Rekindle That First Love - "Do the Former Deeds"

 Those Ephesians must rekindle that love they once had if they do not want to lose out.  "Therefore" Jesus tells them,  "remember from what you have fallen, and repent and do the former deeds, if you do not, I am coming to you, and I will remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent." (Revelation 2:5) How did Christians in the Ephesian congregation receive those words?  We do not know.  We hope that they repented and succeeded in reawakening their love for Jehovah.  If they did not, then their lamp would be extinguished and their lampstand removed. They would lose their privilege of beaming forth the truth. 

Nevertheless, Jesus has this encouraging word for the Ephesians: "Still, you do have this, that you hate the dees of the sect of Nicolaus, which I also hate." (Revelation 2:6) At least thy hated sectarian division, just as the Lord Jesus Christi hates it.  As the years went by, however, many congregations failed to heed those words of Jesus. Lack of love for Jehovah, for the truth, and for one another resulted in their drifting into spiritual darkness.  They became fragmented into numerous quarreling sects. "Christian" copyists who had no love for Jehovah removed God's very name from the Greek manuscripts of the Bible.  Lack of love also allowed room for teaching Babylonish and Grecian doctrines such as  hellfire, purgatory, and the Trinity, in the name of Christianity.  Having no love for God and for the truth, most those who claimed to be Christian ceased to preach the good news of God's Kingdom.  They came to be dominated by a selfish clergy class that made it own kingdom here on earth. - Compare  1 CORINTHIANS  4:8. 

When judgment started with the house of God in 1918, the sectarian clergy of Christendom were given open support to World War I, urging Catholics and Protestants on both sides to slaughter one another.  (1 Peter 4:17) Unlike the Ephesians congregation that hated what the sect of Nicolas was doing. Christendom's religions had long been riddled  with conflicting anti-God doctrines, and their clergy had thrown their lot in with the world, of which Jesus said his disciples must be no part.  (John 15:17-19)  Their congregations, igorant of the Bible's  theme, God's Kingdom, were not lampstands beaming forth Scriptural truth, nor were their  members part of the spiritual temple of Jehovah.  Their leading men (and women)  were not stars but were revealed to be members of  "the man of lawlessness." -2 THESSALONIANS 2:3; MALACHI 3:1, 3. 

Next time: Rekindle That First Love- "Do the Former Deeds" - Conclusion

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