From His Heart

Guest (Male): Every Christian knows that your heart is prone to wander from the Lord and prone to leave the God you really do love, but you wander from Him. It's a sad truth in the Christian life that we are so prone to wander. And because we're prone to wander, we find ourselves so often in need of revival.

Guest (Male): Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Listen, have you gotten stale in your Christian life? In this series that we're beginning today called Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival, Pastor Jeff will share God's plan to bring the wanderer back into the fullness of a relationship with Him.

Now, within your Christian walk, do you sometimes find yourself just going through the motions? That was the case of the church in Ephesus. So today, Pastor Jeff will lay out three discoveries from Christ's first letter to the seven churches of Asia Minor in the book of Revelation.

We'll be in this series for the next couple of weeks, and if you miss any, you can always go to fromhisheart.org after it's aired and click the listen link there. Right now though, open your Bible to the book of Revelation, chapter two, as Pastor Jeff presents the first lesson in the series that cuts to the chase of the problem we all have: we're all prone to wander.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Robert Robinson was born in 1735. His father died when he was just a boy. The family was very poor. His mother got him into an apprenticeship to learn how to be a barber when he was 15 years old she sent him to London.

As a 15-year-old boy away from mom, there in London, he got in with the wrong crowd, as you can see that happening. He got into trouble. He began to carouse and carry on and do things he shouldn't do.

Well, one day, he and his pals went to hear George Whitefield, the great evangelist, preach. They went to make fun, but Whitefield's sermon really spoke to Robert Robinson. He didn't make a decision for Christ, but the words of the sermon resonated in his mind and in his heart for three years.

And at the end of three years, he prayed, he received Christ, and he was saved. Two years after that, he was called into the ministry, and he wrote the words to a song that we still sing today, all the way back in the 1700s.

You are familiar with this song. It's called "Come Thou Fount". But the key to the song and what we want to focus on today are these words: "Oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter, like a chain, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love."

Every Christian knows what that is like, that your heart is prone to wander from the Lord and prone to leave the God you really do love, but you wander from Him. It's a sad truth in the Christian life that we are so prone to wander. And because we're prone to wander, we find ourselves so often in need of revival.

Now, we're starting a new series today entitled "Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival". God's plan to get those who have wandered back to Him. Remember this: revival is for Christians. You see, it's revival. That's a restoring to life.

You can't be revived unless you've been vived. So you have to have vive before you can be revived. You have to be a believer. There has to be spiritual life. But revival is for those, as Robert Robinson wrote about, who have wandered from the Lord and need to be brought back into the fullness of a relationship with Christ once again so that we can really and truly have fellowship with Him.

Now, when revival hits a life, a church, a community, then awakening takes place. What's awakening? Awakening is when unbelievers see that there is excitement and fire and passion in the lives of Christians, and they're not just talking the talk, but they're walking the walk.

And when they see that, they say something is going on here, and the Lord begins to work in their hearts, convict them of sin, and show them that they need to have a personal relationship with Jesus. And history records revivals through the years where people and communities were changed because the Lord began to do a work in those who had wandered away.

Hey, I want to ask you, have you gotten stale in your Christian life? Do you find yourself just going through the motions of spending time reading the Bible, spending time praying? Your prayer life just doesn't have vibrancy. It's just you say the same things, and let's just be honest, a lot of it is just blah, blah, blah, in Jesus' name, Amen.

I mean, there's not the passion there. There's not the fire there. Has that happened to you? Maybe you are one who has wandered away from the Lord. That was the case for the church in Ephesus, the people that made up the church of Ephesus.

Now, in the book of the Revelation, John is on the island of Patmos. He's been exiled to the island of Patmos, John the apostle. He was the only one of the 12 apostles who died of natural causes. All the rest, save Judas who hung himself, all the rest were martyred for their faith.

But John lived to be an old man in his 90s, and he has been exiled to the island of Patmos for his faith in Christ. He's breaking rocks in his exile. Well, the Lord gives him a revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ, and he is told what is to come, and he writes that in the book of the Revelation.

This is what he says. Revelation two and three, the seven letters to the seven churches, and then he starts the first letter: "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands says this: I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles and they are not, and you have found them to be false, and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love."

Here's the question I want you to consider today. Does the message to the church in Ephesus apply to you? Does it apply to us? Three discoveries from this first letter to the churches in Revelation. Discovery number one: the church in Ephesus was doing lots of great things.

Lots of great things. Now, Ephesus was a church that was founded by the apostle Paul on his second missionary journey. Paul on his third missionary journey around 52-53 AD, he set up shop there in Ephesus. He lived there for almost three years.

The church in Ephesus had the apostle Paul for their preacher. They had Timothy who came after Paul, he came in 60 AD. You had Priscilla and Aquila who were heavy hitters in the book of Acts. You had Apollos who was there.

Apollos is called a man who was mighty in the scriptures. He was some kind of preacher, Apollos. You know in 1 Corinthians, some of the Corinthians said, "I am of Paul," and "I am of Cephas," which is another name for Peter, and some said, "I am of Apollos" because he was such a powerful preacher. You had great preaching in Ephesus.

You had great miracles that took place in Ephesus. Ephesus is a very pagan place. It's a large city, 250,000 people live in Ephesus. It's called the metropolis of Asia. Well, God was doing some great things in that place.

And the Lord, when He comes to speak to the pastor to send the message to the church, He commends them on some great things. And four things are mentioned. First of all, they were working hard for the Lord. And He says, "Hey, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance."

Toil is the Greek word kopos. We get our English word copious from that. When someone is taking copious notes in class, that means they're taking extensive notes. They're writing down everything. Your toil is hard work. It's painful labor.

They were working hard for the Lord. "Finally, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, always abounding in the work of the Lord," Paul says to the Corinthians, "knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." Well, they were working hard for the Lord, and they were persevering. They were staying at it. They weren't quitting.

And the Lord says, "Hey, that's good. You're doing something really good here. I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance." They were working hard. Secondly, they were standing against sin. He says, "And that you cannot endure evil men."

You cannot endure evil. You stand up against sin. You stand up against men who are committing sin. You let it be known where the dividing line is. You cannot endure evil men. Now, He says in verse six, "Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate."

The Nicolaitans are mentioned twice in the book of Revelation in the letters. And people have wondered what in the world the Nicolaitans were doing because the Lord hated whatever they were doing. He didn't like it. "You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans," He tells the church in Ephesus, "which I also hate."

The Nicolaitans, as some Bible scholars have talked about and some early church fathers talked about, the Nicolaitans, they were led by a man named Nicholas. Nicholas of Antioch who is talked about in Acts chapter six. He was one of the first deacons, but he went off the rails.

And he began to lead a movement that embraced compromise in the Christian life and that said sin isn't really so bad and we can still serve God. We can have one foot in the world and one foot in the church, and it's okay and God's okay with that. And so they introduced immorality into worship.

The Lord says, "I hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans." They are polluting the church. And God said, "Hey, you Ephesians, you Ephesian Christians, you do that too. You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Good for you. You're standing against sin." Thirdly, they were practicing spiritual discernment.

Guest (Male): Well, spiritual discernment seems to be in decline among people today, even those in the church. Pastor Jeff Schreve returns on From His Heart in just a moment with more about that. The lacking of discernment creates anxious times.

Everywhere we turn, there seems to be more division, more confusion, more uncertainty about what's true and what can be trusted. Yet, in the middle of all this turmoil, something surprising is happening. Even as trust in culture declines, hearts are quietly awakening.

People are searching for meaning, longing for hope, and asking deeper questions about God. Friend, that openness is not random. It is a window of opportunity that places From His Heart in a unique and a critical position to speak God's word clearly.

With your help, From His Heart is broadcasting God's truth to your community and around the world each day, and we could not do it without your help. Would you consider a generous gift today to help us continue and expand to more outlets and more countries?

For your gift today of any amount, we'd like to send you Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series we just started today called Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival. It's available in the format of your choice when you go to fromhisheart.org. You can also call us at 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE.

And again, you can go to fromhisheart.org. Just request the series Soul on Fire and brighten the light of your soul for the kingdom to see. Now, let's get back to today's message, "Prone to Wander, Part One", as we learn more about spiritual discernment.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: He says in verse two, "And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you have found them to be false." Now, the deeds and the signs of an apostle were signs and wonders and miracles. How did you know if somebody was a true apostle?

Because they would do signs and wonders and miracles. And so a lot of people, just like it is today, they put apostle by their name. "I'm the apostle so-and-so." Really? Well, where are your signs and wonders and miracles?

It's also intimated in scripture that in order to be an apostle, you had to see the resurrected Christ. If you haven't seen the resurrected Jesus, you can't be an apostle. So what does that tell you? There are no apostles today. The apostles died with John. He was the last of the apostles.

Well, the church in Ephesus, and may I just say John lived in Ephesus for 30 years. He got there about 66 AD. Ephesus is a place of high rollers, if we could use that term. I mean, these are heavy hitters when you have Paul and Timothy and John and Apollos and Aquila and Priscilla, some really big names that were there in that church.

Well, they put to the test those who call themselves apostles. And they found, "Hey, you're not really an apostle." Now, some will say today, "Hey, we need to just love everybody. We just need to have open arms with everybody and we just need to accept everybody just as they are."

That's not what we're supposed to do. John said in 1 John 4:1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world." Test the spirits to see whether they are from God. So they were practicing spiritual discernment.

And then lastly, they were enduring hardship for His name. Verse three: "And you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake and have not grown weary." And those Christians endured hardship for the name of Jesus.

Hey, the church in Ephesus was doing lots of great things. And maybe you're here and you know you have lots of things that you're involved in, lots of things you're doing, and the Lord would say, "I see your deeds. I know you're doing some great things."

But discovery number two: the church in Ephesus was missing the greatest thing. They were doing lots of great things, but they were missing the greatest thing. And the Lord says to them, verse four: "But I have this against you, that you have left your first love."

You have left your first love. The word left means to forsake, to lay aside, to neglect, to depart from, to disregard. You've left your first love. And that's the greatest thing. That's the most critical thing. That's the main thing. And the main thing for the church is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

See, they were failing in the greatest commandment. Jesus said in Matthew 22 when He was asked, "Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law?" And He said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment."

The number one commandment. Now, I think it's fair to say if the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, with everything you've got to love Him supremely, and you don't do that, you've committed the greatest sin because you're not fulfilling the greatest commandment.

We don't look at it like that. We think, well, murder is the greatest sin or rape is the greatest sin, or we think of some terrible, horrible thing Jeffrey Dahmer did. That's the greatest sin. But the Lord says, "The greatest commandment is to love Me, and if you're not doing that, you're missing the greatest thing and you're committing the greatest sin because you're failing in the greatest commandment."

You say, well, how in the world did this church that was doing so well, that had Paul there and John there, how did they fail in the greatest thing? How did they miss the main thing? I mean, that's the main thing. How did they miss that?

Well, they did what we do. They had allowed other things to take first place. Other things to take first place in their hearts and in their lives. It's easy. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love and prone to let other things take priority in your life.

Exodus chapter 20, the very first commandment of the Ten Commandments, the Lord says this: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me."

No other gods alongside of Me. No other gods that would take My place. We let other gods come in. You say, well, what do you mean by that? Well, it's easy to let football become number one in your life. I'm just being honest, it's real easy to do that.

My favorite team or my son plays for this team and that just becomes my whole life and my whole passion and everything else takes a backseat to that. We have people that love, I love sports. We have people that play a lot of tennis. They love to play tennis. It's good. That's a good sport.

Love to play golf. That's a love-hate for me. But we got to be careful because those things have their place, but those things can take number one. Work is a good thing. God provides work. But you got to be careful that work doesn't become number one.

Money is something every one of us has to have to live. But Jesus said no one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money. So money is a great servant. It's a terrible master. And in so many lives, what happens?

Money becomes master, and you worship and serve money and God gets put to the side. Other things take first place. They had let other things take the number one spot. The scripture says in Colossians 1:18, "He also," speaking of Jesus, "is head of the body, the church. And He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, the first one to rise from the dead never to die again, so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything."

He is number one in everything. And here's the thing about the church in Ephesus that is so true for us. If you had asked those people, I mean, the letter went to the angel in the church at Ephesus. The angel is the messenger, is the pastor.

You'd ask the pastor, "Hey, do you guys love Jesus at your church?" He'd have said, "Of course! Of course we love Jesus." You ask me, "Hey, Jeff, you're the pastor at First Baptist Texarkana. Do you love Jesus?" Yes, I love Jesus. "Do the people at First Baptist Texarkana love Jesus?" Yes, we love Jesus.

When the scripture says, speaking straight from the Lord Jesus, "I have this against you that you have left your first love," it doesn't mean that you don't love Him anymore. It means you don't love Him like you once did.

See, that first love is that honeymoon love. That "I just got saved and I'm so excited about Jesus and I just want to tell everybody what the Lord has done for me." It's like the Gadarene demoniac who had the legion of demons and the Lord cast out the legion of demons and he was put in his right mind.

And he put his faith and trust in Jesus and he said to Jesus, "Please let me go with you." And the Lord said, "No, you go home to your people and you tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you."

And that man went to the Decapolis, those 10 Gentile cities, and told everyone what great things the Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled. He just couldn't keep quiet about what Jesus had done for him. He had such a love and such a passion for Him.

Listen, has there ever been a time in your life where you loved Jesus more than you do right now? See, that's the issue. Because if that's true, then you have left your first love. The Lord has this against you, that you have left your first love.

Guest (Male): This has truly been an urgent admonition to believers everywhere to not forget our first devotion to the Lord and fall into complacency. Today, you're listening to part one of the message "Prone to Wander".

It's from Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival. And we'll be in this series for the next couple of weeks, and we hope that you'll get a copy to listen to all the full-length messages and get it in the format of your choice.

Just call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go online to fromhisheart.org. It's available for your gift of any amount. It'll help you guard against this damaging spiritual drift that can take away from the abundant and blessed life God wants for you.

From His Heart shares these kinds of Christ-centered messages to your community and the world each and every day. So God bless you for helping us rekindle more souls on fire for the Lord.

I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to return tomorrow for part two of this timely message for the Christian, "Prone to Wander", when Pastor Jeff will open God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.