REPENT AND DO THE FIRST WORKS

Pastor Art Watkins of Coden Bible Church (Coden, Alabama)

December 14, 2016

In Revelation 2:4-5 Jesus said to the church at Ephesus: Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

The church at Ephesus was a fallen church and one of the things the Lord told them to do was to do the first works. This is good advice to Christians today who have left their first love and lost their zeal. Albert Barnes makes this comment about doing the first works.

And do the first works - The works which were done when the church was first established. That is, manifest the zeal and love which were formerly evinced in opposing error, and in doing good. This is the true counsel to be given to those who have backslidden, and have “left their first love,” now.  Often such persons, sensible that they have erred, and that they have not the enjoyment in salvation which they once had, profess to be willing and desirous to return, but they know not how to do it - how to revive their ardor, how to rekindle in their bosom the flame of extinguished love.  They suppose it must be by silent meditation, or by some supernatural influence, and they wait for some visitation from above to call them back, and to restore to them their former joy.

The counsel of the Saviour to all such, however, is to do their first works. It is to engage at once in doing what they did in the first and best days of their piety, the days of their “espousals” (2 Cor. 11:2) to God.  Let them read the Bible as they did then; let them pray as they did then; let them go forth in the duties of active benevolence as they did then; let them engage in teaching a Sunday school as they did then; let them relieve the distressed, instruct the ignorant, raise up the fallen, as they did then; let them open their heart, their purse, and their hand, to bless a dying world.

As it was in this way that they manifested their love then, so this would be better suited than all other things to rekindle the flame of love when it is almost extinguished.

The weapon that is used keeps bright; that which has become rusty will become bright again if it is used.