Letters of Jesus Part 2 - Ephesus

you pitted that's usually per the horses hooves to stop them slipping there is the payment of the treasurer of the city in front of the houses and that transfer was decorated with the mosaics beautiful mosaics and you can see it from here the first floor of the houses were used as shops and restaurants and the upper part were the living areas in the houses here we have the figure of victory naik and she is handing a laurel wreath to the winner of the games or the races or whatever and it is this laurel wreath that is referred to in the seven letters as the crown it is the crown of the winner who has won the games the crown of the victor so Jesus in one letter says be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life if you stand directly in front of the building down there and look at it you'll see how it curves away from you in every direction artificial perspective isn't it astonishing and and once you've seen it yet has how subtle and clever it is so it's a fisheye effect and the whole building is curved in every direction well here we are in Ephesus in a church though it has built much later than the days of sand Paul and I have here the letter addressed to the angel of the church in Ephesus so let's see what the Lord Jesus Christ had to say to them this is a message from the one who holds the seven stars safe in his right hand and who walks around the seven golden lampstands I know all about your activities I know how hard you've worked and how much you've had to put up with I know that you will not tolerate wicked men and how you tested those imposters who call themselves apostles who are actually nothing of the sort and proved themselves to be lying I know how patient you've been and how much you've suffered because you bear my name never flagging in your loyalty to me nevertheless I have one serious complaint about you you have much less love than you had at first think where you were before you fell out of love turn back and express your love as you used to if you don't repent I'll have to come and remove your lampstand from its place but this is in your favour you loathe what the Nicolaitans are up to as much as I detest their activity let everyone who hears these letters read take heed of what my spirit is communicating to the churches to anyone who gets on top of this situation I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life which grows in the paradise of God well I think the best way to study each letter is to look at the city first to start with the address in the letter and to say what is there in the city of Ephesus that helps us to understand this letter then to look at the church and finally to look at them message that Jesus has for it so in each talk we shall take these three points now if Ephesus comes first partly because it's the nearest to Patmos as the crow flies it's where John would start his thinking or even his traveling when he was able to go around preaching but it's also the most important city in the whole of Asia it towers above all the others in a number of ways it wasn't the capital of Asia but it was the most important city there are six aspects to that importance that I've noticed first of all its commercial importance it was a major port at the mouth of the River coaster constantly having to be cleared of silt but nevertheless it was a major port and also the road junction between east and west as we've already seen so it was a city of great trade and wherever there was trade throughout the Mediterranean world there were Jews was always a Jewish ghetto in every trading centre politically it was very important it was a free port but it was a self-governing democracy and in a sized town for Rome indeed they called it the metropolis of Asia culturally it was very important six hundred years before Jesus there was a man living in this city called hereit lightest and he laid the foundations of science he taught his students to observe what went on and to analyze it and try and find out the reason why things behaved as they did but he used a special word instead of the reason why he said try and find out the logos the logic of why things happen as they do and that word log-off's has become part of every branch of science the study of the weather is called meteorology study of life is biology the study of animals zoology the study of the mind psychology the study of group behavior sociology every branch of science is a Lagos trying to find out the reason why so centuries after here cleitus John the Apostle was trying to think of a name for Jesus before he was born because he only got the name Jesus after his born and he called him the lagos the reason why I think it's a very inadequate translation translation just to say in the beginning was the word it's in the beginning was the reason why see science just looks at the reason why part of the universe behaves as it does but if you want to know the reason why it's all here then the answer is Jesus he's the reason why did you see Maureen Lipman on the British Telecom commercial adverts so you got an ology so you understand the reason why what a lovely title for Jesus well all that happened but this was where the pan Ionian Games were held each May second only in Fame to the Olympic Games they were held in Ephesus the library here a most amazing library of celsus it is the most impressive facade of a building today they've rebuilt it and it's the most amazing piece of architecture it's curved in two ways it's curved that way and it's curved this way because it was a very narrow building and the architect has distorted there no straight lines so that it looks as if you're looking through a camera lens of fisheye lens at it and it makes it appear vast disappearing into the distance of the sides on the top it's an amazing piece of architecture there was a theatre here the largest theatre almost in Asia I forget how many you could get 24 thousand was it it was the most extraordinary number and I stood in the center of the stage of that theatre and read about the riot when Paul was in that theatre and people were sitting in the very top row and could hear every word with no microphone or amplification so it was a cultural center it was a social center as well one of the temples was actually a safe deposit for valuables nice place to keep your valuables but a place of luxury and when we examined that City it was amazing what luxuries there were in the heat they used to run water down the street so the whole street was sparkling with water and fountains everywhere to cool off we were very impressed with the luxury of that but it's the religious side that really is quite disturbing there has been as far back as we can trace goddess worship Mother worship worshipping fertility in the form of a woman and as you trace this back you find the goddess Isis in Egypt you find the god Artemis in Anatolia the gods Sybil II pepper grab Allah lat all those have been names for this mother and sometimes she's portrayed as a mother with child this goes way way back but when it got to Greece the name Artemis was the Greek name for this mother goddess and then with the Romans it became Diana actually in acts 19 you've got both names Artemis and Diana but that's simply the Greek and the Roman names and they had built the most incredible temple in Ephesus to Diana that's a reconstruction of it more or less accurately because I'm afraid it was destroyed and rebuilt seven times in fact the day Alexander the Great was born a man burnt it to the ground because he wanted to be famous and it was one of the seven wonders of the world and he wanted to be known as the man who destroyed one of the seven wonders of the world but this was one of the seven top tourist attractions in the ancient world it was finally destroyed by the Goths but this incredible temple towered above the city of Ephesus and after it was destroyed was completely lost until that British railway engineer by the name of woods tracked it down and he spent ten years looking for it founded about six weeks before he had to get back to England but he found it there is only one pillar standing today where this magnificent building stood pillars of course were to imitate the forest it was virtually man-made forest it's all tied up with Mother Nature and the worship of trees and so on but that's why you get pillars and the Capitals at the top representing the branches or leaves so it was virtually God lives in a forest that's the origin of the architecture of temples the ancient feminist cult has taken many forms and there I said I still think this mother child images is around and has got right inside the church but Mother Nature is becoming again for many people the focus of their devotion as if we owe our life to her she doesn't exist there is father God but there's no mother nature now inside this temple was the ugliest statue you've ever seen and you can see it in the ephesus museum today this is Diana of the Ephesians been great debate about what all these things are hanging on her front most obvious explanation is breasts and others have said there are eggs and others say they're grapes these are all symbols of fertility but the one I think it is is these are Bulls testes for Bulls were sacrificed to Diana and then their testes were offered as a source of fertility whatever it is it is ugly but it was unfortunately and reinforced by the fact that one day a meteorite fell out of the sky on Ephesus a black meteorite with this appearance of all these knobs on it and so they said this is it Diana has come down out of heaven and if you read acts 19 you'll find an xx that's the charge our diana came out of heaven and it was a reference to the meteorite held in this temple much the same way as the Kaaba the sacred stone of Islam is at Mecca well I'm afraid associated with the worship of Diana was a whole host of immoral activities eunuch priests and female priestesses would get into hysterical frenzy and you can guess what happened then silversmiths made a lot of money out of this they would make little silver reproductions to take home and put on the mantelpiece interesting thing is after Paul preached for a bit they couldn't sell these things now notice that Paul never had a protest march about Diana nor did he preach against it he just took away all their customers that seems to me about the best way to deal with social evil and the surest way in the long run otherwise were probably into what Jesus called tear pulling I've therefore described a city that was a pagan city in both belief and behavior as you walk down the main street you will see carved in the pavement signs directing you to the brothel which was connected to the baths and the library by an underground tunnel so that a husband could say I'm just off to the library to change my books and could sneak through the tunnel you get the impression there is evidence of homosexuality and other things in the ephesus museum which tell you what kind of city it was so much for the city it's not wrongly referred to as the Vanity Fair of the ancient world most impressive probably the most impressive ruins in Asia today what do we know about the church where we know more than any other in the New Testament primarily because Paul claimed there Pallas cam there and taught them the Old Testament and that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah Aquila and Priscilla came and corrected him then came Paul and we know that Paul found the disciples of Apollo's and he said something missing did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed a very important question to ask you can believe in Jesus without receiving the Holy Spirit very important that you get properly burst again I'm a little book normal Christian birth and the video entitled that will tell you how important all these things are but that's how Paul got the situation pulled around he got them baptized properly in there in Jesus he prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit they did only 12 men but that's enough and from then came one of the strongest churches and within a matter of months the whole of Asia had heard the gospel and so from Ephesus the word just spread out like that then as I've told you already John arrived almost certainly with Mary it was a very moving experience to stand at the tomb of John the Apostle the Beloved Disciple it was a place where later heresies about Jesus arose in particular a heresy which we know today among the Jehovah's Witnesses that Jesus was now the fully human or fully divine he was somewhere in the middle he was a creature rather than the Creator and that arose in John's day in Ephesus and a man called Surin 'thus taught it and one day they carried the age of john to the swimming pool in ephesus you can see it today and they put him in and he saucer enthis at the other end he said get me out get me out and they lifted him out what's the matter he said I'll not be in the same water as that man and as an age at apostle used to carry him to church and occasionally they asked him to give a word to the congregation they got a bit fed up because he always said the same thing my little children loved one another that was his final sermon again and again and again and again reminded me of the prayer meeting in a church in Lincolnshire where an old man used to pray Lord sweep the cobwebs from my heart and he prayed this so regularly that one of the young people said Lord kill that spider please and here we have John the age at apostle whenever he was asked to give a word to the congregation little children love one another maybe because that's the very thing that was slipping maybe he realized that if you read his first letter of John it's all about that how can you say you love God if you don't love each other if you can't see the Lord in your brother and love that how can you say you love God very interesting well let's look at the letter it's addressed to the messenger of the church at Ephesus and there's been a great debate among scholars is this a heavenly messenger or a human messenger because the word messenger is angle us which everywhere else in this book is translated angel but others say well it could be the minister the pastor I don't believe it could be the pastor for two reasons first pastors are never called messengers in the New Testament and secondly in these days they didn't have one minister per Church or one pastor they had a plurality of eldership so that I don't think it can be that I believe it must be an angel and a heavenly messenger but I'll leave it open I'll ask when I get to glory and then I'll tell you which it was I'll say to the angels which one was it but I do believe that there are angels who have special consent for individual churches and in fact the angel even studies your hairdo in church according to 1 Corinthians 11 it's because of the angels that men wear short haired women wear long hair because the angels watching and if you use the Anglican prayer book you know that you come to communion therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we Lord magnify your Holy Name we must never forget that whenever we worship were joining the angels and they're joining us well that's the address but the focus is on the message not the messenger the attribute here links with the vision in Chapter 1 and emphasizes that Jesus is related to them and they are related to Jesus he holds them in his hand with a firm grasp the word is a clenched fist almost he holds them within his hand that's his relationship to them and their relationship to him well he walks among them and he looks around in the churches they're under constant observation and this letter is like a school report from the head trying harder can do better these letters read just like a school report at the end of term don't they well let's look then at the approval e gives and I I just want you to notice this phrase I know your deeds Jesus knows everything going on in your church whether it's public or private he knows knows everything not just a few outstanding things he knows everything he says I know what's going on I came when you didn't realize I came and I had a good look at your church three good things their enthusiasm their endurance and their enlightenment first of all their enthusiasm they are active they're diligent they're hard workers the word means you labor to the point of sweating you're conscientious you really are devoted to the work of the church it's costly toil cost time and energy and money you take pains would be a good translation exhausting work strenuous you've not grown weary in well-doing you've not said oh it's time the younger folk took over I'm I'm going to take it easy amazing how many older Christians talk like that you haven't done that you've kept at it and in fact the word of fission in the ancient world was a nickname for enthusiasm instead of saying he's an enthusiast they would say he's an Ephesian second thing endurance they have suffered hardship they have been through hostile periods when they faced opposition and unpopularity and they kept at it for his namesake the main pressure was probably in the Chamber of Commerce where there were trade guilds and if you weren't part of a guild and you couldn't trade and you could lose money social ostracism was probably the main way they suffered run physical violence but they'd not just endured they triumphed they'd overcome it thirdly enlightenment they were so well taught and well versed that they could spot false teaching would to God that modern congregations could do that that they were so full of the Word of God that they knew when something was not quite right that they were hearing twisted words and just were being deceived they had a passion for truth for the truth of the gospel they were zealous for the purity of the church they knew that wrong beliefs produce wrong behavior so when there were self-appointed apostles arrived it's amazing how many people are self-appointed those who call themselves apostles listen a true apostle will be recognized by others a true prophet is recognized by others they don't need to say I'm a prophet in fact you should be suspicious of someone who calls themselves something as much as to say you don't need to know anything else I'm just telling you this is what I am so there was discipline in this church they disciplined the membership they disciplined preachers and teachers they didn't allow bad teaching into the pulpit and they hated false movements we don't know who the Nicolaitans were or what they were teaching or believing but the Ephesians knew it was wrong and Jesus said you hate what I hate do you know that there's a place for hatred in the church there are things that Jesus hates he loathes and the nearer you are to Jesus the more you hate things as well as love them hate what is evil says Paul in Romans drove hated because Jesus hates it Psalm 139 finishes I hate your enemies with a perfect hatred or Lord there is a valid hatred it shouldn't be directed against flesh and blood it should be against false teaching and things that would pervert and spoil the Church of Christ well it sounds a good church and it their Creed is faultless their conduct is faultless give them a medal where is this church we want to join it of course you know if you join a perfect church you'll spoil it surely this is a very good church full of enthusiasm endurance and enlightenment but there's one thing that is spoiling everything so much so that Jesus is about to come and close down the church in the most important city in Asia now Jesus is in the business of closing down churches as well as planting them he doesn't want a church that is not shining a true light that's worse than useless to him he'd rather not have a church in Ephesus than have a church like this it just it blows your mind I mean if you just said now there's one thing that would just make you perfect there's a little bit of icing on the cake that would just no he says there's one thing that is going to have you closed down and I will close you down what is so serious they've lost something there once had the verb is you've abandoned something left it behind turned away from it what on earth is it your first love now we could at this point have a big debate I could have a vote from you as to whether you think it was their love for God or the Lord or their love for each other or their love for lost sinners outside that's a quick vote on that which you think it was primarily allowing that it could be a mixture but which you think it was primarily those who think it was love for the Lord let's see my halogen animals so I don't need to ask the other two I'm gonna say I think it was love for one another I think it was all three because they're all very much related but hearing what John said to the man wrote I had the feeling their love for one another because he says you can't be loving God if you don't love one another and somehow the one thing that impresses the outsider most about a church is love between church members which they can see they can't see the love of God for the church but they can see their love for one another and this to them is proof to the outsider that there's love that love really can exist between people who would normally not like each other you see what I'm getting it I think it is all three that you can't have one without the other two but I have the feeling that the main thing was their love for one another because that's somehow the link between the other two well whether you agree with that or not one modern translation actually says you've given up loving each other as you did at first and I have the feeling that's probably the right one so how do they get this put right I think Paul would have said the same thing he said in Colossians for example which is a church not far from Ephesus above all these things put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony which means that if that love is lacking then sooner or later the church will disintegrate there will be parties that will be splits they'll be all kinds things will happen that will destroy that church because love for one another is the cement that holds everything else together in perfect harmony I'm sure it is that love for one another well how do you put it right three steps the three r's remember repent resume let's look at the number one the cure for having lost that love is to use your memory and cast your mind back to the days when it was there try and go back and say what was it like when we did have that love that's the first step remember and he says go on remembering recall the early days the good old days how was it with you then and I think all of us would have to say that when we first became Christians there was more love all three the Lord each other and the world remember repent you go backwards first but then you come back into the present and repent means turn right around reverse your course turn around but this is not emotional love of times when you feel emotional when you have affection the times when you do but you can go on loving someone whether you feel like it or not and this is where the third one comes in resume he says do the things you did at first now here's an amazing this seems to be back to front but what he's saying is if you remember how you express your love and then repeat what you used to do you'll find the love will return it's as if he's talking to a husband when did you last take flowers home or chocolates well do it again and see if that doesn't bring the love back there are some men who take flowers after a long pier and the wife says what have you been up to see so unused to it but isn't it an amazing piece of advice do the outside of it and the inside will come back remember how you used to express that love and then do those things again even though you don't feel like it and see what happens inside well it's good advice try it resume those activities that you used to do oh why do I think of oh Henry do you remember a Henry is lovely story about a very poor couple and he had a beautiful watch that he'd been given by his grandfather and she had beautiful long fair hair down to her waist and they each had a birthday coming up or was it Christmas and they each had no money to buy anything for the others so the girl had a hair cut off and sold it to a wig maker and bought a chain for his watch and he sold his watch and bought a brushing okay oh yeah it's a real sort of the five Kleenex story but it's it's a question of that's what you did when you loved then do it again great practical advice isn't it do the things you did it first resume and then there's the appeal here for a zania I've told you already the appeal is always to the individual your church may have lost his first love but you get yours back the first place to be an overcomer is not in the world but in the church to overcome what's slipping a new church yourself you can't be responsible for the rest of the church but you can be responsible for yourself that's the appeal he who overcomes in Ephesus the whole church may have lost its first love but you get yours back and I'll make a promise to you and the assurance he's given a strong warning to the church that he could come and close it down now he gives a very lovely incentive if the penalty is corporate the prize is individual God makes no promises to church as he promises individuals whatever the state of your church he holds you responsible for your state and he wants to reward that so what will he do he says if you overcome this problem if you get back to your first love in other words then you will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God that's a tree that we haven't been able to eat from ever since the first couple were banished from the Garden of Eden scientists are looking for it they would love to find the elixir of life a tree that enables you to go on living forever so that you need never fear death anymore but there is such a tree it disappeared from the Garden of Eden but it appears again in revelation 22 by the side of the river running through the New Jerusalem there's the tree of life with fruit every month we're going to be on a fruit diet in glory as Adam and Eve were eating meat only came in after the flood before that they want a fruit diet and we shall be in glory but it's fruit that will keep us perfectly healthy forever what Jesus saying is no Church is perfect but that is no excuse for you you be an overcomer overcome this for yourself now did they listen did they respond well we visited the ruins of the Church of Mary the Virgin it was a large Church and beyond it there was a Baptist tree in the ground lovely baptistry and I stood then I wondered how many were baptized in this place that's a large church building was the largest ruin of a church we saw in all the seven places so they must have listened furthermore we have proof that they listened in the early 2nd century there was a bishop in far-off Antioch witch's way the other end of Turkey still in Turkey but just around the corner and the Bishop of Antioch was a man called Ignatius and we have some of his letters and we have a letter of Ignatius to Ephesus and in that letter he congratulate s' them on three things one that some of their members have been so faithful that they've been martyred for their faith it is wonderful to have a church in which people will die for Jesus this is secondly I congratulate you on your orthodoxy you've held to the truths and you want the truth but he said above all you have a reputation for being a loving Church it's now beautiful they listen to they responded they did the things that done at first and they became again a loving Church and by the second century that was the reputation they had so much so that a very famous Council was held in Ephesus in the year 431 in that very church of Mary the Virgin understand there and think that one of the most important economical councils of the church was held on that spot there are three decisions that they made at least two of which I'm very happy about one of which I'm very unhappy about so tell you all of them the first thing they did was they settled forever what we call the Canon of the New Testament meaning the books of the New Testament because there are a lot of all kinds of books circulating around there was the Gospel of Thomas the Gospel of Peter and all sorts of weird Gospels full of legends and that council decided which book should be in our Bible the Year 431 and they included revelation and that was really the time when the book of Revelation was finally settled as part of our Bible or I'm certain that it was but then Ephesus had a particular interest in that second decision they made or the second thing they discussed was the person of Jesus because by then there were all kinds of rumors as to whether Jesus was human divine or a mixture or whatever and they they discussed that the third thing they did which I'm not at all happy about they declared that believing in a millennium was heresy and I'm afraid that was largely due to a naughty man called augustine but they ruled out the millennium no longer did people believe Jesus was going to reign on earth for a thousand years and the result is that ever since Christian Hope has been centered in heaven rather than on earth so once again we know that human councils can be fallible and can be a mixture of good and bad we must always be able to distinguish between the two but whereas in Jesus they had more truth than love they finished up with both love and truth and therefore survived from many centuries today even the city has gone so the church is no more and there's nothing left of Christianity in Ephesus and indeed there are no people there so there's just a ruin and yet to think that the seventh wonder of the world the Temple of Diana the stones were used to build the church later Christianity replaced these pagan religions now we face a similar problem called syncretism we too are under pressure from other religions other gods are we going to be faithful to Jesus you can't mix them they will mix Jesus stands alone and I believe one of the tests that they had which we are going to have to is whether we stay faithful to Jesus and are willing to be different from the society around us whatever it costs order the consequences above all we must remember that even if we're willing to die for Jesus I may give my body to be burned but if I have not loved no prophet 1 Corinthians 13 is the chapter we need to go and study after we've read the letter to the Ephesians let's pray Lord Jesus will you help us to get our priorities right above all put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony we confess Lord that there is not perfect harmony and so many of our churches and we can't we feel frustrated that we can't put it all right but we pray that we may hear your word well put yourself right be overcomers thank you for this letter you wrote still speaks to us may we respond and reply for your name's sake amen

Channel: David Pawson - Official

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Length: 40min 12sec (2412 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2014