Downfall and Devolution in Devotion of Disciples at Ephesus
Since a great pitfall of disciples is neglecting to develop the discipline of deep devotion to their Divine Master, it’s basically similar to falling out of love of the Lover of our souls, as can be seen in the scathing rebuke of our Divine Master in:
Revelation 2
1Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write;
These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
2I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
3And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 4Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
5Remember 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. 6But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.
7He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
What started as the Divine Romance between God and the saved sinner, who He courted, pursued, and wooed into such Divine Love Fellowship with His initiation, had devolved and deteriorated into mere devotion to the obligations and duties in their perfecting of doctrines and deeds and purifying their beliefs and behaviors as mechanical and perfunctory, devoid of the life of love expected by the Divine Lover of our souls as the beloved’s supposed reciprocal response. They were behaving like programmed robots devoid of emotions and empathy.
By the way, the Revelation of our Lord given through the love apostle, John the Beloved, His most intimate disciple, represents the eschatological plan of God on how history would unfold after He founded His Church, His Betrothed Beloved Bride. As one of the many interpretations, Chapters 2 and 3 represent the essential characteristics of the Church, locally (as a body of believers) and/or personally (as an individual believer), as history has unfolded in relation to the Church and God’s eschatological plan for the whole world as He would wrap up human history. With remarkable similarities and differences in addressing the seven churches (that existed simultaneously during the apostolic era), which not only represent the churches through geographical location, but also in historical time, since it’s beginnings starting at the apostolic era.
For instance, the Ephesian disciples (or church) represented the apostolic church as a whole, with whom the romance of God with His church started, while Smyrna represented the church in its early persecutions and martyrdoms and to whom He gave no rebuke at all but only reassuring commendation and promise for their faithful sufferings for Him. Pergamum, “where Satan’s seat is”, represented the church compromising and mixing with the world, to whom Christ condemned as moral departure or apostasy contrary to what He commended in the Ephesian church.
When the church became popular to the world system, despite the earlier persecutions, Pergamum compromised with worldly morality by departing from and perverting their biblical faith with their corruptions of adopting pagan doctrines to be politically correct in attracting the pagans to the church’s fold. It was the start of political prostitution of the church when the supposed godly church got married with the ungodly world system. It was more of spiritual adultery when the Pergamum church fornicated with the world system.
Thyatira revealed how the devolution of the evil that started in Ephesus deteriorated further to the progression to idolatry as can be seen in apostate churches with pagan practices, such as the worship and whoreship of the Sacred Feminine, Mother goddess, and Queen of Heaven mystical, mysterious, mythical, and mythological cultism and occultism.
Sardis represented the church which is dead or dying with the height of the devolution of the church’s devotion to their Divine Lover, though it still had a minority or remnant of godly men and women, as during the Reformation, when the faithful remnant wanted to go back to the simple purity of faith of their apostolic ancestors.
Philadelphia, to whom the Divine Lover gave no rebuke at all but only encouraging commendations of their deeds particularly in keeping Christ’s word and not denying His name and enduring patiently their sufferings, represented when there was a revival of the first love lost from the start of the devolution of the churches’ devotion, as can be seen during the waves of revivals that swept Europe and America.
Finally, Laodicea, to whom the Divine Lord gave no commendation at all among all those churches but only scathing rebukes, represents the final state of apostate devolution as can be seen in the late modern and post modern Christianity which is neither hot nor cold to be so emetic to the Divine Lover’s tastebuds because of their hypocritical wretchedness, pitifulness, spiritual poverty despite material affluence, blindness and nakedness before their Divine Lover’s all-seeing searing sight!
If you have been blessed with this post and want to say thank you, a cup of coffee would be fine.
