If you follow along your heart and mind,
Revelation 2, 1, the Bible says, Under the
angel of the pastor of the church at
Ephesus' right, these things saith he that holdeth
the seven stars in his right hand, who
walketh in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks.
I know thy works, and thy labor, and
thy patience, and how thou canst not bear
them which are evil, and thou hast tried
them which say they are apostles, and are
not, and hast found them liars.
And hast borne, and hast patience, and for
my name's sake, hast labored, and hast not
fainted.
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou
hast left thy first love.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and
repent, and do the first works, or else
I will come unto thee quickly, and will
remove thy candlestick out of its place, except
thou repent.
Verse number four again, please look there for
our text.
Jesus said, Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love.
I want to bring you a simple message
this morning, as we begin again our revival
meeting, entitled, You Didn't Lose It, You Left
It.
Thank you very much, you may be seated.
Let's bow our heads and hearts, and ask
the Lord to bless our time together, shall
we?
Father, once again, we thank you for now
this second week, a revival meeting that we
can have, and Lord, truly, it's not going
to be revival, unless you revive us, unless
you come down.
And Lord, we pray, as the psalmist did,
Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy
people may rejoice in thee?
Habakkuk prayed, O Lord, revive thy work, in
the midst of thy years.
I'm reminded, Lord, of Habakkuk chapter two, in
verse number 15, where you said that you
would show us a work that we would
not even believe, though it would be told
us.
And, O God, this week, we pray you'd
show us some things that are unbelievable, that,
God, you would save, you would convict, you
would convince and comfort, and, O God, you
would do something this week in this local
church and in this community for the glory
of God.
Help me now as I preach.
Help these as they listen.
In Jesus' name, amen.
In Revelation chapter number two, verses one through
five, what we are going to be dealing
with is of Asia Minor.
Now, what you must understand in Revelation chapter
two and chapter number three is Mr. John
is here on the Isle of Patmos, and
he has been kind of exiled there, and
history tells us that he was boiled in
hot seething oil.
His skin was taken from his body, and
he was taken out there.
God called him up to the third heaven
and began to show him some wonderful, wonderful
things.
But in Revelation chapter two and chapter number
three, we are not dealing with imaginative churches.
We are dealing with actual, physical, New Testament,
local assemblies, local bodies, local fundamental churches.
And in this portion of Scripture in Revelation
chapter number two, we are going to speculate
for just a moment, all right?
What I mean by that is this.
Let's speculate, and let's suggest in our message
that this church did not have a pastor.
Now, the reason I'm just kind of suggesting
that is because we know, according to the
context, that they did have a pastor, all
right?
Because it says, unto the angel or the
pastor of the church.
But let's say for a moment that they
did not.
There would not be a fundamental Bible-believing
preacher in his right mind who would not
want to have pastored these people.
The word Ephesus, by its very name, means
desirable.
And there were very many things in this
church that were very, very desirable.
These were the fundamentalists of the day, if
you will.
These were the sold-out, separated people of
their day.
Dan Sabner said one time very wisely, and
I'll reiterate it.
He said, you can dot every I and
cross every T and still spell the word
wrong.
And here was a group of people that
dotted their I's.
Here was a group of people that crossed
their T's.
They had the right Bible.
Theologically, philosophically, and doctrinally, they were right, but
they did not spell the word right.
I want you to see in verse number
two, if you would please, what I call
number one.
God recognized what the church was doing.
Basically, He gave them an old-fashioned commendation.
Look what their commendation was.
It's fourfold, verse number two.
He said, I know thy works, and thy
labor, and thy patience.
And how thou canst not bear them which
are evil, and thou hast tried them which
say they are apostles and are not, and
hast found them liars.
And hast borne, and hast patience, and for
my namesake hast labored, and hast not fainted.
I want you to see number one in
his commendation when God recognized what this church
was doing because they were doing some wonderful
things.
He said, number one, these people were diligent.
This was your Sunday school crowd, your Sunday
morning crowd, your Sunday night crowd, your Wednesday
night crowd, your revival meeting crowd.
These were not people that laid around until
the sun warmed their feet.
These were not slipshod people.
These were diligent people.
My Bible tells me in the book of
Ecclesiastes, the wisest man in all the world,
the man Solomon, said these words, And whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with
all thy might.
My granddaddy used to teach me.
He said, Greggy boy, he said, if you
are going to do something, if it is
worth doing, it is worth doing right.
And ladies and gentlemen, since God's work is
worth doing, it is worth being diligent and
doing God's work right.
We don't need lazy Christians.
We need Christians that all have the fire
of God within their bosom and within their
soul.
And so he said, number one, these people
were diligent.
But he said, number two, these people also
were disciplinary.
Say, what do you mean?
Well, look back at verse 2 again.
He said, I know thy works and thy
labor and thy patience, and how thou canst
not bear them which are evil.
What does that mean?
These people did not put up with tomfoolery
in the house of God.
These people did not put up with sin.
These people did not put up with immorality.
And if there was no sin in that
church, they practiced what is called church discipline.
Now, somebody says, well, I'll tell you what,
you fundamental Baptist preachers, I'll tell you, you're
so mean because you believe in church discipline.
I'll tell you why we believe in it,
because Jesus believed in church discipline.
Now, friends, if you let sin into the
house of God and you let it seed
and you let it boil and you let
it grow, it will forsake your assembly, it
will forsake the local church, it will destroy
the local church, it will destroy families, and
these people were disciplinary.
They didn't put up with sin in God's
house.
Now, in the Bible, the apostle Paul, he
was writing to the Corinthians.
Now, it took him two books to write
to the Corinthians, 1 and 2 Corinthians.
This was the most spiritually immature group of
people in all of the New Testament.
Paul told them, listen, when you should be
eating T-bone steaks for the glory of
God, you're still playing on a sandbox wearing
diapers and sucking on a pacifier.
He said, you need to grow up.
I mean, these people were taking one another
to court.
These people had open immorality.
These people had dress problems.
These people had church problems.
I mean, they had all kind of problems.
By the way, can I just say this?
This will just be green stamps.
It won't cost you a dime.
Did you know that the most immature group
of people in all the New Testament were
the Corinthians and that was the only church
in the New Testament that spoke in tongues?
Tell that to your charismatic friends that think
speaking in tongues is spiritual.
The only group in the Bible that spoke
in tongues was the most unspiritual people in
the Bible, alright?
And so, here was a group of people
that were very unspiritual.
Here was a group of people that were
very, very carnal, Paul told them.
Let me tell you what one of their
problems was.
In 1 Corinthians chapter number 5, there was
a young man that was living in immorality
with his stepmother.
He was living in adultery.
He was living in fornication.
He was living in, for lack of a
better word, incest with his own stepmother.
Now, Paul came there and he began to
write and do you think the apostle Paul
was writing with his little pen to the
inspiration of God's spirit?
Then he came there to hold a revival
meeting in the church and he got up
and he said, now ladies and gentlemen, I
understand there's a young man here that's living
in fornication with his stepmother and for the
sake of the tithes and for the sake
of the offering and for the sake of
the bus ministry and for the sake of
the signs of the people and the signs
of Sunday school, sir, we'll just have you
know, junior, that you can just keep living
like that and we won't rebuke you too
harshly and no, we don't agree with it
and it's not our lifestyle but you were
probably born that way and it was probably
inbred in your life and so you just
keep tithing, you just keep being a member
and God bless you, brother, we'll pray for
you.
That is not what Paul said.
But if Paul came in there with both
guns just to blaze and I mean, he
pulled out the gospel gun, he shot it
and let the tips fall where they may.
He said, turn such and one over to
Satan for the destruction of the flesh that
the spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus.
These people did not put up with sin
in the church and we ought not put
up with sin either.
We need a purging in our local churches
in America.
And so number one, these people were diligent.
Number two, these people were disciplinary.
But I want you to see number three,
these people were very discerning.
They were discerning.
Say, what do you mean?
Well, look again at verse number two.
The middle of the verse says this, and
thou hast tried them which say, now that's
an important word, S-A-Y, I have
it circled in my Bible, here's why it's
important.
It says, and tried them which say they
are apostles and are not and has found
them liars.
These people were discerning.
Here's the reason I think they were discerning.
I think they had their nose in the
Bible more than they do in the newspaper
and the Reader's Digest, TV Guide, and Time
Magazine, and Sports Illustrated.
These people were students of the Word of
God.
If somebody came to their church and mounted
their pulpit and began to preach and he
began to preach heresy or he began to
preach false doctrine, immediately their spiritual fundamental antennas
would go off and they would detect, hey,
that is not right.
These people were discerning.
I mean, this is a group of people
that if they were alive in modern day
Christianity, if they were alive in this year
and at this century, if Ephesus would have
been around today and they would have turned
on TVN and all these other people on
TV, they would have immediately known these people
are heretics.
These people are crooked as a dog's hind
leg.
These people are lower down than a snake's
navel in a wagon track.
These people would have known they detected it
because they were discerning.
And I'm going to tell you something.
If we are lacking anything in our local
churches in the day and age in which
we live, it is a lack of discernment.
Being able to tell that which is right,
that which is wrong, that which is heresy,
that which is not heresy.
These people were diligent.
These people were disciplinary.
These people were discerning.
Sounds like a pretty good church to me,
does it not?
Look at verse number three, it gets better.
In verse number three, it says, it has
born and has patience and for my name's
sake, can I remind you, can I remind
you that a man is not talking here?
This is Jesus.
It's not the pastor saying, you've done all
this for my sake.
It's not the evangelist saying, you've done this
for my sake.
Hey, this is Jesus giving them a commendation.
He said, and for my name's sake has
labored and has not fainted.
He said, fortunately, these people were devoted.
They were devoted to the work of God.
They were as some of those Corinthians were
when they began to grow what Paul called
addicted to the ministry.
These people were the Sunday school teachers.
These people were the visitators and were the
door knockers and were the hospital visitors and
were the prayers.
These people were very, very devoted to the
work of God.
Say, how do you know?
You know what it means?
It means to work to a point of
physical exhaustion.
These people strained.
They sweat.
And as we talked about last week, a
week before, I pressed toward the mark.
Agonize, strain, sweat, blood, push.
These people were pushing for the glory of
God.
They were devoted to all that God had
given them.
They were devoted to the local church.
They didn't mind scrubbing toilets.
They didn't mind painting walls, hanging drywall.
It didn't matter to them.
These people were devoted to the work of
God.
They were devoted to the work of the
church.
And God commended them for that.
And He said, listen, you are doing some
wonderful things.
But you'll notice something in this portion of
Scripture.
God just keeps pumping them.
Keeps pumping them.
And their head gets bigger and bigger and
bigger like a watermelon-sized balloon.
And in verse 4, God bursts their bubble
wide open.
And He said, because although I'm giving you
a commendation, and although God recognized what the
church was doing in verse number 4, God
rebuked the church for what they had done.
Look at verse number 4.
Nevertheless, in spite of all this.
In spite of the fact that you're diligent.
In spite of the fact that you're devoted.
In spite of the fact that you're disciplinary.
In spite of the fact that you're discerning.
He said, in spite of all this.
Nevertheless, He said, I have some want against
me.
Now, can I be honest with you about
something?
If I say I've got something against you,
that's probably not a big deal because I'm
only here every now and then.
You know, I get in the truck and
I leave and I'm gone.
Most of you don't know me from Adam's
housecat anyhow.
And so it doesn't make any difference if
I say I'm mad at you.
You might want to get it right.
You might not.
Now, a pastor says he's got something against
you.
He's not leaving with me Friday night.
They said, I don't think he is.
But anyhow, he's going to stick around for
a little while.
And so if he says, listen, I'm mad
at you.
I'm upset at you.
That's probably something you need to reconcile.
That's something you need to fix because he's
around more.
But can I tell you something, friend?
If God Almighty says he's got something against
you, you better sit up straight, get the
crick out of your back, open your eyes,
perk your ears up, put the coffee on
and figure out what in the wide world
God's got against you.
Because, friend, when God says he's got a
beef against you, he's not playing games, friend.
And he said, you are doing everything right,
but I have something against you.
God said, I'm upset about something.
And then God dropped the bomb on him
and told him what it was, verse number
four, because thou hast left thy first love.
I'm not trying to be cute.
I'm not trying to be arrogant.
And I'm not trying to be cocky.
But I've heard a lot of well-meaning
preachers preach on this portion of Scripture.
And they say the church at Ephesus has
lost their first love.
No, that's what some preachers said.
That's not what God said.
He did not say they lost it.
He said they left it.
Now, friend, there is a big difference between
losing something and leaving something.
If you lose something, it's an accident and
you don't have any idea where it is.
But if you leave something, it's intentional.
You can go back and pick it up,
for example.
If you were to look...
Now, this year in our itineraries, and I
don't have any with me now, but this
year in our itineraries, it's the first year
of our ministry that we didn't have a
picture on our itinerary.
Our other three years, the four years we've
been in evangelism, our other three years, we
got pictures on our itinerary, and all three
of our itineraries, on my face, I have
a pair of glasses on that picture of
that itinerary.
People ask me, but why don't you wear
glasses anymore?
Do you have contacts?
No, I don't wear contacts.
But here's the story.
I was at the Grace Baptist Church of
Riddleton, Tennessee, and before the service one night,
the pastor and I, we went over and
we got down on our knees and began
to pray with a dear family that had
been out of church and needed to get
right with the Lord.
I took my glasses off and I don't
know if the kid got them.
I don't know if the vacuum sweeper got
them.
I don't know if the bulldog ate them.
I don't know where they went, but I
lost my glasses and I foamed it around
looking for them.
Well, we was at a church, Parkview Baptist
Church in Ardmore, Alabama, and it was raining
outside one night.
I had a new pair of glasses on
my face and the pastor wanted me to
go outside and help him.
Pastor Mitchell wanted me to take some of
his wife's junk from the house and some
of his wife's baskets and stuff from the
house down to a little shed, a little
storage shed that they had down there.
And so I took my glasses off my
face because it was raining and I didn't
want to get them all fogged up and
spotted, so I put them in my pocket
and we got to load and load and
unload and unload and do all this, that,
and the other.
After about 30 or 40 minutes I realized
my glasses were gone.
And so I went back and I said,
Honey, where are my glasses?
And I searched for the wife for me
to find them.
I forgot what actually happened to my third
pair, but I lost them somewhere else too.
And the only reason I don't have a
pair of glasses on my face right now
is because my wife gets tired of buying
me new pairs.
She said, You ain't buying no more whatsoever.
She said, We've been to Optometer Center after
Optometer Center.
We've been to Walmart and Super Walmart.
We've got your eyes dilated.
We had your eyes fixed and you've read
every chart across America and I just can't
keep a pair of glasses on my face.
I lose every cotton-picking pair I get.
I lose them, and the only reason I'm
not wearing them is because I'd lose them
tomorrow if I had them on my face.
That's why I just quit wearing them.
I just gave up.
I'll go blind.
I don't care.
No big deal.
I just keep losing them, losing them, and
losing them.
Now, it just stands reason to me that
if I left my glasses somewhere, like on
the piano, I'd just go back to the
piano and I'd just pick them up and
get them.
If I left them in the front pew,
I'd go to the front pew.
If I left them on the pulpit, I'd
go to the front pulpit.
I'd go to the pulpit and pick them
up.
But I didn't leave them.
I lost them.
On the flip side of that token, God
said, listen, you did not lose your love,
your passion, your zeal, and your excitement for
me.
He said, no sirree Bob, you didn't lose
it.
You left it.
He said it was an intentional thing.
You willingly and voluntarily walked away from my
love.
Can I remind you He's not talking to
lost people?
So God's people aren't off the hook this
morning.
He's talking to God's people.
Now, He gives them all these commendations.
He said, you're working, you're sweating, you're praying,
you're preaching, you're teaching, you're going, you're giving.
He said, you're doing all of these things,
but the problem is you are doing all
of it in the energy of the flesh.
He said, you're doing all of it without
loving me.
You're doing it out of rut.
You're doing it out of duty.
You're doing it out of religiosity.
And you're doing it out of routine.
And we give the Catholics a hard time
for doing the same thing that a lot
of we Baptists do every day of our
lives.
We serve Him because we feel like we
have to.
We go to church because it's just the
thing to do on Sunday.
If the only reason you come to church
is just because it's the thing to do,
you'd be better off just staying in the
bed.
If the only reason you read your Bible
just because the preacher gets up and tells
you to read the Bible, you might as
well just read another book, my dear friend,
because it's not going to do you any
good know-how.
If the only reason you serve God is
just because you feel like you have to
or because you made to or just because
you say, well, I tell you, the preacher's
always up preaching, live for God, live for
God, so I guess I'm going to have
to live for God.
Now, as a God, if you have an
attitude like that, you're not living for a
know-how because God don't want your service
out of rutting duty.
God wants your service out of love and
devotion.
Then I'm telling you what the truth, I
meet people, I'm convinced, you can believe what
you want to, but I'm convinced that probably
85 or 90% of the people that
come to our church has only come for
a social status.
They come to shake a few hands.
They come to hear a little preaching, a
little praying because they know on Monday morning
the preacher's going to see them somewhere running
out and about making his little visits and
stuff and he goes, hey, where were you
at?
And you know you don't have to give
them some silly answer.
And I think the reason a whole lot
of people give is because they think God's
going to blow their brains out with a
lightning bolt if they don't.
I think the reason a lot of people
pray is because they just feel like they
have to.
I think the reason a lot of men
have family devotions is because they just feel
like, well, it's just something that I've got
to do.
No, it's not something you've got to do.
It's something you get to do, friend.
We don't have to serve God.
We get to serve God.
And there's a big difference.
And these people were serving God, yes.
But they were doing it out of duty.
They were doing it out of routine.
And they had a mundane, ungodly, wicked, unspiritual
attitude about how they serve God.
They were doing it all in the flesh.
And I preach in churches all over this
country where all week long all we have
is a meeting because, man, they're spinning their
wheels.
If you ride a bicycle you can get
somewhere.
If you ride a bike if you ride
an exercise bike you ain't going nowhere, friend.
You're just spinning your wheels, spinning your wheels
because there's no ground under you.
And I don't want a Baptist church or
any church for that matter, friend.
They have no ground under them whatsoever and
they are spinning their wheels and spinning their
wheels and spinning their wheels and yes, they're
reading.
Yes, they're preaching.
Yes, they're teaching.
Yes, they're going.
Yes, they're giving.
But they're doing it all in the energy.
Let's say for a moment that when I
went to go pick up my wife on
Monday.
Now, you know, it's interesting, fellas.
How many of you fellas in this room
right now are married?
Stick up your hand.
I'll be honest.
Get that kink out of your elbow.
Raise your arm.
Amen.
Okay, several of you.
Okay, now.
How many of you fellas have ever been
away from your wife for at least three
days?
Stick your hand up there.
Okay.
Quite a few of you.
Okay.
Put your hand down.
Now, when your wife goes out of town
or when you go out of town for
a couple of days no big deal.
I can stay up as late as I
want and she ain't go anywhere.
I can leave my dirty socks laying around
the house and I don't have to pick
them up until she gets home.
When she gets home you better pick them
up.
I can eat anything I want.
If I want to go to McDonald's at
two or three o'clock in the morning
and fill my belly with some kind of
grease food and rat food, man, that's fine
with me and she can't say nothing about
it because she don't know where I'm at.
She's gone for three days.
But three weeks is an entirely different story.
You see, after three days it's kind of
okay and after a week it kind of
gets a little slow.
It kind of gets a little mundane.
You think to yourself, whew, it is not
good that man should be alone and man,
I try to read my Bible and all
I can think about is my wife.
I try to preach and all I can
think about is my wife.
I try to go golfing and all I
can think about is my wife.
And I'm telling you what's the truth, after
three weeks, friend, I mean, things start getting
real slow and start getting real boring and
real mundane.
And so, to be honest with you, I've
been away from my wife for about ten
days before but that's the longest.
But I've never been away from her for
26 days and I'll never be away from
her for 26 days again for the rest
of my life.
I'll tell you that right now.
But let's say that I got in my
truck Monday night after I was all tired
and I got through preaching.
Man, I drove down the road real fast
and popped some crystals in my belly or
something like that so I'd smell good when
I saw her.
And so I get down there real quick,
you know, and I come peeling in and
I see her and I give her a
big old hug and a big old kiss
and she looks me square down in the
eyeballs and she says, you know, honey, I've
been thinking about something since I've been over
in Thailand.
I've been kind of praying and spending a
little extra time in my Bible and you
know, I think from now on when I
travel with you and when I get in
that trailer and live in that thing, I
think from now on when I help you
out in your meetings and now when I
clean up your dirty clothes and now when
I fix your breakfast, lunch and supper and
coffee and all the meals and snacks in
between and now when I wash clothes and
now when I clean the house and clean
up after the little poodle dog and this,
that and the other, now when I watch
the children in the meetings and now when
I sing sometimes through the week and she
says, listen, I'm just going to have you
know, big boy, that the only reason now
for the rest of our marriage, for the
rest of our days, for the rest of
our ministry on God's green earth, she looks
me square down in the face and says,
the only reason I'm going to do any
of this is just simply out of duty.
I've come to the conclusion I don't love
you anymore.
Oh, I like you.
I've got admiration for you and I care
about you a little bit as a friend,
you know, but the only reason I'm going
to serve you and the only reason I'm
going to stay with you is just for
the sake of the name, for the sake
of the ministry.
But I'm not doing it because I love
you.
Now, one of two things would be true.
Number one, I would not be coming back
for the rest of the week because I'd
need some terrible, terrible marriage counseling because I'd
have a marriage on the rocks and I'd
be probably ending up in a divorce court
with a marriage like that.
That's not how marriage works.
But you know what?
I know a lot of Christians that serve
God the same way.
Oh, the only reason I'm winning souls is
because I feel like you make me do
it in the Bible.
No, the only reason I even serve you
and the only reason I even go to
church, the only reason I even give, the
only reason I do love my family and
do have family devotions, the only reason I'm
serving you, God, is because I feel like
I have to.
When I meet people like that all over
this country, they have no real devotion.
They have no real passion.
They have no real love, no real concern,
no real admiration for the King of kings
and Lord of lords.
And Jesus said, nevertheless, I am somewhat against
thee because thou hast left.
Your fault, not God's fault, not the preacher's
fault, has left thy first love.
I want you to look at verse number
five, if you would please, of Revelation, chapter
number two.
You know, I'm glad that when God paints
a dismal picture, He always gives a way
out of the dismality, if there's such a
word.
When God ever says, okay, son, I'm going
to do this you got a disease.
I'm glad he always gives a cure.
I'm glad he always gives a way out.
I'm glad he always gives a prescription.
Now, Dr. Bottle Stopper might not be able
to help you.
And Dr. Know-it-all and Dr. Do
-good-a-little, he might not be able
to help you completely and fully.
But if God says, listen, you got a
problem and I'm going to give you a
prescription, you put God's prescription into practice and
it'll work every time.
I promise you that right now, friend.
And God told them in verse number five,
He gave them a threefold mandate.
He gave them a threefold cure or a
threefold prescription, undeniable prescription, three things that they
could do in verse number five that would
cause them to stay in love and to
stay on fire and to stay hot and
to stay passionate.
He told them three things they could do.
So let's recap.
Number one, God recognized the church for what
they were doing.
Verse four, number two, God rebuked the church
for what they had done.
Number three, verse number five, well, this will
be through in just a little while.
He said, number three, that simply God reminded
the church of what they could do.
He said, here's what you can do if
you want to stay right with me.
Here's what you can do if you really
want to love me, really want to have
passion for me.
Verse number five, the very first word is
the first part of the prescription.
He says, remember.
Remember.
Remember what, brother Locke?
Read the verse.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen.
Here's the best way, the most telltale way
for you and I this afternoon to stay
in hot love with God.
You know what it is?
Just remember what you were and where you
were before Almighty God found you.
You just remember there was a time in
your life when you were fallen.
Some of you last week that got saved
by the grace of God, although you might
have been religious and although you might have
been a church member, you were as lost
as a ball in high weed under the
judgment of God, under the wrath of God.
And one day, Revelation 20, 15, the Bible
says that whosoever was not found written in
the book of life was cast headlong into
the lake of fire.
This is the second death.
And my dear friend, you just remember you
were born in sin.
You were conceived in sin.
David said, we came forth of our mother's
womb walking on this earth speaking lies.
We were wicked, we were vile, we were
ungodly, and we were reprobates.
But God, who is rich in mercy for
His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ for by grace are
you saved.
David said in Psalm 40 in verse number
1, I waited patiently for the Lord.
I cried and He also inclined unto me.
Do you know what that word inclined means?
It does not just mean that God heard
me.
It means that God drew near to hear
me.
Just think about that.
The God of heaven, the sovereign God of
the universe drew near to hear my cry.
David said in verse number 2, He brought
me up.
I'm glad He didn't say He left me
there.
I'm glad He didn't say He drug me
down.
Oh, that's the devil's job.
The devil drags down, God brings up.
He said, He brought me up out of
a horrible pit, out of a miry clay.
I was in the quagmire of sin.
And I was lost.
And I was screaming and hollering and yelling
like a wild banshee.
Somebody help me.
But the more I struggled, the deeper I
got.
The more I wanted out, the farther down
I got.
But thank God, David said, He brought me
up.
And the Bible says, He put a new
song in my mouth, even praising to our
God.
Many shall sit in fear and shall trust
in the Lord.
And God said, the first way you can
stay in love with me is just remember
what you used to be or what you
would be had it not been for His
grace.
I'm going to be honest with you.
If it were not for the grace of
God, some of you husbands would be coming
home that have wives and children that can't
stand you because you always get liquor on
your breath.
Beating your wife black and blue and beating
your kids and throwing them around the house.
If it weren't for the grace of God,
some of you ladies would be in here
in Memphis right now in the red light
alley of district somewhere of Memphis, Tennessee, selling
your body for some wicked godless practice.
You'd have more legitimate babies than you know
what to do with.
We'd all be on a bunch of welfare.
I mean, we'd be living under the bondage
of sin and the bondage of everybody you
can imagine.
I mean, we'd be giving our lives away
and our minds away.
We'd be watching filth and doing filth.
We'd be a bunch of crack addicts and
a bunch of dope heads and a bunch
of winos on a skid row mission had
it not been for God.
You say, Oh, not me.
Oh, yes, you, friend.
If it weren't for the grace of God,
whether you were a Sunday school teacher before
you got saved or whether you were as
crooked as a dog's hind leg and wicked,
it doesn't make any difference.
If it wasn't for God's grace, we'd all
have black fingernails right now trying to scrape
our ways out of the pits of the
dam to a place called hell.
And you take that to the bank, friend.
God says the first way you remember how
much you love, the first way you can
stay in love with me is just remember
all that I've done for you.
Just remember all that I've done and it'll
keep you focused on all that I want
to do.
And so God said, number one, you're going
to have to remember.
But he said, number two, you're going to
have to repent.
Look back at the verse.
He said, Remember therefore from whence thou art
fallen and repent.
Look at the last part of the verse.
Remove the candlestick out of its place except
thou repent.
Two times in one verse, Revelation 2, 5,
God said, we're supposed to repent.
Now, friend, you know from what I preached
a couple of weeks ago that I believe
that sinners ought to repent.
The Bible says in Luke 13, 3, God
liked it so much he repeated it two
verses later, Luke 13, 5.
He said, except thou repent, ye shall all
likewise perish.
Matthew 3, 1 and 2, in those days
came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness
of Judea and saying, Repent ye for the
kingdom of God is at hand.
Matthew chapter 9, verse number 17, the Son
of Man said unto them, I have not
come to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance.
So repentance is for lost people but it's
also for God's people.
You see, the word repent means to turn
a change of mind that results in a
change of action.
And so God told these people right here,
this Ephesus, this desirable church, he told them,
you are going to have to change your
mind about the way you've been serving me.
You're going to have to change your mind
about revival.
You're going to have to change your mind
about your Bible reading.
You're going to have to change your mind
about your church going and about your tithing
and giving.
He said, you're going to have to repent
and start serving me out of love and
devotion, not out of brunt and out of
duty.
God said, you're going to have to repent.
A verse that I quoted in Sunday school,
let me quote it again, 2 Chronicles 7,
14.
If my people, you and me, if my
people which are called by my name shall
humble themselves and pray and seek my face
and turn, that's repentance, turn, T-U-R
-N, turn from their wicked ways, then will
I hear from heaven, will forgive their sin
and will heal their land.
God tells his people to repent.
But there's something else he tells us to
do.
Go back to verse number five.
He said, remember therefore from whence thou art
fallen and repent and do the first works.
Simple prescription for God reminding this church of
what they could do.
He said, number one, remember.
He said, number two, repent.
He said, number three, redo the first works.
You know what I think he's talking about
when he says redo the first works?
I think from a careful observation of this
portion of scripture and several others, I think
what he's saying is this.
Get back to loving those things that you
loved so much when you first got saved
by the grace of God.
You remember how sweet church was to you
when you first got saved?
I remember I got saved on a Saturday
night, April 17th, 1992, 830 at night, Metropolitan
Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee.
If you've heard me say it once, you've
heard me say it a million times.
I'll never get over it because that's the
night God saved me and changed me forever
and ever.
Wrote my name down in glory and hallelujah
for that.
But you know what?
That was on a Saturday night I was
in church.
I was living at the Good Shepherd Children's
Home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at that time and
the very next day since we had to
go to Franklin Road Baptist, that's where the
children's home was members, we started a revival.
So that means I was in church on
Saturday night, Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night,
Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night,
Friday night.
On Saturday night we had our youth pastor
who's no longer a youth pastor, he's a
pastor now.
But our youth pastor Jimmy Crockett had a
youth activity, had somebody else preach, give a
devotion.
So I was in church on that Saturday
night.
Then the following Sunday school, the following Sunday
morning, the following Sunday night I thought to
myself, man, when you first get saved by
the grace of God, you go to church
every day!
You go to church all the time!
We had a magnet on the front of
our van.
I thought every time we got in the
van it showed up at church somewhere.
I mean we'd travel all over the place
and we'd do preaching and we'd do singing
and we'd quote verses and we'd go to
different churches and have people support the ministry
there at the children's home.
I mean every Sunday, every Wednesday, all the
time, man, we were in chapel during school
all the time and I thought, man, when
a person gets saved, they're supposed to go
to church all the time and you know
what, when I first got saved I couldn't
get enough of church.
I mean I did not want to forsake
the assembly of ourselves together as the matter
of some is.
I wanted to exhort one another, I wanted
to sing, I wanted to hear the preacher
and then I'd go in there and I
would be hungry for fellowship in the house
of God.
I loved it.
But you know what, when you first get
saved that's usually how it is and those
usually aren't the people that give problems to
God.
They're usually the people that give problems to
God and those people have been saved for
a long time and thank God everybody else
owes them a favor.
They just kind of come to church because
it's the thing to do.
When are you going to get back to
loving church, to your first love, to redoing
the first words when you first got saved,
man, you couldn't get enough of the house
of God.
But now you've had plenty.
Now you don't worry anymore.
Now you're just kind of mundane, going through
the motions, this, that and the other.
Oh, I just feel like I've got to
go, I've got to go.
No, friend, you don't have to go, man,
you get to go.
You get to go to the house of
God.
Let me ask some of you ladies a
reverent question.
When's the last time you read your Bible
and your mascara began to run down your
face as you read all the great wonderful
things that God has done for you?
When's the last time you read your Bible
and it gripped you that you've got a
salvation that you can never lose?
That you've got a God that loves you,
that He sent His only begotten Son for
you?
Hey, friend, when's the last time you got
in the Word of God and it just
broke you over the goodness of God?
Romans 2, 4, Know ye not that the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Just look at God's goodness.
It ought to make the world want to
fall down and grovel in repentance.
Grovel in shame and grovel in the convicting,
convincing power of the Spirit of God just
by looking at God's goodness.
And friend, we've got to get back to
redoing the first works.
I remember when I was 18 years old
and I was living at the children's home
one night.
I remember I woke up, I don't know
if it was I had eaten something that
didn't agree with me.
I don't know what it was.
There I was.
I guess I was a senior in high
school at this time or I might have
been a junior.
I don't know because I graduated late.
There I was and I was in school
and I got up and I was a
student body chaplain and I was preaching in
chapel and preaching in different places at about
18 years old and I remember I woke
up one morning about 2 or 3 o
'clock.
Couldn't sleep.
My eyes were wide open.
I don't forget I got up and I
had like a little office.
It was my bedroom but I wasn't one
of them big preachers when I was a
teenager so I had an office and a
bookshelf and I called it my little office
and had just a little bed over here.
That's where I just kind of slept in
my office.
So I went over and I turned my
little lamp on and I went down the
corridor there down the hallway and I fixed
myself some coffee.
I had to go to school the next
day but I just felt like God was
burdening me to read and do some praying
and so I went down there and I
fixed some coffee and I brewed it up
and waited a little while down there and
brought it back and came to my room
and I just began to read and it
was one of those times in my Bible
reading where it seemed like the more I
read the more I wanted to and it
seemed like, Pastor, the more I took in
the bigger my heart was swelling.
I thought my heart was going to choke
me to death.
I mean, it was just such an overwhelming
experience.
I mean, it was one of those times
in your Christian life where it was almost
like the Lord just sat down right beside
you and put his arm around you and
said, Son of the Lord, I'm here right
beside you.
I mean, it was just one of those
overwhelming experiences.
I left my coffee there and I let
it get cold and I closed my Bible
after about an hour or so and I
don't know what time it was.
This had been some time ago but it
was late and I mean, everybody was asleep
and they wouldn't be up for a couple
more hours for sure.
I turned my little lamp off and I
didn't get on my knees but I moved
my chair out of the way and I
laid prostrate on the floor as an 18
-year-old teenager.
I'll never forget it.
And I just began to call out loud.
I didn't care if anybody heard me.
It didn't make any difference.
I wasn't screaming or anything like that but
I was just there in my room and
had the door shut and I just began
to cry and I just began to weep
like a baby.
And I just began to say things and
I don't remember everything I said but I
was just praying, God, please use me.
I knew God wanted me to be a
preacher.
I knew God wanted me to go into
evangelism and man, I couldn't preach myself out
of a paper bag and I said, God,
I've got to have some help and I
said, Lord, I need your power and I
need your grace and I need your glory
and I just prayed and prayed and prayed
and begged the power of God to be
on my life.
I mean, I just prayed and sweat and
cried and lied and begged and begged and
begged.
Next thing I know it was daylight time
to get up and go to school.
And I'm going to be honest with you.
I'm going to show my true colors to
you, can I?
I wish for those times in my ministry
even now sometimes that I would have such
a heart to beg for the power of
God to be upon me.
I will be honest with you.
Get mad at me if you want to.
I've preached some microwave sermons in evangelism.
I'll just reheat one of them ones I've
preached all over the country before.
Work there, might as well work here.
No prayer.
Just jump up the energy and power of
the flesh.
Open your mind and we're going to preach
here tonight.
Woo!
Preach the word of God and see people
get saved by the way.
See things happen.
But walk down out of the pulpit as
empty as a burnt out volcano knowing that
I was Greg Locke that preached that message
not Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit preaching
through me.
And friend, I'm going to be honest with
you.
I still sometimes long to get back to
the first works.
When man, when you first got saved, you
couldn't pray enough.
It didn't bother you to go to a
restaurant and pray.
But after you get saved for a while,
somebody starts praying and you, kind of like
you're rubbing your head, kind of like you're
rubbing your eyes, kind of like you're yawning
and you're looking around to make sure nobody's
looking at you.
I don't get pied.
You know you've done it.
But remember when you first got saved, you'd
have stood on the table and prayed.
You didn't care what they thought about you
and shown it.
Man, you'd have stood up and said, Oh
dear God, bless my food and bless God,
bless everybody else's too and if they don't
bless it, choke them to death, God.
I mean, you're as bold as a lion.
But nowadays, somebody says, let's bow our head
and pray and you get a little bit
timid.
You start looking around making sure the waiter
is not going to come.
Making sure nobody's looking at you.
Man, I remember when you first got saved,
how on fire for God you were.
Remember how many gospel tracts you passed out
when you first got saved?
You couldn't have enough tracts in your pocket.
You didn't pass that one in six months.
Every time you go to the grocery store,
there's a little lady there, she's got a
little name tag on, it says Lynn or
Georgian, something like that.
You see her, you talk to her and
you got $40 worth of groceries, you give
her a $50 bill, she gives you $10
back if she does it right and you
walk out the door and you never thought
one time, hey, that young lady has got
a never dying soul, she's going to spend
eternity in heaven or hell.
You ain't given up gospel tracts in a
long time.
Remember when you first got saved, you could
read your Bible and you thought to yourself,
man, is it already work time?
Is it already 2 o'clock?
Is it already time to go to bed?
Is it already time to go to school?
And man, you wanted to read all night.
Now very rarely do you have morning classes.
And over to the right there's a little
three or four foot deep scum covered, frog
infested, swamp.
Where there once stood a thriving, fundamental work
for God.
What was the difference?
God said, if you don't remember, God said,
if you don't repent, and God said, if
you don't get back and redo the first
works and get back to serving me out
of love, not out of religiosity and duty,
He said, if you don't get back to
that, He said, I'm going to remove your
candlestick and guess what?
They didn't listen to Him and God healed
them.
And today there is no Ephesus.
And might I boldly say, if God's people
keep down the road that we are going
down today, possibly one day there will be
no grace, Baptist temple.
Because God will remove your candlestick.
And friend, might I just tell you this
morning, you did not lose your love for
Christ.
You left it.
Your heads are bowed, your eyes are closed,
please, there's no one looking, there's no one
talking.
Heads are bowed and eyes are closed.
No one's looking, no one's talking, our instrumentalists
are on their way.
Appreciate them so much.
They can begin to play that which they
correlated together the moment they find it.
Men, women, boys and girls with heads bowed
and eyes closed, just please listen to me
closely for a moment, would you?
Oh, how we want the Spirit of God
to work in our hearts, And if we
really want revival, there's a couple of things
we're going to have to do this week.
Number one, we're going to have to get
humbled.
When we get humbled, I believe it will
help us get honest.
When we get honest, then we can get
help.
And when we get help, then we can
have Holy Spirit revival.
But you notice where it started?
You didn't have the revival until you got
the humility.
We're going to have to humble ourselves this
morning and say, God, to be honest with
you, my devotion to you has just been
emotional.
I've just kind of been going through the
motions of the Christian life and God, with
your help this morning, I'm going to get
on fire.
I'm going to serve you out of a
heart of love, remembering all that you've done
for me.
Your heads are bowed, your eyes are closed,
everyone's standing, please.
There's no one looking, there's no one talking.
In a minute, I'll deal with sinner friends,
but I preach to God's people this morning.
Right now, child of God, the Spirit of
God has spoken to your heart.
Right now, you step out of your place
and you come down and get on your
face of this altar and say, Oh God,
give us the revival that we so desperately
need.
Help my heart, God, it's grown cold and
a little bit lethargic and oh God, please,
please this morning, help me not to walk
away from my first love.
If God speaks to your heart right now,
I want you to step out of your
place.