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  RON BAILEY - PART 5
  by Ron Bailey
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Summary: This sermon focuses on the church of Ephesus in the New
Testament, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the initial love
and relationship with God. It highlights the need for repentance,
returning to the first works, and listening to the Spirit's guidance to
avoid the consequences of straying away. The message revolves around the
restoration to the pristine beginnings of fellowship between God and
man, symbolized by the tree of life in the paradise of God.

Duration: 4:28

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon focuses on the church of Ephesus in the New Testament,
emphasizing the importance of maintaining the initial love and
relationship with God. It highlights the need for repentance, returning
to the first works, and listening to the Spirit's guidance to avoid the
consequences of straying away. The message revolves around the
restoration to the pristine beginnings of fellowship between God and
man, symbolized by the tree of life in the paradise of God.

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CONTENT
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They were designed to have a relationship, one with another,
interdependency, network, whatever you want to call it, and you could
see people moving from church to church in the New Testament, but what
you don't see is some kind of like organisational charge, with a clock
around, and then going back and forth, and somebody else will have this
all messed up. Each one of these was designed to stand on its own two
feet, in God, as long as the High Priest kept on visiting, bringing His
Word, making sure that they knew what was saying, and all that these
churches have to do, they're actually not responsible even for all the
work of God in nation, all they have to do is just do and think, back to
the Virgin Mary telling them, whatever He says to you, do. So to each
one of these churches, the Lord comes, and He speaks a word, and to this
church of Ephesus, of course, He brings His amazing Word, He brings it
to you, to the message of the church of Ephesus, these things says He
who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of
the seven golden hosts, I know your works, just listen to this
protestant in the church, I know your works, your labour, your patience
and endurance, that you cannot bear with those that are evil, and you
have tested those who say they're apostles and not, and have hammered
lions, and you have persevered, and have patience, and have blamed them
for my insignia, and have not become weary, isn't this that? You say,
well, if I was part of a church like this, this is my annual assessment,
that you have bled your first blood, remember, therefore, from where you
fall, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly
and remove your lapsed blood from its place, unless you repent.

The mystery you have that you're here to be is of the Nicolaitans, which
I will survey. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit
says in the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give you the promise,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

I'm going to interpret this very much as the tree of life in the
paradise of God. This is, it's a symbol of pristine beginnings, when
everything's clean and fresh, and when God walked to the garden in the
pool of the dead. Well, the fellowship between God and man, that's not
even one of them, but paradise was one, when the tree was there.

God was at home there. He could visit regularly, they could talk,
everything in the way he ought to do. The Lord says in this church of
Ephesus, what you have done, you've done something, you've abandoned
something, and the possible consequences are unbearable.

But, if you hear what I'm saying to you, if you repent and do the first
works, if you listen to what the Spirit is saying in the churches, if
you open your mouth, I'll give him to eat from the tree of life. I will
restore things as they were right at the very beginning. Isn't that what
the Bible is about? Isn't that what the Bible is about? Isn't it a
restoration to what was at the very beginnings? What is born right at
the very beginnings.

When the Bible uses this kind of language, when it talks about the first
love, it's linked with a whole series of ideas back through the
scriptures. Very often in the Bible, Bible words don't have definitions,
they have histories. As to say, you need to read the Bible to see how
the words are used, and you'll begin to build up a complacent picture
and understand the significance of these kind of things.

It speaks here about your first termination, briefly placed at Jeremiah.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/sjr0AT4MpOg.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/ron-bailey/ron-bailey-part-5/
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