Preface: According to few different sources....John Lennon had spent a lot of time in front of the television set in the mid to late 70s.....and often came across television evangelists. One source named Billy Graham and Pat Robertson specifically who Lennon had watched. He contacted Oral Roberts who sent him a copy of his book.....they exchanged a few letters....and soon Lennon who for a period of at least a few weeks....possibly a few months....had told friends that he was...born again....and would use phrases such as....'praise the Lord'.....began telling them that he was....'a born again pagan.' My point here is this....America during the 70s....and much of the 80s....was a 'hot spot'.....for the gospel. This fervor came and lasted twenty years or so. Conversions were intense....and spread rapidly.....and multitudes died.....like me....only to be raised to new life.....while many others seemed infected for a short time....but lived on....'fake positives'....never having died to be born again. We don't seem to catch this virus as often today....at least not with the same symptoms....as that 'first love' symptom seems too often to be missing! My question here is....generally speaking....are we evangelicals really saved? We don't seem to show it anymore. I know the Christians that when we meet....we will talk about the Lord....but I know many more who would be very uneasy in a conversation like that. What kind of salvation is that? Do they understand what they were supposedly saved from? We don't seem to have the slightest interest if the person next to us....or our own children in a lot of cases....are redeemed.....and born again. We do believe in a literal hell don't we....or do we? We are fully aware that a works gospel is a fake....and does not save.....are we not? I've been watching this for years. We might be thrilled if a liberal neighbor would become a conservative....especially if we could be the one who converted them.....but as to their eternal destiny....we do not seem to care? I do know this....the people are not getting the preaching....this is a terrible church age for preaching....and multitudes are perishing for lack of knowledge! The following post....What Was That First Love....was first posted in April of 2020:
What Was That First Love?
I was reminiscing today to my wife about a Christian friend of mine from decades ago who I had recently contacted. I told her all about him....and how he had a falling out at his church many years ago....and never sought out another congregation....but I added that he still writes Christian posts on the Internet. She nodded and said.....'Well he must be pretty smart." Then I'm sure I saw her glance over at me before adding...."Then again maybe not?" Hmm?
The seven letters to seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 & 3 should often be in our biblical reading today....I believe anyway. What more evidence could one ask than...."Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophesy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near." (Rev 1:3) I would think that we would go over each and every church letter to see where we ourselves fit in. I know that I'm described in a few places....(not the good ones)....but the one letter that seems to keep my attention the most is the letter to the Ephesians..."But I have this against you, that you have left your first love...." (Ephesians 2: 4) Have I left my first love? I'm sure that I have in many ways.So what might that first love have been like? I've told this anecdote before. Somewhere around 1973....as I would finish my classes at Pitt....provided I didn't go straight to the college bar....which was more often than not....I would stop in the National Record Mart on Forbes Avenue before the Port Authority Lincoln Coach bus came....and also more often than not I came out with a paperback....but once I came out with Reach Out...The Living New Testament Illustrated....the illustrations being photographs of people in what was then a contemporary setting. I paid $2.95 for the paperback paraphrase Bible. The same book is on the arm of this chair that I'm sitting on right now. It was roughly a decade before I would taste the gospel....but I think that I could in a way....smell it back then....for many times later in life I would open that book up and press the pages to my face....and the fragrance of paper transported me somehow to back when I bought it....and it was a wonderful aroma....and it filled me with peace.....a peace that I could not define at the time. I would read those pages and when I read the name....Jesus....I somehow knew that something holy was in my presence....but soon after this I went back to Carlos Castaneda and Thomas Pynchon and Charles Reich and John Kenneth Galbraith and popular authors like that.
Fast forward to 1982....and the name Jesus now had meaning. He was our wonderful Savior and King. He had raised me from spiritual death to eternal life! I was indeed born again....my sins were forgiven.....I was washed clean. As doctrinally unaware as that young Jesus Generation was back in the 1960s....in reading about it there seems to have been something so sweet....being baptized in the ocean off California. Wonderful ministries sprouted up focusing on discipleship....Ligonier.....the Navigators....and of course packed Billy Graham crusades. Christian music was pure....so unprofessionalized but yet so edifying. I gave away hundreds of bibles back then....and still have many of my own study bibles....different study bibles that I would move on to....and each one filled with highlighting and now almost unreadable notes. Have I lost any of that? We have to move on....for we cannot stay in our newborn state....but that which was wonderful....with a purpose....surely remains wonderful....and surely still has a purpose.
Paul wrote some heavy stuff to these Ephesians some thirty years before....give or take. Some of the same believers must have still been at Ephesus when John penned Revelation. That's my interpretation on this anyway. So I read Ephesians.....slowly....meditating on every verse....every thought....every possibility....to see....if it is there....what first love they may have lost....and remain thankful to God for all of these warnings....and will....Lord willing....continue to contemplate them....and pray about them.
Note: I added this recommendation at the time....that the reader Google...’ligonier, audio, The Only Cure Is Forgiveness. If you are out of college....and about to get married....and right now live in guilt....you should hear this message!
