The Ephesian Warning

The Ephesian Warning

Revelation 2:5a
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works

    The Ephesian church received a warning about leaving their first love.  The advice He gave them is advice all of us need to follow at some point in our Christian walk.  The advice is valid for individuals as well as congregations.  I call it the Three Rs of renewal.
   The first R is Remember.  To find something lost, you must look for it because you don’t actually know where you lost it.  But if you leave something, you can find it by remembering where you left it.  The first step in restoration is to remember.  Remember when you were at peace with God.  Remember when you were in love with Christ.  When the Prodigal Son was in the pigpen eating the pig’s food, the first step in his restoration was remembering what life was like back in his father’s home.  This is always the first step in getting back to where we should be with the Lord.  If you find yourself longing for a better relationship with the Lord, remember when you first came to Him and how you felt.
   The second R is Repent.  Repent is not a command to feel sorry.  It’s not a command to feel anything.  It means to stop going in the direction you’re going in and change your direction to go a different way.  It is an appeal for a change of attitude and conduct.
   The third R is Return.  Return to do the first works.  This means to go back to the basics, to the very first things that you did when you first fell in love with Jesus.
   What are the first works?  The wonder of spending time in His Word.  The closeness you felt when you spent time in prayer.  The joy of getting together with other Christians.  The excitement in telling others about Jesus.  The innocence of simple worship.
   The enemy does a masterful job in causing us to feel dissatisfied with these simple things in our lives.  We find ourselves running after new and different methods and programs.  We count numbers and look around at other churches in jealousy.  We plan on how to make Christ more “accessible” to the unsaved.  We get so busy we don’t stop and enjoy being in His Presence.  What we see in the church today is a loveless, busy, program-laden club.  We become the Church of Ichabod, where the glory has departed (1 Samuel 4:21).
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
   He who has an ear: This qualifies everyone, at least everyone who will stop and listen to God calling to us.  This warning was written to the church at Ephesus, but is also there as a warning to us today.  Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches:
   The Lord ended His message to the Ephesians with a promise.
To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.
   This promise to the one who overcomes, but what does this overcomer overcome?  We usually think of overcoming in dramatic terms of overcoming sin and a matter of spiritual warfare, but here Jesus seems to be speaking of the overcoming of the coldness of their hearts and lack of love marked by the leaving of their first love.  Is it possible to rekindle a fire in a burned-out heart?  Yes, it is.  Is it possible to fall in love with One Who you have left and wandered away from?  Yes, it is.  Is it possible to find that joy you used to feel in His Presence?  Yes, it is.  I can speak not only from personal experience, but also from hearing testimony from many others who have grown cold then had a spiritual renewal.
   If, while reading this, you remembered a time when you were truly happy in God’s Presence and you miss it, you have already taken the first step.  You are remembering a time when you were in love with Christ and nothing else mattered.  The rest is not impossible to achieve, but it is hard on the pride.



Stephen Cram                           August 19, 2012                 Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8

Failure of a Great Work

Failure of a Great Work

Revelation 2: 2-5a

2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 

3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 

4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 

5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, 

   Paul assigned Timothy to watch over the church that was growing in the important cosmopolitan city of Ephesus.  From church history and judging from the content of the epistle written to them by Paul, the church was growing and serving God.  He wrote some strong spiritual truths to them - they must have been doing well and were maturing as they could handle hearing more meatier teachings. 

   It was a large church, and aside from two visits from Paul it also enjoyed the ministry of Timothy and also Priscilla and Aquila visited there and Apollos preached there.  Later, the aging Disciple John the Beloved moved there and there is a church legend that Mary, the mother of Jesus lived her last years there. 

   The Ephesian church received more than one letter.  Paul wrote the Epistle of Ephesians, and also the Epistle to the Galatians, of which Ephesus was one of the seven principle churches.  Galatia was the name of an area of the highlands in what is today the nation of Turkey.  About 20 years after the Epistle to the Ephesians was written, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch also wrote a letter to the church there. 

   When John received his revelation of the glorified Lord and was told to write to seven churches, the first one mentioned was John’s own church in Ephesus.  And what the Lord said began well.  The Lord said He knew that they were faithful and busy doing the work and they were diligent about false teachers and all that a church could want to hear.  If I were reading this letter for the first time, I’d be downright proud of my church at this point.  But then the Lord gives them a reality check prefaced by the word “nevertheless.”  Nevertheless means “In spite of that; notwithstanding; all the same; but.”  The Lord says, “Nevertheless, I have this against you.”  All the good in the Ephesian church did would not cancel out the bad Jesus is about to reveal.  He said He has something against them.  “You have left your first love.”

   This is a sin of omission that all of us, I repeat – all of us, have been guilty of or are guilty of.  Despite all the good in the church, there is often something seriously wrong.  We have left our first love.  We’ve once had a love with the Lord, a special love just between us, but now it’s not there anymore.  And He didn’t say the Ephesians “lost” their first love, but that they “left” their first love.  This is a serious matter.  Something can be lost by accident.  You can lose something and not mean to lose it.  But if you leave something, it’s no longer an accident, it’s an “on purpose.”  I’ve talked to friends estranged from their spouses and have heard things like, “it’s really no one’s fault, we just don’t get along,” and “we just grew apart.” That’s tragic when it’s a husband and wife, but it’s a dangerous mistake when it’s between you and the Lord.  The one good thing about this situation is that if you lost something, you don’t know where to go to find it again, but when you leave something, you know where to go to get it back again.   

   The Ephesian church was a working church.  Sometimes a focus on the work turns it into a labor and it becomes drudgery.  Working for Jesus becomes all-consuming and we go through the motions without any of it touching our hearts.  The church at Ephesus was doctrinally OK, but orthodoxy that has no love is dead orthodoxy.

   History does not reveal much about the church at Ephesus after this final letter.  We have no way of knowing whether they corrected their problem and later were poisoned by some false doctrine; or whether they just withered on the vine and fell away.  What we do know is that sometime during the second century the church died.  

   There is a warning here that we cannot afford to take lightly.  If the church at Ephesus can fail, any church can fail.  If they left their first love, we need to examine our hearts and our relationship with Jesus.  “Nevertheless” is not a word I want to hear at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

Stephen Cram                          August 12, 2012                 Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8 

I Urge You – Remain in Ephesus

I Urge You – Remain in Ephesus

1 Timothy 1:3

3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 

4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. 

   Timothy, like Titus, was a young man who Paul the Apostle called a son in the faith.  Here in the very beginning of his letter to Timothy Paul is telling him to remain in Ephesus.  By accounts I’ve read about the city, it wasn't easy to serve the Lord there.  It was one of the great cities of the ancient world, and was noted as a religious and economic center.  Ephesus had the famous temple to the goddess Diana and a thriving banking industry.  There were many things, both spiritual and material, that would make it difficult for a pastor to stand strong for the true message of the Gospel. 

   Even knowing that Timothy had a tough job to do and a tough town to do it in, Paul wanted him to "remain in Ephesus."   He also charged Timothy with the same basic instructions he gave to Titus.  The church there was a new church, and already opposition had been sent to interfere with the Gospel message.  The enemy does not waste time; he goes in for the kill quickly.  Living in NH in the 70’s, I witnessed the birth and death of a couple of churches.  They started with fire and determination and died under opposition and oppression.  The key weakness in both was the lack of a leader called of God to be a Pastor. 

   Paul did not want the church he had founded in Ephesus to face opposition without a Godly pastor to lead them.  Timothy had traveled with Paul for a while and he knew Paul’s heart and had sat under Paul’s teachings.  He was a young man with a good testimony and Paul entrusted him with the big job of coming against the enemy’s work in Ephesus and leading the church on the right path. 

   But reading this I get the impression, and this is my opinion, that Timothy must have wanted to leave Ephesus.  Paul is not telling Timothy in these verse to “go to” Ephesus, he is urging Timothy to “remain in” Ephesus.  Paul would not have said this to Timothy if there were not some kind of pressure for him to leave.  Something was pushing Timothy to give up, to resign, and to walk away from his charge to lead this church.  Paul is urging Timothy to resist the call to leave and to get back to work and bring the truth to these people who needed to hear it. 

   God will allow us to be in difficult situations at times.  We must set our minds to meet the challenge and never to entertain the thought that it’s OK to quit.  Quitting is an easy out but it becomes habit-forming.  Quit once and it’s much easier to quit the second time.  There will be opposition from the enemy any time you set out to do a work in God’s name.  Just preach the Gospel and you can see the dark clouds gather overhead and a storm will break on your life.  But you must determine to stand firm right from the start and never let thoughts of quitting enter your plans. 

   There is a story, not confirmed, that a newspaper ran the following, believed to have been written by Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton:

"Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.

Honor and recognition in case of success."

The ad is said to have received more than 5000 responses.  They were willing to give their lives to a big, difficult mission to follow a great leader calling to them.

   Timothy had a tough job, and we also face a tough job.  Sharing the Gospel is a job assigned to every Christian.  And the enemy does not want you to carry out your mission.  You can expect opposition whenever you tell a lost soul the Gospel.  You can expect that you will anger someone and you will be called things and/or accused of things.  But it is a certainty that a person who is unsaved and who never hears the Gospel will not come to salvation.  And that is the thing to keep in mind when you hesitate to speak out to an unsaved friend or family member.  If I don’t talk to them, will they get another chance?  I watch the news and there are stories of people who were going somewhere but their lives ended abruptly. 

   Has God called you to stay faithful through a difficult situation, when you would prefer to escape?  Has this been one of "those" weeks?  You can find the strength to remain where God wants you to remain, if you look for the strength not in yourself, but in God.

Stephen Cram                            August 5, 2012                    Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8 

What a Pastor Should Do

What a Pastor Should Do

Titus 1:9 – 11
9 holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.
10 For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,
11 whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.


   Paul is instructing Titus, his son in the faith, in what he needs to do when he gets to Crete and meets with the churches there.  Paul founded the churches when he traveled there on one of his missionary trips, and now he wants Titus to oversee the appointment of qualified leaders over these congregations.
   He lays out general qualifications in verses 6 through 8, and then in verse 9 he gives Titus a qualification he must have felt strongly about to separate it and emphasize it.  He says to be sure the new pastor is faithful to hold fast to the Word he has been taught.  To do this, Titus must first be sure the new pastor has been taught.  There weren’t any seminaries or Bible schools yet, but Paul had left many Christians in his wake who he had had time to train himself before moving on.  Titus would need to examine the men to be sure they had received instruction in the Word and were mature enough to be able to faithfully teach the Word to others.
   Being faithful to the Word also meant that they were not to bring personal opinions to the new congregations but were to teach the Gospel as Paul taught it: Christ and Him crucified and resurrected.  When I was a new Christian, a mature man in the church “took me under his wing” to help me.  He taught the Word but then unfortunately added his personal views on what we had studied.  He was one who tried to “explain” miraculous things in the scriptures by saying that these things could have happened by – and here he would mention earthquakes, floods, coincidences, etc.  In no time at all he had me questioning everything trying to see how it could have happened by some natural means.  This placed a seed of doubt in my heart which grew up and strangled my spiritual life.  It took me a couple of years before the Holy Spirit convicted me of my doubts and I asked forgiveness and began to believe God’s Word at face value.  Had this man been faithful to share the Word with me it would have saved me years of doubts and unbelief.
   Titus was also instructed to appoint leaders who would use the Word properly.  They needed to not only be trained in the Word but had to be trained to both to exhort and convict those who would come into the congregation and spread false teachings.  Martin Luther once said, “A preacher must be both soldier and shepherd. He must nourish, defend, and teach; he must have teeth in his mouth and be able to bite and fight."  Sounds a bit extreme, but we are in a spiritual fight and we need to go into battle prepared to defend our faith.
   When a good pastor, a Godly pastor confronts someone who is contradicting the Gospel, they have a strong, reliable weapon at their disposal: sound doctrine.  When confronting untruths, the best thing to use is truth.  Not bluster or demands to respect proper authority, but the plain truth.  A pastor who does not have a basis in sound doctrine shouldn't be placed in that position.  Leaders need to stand on the foundation of the word and have the Word in their hearts before they should try to lead others into a knowledge of the truth.
   Today, as in the days of Paul and Titus, there are "problem people" among God's people who spread false doctrine and undermine the Word in our churches.  Some don’t do this for evil reasons, they do it from ignorance or because they have a strong opinion about some idea that is not a truth of the Gospel.  But a bad idea spread among a congregation is harmful whether or not it is done with evil intent.  Some do this for personal gain, either money or fame or notoriety.  Some do it “because we always did it that way.”  Whatever the reason, a false idea is still a false idea.
   A Godly pastor must be able to know the truth and be willing to stand up and call a lie a lie.  Just because an idea is popular does not make it right.  A pastor needs to know the difference and steer his flock onto the narrow path.

Stephen Cram                            July 29, 2012                            Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8