Love

In Ephesians 3:19, Paul prayed that the church might know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. Jesus said in John 17:34, "Father...thou lovedest me before the foundation of the world." The love of God is divine. It's eternal; it's a love which exists in an eternal way. It passes knowledge because it's beyond the realm of time. In verse 26, His prayer was, "...that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them [every believer]..." Romans 5:5 tells us, "...the love of God [the eternal love of God, the love that God had for Jesus Christ before the world was] is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost..."

Many get too many ideas about love, and I want us to see that it was love that Ephesus had abandoned. She didn't love it; she left it. How sad! When people lose things, they are to be pitied, but Ephesus didn't lose this love; she left it. Here was the beginning of the great apostasy.

The Church had actually apostatized; she had left Christ and left that first love of Christ which had been shed abroad within their hearts. Out of that funnels the great apostasy that we read about in the Revelation. Ephesus, putting it in plain language, had left that initial warmth in their hearts of real devotion to Christ. It had cooled to the place that they were still living for God, they were still orthodox in their teaching, and they were still working their heads off, but it was merely mechanical. They had lost the real constraining force which caused God to recognize our work.

We need to read about this divine love in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. We can give every penny we have, sing until we lose our voice, talk with angel's tongues, or lay our body down to be burned, but without this love, God won't even cast an eye toward us. Too much of our work today, even among that which claims to be the Church, is merely mechanical. Too many have lost the motivating force that God put within the Church on the Day of Pentecost; they were turned loose, and they set the world on fire. Ephesus left that motivating force, while still carrying on their works. God couldn't say a thing against their works, but they had left the real motivating force. They had left the real thing, I want to repeat, that causes God to take note and bless our works.

Revelation 2:2 tells us, "I know thy works, and they labour, and thy patience...and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." In other words, they were still orthodox, and their activity had not slowed down one bit. Putting it in plain language, they never missed a service. You could count on them twice on Sunday, every Wednesday night, and every night of revival. There are plenty of people who think they are faithful to God because they have been active. Well, activity is necessary, but there's something much deeper than that.

The Ephesians' activity had not abated a bit, but they had lost their true motivation. Their real declension, or falling away, was in the heart. Christ placed His finger right on their hearts and said in so many words, "Here's where the trouble is. It's not in your head or in your activity; your trouble is right in your heart."

Cold Love is Cause for Terror

There are too many who don't understand what leaving the first love is, and because they don't understand it, they say, "That's not me." We're studying something, however, which is quite universal. We are in a time when the love of not a few, but of many, is waxing cold (Matthew 24:12). May God help us to realize that when the temperature of our love lowers, there is cause for terror. We need to become excited, because according to 2 Timothy, Chapter 3, it causes perilous times to come on the Church. He categorized many things which cause perilous conditions among the people of God, and then he began to show us the problem---they had become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Things of this life got a hold on them, and they actually left that first love which they once had. When that happens, the outgrowth of it is the catalog of those things that Paul mentioned.

We have a lot of perils today that we wouldn't have to have if the Church would get back to a first love and love God to the place that they will obey His Word and live as God says to live. If people would live by the Bible, it would bring an end to the problems in the home, in the city, and in the nation. I say again, when the temperature of our love begins to cool, it's a cause for terror because it brings perilous times.

This lapse in their love and this leaving of their love was discernible, not so much in activity, as in attitude. We may be just as active as we ever were, but is our attitude the same today as it was the first week we were saved? We may have attended services regularly for thirty or forty years, but how is our attitude today? Did we get huffy so easily when we were first saved? Do we feel that we should be looked up to because of our years of service? When we were first saved, we were just one of the common folks. Is that our attitude today?

That's what happened to Ephesus. They'd been there for thirty years, and they took their relationship to Christ for granted. Their labor was prompted by habit more than by deep, heartfelt devotion. You see, we can get in the habit of going to church (that's a good habit), but if we only go thorough habit, it won't please God. The Ephesians took their relationship to Christ for granted. How do we do that? We take it for granted if we just go on day after day and never get down to really check ourselves out before God to see if we're still in the vine. We may have been plucked out a long time ago. Unless we definitely have some connection with God today and feel God's Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are His child, we had better not rest on anything else of facing the judgment.

Paul taught this experience as being renewed day by day; the outward man perishes, but the inward man is renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). It takes daily communion and daily contact.

Without Real Devotion, Toil Becomes Hard

We can take things for granted. You can say, "I want you to go out with me after church to a restaurant."

"I will go, but maybe your car won't run."

"Ha ha! My car always runs."

"You don't know that, until you go out and turn the key. You're just taking that for granted."

I've seen the best ones which have been made, fail, and the reason they fail is because there's a loose connection some place, the battery is run down, or they have run out of fuel. When we fail to do what we need to do, we can go along and take our Christian life for granted in the same way. This spirit is getting hold of people, and they just live right on, taking Christ for granted.

When we begin to leave our first love, we begin to take our relationship with Christ for granted, and our labor is prompted by habit more than conscious devotion. Without real devotion, the real, divine love burning in our heart, toil becomes hardship and orthodoxy becomes traditionalism. All our work would have been done, and all the souls would have been saved, if all God was looking for were orthodox people who believe the Bible and fight for it. There are brethren who would have had the job done, but that's not what God is looking for. It makes no difference how much of the truth we understand or how straight we have it; without the burning love of God and love for truth within our hearts, we will just end up in another movement, another tradition, or another idea. The Ephesians had lost their true concern for Christ and others.

Notice what He says in Revelation 2:2, "I know thy works..." Why would Jesus say that to us today? He brings it up first to block all our efforts to try to get by on our works. In so many words, He's saying, "Don't bring up your works. I know all about your works; they won't get you in." Works are very necessary; faith without works is dead, but our works alone won't bear God's approval. So Jesus just blocked it off right in the beginning of the letter.

Just as with the Ephesians, it's true today. People would try to hide behind (using reason and excuse) their works, when their attitude isn't right. Don't take me wrong; I thank God for all the virtues of the Church. Jesus mentioned them here, but they are nothing to be hiding behind. It's a wonderful thing to say that we're faithful in our efforts for God (we encourage you to do that), but it's nothing to hide behind. There's something deeper than that. Our works are nothing to hide behind when we've left our first love.

A New Husband

How does "first love" work, and how does it affect us? Let's turn to Romans, Chapter 7:1-4. First of all, let me explain something. It's a terrible thing, the bondage that many have been put into because somebody didn't rightly divide the word of truth. These four verses have been wrongly bound on people because they had a divorce. Some preachers teach that you're bound as long as your husband is alive. I want to say two things: One, I'm not preaching on divorce. The seventh Chapter of Romans has nothing to do with it, and there's nothing in there which teaches anything about divorce. The Apostle Paul is taking an allegory to teach us how we become dead to the Law and married to Christ in real salvation. Second, anything that Paul said about marriage here was a teaching that was under the Law, and has nothing to do with the New Testament teaching about divorce.

Let's read verses 1-4: "Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) [If we don't know the Law, we shouldn't pick up these verses and try to apply them. He was writing to people who knew the Law well.] how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband [He goes right back into the old Law to set up an allegory] is bound by the law [not bound by the New Testament, but by that which was nailed to Christ's cross] to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

"So then if, while her husband liveth [This was the teaching of the old Law], she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren [Now he sets that up as an allegory], ye also are become dead to the law [If you are a Christian, you become dead to the Law. That teaching right there has nothing to do with us; we are a New Testament Christian] by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another [How do we get free from the Law? Jesus died and fulfilled it. When He did, He set us free from the Law, and we became married to another, Jesus Christ.], even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God."

We who have been truly born again are married to somebody; we have become the bride of Christ. We have come to Him in old-time repentance, made a commitment to Him that we are forsaking all others and all else for Him alone, and we enter into a marriage contract. Real salvation is entering into a marriage contract with Jesus.

Paul brought up two husbands; one husband was the old Law which was a husband to literal Israel, and the other is Christ who is our (The Church's) Husband. I'm glad that old husband is dead. Why? All he ever told his wife was, "Thou shalt not!" If he caught her doing wrong, he stoned her. Thank God for a better Husband who says, "If you love me, you will." There are no "thou shalts" in it. We have a better Husband, and this is the picture of where first love comes in. When we are truly born again of the Spirit of God, and commit ourselves completely to Him, the Spirit of God sheds abroad the very love of God in our hearts.

Divine Love

We can't love Jesus with a human love. The only way we can love Jesus is to have the divine love of God shed abroad in our heart; then we can love a divine being with divine love. Human love is too weak. That's the reason John said in 1 John 3:1, "Behold, what manner of love..." It's divine love, or eternal love. This is why Jesus could say, "If a man love me, he will keep my words..." (John 14:23). There's no one who through their own human love can love Jesus enough to live free from sin and keep His commandments, but when God puts a divine love in our heart, we can keep His commandments. We can do it when divine love is shed abroad in our heart.

So, we are married to Christ; we have a new Husband. Someone may say, "Don't you believe that we need to keep Moses' commandments?" If we will keep Jesus' commandments, we will love, on about a fifty-thousand -mile higher level, than Moses could ever bring a people to. Christ's commandments are higher and more positive; they will bring us to a level that Moses could never endeavor to bring a people to. The only way that Moses could bring people to a high place was to literally take them upon a mountain; but thank God, Jesus can take us to a spiritual high place and a heavenly place far above old Mount Nebo, Mount Carmel, Mount Sinai, or Mount Zion. This high place is a spiritual position which stands high above all the things that the Law could bring us to.

In salvation, we are married to another, and we have the divine love shed abroad in our hearts where we love Christ supremely. We still love our physical wife, husband, father, mother, and children, but our love for Jesus is a divine love. Now, the enemy of souls doesn't care how orthodox we are. He doesn't care how straight we lay it down. There's one thing he is working against, and that's that fervent love of God within our hearts and lives. Without that fervent love, we cannot please God. Without that, it's just a matter of time until we're out of the picture spiritually.

Let's read 2 Corinthians 11:2-3: "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy [divine love has godly jealousy]: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you [the congregation at Corinth] as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means [That is what Satan will use---any means. If one will not work, he will try another If unlawful things won't work, he will get us on lawful things.], as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

What is the simplicity that is in Christ? We are espoused to one Husband; the love of God has been shed abroad within our hearts, and we simply love Him above everything else. In the denominationalism and traditionalism of the world, one has to be catechized or come to a certain degree of understanding of their tradition to be recognized as a part, but there is a simplicity in the body of Christ. We can be saved today, receive the love of God in our heart, and become just as much a full-fledged member as some who have been saved for forty years. God expects us to learn and to grow, but the simplicity of this thing rests in whether we love Jesus with a fervent love, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Spiritual Frostbite

Jesus told us in Matthew, Chapter 24, that when iniquity would abound, the love of many would wax cold. The word abound means that it gets beyond the realms of the world. Iniquity has always been working in the world, but it has abounded, or gotten out of bounds, and reached right over among the people of God. Because of it, the love of many of God's people is waxing cold. In these days when iniquity is abounding, the marriage relationship doesn't mean what it once did to many people. While the marriage relationship doesn't mean what it once did, neither does the Christian relationship to the Lord mean what it once did. Because of that, the home and the Church are both suffering terribly. Suffering could be ended in a lot of homes if the husband and wife would get back to their first love and go on a honeymoon again. I've actually seen homes that were torn to shreds get straightened out; the people got back to their first love and took time off to go on a honeymoon. I'm talking about something that's powerful.

Too many love aloof and only look to the other companion when they need a little help from them; the rest of the time they gripe, groan, and growl. The children grow up in that kind of atmosphere. Some people would have never gotten married if they had acted like that when they were courting, but they hypocrited while they were courting.

We're putting up with lots of things, and suffering. We are galled with it, but we refuse to return to the first love. The church and home are suffering more than anything else today. The devil is doing his greatest work there. There are Christians and churches that boast of being more mature; when in reality, they are spiritually frostbitten. More and more, we see that which claims to be the Church, developing a prejudice against real feeling and emotion. I don't like just noise and anything "put on" any better than you do, but we had better be careful of tightening down on someone whom God is really blessing.

This leaving of the first love accounts for a lot of church troubles. I will say this, if people can get back to their first love, the troubles will be cured and there won't be more showing up. When we have this first love and really love the Lord, we love the brethren. If we don't love the brethren or the members of the Church family, and yet say that we love Jesus, we're not being honest. This first love will clear up a lot of trouble.

[The End]