Let us turn to what the Spirit says to the church at Ephesus.  After reviewing the good qualities and characteristics of this church, much to their praise and credit, he does not flatter their vanity, by intimations or otherwise, to think themselves all right and in need of nothing; but “I have this AGAINST thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.  Remember therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent.”  It is truthfully said “our best friends are those who warn us of danger.”  This is God’s friendship for his churches.  He shows his people by his Word where they may go wrong, and, if they have ears to hear and eyes to see, where they are wrong. Leaving their first love is the charge brought against this church of Ephesus.  And it is the only charge.  To what extent or degree they had departed is not definitely said; but they had gone so far that repentance and reformation, or the doing of their first works, was necessary that they might be restored to the state they had once enjoyed.

Now it appears plain to my mind, from all the teachings I find elsewhere in the Word, that love to the Lord their God with all the heart, and love to the neighbor, which is the church, is, and forever ought to be, the first and only love.  The church is the good Samaritan that lifts up the wounded brother who has fallen among the thieves of temptation, and restores him.  This love to the Lord and the church is the love from which these Ephesian brethren had fallen.  Departures from first loves are not uncommon in the church and out of it.  The newly married couple enjoy a warmth of affection that sweetens their cup of happiness and strews flowers all along their pathway of life.  This pleasure lasts while their love lasts; but when love dies, happiness dies with it.  This accounts for the joyless, pleasureless life of many married partners.  First love, alas! departed; the first fire all burnt out, leaving naught but the dull ashes of cold indifference and burning tears.  It sometimes goes somewhat the same way with members coming into the church.  They run well for a season, manifest a deep interest in the things of religion, but when tribulation or persecution ariseth on account of the Word, directly they stumble.  Entire churches sometimes lose their first love for the Lord and for one another.  This seems to have been true of the church at Ephesus.

The best way for all is to be sure that the first love is of the right kind.  I have heard of some coming into the church from motives of mere personal interest.  I have heard of one man who confessed, after he had been expelled, that he got out of the Dunkards all he wanted.  Said he:  “They helped me out of debt, and that is what I went in for.”  That man never lost HIS first love.  His first love was the love of self and the world, and that is the love he carried with him when he was turned out.  Such examples, however, are rare.  As a people we are not often imposed upon in this way.  But some who come in with the best of motives, desiring to live in the church, to be built up in the church, and to help build up the church, may, as I have known instances of the kind, lose these good feelings, become discouraged, and altogether unhappy.  To such, if any of that class are here, I now speak.