Apples of Gold
Radio Script for June 4, 2008
“I Was a Van Halen Fan”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Valerie Bertinelli has a new book out, which I picked up the other day at the library.
It’s called “Losing It,” and I thought it would be all about how she lost weight and developed a more healthy lifestyle.
Then I saw those magic words: Van Halen.
When I was a teenager I loved Van Halen, which was a rock group named after two of its members, Eddie and Alex Van Halen.
Well I had forgotten that Valerie Bertinelli had married Eddie Van Halen back in 1980. And what I thought was going to be a health book turned out to be an autobiography full of information about their life together.
I knew almost nothing about them, because when I gave my life to Christ back in 1984, I trashed all my secular music and discovered something much better to follow than pop culture.
So this book fascinated me. It was like a study in sowing and reaping.
Looking back over my life I see so many wonderful results from doing things God’s way, according to the Bible. Not that I even understood it all. Sometimes I just did it because the Bible said to. And now, looking back, I just shake my head and say, “God, you are awesome!” I look at my marriage and my children and family and all I can say is, God’s way works.
But let’s go back to the early 1980’s. Eddie Van Halen was a mega rock star, best guitar player in the land. I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. What a life! Big bucks. Crazy fans. Sold out concerts. Rock and roll every night and party every day. He had it made. Then marry a TV star and what more could you ask for?
But it just didn’t work. He was building on sand, like Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount.
In the book, his wife talks about all the unfaithfulness in their marriage. There was betrayal and mistrust. Eddie drank a lot and became an alcoholic. He had fits of rage. She tells of one family gathering where Eddie was loaded and unruly and her dad ended up punching him in the face.
She said he used alcohol and drugs to handle the pressures of his career. He spent many nights in his recording studio rather than coming home to his wife. He smoked a lot and eventually had part of his tongue cut out due to cancer. They did interventions to try to get him into rehab, which he tried but it just didn’t take.
After 20 years together they finally separated and eventually divorced.
So I compare his life of sowing and reaping to mine. And remember, his is the life I would have traded for so quickly back in the early 80’s. Here is what I find. He continuously sowed bad seed, then reaped a destructive harvest. His life looks like a train wreck.
So does that make me better than him?
Not at all. I know how quickly I would have traded places with him, and I probably would have done the same thing.
What made the difference? Was it because I chose to follow Christ back in ’84?
No, because I don’t really know why I did that. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and decided to become a Christian. I didn’t hit rock bottom. I didn’t think it through at all. I just ended up at a church altar one night, and from that point on God changed my life.
It reminds me of Colossians 1:13. God rescued me from the dominion of darkness.
So why me and not Eddie?
I don’t really know why, but here is a guess. God rescued me because people were praying for me. They prayed and they were persistent. They just kept on praying for me.
For example, I know my parents were praying for me, probably nonstop. I’m sure other family members were praying, too.
And I’ll bet there were people like teachers and neighbors and friends and other parents praying for me. And they weren’t just tossing up prayers. Many of these were Godly people, saints who knew how to get a hold of the Almighty.
Then there were prayers being prayed, not for me by name, but by category. People praying for the students on my campus. People praying for those who would come to the church that night. People praying for a harvest among teenagers. The pastor of that church. The evangelist that night. The members of the church. The prayer warriors in that town. The Christian kids on my campus.
You throw all that together and you end up with a lot of prayers that applied to me.
Does that work? Does it change anything?
In Luke 18 Jesus tells of a persistent widow. The judge acted because she bugged him so much. And Jesus said prayer is like that.
Well the Bible doesn’t say this, but think about it. You have a widow who keeps coming back to the judge. What if the widow suddenly showed up with a thousand of her friends? How much more quickly might he have acted?
Prayer might work the same way. The more people we can get praying about the same thing, the more effect it has on God.
Like I said, I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense to me.
So I want to thank all the people who prayed for me in those days. I don’t know where I would be without all those prayers.
And if you know someone who needs the Lord, someone who needs to be rescued from the dominion of darkness, then line up the prayer warriors! And don’t quit. Keep on bombarding heaven for that person.
I think it was the prayers of God’s people that brought about the change in my life, and I think God is ready to do the same for so many others – as we are persistent in prayer.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2008 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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