Apples of Gold
Radio Script for December 1, 2008
“Where Can I Go and Meet With God?”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
He was a teenage Muslim.
Of course he was Muslim. His parents were Muslim. His friends were Muslim. He lived in the Muslim country of Bangladesh. What else would he be?
His father was an Islamic leader, his mother an Islamic school teacher, and their son was a model Muslim boy.
He often prayed in the mosque, and now get this, he truly had a heart for God. He wanted to know God. He would kneel on his prayer rug with his head to the ground and cry out to God.
This man told me his story a few years ago – Dr. Abraham Sarker.
At one point, when he was 15, he had a very disturbing dream. In fact, he had the same dream three times.
He decided that he must hear from God, so he went to the mosque and started praying. He said he prayed to hear an audible voice from God.
He prayed all night, seeking God and crying out to Him. “But,” he said, “I did not hear from God.”
A couple of weeks later he was walking home from evening prayers. Suddenly, he heard a voice in his own Bengali language. It said, “Go and get a Bible.”
He looked around, but he was the only one on that gravel road. Nonetheless, it was a clear, audible voice. “Go and get a Bible.”
He had never even considered reading a Bible before, and for the next four years he looked but couldn’t even find one. It wasn’t until he came to America as a Muslim missionary that he finally found a Bible and read it. And soon after he became a Christian, and you can read all about it in his book entitled “Understand My Muslim People.”
Now let me tell you what struck me most about that story. It struck me how there he was, seeking the Lord in a mosque, and God heard him and answered his prayer.
Psalm 42:2 asks an intriguing question. It says, “Where can I go and meet with God?”
That’s a great question. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was that easy? You know, like making a doctor’s appointment. You make the appointment, then just go and meet with God.
We all have questions. We all have problems. Why can’t we just go and meet with God?
The woman at the well asked a similar question of Jesus in John chapter 4. Should they worship God on the mountain or in Jerusalem? Jesus basically dismissed the whole discussion about physical location. He said, “…a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The way Jesus talked, the idea of a special location for meeting with God wasn’t even worth discussing. He leaped right over it.
Where did Abraham Sarker go to meet with God? He went to the mosque. It was all he knew.
As a Christian, do I think going to a mosque to seek God is wrong? Of course, as a Christian, I don’t think the Muslims have it right, but I do think you can find God in a mosque. You can find God in a bar. You can find God wherever you are because He is there. Acts 17:27 says we can seek God and reach out for Him and find Him because “He is not far from each one of us.”
Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from your Spirit?” And the answer is basically nowhere. Wherever you are, God is within reach.
So we can meet with God wherever we are. But if that’s true, then why does He often seem so hard to reach?
Well though the location doesn’t really matter, other things do.
For example, Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”
So it’s not just a routine appointment to meet with God. We need to seek Him with all our heart.
Hebrews 11:6 clarifies things. It says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
So to meet with God requires faith. We must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
Ephesians 3:12 says that through faith in Christ we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Ephesians 2:18 says we have access to the Father.
Hebrews 4:16 says we can approach the throne of grace with confidence.
Hebrews 10:22 says we can draw near to God with sincere hearts, in full assurance of faith.
James 4:8 says if we draw near to God then He will draw near to us.
So where can we go to meet with God?
The answer is, right here; right wherever we are. This is the place we can meet with God. He is within reach, just like He was for Abraham Sarker in that mosque.
We can cry out to God. We can earnestly seek Him in faith. We can draw near to Him, and like Dr. Sarker, we can expect to hear from Him.
So the question is not, “Where can I go to meet with God?”
The real question is, “Am I ready to earnestly seek Him with all my heart?”
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
You can read Dr. Sarker’s, and the testimonies of other former Muslims, here:
http://www.gospelformuslims.com/mbb_testimonies.php
© 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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