“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’
The Church at Ephesus was in many respects a very vital one, as is clear from the commendation Christ gave it. (We note in passing Christ's approval of their intolerance of those who were evil (2). It is more than refreshing to read this in an age when toleration is so fashionable, being, as G.K. Chesterton pungently remarks, the particular virtue of those who do not really believe in anything!) But they had lost their first love. G. Campbell Morgan points out the contrast between them and the believers in Thessalonica, whose work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope (1 Thessalonians 1:3) so gladdened his heart. 'Work, labour, patience' are the words Christ uses here, but faith, hope and love are missing. This is terribly searching. It means that a Church - or an individual - may retain the outer framework of a living testimony when the heart of it has died. The work goes on but it is no longer a work of faith: the labour goes on, tireless, dauntless, but it is no longer a labour of love; the patience is still there, but it is no longer the patience of hope. This is what had happened at Ephesus. In Jeremiah 2:2, the Lord's complaint against His people was that the 'love of their espousals' had waned. Nothing is sadder than to see two people who used to love one another grow formal and get used to one another. Life goes on just as usual, the outer framework of the relationship is still there, but the nuptial love is away and something deep and blessed has disappeared. It is significant that this divine complaint comes in the first of the letters to the Churches, for every other defection or failure springs from it. Our love to Christ is the most important thing of all. Let us ask ourselves: Is it the same with me today as it was when I first found the Lord? Or has service become a substitute for love to Him, and crowded love out?'