Hello, my dear people! How are all of you doing? Today I will continue with the series of messages about the seven churches of Revelation but before I speak about the message, I wanted to share a few things with you.
Well, in the first place I want to tell you that many times Youtube doesn’t send notifications, even if the person has already clicked on the bell, and already subscribed to my channel, so my tip is, every day I post a message, so if you haven’t received the notification, go to my channel and check what is the message of the day, all right? If you haven't subscribed yet, I ask that you subscribe and share the messages, because it's through this outlet that we're reaching the entire world, ok? God bless you and get ready.
Open your heart because God will speak so much to you. Today we’re going to talk about the church in Ephesus. It’s the first of the seven churches in Revelation.
We're going to read in Revelation chapter 2, verses 1 to 7. I’m going to read it with you. “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 people, 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.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far 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. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God”. Well, I want to tell that for all the churches I will maintain a presentation model, so that it will be more clear and easy for you to absorb. First of all, I want to talk about the city of Ephesus.
Ephesus was the main city in Asia Minor at the time. It was both a commercial center and a religious center for the entire region and it influenced both the east and the west. It’s important to know that Ephesus is in today’s Turkey.
It’s on the border between Asia and Europe. So to the west was Europe and to the east was Asia, and thus Ephesus was a very important city, with great influence. In the city of Ephesus there was the temple of Diana and that temple that was in Ephesus was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, being the largest Greek temple that has ever existed, that has ever been built.
Even though it wasn’t in Greece, was there in Turkey, at the time called Anatolia. That temple was 140m long and 80m wide. The temple was huge.
It was built on swampy ground and its foundation was an artificial foundation with many layers of charcoal, so that although that region was an earthquake area, it wasn’t affected by earthquakes. The doors of the temple were made of cypress wood and the columns and walls were made of marble. What a tremendous thing.
The staircase was all carved from wood imported from the island of Cyprus the temple also worked as a bank for all Asia, because it received huge amounts - Indeed huge! – of money, which was stored there. The truth is that the temple was a real work of art, a gallery, it was like a museum also, so behind a great purple curtain extending from top to bottom, there was a gigantic statue of Diana, the goddess of fertility.
She had several breasts; you must have seen that statue. Diana is a woman with several breasts representing her fertility and she held in one hand a staff and in the other a trident. Ephesus was the largest city in Asia with a population of approximately 225,000 inhabitants and had a large port, so that many ships docked there, moored there and there they would trade goods, sell the goods that they were bringing and place on the boat the goods from the city of Ephesus to go to Europe, for example, and further north.
Jesus presents himself as an advisor and gives an advice to the city. First He starts by saying who He is. He presents who He is and He says, "These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.
” In other words, I am the one who holds the churches in my hand. He is clearly speaking that it is He who holds the destiny of the churches, He who preserves the churches, who empowers them; it’s all in His hands. And then, within His advices He starts to make a compliment.
He says good things about the church of Ephesus. He starts by making an observation that is part of all the churches to which He will address himself to and starts by saying, “I know your deeds” and after he will go to the compliments, and here the application that remains for our time is that Jesus is the Lord of the church church and He knows everything that we do, our motivations, why we do it and He evaluates and will evaluate the works of every church, and that is throughout history, but here in our case, is the case of the city of Ephesus. So He praises the fact that Ephesus is an evangelistic city and church.
He says, “I know your deeds, both your hard work and your perseverance”. Here He is talking about the early church. This church is the church that comprises the years from approximately the year 33 to the year 100, so since the church was born on Pentecost until the end of the first century AD.
Then He says, you are active, you’re doing the work, you’re taking my word and I like that. Congratulations for that and also for your perseverance. The He says this, look you are a persevering, patient and constant church, because the word perseverance in Greek, hypomonēn, means patient, means someone who stands firm for a long time, so, constant.
It was also a church that sanctified itself and the text says, “I know your deeds and that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false”. The early church began to flourish during that time, there were already many churches in that period and the churches multiplied both by Paul’s preaching and the other apostles, and there were about 100 churches, but Jesus chooses seven specific churches to use as an example, and in the case of the church in Ephesus, He praises the fact that they couldn’t stand wicked people, people who weren’t sanctified, who deviated from the word and they tested those who called themselves apostles but were not and because they were liars. They were also praised for being a church that endured persecution, and the text says, “and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary”, because you know that the gospel started to be preached, but there was great resistance by the Jews, and when persecution came the gospel began to expand.
Persecution also came from the part of the gentiles, because often the church reported their wrongful ways of living, so here I see Jesus congratulating the church when it perseveres in faith, in holiness and in the word, despite the environment in which it’s inserted. Nowadays in Brazil we live in time of great ease. People can preach freely and when there is persecution, it’s so tenuous that people can’t even complain.
Now Jesus compliments that in the church in Ephesus. He compliments the fact that this was a church contrary to the view of separation between the called and laity, between the clergy and the laity. Some theologians say that this was what the Nicolatians advocated, that there was a special class of people.
This really came from paganism. The priests, those who were separated and the rest were lay people, people who had no power, who would only received what those from the upper class taught. So some theologians understand that this word “Nicolatians”, comes from the Greek nikol, to win, and laos which is people, so the Nicolatians were those who considered themselves superior, more powerful, victorious and who separated.
They said that the gospel couldn’t be preached by ordinary people, and then Jesus says, “But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. ” It’s very important for us to understand that there are no called and lay people, there are no clergy and lay people in the word of God, everyone is called. There’s no such thing as lay people and ministry professionals, no!
Everyone has a call to preach, to implant the kingdom and it was in regard of that matter that Jesus praised the church, because they abhorred that kind of distinction, which He also hates, in the case of the Nicolatians, but Jesus also – fourthly - he brings a condemnation, He says,” Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. ” We know from the book of I Corinthians that it’s useless to have all the gifts and lack love. If I speak all tongues and lack love, if I have faith to say to a mountain to move out of its place and go to another one but lack love, I am nothing.
I would be like a clanging cymbal, in other words, you can have all the gifts, all the knowledge, all the science, all spiritual power, if you don’t love you’re losing the purpose of your life’s calling. Why? Because God loves.
God loves people and God wants that those who do His work do it because of love, and the Ephesians were losing their first love, that passion, fire, that urge to reach the world and it saddened Jesus’ heart and we can go through that too my dear people. In our lives, I can identify even in my life as a pastor moments in which… you know when you’re on autopilot? You’re doing God’s work, you’re doing everything right, you’re not in sin, but you don’t have that fire for people, for the salvation of lives, and I thank God, because God is reviving this in my heart more and more, so that I too can be an instrument to challenge you into loving the lost, loving your neighbor, loving your enemy, loving the nations, love those who Jesus loves, loving those who weren’t reached.
My dear people, God loves everyone. The Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life, so we must love too. A church that loves is a missionary church.
A church that loves is a church that preaches the word. A church that loves is not a church focused on itself. A church that loves is not a church full of prejudice.
A church that loves is a church that seeks to reach for the lost in every single area in the society. Reach the youth, the teenagers, reach the people who are cast out of society, those rejected by the society. A church that loves is a church that brings joy to the heart of Jesus, because He has always loved the church and He died for it and He continues to live, interceding for the church, so my dears let’s convert ourselves, let’s ask for forgiveness when our hearts turn cold because we need to love.
Love God in the first place, love the Lord above all things. This is the first commandment, to love the Lord above all things, with all our strength, with all our understanding. Isn’t that it?
With all our soul. God expects us to love Him, to be passionate for Him, but also passionate for those for whom Jesus died. Amen?
Jesus’ advice, they’re actually three, so here in fifth place I want to talk about those advices. In first place He said, consider how far you have fallen. That is a very important advice, my dear people.
Why? Because there are people who don’t even recognize and spend their entire lives in sin for being out of God’s will and not recognizing where they were wrong, where they went astray, where they lost focus, where they lost the love, where they lost vision, where they changed their motivation of gaining lives, working for lives, and so many times started working for themselves. That is such a great danger in churches where there’s no persecution, where there’s ease, where churches thrive.
If you’re a pastor, if you’re a leader who can’t see that you’re straying, where the glory of Jesus, the glory to God is no longer your focus, but you start focusing on having power, on having more people under your authority, when the focus becomes you and your ministry and not God, not the cross of Christ, and not the people for whom Jesus died, and you start to deviate, and here the word of Jesus, – He will never bring discipline before exhorting – He is saying, “consider how far you have fallen”. Think about it. Consider it so you know where you began to stray.
In second place he says, “repent”! That is the second advice. Repentance is change of direction.
The word for repentance in Greek is metanoia, a change of mentality, a change of mindset, a change of vision, but this word in the Hebrew original, also repentance, same concept, teshuvah or shuv, means to go back to the path. If I get out of the path, repentance is getting back on it. Sometimes is with brokenness, with tears, but sometimes it’s not, because for God true repentance is not the one that produces tears, but the one that produces transformation, change of life, change of direction.
This word challenges me. Every morning I ask the Lord, “Lord, am I doing well? Am I walking in your will?
Is this your will for me? Lord, show me your way. How can I bring joy to You?
And I have asked this to the Lord, and many times the Holy Spirit reveals to me. Reveals sins, reveals feelings that shouldn’t be in my heart, so that I can repent. Isn’t that beautiful?
It’s the Holy Spirit who convinces us about sin, righteousness and judgment. So Jesus is saying to that church, “consider how far you have fallen, but repent”, and finally He says, “and do the things you did first”. Repentance is not complete without you returning to the state you were in previously.
It’s like I told you, in Hebrew, the word Teshuvah means to do it again, to go back to the old way, to the way of the word, observe the ancient paths, and go back to the right path. That is the word of Jesus. The three advices for the church in Ephesus.
Jesus warns that if the advices were not taken, the results would be terrible. He says, “If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. ” This is as very serious message, because although in the life of a believer, the believer will never fall from grace, meaning, the Holy Spirit will never leave you simply because you walked away, or because you’re walking in the flesh, or even because you’re walking in sin.
He can be sad within you, He can be erased and the lack of action by the Holy Spirit may even take you to a state of apostasy, but the Holy Spirit won’t leave like it did in the Old Testament, back in Psalm 51, the psalmist David after he sinned with Bathsheba, he had Uriah killed. You know the story. He writes very brokenheartedly, he says, “do not take your Holy Spirit from me”, because he was terrified that the Holy Spirit would leave his life; him who had received that anointing from Samuel.
In the New Testament that doesn’t happen. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, so if by one side as a believer you don’t lose grace, you don’t fall from grace, at any moment you can repent, you can go back, when it comes to the local church there’s no promise, no promise from Jesus in any place that this church would remain forever. It depends on obedience and walking in righteousness according to the word of God and that’s what Jesus said to the church in Ephesus.
If you don’t consider where you’ve fallen, repent and get back to what you did first I will remove from you the lampstand, that is, the church will cease to exist. So, in the history of the city of Ephesus, which was a thriving city, a flourishing city, a wonderful apostolic church, the lampstand was removed from there and in the first centuries it started to turn cold and ceased to exist. Nowadays for example, for centuries and centuries, since the Turks came, since the Arabs came, since the Muslims came, not necessarily Arabs, the Christian church in Ephesus no longer existed.
We know that currently, and for many centuries it is under Muslim domination, it’s there in Turkey and there are no Christian churches in the vicinity of Ephesus. Neither in Ephesus nor in the cities around it, so in fact the lampstand was removed, because they probably didn’t repent. In sixth place Jesus challenges the church and He repeats this challenge to all the churches, to the seven churches in Revelation, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches”, that is, the main agent who produces repentance and who brings us back to the path is the Holy Spirit, so my dear, you who’s a pastor, perhaps you’re not a pastor, you’re just a Christian, you need the Holy Spirit to direct your life.
The Bible says, “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh". When the Holy Spirit stops talking to us, we stop listening to Him, – I believe that He never stops talking, but sometimes we start to erase the Spirit. We sadden the Spirit, His voice is less and less heard by us – so whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
When we hear what the Spirit says, we repent from our sins, we look to where we have fallen, we repent and go back to what we did first, and then He brings the following word, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. ” How beautiful, right? He gives a definition and a way of wining here.
He tells the truth about victory, but Apostle John himself in his letters reveals how the believer should live a life of victory. In I John chapter 5, verses 4 and 5 he says, “for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
” Who overcomes the world if not the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God? That is, how do you overcome the world? How do overcome the system of the world?
The ideological, philosophical, religious system? How do you overcome atheism? How do you overcome those who rise against us?
It’s not by arguing. I sometimes see the church discussing with people who aren’t even believers. No!
Jesus promises here through His apostle, Apostle John that the victory that overcomes the world is our faith. The faith that Jesus Christ is the son of God. So my dear ones, when he shows that the winner will receive the privilege of being able to feed from the tree of life, John himself, in the first letter in chapter 5, verses 4 and 5, teaches us that the access to the tree of life is through faith, through faith in Jesus Christ, the son of God, so if you haven’t yet confessed Jesus as your savior.
. . doesn’t matter what is your religion, because it’s not the name of your religion that will save you.
You can be Baptist and not be saved, you can be Catholic and not be saved, you can be Presbyterian and not be saved, because salvation comes by faith in Jesus Christ as the only way, only truth and life. That is what the Bible says. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me”. So my dear people, my loved people, you’re having today the privilege of hearing this word today. There are thousands and millions of people in the world who don’t hear the word because it’s forbidden.
If you haven’t surrendered your life to Jesus, open your heart, because the word says, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God”. That means you will be in paradise, you will be in the presence of the King of Kings, Hallelujah! So my dear ones, how do we win?
We win believing. Believing that Jesus is savior, believing that Jesus is lord, believing that Jesus is the only savior, son of God, and that He, Jesus, overcomes the world. When we believe that, we will be instruments of victory.
The world will not resist, Satan will not resist. Dear ones, Jesus promised that the doors of hell would not prevail against the church Jesus promised that the church would advance and the church is advancing today people, it’s advancing in all the nations of the world, the gospel is going. .
. the true churches are being called for this last hour to preach the gospel, so get out of the four walls, leave that narrow vision about your little businesses, your church, your sheeps. Your sheeps are the world.
God gave you some sheep to care for in person of course, but you have a world to win, to disciple, to prepare for the coming of Jesus. Amen? So never stop feeling that first love.
Love for the Lord. Love breeds obedience, but a love for lost people, for those who are tied by the devil, for those who are in darkness and we will take the light of the gospel of Christ with the image of God. We will face the devil who the bible talks about, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”.
Satan has blinded but we will enlighten. Light overcomes darkness. We will love the Lord, we will glorify the Lord, we will preach His word, so my dear, you who’s listening to me, God is calling!
Sometimes you are looking to your pains, to your problems and you say, “oh because God doesn’t love me”, God loves you, He already gave the best and Jesus died for you, so rise up my dear, let the Holy Spirit burn your heart with the passion for the Lord and for the preaching of the gospel. Oh hallelujah, glory to God, hallelujah. And I want to finish this word telling you that this church, the church in Ephesus is a very much blessed church, a church that walked in the word, that in fact had only one reprimand, that it was abandoning the first love.
This church is the apostolic church, the church that began in the year 33 with the Pentecost and was until the year 100, approximately, when the apostle John wrote the letter of Revelation. This period also includes the period in which the entire New Testament was written. What a beautiful thing.
A church that had all the miracles, the gifts, the word of God was being revealed, the New Testament. This period was also the period when the church tried to evangelize the entire Roman world, practically the entire Asia Minor was evangelized, the apostle Paul arrived in Rome, others went to Spain, the church expanded. We know that some disciples went further east to India, that is, it was a church that truly persevered in the gospel preaching.
It’s the church in which the heroes of that period include the apostles, apostle Paul, apostle Peter, apostle James, apostle John, Luke and many other heroes of the faith who lived for the glory of God and many of them died for Jesus. You know, my beloved people… God expects that you and I love Him. Jesus said that the whole law was all about loving God above all things and loving your neighbor as yourself, and it means that if I love God above all things, I will obey His word.
It means that if I love my neighbor as myself, I will not be trying to protect myself, I will go to them and I will reach my hand, I will fight for them, so dear ones, today we live in a time when the church is lukewarm, but even in this lukewarm period in which Jesus said, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find…” in this period when the Bible says that the love of many will grow cold, the word of God and the Spirit is talking to you. Do not allow! Do not allow the love of God to turn cold in your life, that you to become vain, that you to become self-sufficient!
Church, we were not called to raise human flags! We are called to proclaim the gospel of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The cross is our flag, is our motto!
The cross is the legacy that we must leave to this world and while we’re here let’s talk in season and out of season, preach the message of the gospel. Apostle Paul understood this. He said, I’m torn because I would very much wish to die and be with the Lord because it’s incomparably better, but because of you I’m torn because I also want to be here sharing my gifts to bless your life.
Now, I want to finish this word saying something to you. Satan wants you to be tied up, to be looking to your past, to the transferred ailments, to your traumas. He wants you to be inoperative, but the Holy Spirit of God, if you already believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God is the power of God, and God himself within you.
He sets you free and He gives you gifts so you will be a blessing to this world. Amen? So leave behind your pain, your wounds.
Love God, obey God, do His work because Jesus is coming. Amen? May the Lord bless you.
I hope this word was very important to you. My request is: share! Because I know that this word will break the chains in many people’s lives.
Amen? Lord Jesus loves you; I love you too and thank you so much for the honor you give me for always listening to my words and sharing. In the name of Jesus, God bless you.
