Welcome to Affirm Foundation, presented by Princeton ministries with Doctor Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

There was an 80-year-old golfer, and as he reached this old age, his eyesight began to diminish and he wasn’t able to keep his eye on the ball like he used to. And so he finally, reluctantly, having lost so many balls, decided that he would get a caddy. And he found another man, 80 years old. And this man had 2020 vision. And he said that he’d be glad to be his caddy. And so on that first hole, he took the swing and off went the ball. And that 80 year old Caddy had his eye right on the ball and saw exactly where it landed. And his friend said, I couldn’t see it. Did you see where it landed? He said, oh, yeah, I saw it exactly. He said, where did it land? He said, I forget.

All of us, in one way or another, seem to have certain areas where we’re very strong. But perhaps the common denominator for all of us is forgetting. We forget birthdays, we forget anniversaries, we forget special days. We don’t mean to, but sometimes we just forget. And some things you can get by forgetting, but others you can’t. And I want to talk with you today about one thing that we ought never to forget, and that is our first love with Jesus Christ.

From the word of God. We invite you to stay tuned for the next half hour as we bring you a message from the word of God, brought to us by the Reverend Ken Smith, minister of the Princeton Presbyterian Church in historic principles, Princeton, New Jersey. Once again, here’s Ken Smith as he continues his message from the word of God.

I receive a lot of mail, and most of it is junk mail. And after a while, you become very good at being able to look at mail, turning it over, seeing who sent it, and without even opening it, knowing that this is junk mail. But every now and then you get a letter. It has a special address, a special handwritten touch, and you know that this is a letter you want to read. And whether it’s a letter from a husband, a wife, or a child, a friend, we open it eagerly. But what if you were to open your mailbox and find, as you turned over on the back, the return address? This is written from the prince of peace, the king of kings, Jesus Christ. We would want to open that letter quickly.

Such a letter has been written to us in God’s word, his scripture. But within the pages of God’s word to us is a very special letter that was written. It was written by John, who was the beloved friend and disciple of the Lord Jesus. John had, in his later years, been placed on the island of Patmos, where there he would die in his nineties as an old man. John tells us in the book of revelation, chapter one, he says, I heard behind me a loud voice. It was like the sound of a trumpet. And this voice was the voice of Jesus Christ. And he said to me, write in a book and send this letter to the church to whom I have addressed it. John says that he saw Jesus Christ walking in the midst of seven candlesticks.

He was clothed in a robe that went down to his feet. Around his waist was a golden band. He says that from his mouth came like a sword, double edged. He says that the eyes of Jesus were like a flaming fire. And when he saw Jesus in the midst of these seven candlesticks, representing the seven churches that he would write these letters to, John says, I fell at his feet as though I were dead. But then Jesus, he says, laid his right hand on me and said, do not be afraid. And he asked John to write a letter to the church at Ephesus. Now, in the opening of that letter, he commends the church at Ephesus. He says, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you will not even bear evil in your midst.

And so we find that the church at Ephesus was a church that was very satisfied, sound in its doctrine. It was very faithful. It was very patient. It was very persevering. It was a church that had much to be said about it. It was good. Now, you have to understand the city of Ephesus, because the city of Ephesus was located on the banks of a river. It was known as a great commercial center. It was an educational and literary center. And it was to this town that Paul came. He only spent a few opening weeks at Ephesus. But during those few weeks, he began a church under the shadow of the temple of Diana, which was a pagan church, a temple where people would come and buy silver trinkets. And Paul, under the shadow of that great temple, began with a few people church.

And after just a few weeks, he left Ephesus. And that church at Ephesus was sustained by Priscilla and Aquila. And Paul later returns to Ephesus. He spends some two years and three months at that church, dedicating all of his attention on this small body of the church at Ephesus. Finally, he leaves again. He’s replaced by Timothy. Timothy who’s in the prime of his life, and he devotes his energy to teach and instruct people in the things of the Lord. Finally, in the later days of Ephesus, John. John, who is now being instructed on the island of Patmos to write a letter to Ephesus. We learned that John had spent some time ministering at that church in Ephesus. And now John, from the isolation of Hotmos, is being asked to write this special letter.

But we know that whom the Lord loves, he also chastened, along with the words of acclamation about the church at Ephesus. In verse four, we read, nevertheless, I have this again. Thee. Thou hast left thy face. Despite all of their patience and perseverance, despite their thoroughness in doctrine, they had forgotten their first love in Jesus Christ. Now notice that Jesus does not say to the church at Ephesus that I have something against the pagan. He does not say, I have something against the unbelievers. He says, I have something against you. Those who bear the name of Christian, those who call themselves the living stones of the church. It is to those people that he says, you have left your first love. Do you remember when you first were introduced to Jesus Christ?

Do you remember when through God’s spirit, he began to show you that he had died for your sins? And he removed those scales and he unplugged your ears, and you were so filled with a joy of what God had done through Jesus Christ that you could scarcely keep it within yourself. And people would see it on your face, and they would say, what is it? And you would say, I just have fallen in love with the God of this universe through his son, Jesus Christ. Do you remember that first love when nothing could keep you from worshiping the Lord, when you were there more than the minister when you would be there early, and when that evening service would come, there you would be wanting to learn more and more about the Lord Jesus. You remember how you prayed with such devotion. Thanksgiving?

You prayed to your father for someone to say to you, don’t pray. You would have said, why? Never, never. I will always pray. I love this Christ. I will serve him all of my life. I love it. But then something happened. Slowly, perhaps imperceptibly, it showed itself. First by coming late, and then it showed itself by finding a reason not to come at all. And so when the Sunday school met, where before you were eager to be, there you were not to be found, and where you were always to be found in that special seat, suddenly that Sunday came, where you found something else to do.

And now the thought of coming on a Sunday evening to study God’s word, a thousand to keep you away, and the idea of coming in the middle of the week to pray, to show your devotion to the Lord is not even an afterthought. Why, it doesn’t even enter your mind anymore. Jesus wrote to the church at Ephesus, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. I think this morning that Jesus would take your face in his tender hands, and he would look you and me in the eye, and with all of his love and concern, would say, I have this against you, that you have forgotten that you have left your first love.

Is there anyone here who cannot say, as I can say, dear Jesus, refresh me again with your love, with that devotion, with that appeal, with that sense of your presence that I knew when I first came to you. Reverend Clovis Chapel tells about a minister who preached for months to the congregation. And the congregation sat there like a cadaver in their seats. And he fired his best shots, but they seemed never to penetrate beyond the first row until finally, in a dramatic announcement, he stood before his congregation and he said, this church is dead, and the funeral will be held next Sunday. And his congregation was shocked and amazed. And that next Sunday, you can be sure they were all there to see the funeral of the church.

And when they came into the church, there in the front before the pulpit was a large black coffin. It was an open casket. Draped over it were all of the linens of a service for a funeral. But it was perched just high enough that no one could look in. And so the minister began to cry about the death of the church. He preached about the great work that it had done, but how unfortunate that now it had expired. And then to make sure that everyone in the church could gaze upon the body in that coffin, he invited them to come row by row and to pay your last respects to the dead church. And so, perplexed, they came out of their seats, and they came by.

Some stood on their toes to look inside as they looked into the face of the corpse, of the death of the church. And as people would look into this open casket, a shock came upon them. And quietly they walked out of the church. For at the bottom of that coffin was placed a mirror. And as each passed by, they saw their own face. This says, Jesus, I have against you that you have left your first love. But with every remedy that Jesus shows, he also gives along not only with the diagnosis, he gives a remedy. And we read about that remedy in verse five. He says, remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

Jesus Christ wants everyone to remember their first love to him. He wants us never to forget that he died for the sins of his people. He wants us never to forget that when his side was pierced, it was for my sin. Your sin, the sin of the people who had brought him to that terrible position. He wants us never, never to forget our first love with him. When I was in seminary, I met a friend of mine whose father had the business of lending money to churches through an insurance company. His job was to find out if a church truly trusted in Jesus Christ. I didn’t know it, but when I was in my first year at seminary, standing on his driveway in Concord, New Hampshire, he began to question me. He asked me, Ken, where do you stand on the Virgin birthday?

He said, well, that’s a very complicated subject, boy, there’s so much being written, it’s really getting difficult to really say where anybody can stand on that. He said, where do you stand on the resurrection of Jesus? I said, well, the resurrection of Jesus is a wonderful truth, boy, I’m learning at seminary new ways of understanding that. And he said, ken, be careful or you’re slipping, and soon you will forget your first love with Jesus Christ. For me, those were shocking words. They caused me to think and to analyze what it was that I was studying. And I thank God for the refreshing that came as I committed myself again to him and remembered that first love in the Lord Jesus. Perhaps one of the most loved hymns of the church was written by Robertson, called come, thou fount of every Blessing.

Robertson wrote that hymn as a young man. Soon after the writing of that hymn, he found himself falling out of communion with the very God that he wrote about so beautifully. And that hymn, he became deeply depressed and he finally decided that he would travel, hoping that would relieve his sense of depression. And now, as an older man in his travels, he met a young woman who had just become a Christian, and she began to talk to Robertson about her newfound life in Jesus Christ. She told Robertson, not knowing who he was, that a particular hymn had so touched her, and she wanted to share some of the lines of that hymn unknown to her. The hymn was the one that Robertson had written many years before.

And when she read to him the third verse, o to grace, how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be let my goodness. Like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee prone to wander lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love here’s my heart take and seal it with thy courts above and as Robertson as an old man heard this young girl recite the very hymn that he had written, he began to cry uncontrollably and then told the girl that he had written that hymn. And that in his later years, became the moment when he remembered having left his first love in Jesus Christ. And he returned again to follow him. Jesus says this I have against thee that thou has left thy first love.

May it be that if any here have left that love and forgotten that this day you would remember anew what Jesus Christ has done for you and that you would never be prone to wander, but instead that you would come once again to the mercy of Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our God and our father, we thank you for your grace to us. We thank you that you loved us first. We thank you for the memories of that love. And we pray that you would help us this day to commit anew. Never, never to forget the love of Jesus Christ that we would remember again the first love of the Lord Jesus. For we ask it in his name. Amen.

Remember his love. I’m afraid I’m as guilty as the next person when it comes to remembering to thank God for his love. And thank you, Ken, for pointing this out to us today. And while I’m on this subject of remembering, may I remind you, my friend, that we’d be delighted to hear from you and do hope you’ll take the time to write or call with your comments about this broadcast from the word of God. We’ll be happy to say thank you for your letter or call by sending you a copy of Doctor Aw Tozer’s classic book on prayer. All we need is your name and address. And while you’re at it, request a list of all the messages that are available on cassette. Here’s our address from the word of God, box 3003, Princeton, New Jersey 08540.

If you’d prefer to telephone, the number is area code 609 921 1020. We’d be delighted to hear from you. Don’t forget our oft repeated invitation to visit us here at the Princeton Presbyterian Church. Our services are held in the John Witherspoon Middle School on Walnut Lane near downtown Princeton, New Jersey. Sunday school with classes for all ages is at 930, and the morning worship service is at eleven. If we don’t see you this Sunday, then and we hope you’ll join us again by means of radio next week, same time and station. Till then, this is Joe Springer thanking you for listening as we have come to you once again today from the word of God.

Thank you for listening to Affirm Foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton Ministries post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. That’s Princeton Ministries post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. The Lord bless you, and Doctor Smith looks forward to hearing from you.