, that's pretty much how I look at it.
Speaker 1:So these are secondary items that we argue about consistently and we we argue about Christian media. I mean I, okay, you know. I mean you're not gonna become biblically literate from watching the chosen. Okay, you're just not. And is it 100% accurate? Absolutely not, absolutely not. Okay, but but and when I say it's not accurate, it's not biblically correct. There are, there are things. There are important items within the chosen that that are not right. Okay, biblically, now the creativity that's used and all those other things. Okay, fine, you know, I can. I can live with that, because he's trying to tell the story of people and I get it. But let's not argue about the chosen. My goodness, let's not argue about the chosen, let's not argue about about all these little things.
Speaker 1:Pastor Chuck Smith, who I never met, but Pastor Chuck Smith, was my pastor's pastor, as I've said before, and therefore is, by by by fact, of lineage, my pastor, because Pastor Chuck led my pastors, Pastor Pastor Jeff Johnson. Jeff Johnson led my pastor, pastor Ed, and Pastor Ed led me. It became Pastor Chuck is one of my pastors and Pastor Chuck Smith used to say all the time let's keep the number one thing, the number one thing, and what's the number one thing? It's our why, it's Jesus, that's the why. So the work comes from faith. Okay, the work comes from faith and direction from the Lord, not anything else.
Speaker 1:Remember, folks, that we're saved by grace, through faith, not of works. We're saved by faith, not of work. We're saved by faith, not of work. So let's say any man should boast, no matter how hard we work. We're not gonna get saved based on how hard we work. We're just not. It's not gonna happen like that.
Speaker 1:And then James said faith without works is dead. Okay, so there's a microcosm there. Right, there's a microcosm there. There's a microcosm there. There's a balancing act, there's a hey, you know what. You have, this faith, but the faith is what drives you to good works. God's works, and that's what Jesus is saying. Return to your first love, which is me. Do things the way you used to do them. If you have to, if you haven't read your scriptures in a while and you're down about that and you just think to yourself I can't start again Like I'm such a loser, don't pick up your Bible and read it. Pray. God will listen to you and get your marching orders from him.
Speaker 1:The church of today is very busy and what I find is that the church, the sermons in the church, resemble TED Talks more than anything else. They're a self-help situation, and that's born of your desire to be, of people's desire to be relevant. It's also born of the prosperity gospel movement and all of those things. They're not intended to be TED Talks. They're not intended to be self-help. You can go to Walmart and buy any self-help book you want. How about you pick up your Bible pastor, study your scriptures and then teach, teach, teach. Have people open their Bibles in church, teach, have people. Yes, put the scriptures up on the screens. That's fine, that's absolutely fine. But encourage folks to bring their Bible and to engage with their Bible, because that bleeds over, that becomes a part of their everyday life. You've built that habit.
Speaker 1:In Return to your first works, remember what happened when you first got saved. Remember how excited you were. Pray on that today. Remember that. Remember what the air tasted like. Remember how free you felt. Remember how relieved you felt. Remember how much pressure had been relieved off of you.
Speaker 1:These are all things from me, but I'm sure that it's very similar for a lot of people. Remember the moment when you finally broke down and said yes, and then go back to the excitement, go back to the passion, and I will tell you, as we close, that we are in a position, folks, in this day and age, where the church must stand up. There's not a politician that can do it, there's not a public figure that can do it, there's not a famous person that can do it, there's not a millionaire that can do it, or a billionaire, it doesn't matter. The church has been called to stand in the gap and we must do that. And the way that we do that, the way that we do that, is by keeping the number one thing, the number one thing. Friends, that's all the time we have today and I thank you very much for listening. Remember Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you Until next time. Make it count, gang and be blessed.