DEPARTURE AND RECOVERY
I think in the message to the church at Ephesus we have marked out by the Lord Himself the point of departure, and in the message to Philadelphia we have on the part of the Lord the recognition of the point of recovery, and these are the two thoughts I desire to bring before you on this occasion. It is an immense thing to have the expressed judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no need for any of us to be in any uncertainty with regard to His judgment upon matters at the present time. I do not mean matters pertaining to our responsible life here or to our circumstances, or to ourselves, but matters pertaining to His glory, to that which is in relationship to Himself; that which is the delight and satisfaction of His own heart.
One feels very much at the present time the need of grace from the Lord to rise above every form of selfishness. We are blocked up and hindered by selfishness, perhaps to a greater extent than we are aware of. I do not mean common selfishness with regard to our own things, but selfishness in regard to the Lord’s things; we are much hindered in this way. We need to be delivered from this kind of selfishness, so that apart from every thought of ourselves we might be able to look at things in the light of the Lord, in the light of the relationship of the assembly to the Lord and what is really involved in that relationship.
In the first place I want to bring before you the point of departure. I am not speaking of that which is merely individual. I am speaking concerning Christ and the assembly. Our attention has been called of late to the distinction between the primary thoughts of God, and those thoughts of God which have been brought before us consequent upon the entrance of sin—the presence of sin in the world, and I would like to say that the relationship of the assembly to Christ belongs to the primary thoughts of God. In the very beginning of the Bible, in the account of things here prior to the entrance of sin, when there was nothing of the kind to affect man, nor to call out the blessed activities of God in grace. I need not recount to you the story of creation as we have it by the Holy Ghost in the opening of Genesis. I refer to the six days of creation, and how at last man was brought upon the scene, everything ordered and arranged by God with reference to man, Then the man was brought upon the scene. The whole scene of creation was open under the eye of God; there was nothing evil in it; God was able to say as He surveyed it that it was “very good”. It pleased Him to look upon it, and it was at that time that you get that wonderful statement, “It is not good for man to dwell alone”. You might think it primarily applied to Adam, but no! it primarily applied to Christ.
We are told in Romans 5, that Adam was the figure of Him that is to come, and we must take account of things as under the eye of God. God’s mind, God’s interest, was primarily in Christ. When He said concerning the man down here. “It is not good that man should be alone” Gen 2: 18, we then get for the first time in scripture after the creation of man the expression of divine sovereignty. God says, “I will”, What did He “will”? What was His purpose—His counsel? What was in the mind and heart of God? It was this, “I will provide an help meet for him”. There we get in type Christ and the church! Sin is not in question; sin is not there. I have no doubt that in the light of the first Epistle of John that sin existed at that time, but it did not exist in connection with man nor in relation to the creation brought before us in the opening of Genesis and which God pronounced to be “very good”. Sin existed already in relation to Satan; he was the original sinner—he “sinneth from the beginning” (1 John 3: 8) or “outset”, but there was a created scene down here without sin. So that we are not going beyond scripture in saying that the truth of Christ and the assembly belongs to the primary thoughts of God.
I do not wish to traverse all the distance between the opening and the end of the Bible, but I just want to call your attention to the end. When the end is brought before us, God does not say much about the eternal state, though He speaks plainly, and no doubt tells us all that we need to know about it at the present time; and when the new heavens and new earth come into view in Revelation 21 what do we see? We see the bride of Christ. We see her in all her undimmed loveliness and freshness. One thousand years at least had rolled by; the world to come, the whole millennial age had passed by, and are there no signs of fading, no signs of age in her? No, she is still “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”, Rev 21: 2. I only refer to this, I am not dwelling upon it now, but I wish to point out that if in the opening of Genesis before the existence of sin took place so far as this world is concerned we see foreshadowed God’s primary thought, so in Revelation 21 when sin is “no more”—gone—when what John Baptist declared of the Lord Jesus Christ on the banks of Jordan when he sees Jesus coming to him, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” when that has taken place, He has borne it away and not a trace of sin or of anything to remind you that sin ever existed remains in that bright scene—that blessed moment, then we find God free to return to His primary thoughts. There is Christ and there is His assembly; He is not as Mediator, there is no need of mediation then, but there, beloved, in that scene is His assembly adorned for Him; there she is in all the glory and brightness and freshness that God has purposed to adorn her with, “as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev 21: 2), she has a place in that scene.
Now I would like to speak simply about this message to the angel of the assembly in Ephesus. I leave the Old Testament for the present; the church is not there, as we know, except in type; the first actual mention of the truth of the church is in Matthew 16. There Christ says, “on this rock I will build my assembly”, Matt 16: 16. The moment has come; there has been the revelation by the Father of the blessed Person of Christ to Peter, who says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. And the Lord says, “On this rock” Himself, the Father’s revelation of Himself “I will build my assembly”.
Now I pass on. We come to the Acts of the Apostles—to the day of Pentecost; the Lord had died; He had been raised from among the dead and had ascended, and taken His place up there in glory, and from that scene of heavenly glory the Holy Ghost descended on the day of Pentecost. The result is that the church is here; she is here as an actual fact; the presence of the Holy Ghost from the risen, ascended and glorified Christ—the Son of God, has brought into existence the assembly.
But I am not going to speak now about the assembly as the “one body”, nor as the house of God, the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, nor as seen for a brief season as the assembly at Jerusalem; but what I am going to speak about is local assemblies—assemblies here and there. There were many local assemblies, but I want now to call your attention to the one particular assembly at Ephesus.
I think the scriptures fully entitle us to consider the assembly at Ephesus as rising, in apprehension of privilege unfolded to them, above and beyond every other assembly at that time. From a very small beginning (see Acts 19) the assembly at Ephesus had grown numerically and spiritually. Afterwards we find the apostle paying them a long visit; you remember when on his way to Jerusalem he sent from Miletus and called the elders of the Ephesian assembly to him, and he rehearsed to them his ministry. He said that he had not “shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God”, Acts 20: 27. In that assembly he had unfolded all the wonderful range of things that lies within that expression—“the counsel of God”. Later on he writes to them a marvellous letter. We have often been told that there is a certain connection between each epistle and the state of the saints composing the particular assembly to which it was written; you cannot fail to see this connection in the first epistle to Corinth, and in the epistle to the assemblies in Galatia, and that to the saints at Colosse, and we see this connection in a marked way in the Epistle to the Ephesians. What a marvellous unfolding of the counsels of God is there! One never tires reading the opening of the epistle to the Ephesian assembly. It begins at the very top. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. You cannot find anything above that, it is the peak that towers up above every other peak; and the Ephesian saints were there, and as there, in Christ, they were spoken to as having been blessed with every spiritual blessing. Then further on you get in chapter 3, that wonderful prayer. Do you know the climax of that prayer? He says, “and that ye may know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”, v 19.
I believe that prayer was answered in the assembly in Ephesus. I do not believe that the apostle bowed his knees for naught. He says: “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father ... of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named”, Eph 3: 14, 15. I believe that prayer found its answer. What light, what marvellous privilege, what a state there must have been in those saints! That prayer has in view what is subjective in the saints: “to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”, v 16. It is inward and spiritual; it was to be effected in them, and that “being rooted and founded in love” they might be able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, length, depth and height, and that they might “know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”, that they might be “filled even to all the fulness of God”, That was not simply what was unfolded in ministry to them, but there had been wrought in them by the Spirit an answer to it; these saints at Ephesus had reached the top. You say, How do you know? I know it from Revelation 2. The Lord says there: “But I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love”. If first love has never been reached you cannot be charged with having left it. It was reached at Ephesus; in that assembly; by the Spirit, there had been wrought such a response—a full response to the love of Christ for the assembly, and that is first love. It is not the first love of a new convert (we use the expressions of scripture very loosely). It is the assembly down here with the light of the range of the counsels of God; it is the assembly down here in the knowledge of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge and as answering to that love.
And that is where declension began. I do not mean geographically, I mean where it began spiritually. It began at the highest point that can be reached down here (I say it reverently, recognising all Christ’s interests in the assembly, and recognising the ministry of the Holy Ghost with us in the assembly), the highest point that can be reached by the assembly down here—the only thing I know beyond it is not beyond it even in character, it is only the difference between spiritual reality now and eternal actuality by and bye. Well, that is where it began, But the wonderful thing is this—in connection with this particular message, and indeed with all these messages—one gets to know, if I might say it reverently, the feelings of the heart of Christ in relation to His assembly here. Oh, how He must have felt that leaving of first love! Really outwardly the assembly at Ephesus was still in a wonderful state; there were no signs or symptoms of outward decay; there was wonderful activity, wonderful energy of a spiritual sort, there was no thought at Ephesus of putting up with anything evil, they had tried those who took high ground, who said they were apostles and were not, and they had found them liars, and there was patience, and endurance, they had not fainted. But the eye of Christ discerns, and His lips pronounce the declension.
“I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love”. I would, beloved, that the impression—the divine conviction might come home to us of what really is proper to the assembly in relation to Christ; that is what the Lord looks for and prizes; it is not what people, and even God’s people sometimes value and prize. A great deal is thought of outward order, and I am not saying a word against it, but if there is not the responsive affection to the love of Christ for the church it will not please Him, it will not suit Him. It was not simply that they had fallen, but the point of the statement is: “Whence” they had fallen. I would not make light of any kind of fall, but I would that we might feel the force of the Lord’s words: “Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent”! They had fallen from the greatest height, and the Lord calls them to repent, and I would that we might understand it. We think we understand repentance on the part of the sinner, but have you ever thought of what repentance is on the part of the saint, and on the part of the assembly? The Lord says: “Repent and do the first works”. You might say, What are first works? First works are the expression of first love. There is a great variety of works; there are works that are not thought much of down here, and which do not gain credit here, but I am sure of this, that “first works” will not fail to secure His approbation and the expression of His delight. The assembly at Ephesus had left first love, and with the decline of first love, first works were no more.
Let me say a word further with regard to the phases of the decline. In a certain sense the seven messages to the seven assemblies present a consecutive and a successive history, but (not to go into details) what is the final result of falling from first love? Spued out of Christ’s mouth. There is quite a journey between, but this is where it leads to, that is the ultimate end of falling from the heavenly height of first love. So it is a very serious matter, and I would that we might think of it in a very serious way, and remember, beloved brethren, we are here where the decline has taken place, and we are here in the presence of the consequences of the decline; we cannot ignore it, and it would be profitable for us to recognise it.
Now I turn for a moment to the message to Philadelphia. There we see the point of recovery. If you read these messages it will produce a sad impression upon your heart. First in Ephesus there is a fall from the height of first love, then you come down to Smyrna and Pergamos, and while there is in Smyrna much the Lord can and does approve of, and concerning which He encourages the saints to be faithful unto death and He will give them a crown of life, still on the other hand there are evidences of increasing declension. They hate the deeds of the Nicolaitanes at Ephesus, but they are tolerated further on, and their doctrine is tolerated too. You trace all these assemblies and you come to the last four, which are those which particularly concern us, because it is evident that these last four—Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea—continue to the end. So somewhere and somehow there must be that now that answers to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Laodicea. I cannot speak for the want of time so fully as I would like, but I may say this—you will find in Sardis the last appeal of Christ to the church here; there is no appeal after Sardis, there is no need of appeal in Philadelphia, and Laodicea is beyond appeal. The Lord says, “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee out of my mouth”. There may be individuals that He loves, but not the church at Laodicea. When you come to Philadelphia, I do not know how it impresses you, but one feels at least relieved. There is Thyatira—that terrible state of things (there is I know a remnant described as “the rest”, but I do not speak of that at this moment); there is Sardis, “a name to live”; and what good is a name to live when you are dead; it is a mockery; it is empty pretension, works not found complete before God (Rev 3: 2), and the terrible threat hanging over Sardis that the Lord would treat her like the world—would come upon her as a thief in the night. When you come to Laodicea, well, you have to turn away from it if you are at all spiritual, if you have any feeling for Christ you can only turn away from it with a pained heart at the utter indifference to Christ that is evinced; self-complacency, self-satisfaction. “I am rich and have need of nothing”, v 17. What a terrible state, so obnoxious, so nauseating to Christ.
Now, when we come to Philadelphia, I think one might be justified in speaking of its surroundings, for it is preceded by Thyatira and Sardis and succeeded (I mean in the order of statement, I am not speaking of the order of time) by Laodicea, and there stands Philadelphia. What do you find there? What is perfectly according to Christ. Perfectly suitable to Christ, and, beloved, the Lord Jesus has not one word of censure or blame to say. You cannot read the message to Philadelphia without feeling impressed with the encouragement, complete from the first word to the last. I would that I were able and had the time to speak fully of it, but what I want to say is that the point of recovery is in Philadelphia. We have dwelt a good deal upon the point of departure, because you must see the point of departure in order to apprehend the point of recovery; the point of recovery must be equal to the point of departure. Will Christ be satisfied with anything less? Will the Spirit of God work from any lower standard than what is perfectly suitable to Christ? I cannot believe such a thing. It is impossible. I want to say emphatically that whilst the word “love” on the part of Philadelphia (mark this!) is not mentioned in the message, His love is declared when He says, “and to know that I have loved thee” (v 9); but while the word love as marking Philadelphia is not mentioned there is the threefold unquestionable evidence that recovery to first love is reached in the answer to His love in the saints in Philadelphia.
I hope we shall be able to divest our minds, beloved, of all geographical or ecclesiastical ideas. I trust the Lord will give us ability to take in the spiritual application of the message to Philadelphia. Let me tell you one thing very plainly, there is no publicity in Philadelphia. Are you on the line of publicity? What is the idea of publicity? It is the eye of man—the approval, the endorsement of man; and what an unholy competition there is all around us today, each, as it were, bidding to outvie the other with regard to publicity. Let me tell you there is no publicity in Philadelphia; hence Philadelphia does not represent any public body. Philadelphia is not brethrenism. If you have ever taken that thought up, drop it! We all would seek to be Philadelphian as to our state, but Philadelphia is not brethrenism. How that beloved servant of the Lord, Mr Raven, laboured in his soul, that the saints might be delivered from the idea of brethrenism! When you come to “isms”, I would not give you much for the choice; I was once, and I am ashamed to say it, in Methodism, and I am sure the Lord never brought me out of Methodism to put me in another “ism”. It is a matter of prayerful exercise, and has been with me for some years, that not one bit of “ism” might be found about us, and I would wish the Lord to utterly divest me of it. There is nothing for the eye of man in Philadelphia, nothing for the praise of man; but everything for His eye and everything according to Himself.
Now for the threefold proof. Oh, how beautiful are the three ‘mys’ of this message! Are you acquainted with them? Christ is speaking. He says, “my word”, “my name”, and the “word of my patience”. Now, when you find these things, you may know that the Spirit of God has effected recovery. First love is there, and first love asserts itself, “my word”, “my name”, “word of my patience”. The Lord says, “thou hast a little power”. What it must be to Christ to be able to recognise the presence and proof of the power of the Holy Ghost, for any real power in Christianity is that of the Holy Ghost. “Thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word”, not “words”, “If a man love me he will keep my word”, not ‘ought to’. His word is kept and cherished. He is not here. What is here? What represents Him? In one sense the Holy Ghost represents Him, but in another sense He is represented by His word, and His name, and the word of His patience. I do not want to strain this passage, or to give any extraordinary meaning to it; there is no need of that; it is unmistakable: “thou hast kept my word”, and “hast not denied my name”. There is recovery! The love of the Christ has its place in the hearts of those who morally and spiritually stand for Philadelphia, and there is response to that love. Then there is another expression. Philadelphia has a crown. “I come quickly: hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown”. What is the crown? First love is the crown, Christ has got His crown. There is that which is His distinguishing glory, and there is that which is the distinguishing glory of the assembly here, the crown seen in Philadelphia. Do not let any one take it from you. Be careful about your crown!
There is one thing more I should like to say before I close and that is—do not take Philadelphia as representing anything outward, anything material—what some speak of as assembly order or anything of that sort. Let me remind you, there was much in Ephesus that the Lord Himself commended; there was nothing outward or external lacking there; all was as it should be, but we find this in the history of things, that where first love is lacking, sooner or later, even the outward thing will go. It has gone. I would ask you, can you find anything that answers even to that which the Lord commends in Ephesus at the present time? It has gone. Oh, beloved, do not get the idea of anything outward, even that of meetings or fellowship, however blessed that may be and is; what the Lord is seeking now and the Spirit too (and no wonder, for He is coming, He says: “I come quickly”) is to effect in us, to produce and maintain in us, an answer to the love of Christ to His assembly, and that is recovery. It is a state produced by the Spirit.
I am sorry to have to speak so briefly, but I trust the Lord will help us. I feel it is a great thing for the saints of God to get help inwardly. The Lord is coming. I would like to allude to one more scripture. There is a certain connection between Philadelphia and Revelation 22, nearly at the close, where the Lord presents Himself; He says: “I Jesus ... I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”. Listen to the response! “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come”.
May this blessed effect be really produced in us to His praise and glory.