Revelation 2:5

Revelation 2:5

Revelation 2:5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

    I.        Remember therefore from where you have fallen

The lost son parable is the good example to explain these words.  The younger son left his father and lost everything he remembering the early days. How he was very much happy with his father. He was very much joy that time there is no sorrow. But now he suffered to get food, even he will not able to get what pigs had.

We can see the same situation in the Ephesus church. When the church was with Heavenly Father they was very happy, they received the blessing from heavenly Father, they got deliverances from all sickness, and they got deliverance from demons. But when they left from God’s presence, they lost all blessing, not only blessing they took part God’s fury.

  II.        Repent and do the works you did at first

That’s because God inviting them to repent. We know many verses from bible tell us to repent. If not repent we can’t enter into kingdom for God.

Bible says in

Proverb 28:13 He that covered his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.

Repent means what ?

   Leave all your sins and listen His voice and obeying His commandments are called repent.

Deuteronomy 30:8 And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today.

First prophet in New Testament was John the Baptize. His first message was in Mathew 3:2 

Matthew 3:2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

In this verse John the Baptize told the kingdom of heaven is very near so he telling to repent everybody.

According to gospel of mark the first message if Jesus Christ also the same

Mark 1:15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

So God told to this church to repent

III.        … do the works you did at first

    As we know, how much the church lived with God, How much the church showed it love to God? But currently the state of the church is not like before. So God gave warning to this church to do the works what it did at first

 IV.        If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

   From these words we can understand, what god have punishment if the church is not repent. I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place

            In general we know why we are using the lamp stand?  We are using the lampstand for light. If we remove lampstand we will not get the light.

            We know here the lampstand refers the church. The light refers the Christ. Christ told I am the light. Here God told to church if you are not repent I will remove the Christ’s sprit from the church.

            We can give many examples from the bible.

1.      When King Saul not obeyed God’s commend the bible says the Spirit of the Lord left from King Saul.

1 Sam. 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

2.      When Simpson told his secret to dalailla, he lost his strength. When the philistine arrested him he is not able to fight against them because bible says the Spirit of the Lord left from Samson.

Judges 16:20 And she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

3.      Jesus had chosen Judas one of His disciples. After tasting His love also he betrayed Jesus. Why? Bible says the Lord of Spirit was left from him.

Luke 22:3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.

In the same way, God warning this church, if you not repent, I will remove the Spirit of the Lord from you. We know what happened to the above mentioned three personalities, when the Spirit of the Lord left from them.

The ruler over the darkness was entered into them and they died very poorly. The same thing happen to this church if it not repent, the ruler of the darkness conquer them when the Spirit of lord left form the church. You think here if the Spirit is not there in church, what is the statutes of the church?

Worship

Worship

1. Bodily Posture
1. Bowing
1. Genesis 24:48, "And I bowed low and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had guided me in the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son."
2. Exodus 34:8-9, "And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in Thy sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate; and do Thou pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Thine own possession."
2. Standing
1. Nehemiah 9:5, "Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Arise, bless the Lord your God forever and ever! O may Thy glorious name be blessed and exalted above all blessing and praise!"
2. In Truth
1. John 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
3. Involves
1. Praise
1. Psalm 29:1-2, "Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name. Worship the Lord in holy array."
2. Psalm 149:1, "Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of the godly ones."
2. Shouting
1. Isaiah 49:13, "Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, and will have compassion on His afflicted."
3. Singing
1. Isaiah 12:5, "Praise the Lord in song, for He has done excellent things. Let this be known throughout the earth."
4. Of Christ by...
1. Angels
1. Hebrews 1:6, "And when He again brings the first-born into the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him."
2. Magi
1. Matt. 2:2,11, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him...11 And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell down and worshiped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh."
3. Women
1. Matthew 15:25, "But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs."
4. Heavenly Choir
1. Revelation 4:10-11, "the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 'Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You did create all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.'"
5. Subjects of Improper Worship
1. Antichrist
1. Revelations 13:4, "and they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?"
2. Creatures
1. Romans 1:25, "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."
3. Demons
1. Deuteronomy 32:17, "They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread."
4. Images
1. Exodus 32:8, "They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’”
2. Daniel 3:5, "that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up."
5. Man
1. Acts 10:25-27, "And when it came about that Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am just a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he entered, and found many people assembled."
6. Other Gods
1. Exodus 20:4, "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me."
2. Exodus 34:14, "for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
3. Deuteronomy 17:3, "and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded."
6. Subjects of Proper Worship
1. God
1. Matthew 4:10, "Then Jesus *said to him, “Begone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’”
2. Christ
1. Matthew 14:33, "And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!"
2. Matthew 28:9, "And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him."
7. Worship God Only
1. Matthew 4:10, "Then Jesus *said to him, “Begone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’”

Revelation 2.4

Revelation 2.4

Rev 2.4 Nevertheless, I have this complaint against you: you have lost your first love.

I.        …you have lost your first love

Here Jesus told you have lost your first love. Already we know that in the beginning, this Ephesus church were well trained by St. Paul

We can see Acts 20:20 and 27(Tamil 26)

Acts 20:20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,

Acts 20:21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 20:27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

If you take whatever in the beginning we will do the things very enthusiastically but when days go the enthusiasm will go down. Example we can saw many people in our life or we saw our life also when we accept Jesus Christ we spend more time with Jesus through prayer, reading gospel, preaching gospel, following the commandments from bible etc. all we did our level best, the same level of enthusiasm will not there after 5 years or 10 years. In the same way in Ephesus church also how they gave first preference of God then the preference was start reduced. If love was reduced from God means they start love the other things. Other than God if you are loving means that is none other than worldly things. But God don’t like this.

In 1 John 2:15 says “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

The verse in Matthew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

So the Ephesian starts love the world and worldly things and they were forgotten to follow the law of the God. If anyone not follows the God’s law bible says there are not belongs to God.

John 14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

What God expects from us means they should give first revenge to Him. Then only they like the others or other things. God expects from us is, we should not love worldly wisdom, they should not love money, they should not love their parents and they should not love their children

Jeremiah 9:23 Thus says the Lord: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,

Jeremiah 9:24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord."

Matthew 10:37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

From these words we can understand God expect the first love from us.

Why God expect the first love from us? Because He loves as more than any things.

How much He loved us

Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What is Jesus gave two commands for us?   

Mark 12:29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

Mark 12:31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

The Ephesus church had this kind of love. They gave first reverence to Lord our God but in later, it fell down from this love and it started to love the world. That’s why Jesus told to Ephesus church “Remember therefore from where you have fallen;”

Repent

Continuously God gave an invitation to this church to repent. We will see it in next week.