What Are Your Chances of Getting a Call Like This? - Apples of Gold - October 3, 2008 -vi-

Apples of Gold
 

Radio Script for October 3, 2008

“What Are Your Chances of Getting a Call Like This?”

Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.

(telephone)

“Hello Mr. Apple.  This is Philip Bartholomew, Attorney at Law.  I am pleased to inform you that you are the heir of a distant relative.  This gentleman has left you the tidy sum of $600,000.”

Wouldn’t that be great?  Who wouldn’t want to get a call like that?

Unfortunately, most of us never will.  In fact, many folks can look down the road and see that probably no one is thinking about leaving them any kind of inheritance. 

Now imagine if you were a slave.  Your slavery might be someone else’s inheritance, but you will have no inheritance at all, ever.

That’s the way it was for the Jews in Egypt.  Just a bunch of slaves.

Then God redeemed them, bringing them out of Egypt by His mighty power.  Eventually, under the leadership of Joshua, God led them into the Promised Land.  He gave them the land, and get this.  He called it their “inheritance.”

Over and over in the Old Testament that land is referred to as their inheritance. 

Now stay with me here.  If you receive an inheritance, what are you called?  An heir – H-E-I-R – heir.

Now listen to this in Ephesians 3:6.  “This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel…”

Does that mean we get a chunk of real estate in the Middle East?

Actually it’s much better than that.  First Peter 1:4 says that through Christ we receive “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”  That’s because it is kept securely for us in heaven.

Hebrews 9:15 calls this “the promised eternal inheritance.”

Titus 3:7 says that, as heirs, we have “the hope of eternal life.”

Colossians 1:12 says our inheritance is in “the kingdom of light.”

You may or may not have any hope of inheritance in this world, but through Christ we have the hope of an incredible inheritance in the next!

See, the ancient Israelites were God’s heirs, and their inheritance was the Promised Land, a kingdom on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean.  He prepared that land for them, then brought them into it.

And now, through Christ, we are God’s heirs, and our inheritance is eternal life in the kingdom of light.  It’s a kingdom, and He has prepared it.

Look at what Jesus told His disciples in John 14.  He said He was leaving to go and prepare a place for them.  And verse three says, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me…”

In Matthew 25 Jesus describes what it will be like when that happens.  Verse 31 begins, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.”

Now listen to what He says to those on His right.  “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” 

What a glorious day that will be! 

So maybe you don’t have any prospects of a great inheritance, no rich relatives anywhere on the horizon who are ready to make you their heir. 

But here’s the good news.  Through Christ we are heirs of God!  He has prepared an inheritance for us, eternal life in the kingdom of light. 

And it won’t be long now until we receive that inheritance.  He says, “Behold, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me.”

And soon we will hear these wonderful words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world!”


Comments?

E-mail me:  dougapple@wave94.com.

May God bless you today!  With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
  
I can imagine a preacher taking this in a slightly different direction.  In my mind I can hear a dynamic sermon based on the comparison of the slaves in Egypt, who had no hope of an inheritance, to we who were slaves to sin, having no hope of any inheritance from God.  I can hear him preaching about our slavery to sin, and our poverty, and our hopeless situation we were in.  And then comes Christ, our Redeemer!  And like the Jews in Egypt, God takes us from having no hope of an inheritance to having a glorious inheritance made by God Himself.

© 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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