"You cover the altar of Yahweh with tears, with weeping and crying; He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because Yahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Ruach (Spirit)? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth" (Mal.2:13-15, NKJV).

Now the set-apart ones or saints of Ephesus were one body of believers who are singled out by Yah'shua in this famous revelation that discusses the spiritual condition of seven congregations in the Roman province of Asia Minor in modern-day Western Turkey. They each have plusses and minuses. They each have qualities and a spiritual track record worthy of praise and they each have deficiencies they are commanded to repent of. Ephesus was, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the headquarters of the Messianic Community (Church) and was where the head apostle, John, made his headquarters. His three epistles were almost certainly written from there and were chronologically the last three books of the Bible, not the Book of Revelation, which was written earlier while he was an exile on the Greek island of Patmos.

Lots of Scriptorians and Theologians see in the seven assemblies (churches) of Asia Minor a prophetic description of the Body of Messiah over the last two thousasnd years, beginning with Ephesus and ending with Laodicea. They often claim that we are in the lukewarm 'Laodicean age'. This is possible though I am inclined to believe that these seven assemblies represent different dispositions in the Body of Christ throughout the current Messianic Age. Ephesus, as I said, was the home of the apostle John, the last of the apostles and the only one to live into old age and not be martyred. He very much held the community together during difficult times. Ephesus was the home or centre of the pagan goddess Artemis (Ac.19:35) and was therefore the focus of much occultism (Ac.19:19). The congregation was founded by Aquila and Priscilla (Ac.18:18) and with Paul's guidance became a centre for evangelism (Ac.19:10). Timothy replaced Paul in time (1 Tim.1:3) and was finally succeeded by John, the presiding patriarch.

The Ephesian believers was distinguished by their hard work without ever quitting, their patience and their abhorrence of anything evil. They were skilled at exposing false apostles. They also hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans who were an heretical group which encouraged idolatry and sexual sin as Balaam had done anciently. Balaam, you may remember, though a pagan, initially served Yahweh by refusing the curse the Israelites at the behest of the King of Moab (Num.22-24; 2 Pet.2:15-16) but later condemned himself by encouraging Israel to debase themselves in sexual immorality at Baal-Peor (Num.25:1-3; 31:16). How did Balaam manage to ensnare Israel thus? By tricking them into eating food which had been sacrificed to idols, thus demonising them! The Assembly of Pergamum fell into this sin and we are told exactly what they did: they participated in idolatrous feasts and sexual immorality (as Israel had done befroe the Golden Calf), violating the first principles of Torah given to them by James (Ac.15:28-29). The Ephesian believers were accutely aware of pagan practices and spoke out against believers getting seduced into them.

So what do we have here? We have very dedicated believers indeed, with a keen discernment, hard-working, patient, exposers of false prophets and apostles, exposers of idolatry and sexual sin and on the face of it exemplary followers of the Master! And yet somehow, in all of this, they lost their "first love". They got so absorbed in their hundreds of pursuíts that they create a breeze which cooled their passion for Messiah. They lost, not the strong emotional experiences which came with their rebirth (emotions rarely last and we are unwise to rely on them as the mainstay of our spiritual life), but their spiritual zeal for Yahweh! They were so busy doing Kingdom work that they neglected their own spiritual condition, failing to repent of sins and failing to regularly rededicate themselves to the Source, Yah'shua (Jesus). They thought they could do without Him in the same way that husbands in Malachi's time thought they could discard their wives and replace them with new ones, breaking their covenants and committing adultery thereby.

When you have "lost your first love", you have ceased to be Christ-centred. You can become self-centred, career-centred, entertainment-centred, even Kingdom-centred, forgetting that the King always come before the Kingdom. The Ephesians were Kingdom-centred alright and were so busy they probably didn't even notice they had forgotten their Saviour! But such negligence risks the loss of all, including the Golden Lampstand which represented their assembly, in reality a golden seven-armed Menorah which depicts in its seven branches the sevenfold Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). Lose Messiah and you lose the Ruach haQodesh as well! Yah'shua removes the Ruach if we neglect and lose Him.

The Ephesians, like ourselves today, were in the middle of a hostile, pagan culture. Believers were being persecuted then as they are today. Ephesus was the centre of a fertility cult which is rampant throughout the world today, though not called by any particular name - rather, it is the 'right' to be sexually promiscuous. The Temple of Artemis or Diana was one of the so-called Seven Wonders of the ancient world. It is tough being in such a world as it is today and Yah'shua compliments the Ephesian saints for staying clean - they don't tolerate wicked people, they are theologically sound, they can spot false teachers, preachers, apostles and prophets with ease that try to infiltrate their ranks. But then the bottom drops out of their world. Everything has apparently been going fine, and the 'Jesus meek and mild' suddenly become an Elohim of Judgment and Condemnation. Suddenly He's calling sin, sin, and a spade, a spade. He reminds us that you can never separate Justice from Grace. It is not enough to be doing everything in order, getting your festivals right, observing kosher, observing the moral law, being busy in evangelism and so on. Yah'shua has to be the first in everything.

Indeed, we are reminded of our fallibility here somewhat, aren't we? These people haven't rejected Messiah. They aren't worshipping Diana. They aren't espousing false doctrines. So what's their problem? They have simply let Yah'shua drift out of the picture. The passionate love they had for Messiah simply dimmed in small increments until it was all but gone. Then the bottom fell out of their lives with Yah'shua threatening to remove their lampstand, that is, extinguish the light from their congregation and eventually remove the congregation from Yahweh's presence altogether. If they refused to repent, their congregation would spiritually die.

There is always a danger of putting Yah'shua into the back-burner and setting your eyes and goals elsewhere. We may not even have our eyes on anything unlawful. We may not be violating any Torah commandments at all! Our sin becomes one of negligence. We have forgotten what it is all about. No one is rebelling. No one is chasing after idols in an Ephesus assembly. No one is violating Torah They have simply drifted from their "first love", as so many marriages do.

You have all heard of the proverbial frog being gently boiled alive and not moving because he is totally unaware of what's happening. The same is true in freezing. We can grow cold and lifeless in small increments without realising it and before long just become a block of spiritual ice. What a way to knock out a church or messianic assembly, and a good congregation at that!

I suspect we all need refiring. I suspect we all need reviving. There are so many cares, there is so much to do, that it is easy to fall asleep without being aware of it. Without pointing fingers at anyone else, we need to look at ourselves and ask the question: 'Where is my first love?' And if we cannot find Him, we need to down Kingdom tools and pray until we have the King back again like a white-hot fire. I can't say how that is to be done individually because everyone is different with their own unique set of problems. It is for each to privately go to Yah'shua, one-on-One, since this is a Pesach-type need.

My prayer is that we search our hearts and do that, making that our first priority. For without the "first love" burning bright, pretty much everything else is in vain. Amen.