4 “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love” (Revelation 2:4 KJV).[1]
Two times in Revelation, the Apostle John the beloved writes of love. The first concerns our leaving our first love, our turning away from our Lord and Savior. Backsliding is the thought, but from what? From our works of labor, from our patience in the Lord. The point of highlighting the subject of love in Revelation is to see how our Lord views our response towards Him and in turn, we will see how our Lord’s response is towards us. Revelation 2:4 is the first of two times we will see the use of the word love.
4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!” * (Revelation 2:4 NLT) [2]
Going Back in
The Ways of God. “Nevertheless, I have … first love.”
There is no stage of our heavenward journey that is so hard as that which we go over for the third time. When in the fervour of our first love we first traversed that part of the road, we went along vigorously, with a strong elastic step. And when we went back, though we went slowly enough at first, like as when the boy’s ball, which he has flung high into the air, when ceasing its upward ascent, begins to descend, that beginning is slow, but quickens every second. And so, on the backward road, we quicken speed in a mounful way. But when we have finished this retrogression, and with a startled shock discover what we have lost, but, by God’s exceeding grace, resolve to recover it—hic labor hoc opus est—this is toil indeed.
Our text brings before us the case of those who have thus gone back, and whom the Lord is lovingly rousing to the resolve that they will regain what they have lost. Note—
I. WHAT THEY LEFT AND LOST.
It was that blessed
early condition of peace and joy Godward which the beginning of the religious
life so often witnesses. “All things were new—Christ was new, the Word a new
light, worship a new gift, the world—a new realm of beauty, shining in the
brightness of its Author; even the man himself was new to himself. Sin was
gone, and fear also was gone with it. To love was his all, and he loved
everything. The day dawned in joy, and the thoughts of the night were songs in
his heart. Then how tender, how teachable! in his conscience how true! in his
works how dutiful! It was the Divine childhood, as it were, of his faith, and
the beauty of childhood was in it. This was his first love; and if all do not
remember, any precise experience of the kind, they do at least remember what so
far resembled this as to leave no important distinction.”
There was fervour of feeling: a great outgoing of the soul towards Christ; much prayer, and that very real; hearty service; delight in worship—the Sabbath, the sanctuary, the sacred service; the avoiding, not sin only, but its occasions, the “hating of the garment spotted by the flesh;” in short, there was a close walk with God. Blessed, blessed time, the primeval Paradise of the soul, the golden age, the leaving of which one might mourn, even as our first parents mourned when they were driven forth from Eden to the thorns and briars of the wilderness!
II. HOW IT CAME TO BE LEFT.
Many are the
explanations that might be given. In some, absorption overmuch in business; in
others, the influence of unspiritual and worldly companions; in others,
intellectual doubts, insinuated into the mind by unbelieving or skeptical
books; in others, the chill moral atmosphere of the Church itself; in others,
some lingering, lurking lust reasserting itself; and so on in ever-increasing
variety; but each one knows for himself how the going back was brought about.
But that we may not make sorry those whom God has not made sorry; we would add the caution not to regard every fluctuation of feeling as proof of this going back. Some are forever tormenting themselves in this way, and so kill the very love they are looking for, and in looking for it. “The complications of the heart are infinite, and we may become confused in our attempts to untwist them.” Men dig at the roots of their motives to see that they are the right ones, and the roots of tender plants cannot stand such rough handling. But whilst there are some who distress themselves when they have no need, there are more who have great need and yet are not distressed as they should be. Let such consider—
III. WHAT COMES OF LEAVING OUR FIRST LOVE?
1.
The
Spirit of God Is Grieved. Can a father see his child turn cold and
sullen towards him, and not be grieved? And in view of such turnings back from
him, must not our Lord be in a very real sense “the Man of sorrows” still?
2.
Sinful
Men Are Hardened in Their Sin. Their boast is that there is no reality
in religion; that it is all a spasmodic passing thing; that the fervor of it,
in the beginning, will soon cool down, and here is another proof that there is
nothing in it.
3.
The
Church of God Is Distressed. Its members had relied upon those who have
gone back, had hoped for much good from them, had looked to see them carrying
on and extending the work of God around them, and now they are disappointed and
made ashamed. The enemies of God blaspheme, and those who have gone back are
the cause.
4.
And
They Themselves Suffer Most of All.
(1) They are
miserable; they have enough of religion left to give them disrelish for the
ways of the world, but not near enough to give them the joy which belongs only
to those who are whole-hearted in the service of God.
(2) And they
are on the verge of great and awful judgment. If they still go back, it will be
“unto perdition;” and if in God’s mercy, they be made to stop ere they have
gone to that last length, it will most likely have to be by some sharp
scourging process, with many tears, and amid terrible trouble both without and
within.
What a pitiful journey that must have been when the wretched prodigal resolved at length that he would “arise and go to his Father”! In what humiliation, fear, shame, and distress, he had to urge his weary way along the return road! Only one thing could have been worse—that he should not have come back. Oh, you who are forsaking Christ, if you be really his, you will have to come back; but no joyous journey will that be for you. No, indeed! It never has been, and never can be. Still blessed be the Lord, who forces you to make it, difficult and hard though it be. It is the hand which was nailed to the cross, and the heart which there was pierced for you, that now wields the scourge which compels you, in sorrow and in shame, to come back to him whom you left. But—
III. WHAT FOLLY IT IS TO LEAVE HIM AT ALL.
Ministers of Christ
are so fond, as well they may be, of proclaiming God’s pardoning love, that
they too much pass over his preserving love. We take it too much for granted
that men will go off into “the far country,” as that foolish younger son did;
and we forget that much-maligned elder son who stayed at home with his father,
and who was therefore far more blessed than the other could ever be. He could
not understand his father’s gentleness to that ne’er-do-well brother of his—as
many still, and ever since the gospel has been preached, have failed to
understand God’s gentleness to returning sinners; and so, he complained. But
how did his father answer him? It is too little noted. “Son, thou art ever with
me, and all that I have is thine;” the meaning of all which was, “What, my son!
you complain at my forgiving and
welcoming your poor wretched brother! you
who are so much better off, you complain!” Yes, he was better off; his lot,
as is the lot of all those who never leave their first love, is by far the
preferable one, and there is no need that we should choose the other.
Never let it be forgotten that he who brought you to himself will keep you near to and in himself, as willingly as, surely more willingly than, he will receive you after you have gone astray. To be pardoned, ah! well may we thank God for that; but to have been preserved, to have been “kept from the evil so that it should not hurt us,” to have been “kept in the love of God,”—for that more thanksgiving still is due; and may God grant that we may be able forever and ever in his blessed presence to render it unto him.—S.C.[3]
V
5 “But also for this very
reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to
knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance
godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly
kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he
who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten
that he was cleansed from his old sins.
10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things, (5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works[4]), you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”[5]
Revelation 2:4 “I Have This Grave Thing Against Thee, That Thou Didst Leave Thy First Love, (Me).”
[1] Revelation 2:4 (KJV) The Holy Bible:
King James Version. 1995. Electronic ed. of the 1769 edition of
the 1611 Authorized Version. Bellingham WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
* 2:4 Greek You have lost your first love.
[2] Tyndale House Publishers. 2015. Holy Bible: New
Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
[3] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. 1909. Revelation.
The Pulpit Commentary. London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.
[4] Revelation 2:5a (NKJV) The New King James
Version. 1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[5] 2 Peter 1:5-11 (NKJV)The New King James
Version. 1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
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