The Power Tool That Changes Lives - Apples of Gold - September 22, 2009 -vi-

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Apples of Gold
 

Radio Script for September 22, 2009

“The Power Tool That Changes Lives”

 

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

A hundred years ago in England, Alice Baxter would slip on her blue bonnet and go out to change lives.

For 20 years she was the police court missionary in Lancashire County.  She worked in the rescue missions.  She visited women prisoners at the jail, and went door to door in the slums passing out gospel tracts.

Why did she do all that, especially as the single mother of three children?

Because she thoroughly believed in the power of Jesus Christ to transform lives.

She would witness during the day, then share her stories with the children that night.  They heard many tales of ruined lives, shattered by liquor, “that liquid gateway to ruin.” 

Many would not listen to her, but then one of the “ruined women” would accept the Gospel that Alice shared with them, and their life would be “transformed to the glory of God!”

This is the home that J. Sidlow Baxter grew up in, and eventually became the pastor of the largest Baptist church in Scotland.  He grew up watching his mother share the Gospel, then sharing stories of lives changed by Jesus Christ.

Alice Baxter did not believe in social reform.  She didn’t buy into the assumption that if you simply change someone’s environment you will change their life.

Instead, according to biographer E. A. Johnston, “she believed that communal problems stemmed from a moral and spiritual vacuum that only the Gospel of Christ could transform.”

Deron Gillespie knows what she’s talking about.  He saw it first hand in his own life.  He tried the secular rehabs with no real lasting effect.  But then he came to Christ, believed and received the Gospel, and his life was transformed.  He is now the executive director of the Tallahassee Teen Challenge.

Singer Smokey Robinson knows what Alice was talking about.  It wasn’t through secular rehabs that Smokey was delivered from his addiction to cocaine.  It was through the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Gary Johnson knows what she’s talking about.  He is the Director of Development for the Haven of Rest home for men in Tallahassee, and a former cocaine addict.  He said, “Secularly, I did everything I could to try to deal with that.  But the minute that I accepted Christ, the minute that I turned my life over to Him, the change started to occur.”

And he’s seen many other lives changed by Jesus Christ there at the Haven of Rest.  “I’ve not seen anything else that’s done that,” he said, other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“I see it work every day,” Gary said.  “Every time I look in the mirror I see it working.  If it can happen for me, it can happen for anyone, believe me,” he said.  “And I know it works because I see it working all the time." 

That’s what drove Alice Baxter out into the streets of England with her blue bonnet and her Gospel tracts – the knowledge that what she was offering would literally transform the life of anyone who accepted it.  And just like it worked 100 years ago, it’s still working today.

Romans 1:16 says, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…”

Did you catch that?  The Gospel is the “power of God.”  The Gospel is the power tool that changes lives. 

Smokey Robinson describes his life as “hell,” and then Jesus set him free.

Gary Johnson said he thought he could “manage” his life, along with the drugs, but he managed himself right to destruction. 

But then Jesus comes along, and look at this terrific offer in John 10:10.  Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Do you want that abundant life?  Then it’s time to stop looking in self help books.  It’s time to stop looking in worldly success or new relationships or even drugs or alcohol.

The abundant life you are looking for, the deliverance, the life transformation, can be found by simply bringing your life to the real and living Jesus Christ.

And what He did for Alice Baxter, and Deron Gillespie, and Smokey Robinson, and Gary Johnson, and Doug Apple – He will do it for you!


Comments?

E-mail me:  dougapple@wave94.com.

May God bless you today!  With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.

Alice Baxter’s story is taken from the book “J. Sidlow Baxter:  A Heart Awake” by E. A. Johnston

© 2009 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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