Ephesus - Moriel Ministries

There are those who have taken hold of
God’s End-Times purpose for Israel and the
Jews, which is indeed a truth, but have made
Israel, and not Jesus, the central truth. And so
what happens The message of the cross gets
obscured. There are organizations whose ministry
has prioritized the task of carrying the Jews
back to Israel, loving them and blessing them
as best they can, but they have promised not
to proselytize. Can you imagine Peter, John or
Paul making such a promise
False Apostles
But what I am doing I will continue to
do, so that I may cut off opportunity from
those who desire an opportunity to be regarded
just as we are in the matter about
which they are boasting…
In other words, people who want to be considered
apostles. Jesus tells those with ears to
hear at Ephesus, “I know … you put to the test
those who call themselves apostles, and they are
not, and you found them to be false.” (Rev. 2:2)
Paul continues…
… For such men are false apostles, deceitful
workers, disguising themselves as
apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even
Satan disguises himself as an angel of
light. Therefore it is not surprising if his
servants also disguise themselves as servants
of righteousness, whose end will be
according to their deeds. (2 Co. 11:12-15)
And what is the context in which Paul is
speaking “Another gospel.” They take their
eyes off Jesus, off the cross, off the central message,
and it begins to go wrong. Every false
apostle makes that mistake in some way. They
take their eyes off the essential truth of Christ
and Him crucified, resurrected and coming
again, and begin to emphasize some other truth,
making it central. It always happens that way.
True Apostles
There are at least four kinds of apostles in
the New Testament. First and foremost there is
Jesus himself.
“Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of
a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the
Apostle and High Priest of our confession;”
(Heb. 3:1)
Jesus is called the High Priest in Hebrews
and He is identified as, and appears as, the
High Priest in Revelation 1. But in the Greek
in Hebrews 3:1 it is the definite article—Jesus
is “the” Apostle. All other apostles must derive
their apostolic authority from Jesus, “the Apostle
and High Priest.”
But there are three other types of apostles.
First there were the original twelve. He appointed
(ordained) twelve, designating them apostles.
And when day came, He called His disciples
to Him and chose twelve of them, whom
He also named as apostles: (Lk. 6:13)
Then there was Paul. He was not one of the
original twelve, and some people teach that the
apostles acted presumptuously in selecting Matthias
instead of waiting for Paul, but that would
be a mistake. Carefully examine Acts 1:21.
When Judas committed suicide they looked for
someone to replace him from among the men
who had been with them the whole time that the
Lord Jesus went in and out among them since
the baptism of John. The other apostles were
disciples of John the Baptist and were probably
baptized by him before they were disciples of
Jesus. Paul was not.
So there was Jesus “the” Apostle, the
twelve, the almost unique case of Paul, and finally
there were men such as Apollos and Barnabas.
Barnabas was called an apostle in Acts
14:14. The word “apostle” simply means “away
from post” or “one who is sent.” The only kind
of apostle that can exist today are church-planting
missionaries sent out by their home church.
Where can the biblical model for churchplanting
missionaries be seen Acts 13, Paul
knew he was an apostle. God told him through
Ananias in Damascus, “he is a chosen instrument
of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles”
(Acts 9:15). He was called to be an apostle
to the Gentiles. But notice what happened. He
did not embark on that ministry until seventeen
years later when it was confirmed to the church
by the Holy Spirit. Then, and not until then, the
church sent him.
A lot of people today who are claiming to
be apostles (“God said to me” types) should
learn from Acts 13. Paul did not go out as an
apostle until it was confirmed to the church and
he was confirmed by the church, and sent together
with Barnabas. Did God send out only
Paul No, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for
Me Barnabas and Saul.” The basic New Testament
model is for plurality of leaders. Even as
a church-planting missionary, Paul was yoked
and in submission.
Some of the people claiming to be apostles
today are autocrats on an ego trip. They may
have started out right, but pride has overtaken
them. Too many churches are known as so-andso’s
church. That is not biblical. They are not
subordinate to anybody. Paul was always reporting
back to Antioch. On issues of doctrine,
in Acts 15, he submitted to the joint authority of
the elders and the other apostles. And he always
had Barnabas or Luke with him. That is the way
it was. There are many church-planting ministries
and ministers, but if they are legitimate,
they will be scriptural.
So whenever people are encountered who
call themselves “apostles,” the biblical requirement
is to test them to see if they are true apostles.
Jesus commended the church at Ephesus
because they tested such people.
Forsaken Your First Love
The second thing Jesus said to Ephesus
was that they had lost their first love. That happens.
When first “saved” the people around new
believers think they are crazy. There is the case
where a believer had been busted for drugs,
burned his draft card, and was thrown out of
private school, which was alright with his Dad.
But when he gave his life to Jesus, his father
pulled a gun on him!
When first saved, some new believers
might think they are the next Paul. They may be
clumsy, but they have a zeal. The church should
be run on the wisdom of the old sheep but on
the zeal of the newly born-again lambs!
Feature Article – Continued
Sadly, the lukewarm church so often takes a
zealous, newly born again Christian and makes
him a lukewarm one! They lose their first love.
Yet people who still have that enthusiastic first
love intimidate and convict others by the power,
sheer joy and passion of the Holy Spirit that
is in them.
The first-century apostolic church is often
regarded as the ideal church, and in some ways
it is. But believers then had their problems, too!
Yet they were not so very different to problems
facing the church today. Hyper-charismatic XE
“Charismatic” extremists in Corinth, people
with crazy ideas about the Last Days in Thessalonica,
legalistic Christians in Galatia who
wanted to add rules to the Gospel—it is what
happened then and it still happens now. There
is nothing new under the sun. But how did their
problems commence The way every problem
commences. What happens in marriage The
loss of one’s first love.
When my wife gets on my nerves, I just
think back to walking along the shore of the
Dead Sea holding hands with this Israeli girl
from whom I could not take my eyes off—this
girl I led to a confession of faith in Christ on the
streets of Jerusalem. I remember walking with
her by the Sea of Galilee explaining to her the
basic truths of the Bible. That is the person I fell
in love with, and that is the person who, in my
heart of hearts, I am still in love with. If you are
married, think back to that time and, husbands,
just love her. There is a natural tendency to forget
one’s first love. But everyone is supposed to
remember that first love for Jesus. He told the
Ephesians to remember it.
When genuine revival comes to a church everybody
is full of life and awe at the holiness of
God. But over time that first love is lost and eventually
what happens There are two things that
happen when people begin to lose this first love:
1. The quality and quantity of their prayer
life begins to decrease.
2. They lose their evangelistic zeal.
They do not have the same desire to tell everybody
what Jesus did for them. They get into
the excuse, “I am not an evangelist.” Not everyone
is an evangelist, but everyone is a witness.
Jesus declared, “You shall be my witnesses”
(Acts 1:8). There is nobody who cannot give
out tracts, knock on doors, talk to people oneon-one
and establish relationships. This is not
to say that everyone should all give out tracts
or knock on doors, but Jesus has a ministry as
a witness for every believer. Ask Jesus to show
you what to do. There is no Christian who is not
called to be Christ’s witness.
Hate the Practices of the Nicolaitans
‘Yet this you do have, that you hate the
deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also
hate. (Rev. 2:6)
Finally, Jesus actually commended the
Ephesian church because they hated the practices
of the Nicolaitans which He Himself hates.
The Bible usually interprets itself, and the
words “nico” and “laity” together mean “suppression
of the people” or “rulers of the laity.”
This implies a clergy class like the Levitical
priests who ruled or lorded it over their brothers.
Before Satan succeeded in introducing pa-
December 2010 • Moriel Quarterly