Revelation 2:1-7 True Love
Introduction: Looking into heaven: pictures not puzzles
We are a couple of weeks into this series of sermons in this book of Revelation, at the end of the Bible, but as last week was a Guest Service and two weeks ago is a long time in an exam term, let me remind you that though this last book in the Bible may seem rather strange to our eyes today, we shouldn’t leave it to those with an antiquarian interest in the ancient past (“This is how they used to think, back in those days”), nor to those with a sort of crankish obsession with what’s yet to happen in the future (“The end is nigh” brigade). The book is about now. It is about looking into heaven (our title for the series). And heaven is outside time. So it concerns neither past, nor present, nor future; but every time and all time.
It is highly imaginative and symbolic. It uses, for example, numbers in a symbolic way: we had seven stars and seven lampstands in the first verse of our reading today. You may not think that we use numbers like that now, but I think we do. If someone said to me, “Mark, I’ve told you that dozens of times”, they do not mean that the number of times they have told me is an exact multiple of 12. Or we might say something like, “Tourists come to Cambridge from the four corners of the earth”; or even, of an experienced sailor, “She’s sailed the seven seas”. We do actually use numbers in the same sort of way: they are symbolic, not literal uses of numbers.
But I don’t think it will help us much to think in terms of some symbolic code we have to break in order to understand the book of Revelation. It is actually more like a picture book than a puzzle book. We do not have to solve it. We let it engage with our imaginations and speak to us in that way, particularly in the later chapters. I will say something more about the role of the imagination next week; and we will see how important that is in order to understand the whole of the book as it unfolds.
Of course, it has a real setting in space and
time. The apostle John was writing, from the little island of Patmos in the
Aegean Sea, to the churches in seven real cities in Asia Minor (now Turkey).
Chapters 2 and 3 consist of brief individual letters to each of those churches,
and they start with Ephesus: the most significant of the seven cities.
We find that the church in this busy and influential seaport is in danger of receiving a redundancy notice from Jesus. You and I are probably familiar with redundant church buildings. This country is littered with them. Today we are going to consider the possibility of a redundant church – not because it is a building forsaken by people, but because it is a gathering of people which has been deserted by Jesus Christ. That, I think you will agree, is a far more relevant and a far more alarming idea for this gathering today.
1) An Inspection – He walks, He knows, He judges (2:1,2,5)
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false” (2:1,2). We’ve already been introduced to the author, back in chapter 1. He is Jesus, and we learned from the last verse of chapter 1 that those seven lampstands are the seven churches. Now we discover that Jesus holds the angels of those churches in His right hand, and that He walks among those churches. It is in fact what makes a church a church: the presence of Jesus. And, because He is present, He knows – He knows about all the churches. Every one of the seven letters is going to have that ‘I know’, like the one at the beginning of verse 2: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men …” He knows us individually and He knows us as a group of believers, as a church. And He knows everything about us. This walking among the churches is not the stroll of a spectating tourist: it’s more like a military inspection. Look on to the second half of verse 5: “If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” That’s a sort of future present: “I am coming to you to remove your lampstand from its place.” As the Lord of the Churches, Jesus does not just review the churches: He judges them.
Now I guess with this particular gathering not many of us will know what it’s like to have been subject to an inspection in the armed forces. Some will remember it – with that desperate desire to pass, as the inspecting officer walks along the ranks towards us. One colonel, inspecting a squad of soldiers, stopped in front of one man and said: “What do you do in this battalion, soldier?” “I’m a cook, sir,” said the man. “Cook?” said the colonel, “there aren’t any cooks in the army, only chefs. You are a chef, soldier. You remember that!” “Yes, sir!” The colonel moved to the next man: “And you – what do you do?” “I’m a chef, sir.” “Good,” said the colonel. “And how for long have you been a chef, soldier?” “For about 20 seconds, sir!”
But think of an inspection by Jesus. There would be no bluffing there, would there? There would be no coming up with the right answer at the last moment. There would be no deceiving Him: the One who knows our hearts and minds! Jesus knows exactly where we stand; exactly what we have been doing in our lives; exactly what morals we live by; exactly what values undergird every aspect of our thoughts, our speech and our actions. Jesus knew everything about the church in Ephesus, and some of what He saw He commended.
2) A Commendation – For hard work, perseverance, discernment … and hatred! (vv. 2, 3, 6)
Look again at verses 2 and 3: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary” Notice it’s a commendation for hard work – this was a busy, active church, with many ministry programmes to proclaim the gospel and to relieve suffering. And it’s a commendation for perseverance – they knew what it was to suffer and to stick to their faith through suffering. In the 1st Century, hardships endured for the sake of the name of Christ were worse than the scorn and contempt that may come our way today if we’re committed Christians here in the U.K. anyway. But there are plenty of places in our world where persecution is as real today as it was then to those in Ephesus. And it’s maybe worth just commenting that the church in this country might know much greater vitality if it faced fiercer opposition. You may, like me, from time to time look in the Christian press and notice how it laments the way the country is slipping away from the Christian morality that once undergirded it. I am sure that is a very bad thing; but we need to remember that God may use that decline in national morality to refine His Church. It may get harder and harder to stand as a Christian. And that may not actually do the Church any harm – there will be fewer fellow-passengers then.
Look at verse 3 again: “You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” They were commended for hard work and for perseverance, but also for discernment: “I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false” (v. 2b). The Ephesian church could detect false teaching. They knew that not all who call themselves apostles were apostles; not all who claim to be teaching the Christian faith are teaching the Christian faith. If you are at all familiar with the New Testament you will know that it warns us frequently against false teachers. Perhaps every pulpit in the land should carry this warning – including our pulpit here:
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WARNING
The occupant of this pulpit may be against Christ |
It’s very dangerous if you make the assumption that because I stand up here, I’m going to teach you faithfully. It is my job to teach the Bible faithfully, but it’s your job to check that I’m doing it. That’s why we encourage you to have your Bible open at this moment. When I mention a verse, you look at the verse and check if I’m teaching it to you faithfully. The churches of our land would be transformed if the people of our land would do that. What are they doing in churches round the land at this moment? They’re listening to preachers, with their Bibles shut. Is it surprising that those preachers again and again lead them astray and do not faithfully teach the Word of God, as we should? Please keep the Bibles open; please bring questions to Grill-the-Preacher; please bring questions to preachers at the end of services. Please test us, test our lives to see if there is integrity, sincerity, faithfulness there.
The Ephesians tested those who taught them and found out the false ones, by their doctrine and by their lives. And it mattered to them: “But you have this in your favour: you hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (v. 6). It mattered to the point of hatred – not of the person, but of the practices: the teachings and how they worked out. Dare one say this? A church that does not hate is not a New Testament church. And if that isn’t an unpopular idea today, I don’t know what is. The only thing our culture hates it seems, is an exclusive truth claim: like that!
They were commended for their doctrinal orthodoxy. But sometimes a virtue can carry within itself the seed of its own destruction. And there may be some link between what Jesus commended these 1st Century Christians for, and what He condemned them for, as He moves from praise to warning.
3) A Warning – Lost love (vv. 4, 5)
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love” (v. 4). A warning about lost love. It is so easy for doctrinal precision to engender a lack of love. You may know this story:
Walking through the city late one night I came upon a man about to jump off a bridge and take his life.
I said: ‘Wait a minute, don’t you believe in God?’ He said, ‘I do believe in God.’
I said: ‘Really? Are you a Christian or a Jew? He said, ‘I’m a Christian. I said: ‘Me too.’
I said: ‘Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?’ He said, ‘I’m a Protestant.’
I said: ‘Really? What denomination?’ He says, ‘Baptist.’ I said: ‘Me too. Northern or Southern?’
He said, ‘Northern.’ I said: ‘Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?’
He said ‘Northern Conservative Baptist.’ I said: ‘Me too! Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist?’
He said, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.’ I said: ‘Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?’
He said, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.’
I said: ‘Me too! This is incredible! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?’
He said, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.’
I said: ‘Die, heretic!’ And I pushed him off the bridge.
But notice this: Jesus did not call the Ephesian Church narrow or intolerant. He did not call on them to lessen their hatred for the practices of the Nicolaitans. Indeed, He said that He shared that hatred: that they derived it from Him. He called on them to recover their first love. That sort of hatred and that sort of love must actually go together in the Christian life. We are to be Mr. Valiant for Truth, and Mr. Greatheart at the same time (if you know Pilgrim’s Progress).
Those of us who remember the time of our conversion will remember what it was to have hearts full of love for Jesus, for His people and for the whole world for His sake. It is the greatest love we can ever experience. When I was converted as a twenty-year old, I was deeply in love with a young lady at the time. She became a Christian two weeks after I did. But in the months that followed I realised that my love for Jesus needed to grow and develop so much (I had 20 years to catch up in knowing and loving Jesus) that it was not the time to be in a relationship with a girl as well. We had to give each other up for the sake of Christ, to learn to hold everything else in an open hand, for His sake. It hurt me more than I care to remember now. But I do need to remember it: the greatness of that first love for God that overwhelmed all other loves in my life. I need to remember it according to these verses: ‘Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place . . .’ (vv. 4, 5).
Notice how high the stakes are! They have forsaken their first love, and now there is a danger that Jesus may forsake them, that He may remove their lampstand from its place: that He may serve the Ephesian church with a redundancy notice…. Because Christian faith is all about love answering love (real Christian faith is a love affair); and if love (for God and for humanity) is not flowing out of my heart, then it suggests that God’s love is not flowing into it as it should. When you are watering the garden and the hose suddenly stops, you go back to find out what is hindering the flow—Has it come off the tap? Has it got a kink in it? Is some joker standing on it? When the love in our hearts dries up, we need to go back: ‘Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.’ Back to the love we knew at first. Back to the love that brought us to God and caused us out of love to respond. And say, “Lord, my life is yours – every bit of it. Every relationship; everything I value: it’s yours now, and for ever.”
And that’s why the letter ends on a lovely note of encouragement.
4) An Encouragement – To hear and to overcome (v. 7)
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Being converted is to have a relationship – as it was in the beginning in the Garden, to have that relationship of life again. Notice it’s an encouragement to hear and to overcome. That is what it is to be converted: it is (and please note this carefully if you are not yet a Christian) to hear about Jesus, and to trust what He has done for us on the cross. That’s what the book of Revelation means by that term ‘overcome’. It’s not conquering an earthly enemy by force: it is to keep trusting the victory that Jesus won on the cross for us, when He dealt with our sins and reconciled us to God.
So it is very fitting that we move from studying this passage to our Communion, as we are going to now. In the Communion we thank God that we can share in the Cross. It is going to take us back to our first love.
(All scripture quoted is from the New International Version of the Bible unless otherwise stated.)