No, I think we can tackle this. It is a matter of effort. We have been marching round, and there was only so far we could go. Now we will try to get inside.
I will just read a part of the message: the second chapter of the Book of Revelation.
These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, He that walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks:
I know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false;
And thou hast patience and didst bear for My name’s sake, and hast not grown weary.
But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent.
So, what we have to do, seeking the Lord’s help, is to get right to the heart of that message and find out what that thing was and is upon which everything turns.
As we have seen, the continuance of this vessel as serving the Lord’s purpose did not rest upon a number of quite good and commendable things, but it hung upon one thing. That is called “thy first love.”
We are going to ask the question, and seek in some degree to answer it: What is first love?
May I say here, before I go on with that, that it is not my thought or expectation to make anything like an exhaustive study of these messages. Indeed, I do not know whether I shall deal with all of them. But whatever we do, we shall seek to get right to the heart of the message and find out exactly what it is.
What is that expression of Christ which is so vital, and so full of consequence, as to make this whole matter of continued ministry into a crisis? There is no doubt about it: we are in the presence of crisis when we are here with these messages. There is a real upshot of a very ultimate and utter character bound up with them.
We want to find out what it is that carries so much with it and means so much to the church and to the Lord.
I have said, “that expression of Christ.” Here I ought to spend time again in approaching this, but I will do no more. I have had a hint that I am putting too much in, or trying to.
But it is perfectly clear to the simplest reader that it is that portrait of the Lord Jesus in Revelation 1 which is spread over these seven messages. You probably have noticed that something out of that description of the Lord Jesus is used in the introduction to every message.
There is only one slight change, and that is to Philadelphia, where instead of “He that hath the keys of death and of Hades,” the change is, “He that hath the key of David.”
With that exception or change, every message contains something taken out of the description of the Lord Jesus: “He that,” and then you have something from the full portrait and presentation of Christ. Clearly it implies that it is that which is of Christ that is governing in every case.
All round, everywhere, every time, it is something vital of Christ that is at issue. That is the important thing to note.
Now come to Ephesus. Of course, Ephesus was the mother church of Asia. We know that to be so because it is said that during those three years there in Ephesus, all Asia heard the word, both Jews and Greeks. It was the mother church.
In the introduction to the message to Ephesus, the Lord describes Himself as He that holdeth the seven stars and walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. Ephesus is inclusive of all; Ephesus is comprehensive.
So what is said to Ephesus is not just said to Ephesus alone. It is quite comprehensive, this message. As we are able to put our finger upon this vital matter right at the heart of things, I am sure, without my pointing it out, we shall see that it is a matter which is in no sense exclusively local or of a particular church.
It is something that is ever the peril of the people of God. So we return and say, “What is this thing called ‘thy first love’?”
For the answer, of course, we have to—or should—go back to the great letter of Paul which now bears the name, the Letter to the Ephesians. We know it was a letter to more churches than Ephesus, and that Ephesus was one of those churches, perhaps the first one which had a name put on it in its circulation.
We can, for our purpose, speak of it as the Letter to the Ephesians. If you call to mind the content of that letter, you will remember that it has a very great deal in it about love.
Ephesians 2:4: “For His great love wherewith He loved us.” Ephesians 5:2: “Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you.” Ephesians 5:25: “Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it.” Ephesians 3:17: “Rooted and grounded in love.” Ephesians 3:19: “To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.”
It is not a long letter, so far as the number of words is concerned, but what immense statements those are. What a tremendous love is represented there.
Yes, Ephesus was the church which had been given a ministry and revelation of love—the knowledge-surpassing love. And Ephesus had responded to it. There is no doubt about it.
Read Acts 19 and Acts 20. See the response they made to that love, and to the man who had brought the knowledge of that love to them. He bade them farewell; they knelt down together; he prayed; and they wept much at his departure. It is all a scene of divine love reciprocation.
Ephesus was, in a very real sense, embodied love: from God and returning to God, from Christ to Christ. Yes, that is all very true.
But you have to add another word alongside of that in order to arrive at the meaning of this “first love.” It is the other word which has the largest place in that letter to the Ephesians, and it is the word grace.
Grace. I will not take the time to give you all the nine references or mentions of grace in that letter, but grace is everywhere. Grace is running through it all. It is all grace.
Why was there such a response to the love of God? Because they recognized and were fully alive to how great grace there must be for such people to be loved in such a way.
This first love is no sentimental thing. When we talk about first love, there is often a good deal of sentiment bound up with that phrase. No, this is not something sentimental; this is a quality of love.
Lord, help me to show you the quality of this love.
The Lord loved Israel of old. Oh, how the prophets declared that love; how the Lord made known His love for that people. There is no doubt about it: the Lord loved Israel.
But Israel all too soon lost the sense of the infinite condescension of God to love them—the infinite condescension of God in choosing them from amongst all peoples of the earth.
All too soon Israel allowed themselves to feel that they were something, and worthy of that love. They became proud, and they took the love for granted.
The sin of Israel was just that. In the end, it was just that: they were the people. They were the people. Yes, they merited this; they were worthy of this; they were something to take account of. They were the people, and God ought to love them.
That is how it came to be with Israel. For that very reason, the covenant was broken, and the Gentiles were brought in their place.
Do you notice about the Gentiles, when the apostle turned to the Gentiles, when the message went to the Gentiles, you always—invariably—have this: the most wonderful thing that you can think of, that we should be allowed into this.
Never was anything heard of like this. The Gentiles, the heathen, the people whom Israel called the dogs, were brought right in—right into the family—and given all the privileges of sons. Most marvellous things.
It was the tremendous appreciation of divine love. You hear our brother’s prayers, and he might have known what I was going to say: first love, first love, first love.
Well, in this case, you see, it was like this. Here is a wife; here is a bride: the church as the bride of Christ, not saying, “He is lucky to have me for a wife. I am quite worthy of Him. He ought to be very thankful to have such a wife as I am.”
But no. “It is the most amazing thing that He ever looked at me at all, that ever He should have given me a first thought that has so known a second thought. I can never explain it, never understand that. I shall never be able, through all eternity, to know why He thought of me, let alone loved me and gave Himself for me.”
You see, that is the spirit of the church. That was the spirit of the Gentiles when the Jews just took everything for granted. It all became so commonplace with them.
All that God had given to them and shown to them—well, there was nothing now very wonderful about that. It lost its lustre, its glory, its wonder, its amazement. It was so commonplace now.
They could do as they liked with it: take it or leave it. Not so the Gentiles.
See them in Galatia—my word, what openness! See them in Philippi—what openness of heart; how they just drink it in there. See them in Thessalonica: “Ye received the word, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God.”
Whenever you move outside of Israel, you have an intense appreciation, a tremendous wonder. And coming back to Ephesus, what have you got there?
In Ephesus you have this: not a few of them that practised curious arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
That is appreciation. That is appreciation. There is nothing commonplace there. That is first love, dear friends. That is first love.
The peril is this: even in your labour, and in your patience, and in your conscientiousness, and in your sincerity, and in all these works and things, the glory, the wonder, the amazement of being saved at all has been lost.
All this marvellous revelation God has given as to the church’s election, calling, vocation, destiny—what is called the eternal purpose—you can hear it without worship. You can have it all, and it does not stir you to profound gratitude and worship.
It is all so commonplace, so familiar. It has lost its wonder. That is the heart of the message. That is the peril of the church at all times.
God has given so much, and we begin to make it, or allow it to become, commonplace. “Oh, we have heard that before. We know all about that. You cannot tell us anything that we do not know in that matter. We have got it all; we have got it all.”
And we are not on our faces before God in the presence of it, saying, “Amazing wonder! Amazing, that I should have a place in that!”
Consider from whence thou art fallen. At Ephesus, the earthly things became as nothing—nothing—when they saw the Lord Jesus.
They brought all those things of value to men and in this world, by which they had laid such great store—yes, a great price, as things of this world go—and they burned them in the sight of all. “That rubbish! We have seen Jesus.”
And not until you have seen Jesus has everything else become tawdry and worthless, and of no greater value than to go up in smoke. See Him!
Oh, the revelation of Jesus Christ ought not to be a teaching, a truth, an interpretation, or a book. It ought to be worship.
“And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead.” Have you ever seen Jesus bring you down like that? Have you ever seen what He has given to you, to the point of making you say, “It is the most wonderful thing man could ever think of, that I should be given that, that I should have a place in there”?
Do you see how we need to be recovered? Do not let us blame Ephesus. This is our constant enemy; it is my constant enemy.
My continuous handling of these things through the years, always dealing with these matters and ministering them—my abiding enemy is familiarity and association with it all as truth, as truth: to lose the wonder.
And it is wonderful. Dear friends, that is your peril when you continuously and repeatedly hear it. There is the familiar story—yes, a wonderful story—but never bowing us before God in worship.
That is our peril. That is first love.
Now you can see that you may have a lot of things and not have that—a lot of good things. Oh, it is not that you are all bad, or we are all bad, and there is nothing good to be said about us at all.
There is a lot of devotion; there is a lot of labour; a lot, yes. But what He is looking for is that true heart-appreciation of Himself, what He has done, and what He has given.
We move into this book and find that we move into a realm of worship:
Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood;
And He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father;
To Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
What can you say? Only, “To Him be the glory.” You move into Revelation 4 and 5, and that is where you are: the church in heaven, a worshipping church, in the true and full appreciation of the Lord.
Now, that is not overloading you with matter, but it is putting upon us a very great responsibility. I believe, dear friends, this is just the word the Lord would say to us all at this time.
I am quite content to leave it there tonight. Conference after conference, conference after conference—if you saw my office, you would see a stack halfway up my own stature of reports of conferences over the years.
I have to ask: with all the reams, the volumes, the volumes, being given through the years, how much worship has it produced? How much of all that are we alive to, as to what the Lord has given?
But please, do not think that I am making this personal; I am only illustrating what I mean.
We who are so privileged—not here only, but we, the church in our time—who have all this, so privileged to have the revelation of Jesus Christ: all the cost to those first servants of the Lord to give us this, all the cost of the Lord Himself, that we should have it.
Oh yes, what a price lies behind it all. How much do we worship in the present time? How much does it really mean to us? How much is teaching and truth and the Bible? How much does it really touch our hearts?
That is the question. And that is the meaning of first love: personal appreciation that the Lord should have looked our way, to say nothing of just lavished upon us all that He has got together.
Well, there is the message. You see, we can understand now why the Lord could not be satisfied with a number of quite good things. It is that one thing: the essence of all was lacking behind.
No wonder He says, “Go back again. Do the first works.” There they are.
Oh yes, there is no doubt about it: they made a marvellous and costly, as this world would be, response to the Lord. Read that story in Acts 19 and Acts 20 of Paul in Ephesus.
There was a tremendous riot, where they would fain tear that apostle limb from limb. Some of these Ephesians not only said, but acted for his preservation: “Do not you go out there. You stay in here. We will come between you and them.”
They would not allow him to go out to them in their wild rage. They wanted this man protected because, through him, he was God’s channel of so much. It is all such a wonderful picture of how they appreciated what had come to them.
Now the Lord says, “You have fallen from that. You have left that.” You have not given up Christian work; you have not given up all Christian virtues. There are lots of good things about you, but that is the thing that matters.
I need not add more words to this. You see, it is all the appreciation of the grace of God—the grace of God.
Where should we be but for the grace of God? Oh, grace had no meaning for Israel. They did not feel the need of it; they were self-sufficient, and they had lost it all.
The people who really put supreme value upon grace are the people who have it all. “We have got it.” May the Lord make us people like that, and stir our hearts, and challenge us, and recover in us this first love.