John Bradshaw - The Warning to Ephesus
The letters to the seven churches in Revelation aren't for the faint of heart. The messages were to real churches in real locations, in what's now Western Turkey. Ephesus was an important city located on the Aegean Sea, and Jesus warned the believers there that if they didn't repent, he would "...remove your lampstand from its place". In other words they couldn't continue as a church.
That promise was kept. The Church of Ephesus faded away, and for hundreds of years there hasn't been anything there that comes close to resembling biblical Christianity.
The same dynamic has played out around the world where beautiful cathedrals are today, little more than museums. Those churches that traded biblical Christianity for stultifying formalism, essentially lost their candlestick too.
The Christianity Jesus established was vital and vigorous. Don't let your faith grow cold. The ruins in Ephesus serve as a warning. I'm John Bradshaw, for It Is Written.