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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for April 20, 2010
“A Most Curious Cure”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Yes, God could have just healed them all.
He could have just waved His mighty hand and all would be well.
But He didn’t.
Instead, He gave them one simple thing to do, one little hoop to jump through.
You can read about it Numbers chapter 21. Moses was leading the Israelites through the wilderness, and suddenly the camp was infested with poisonous snakes.
Now the people had been whining to high heaven right before that, and they quickly connected their snotty behavior with the attack of the snakes. So they went to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents.” And Moses did.
And that’s when God prescribed a most curious cure. He told Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and put it up on a pole. And it shall come to pass that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”
It doesn’t say God drove away the snakes. It doesn’t say God kept them from biting. It doesn’t say God neutralized their poison. And it doesn’t say God healed everyone.
He simply told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole. Then anyone chomped by a real snake could live – as long as he looked up at the bronze snake.
That’s the end of the story, which leaves a lot of questions. Did everyone look, or did some refuse to look, and die? Did some wait to see how bad it would get, or did everyone immediately rush to look at the bronze serpent?
Well anyway, chalk it up as just another odd story from days of yore.
And we could do that – if Jesus hadn’t brought it up during his little conversation with Nicodemus.
As a Jewish teacher, Nicodemus would have been very familiar with this old story, so Jesus used it to shed light on a new story, one that hadn’t even taken place yet.
In John 3 Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
It’s easy to see the comparison. Moses put the bronze snake on a pole and lifted it up for all to see, and everyone who looked at it was saved from the poison and lived.
Well Jesus was nailed to a cross and lifted up, and whoever looks at Him, which is to say believes in Him, will be saved from the poison of sin and will live eternally.
Look to Jesus, and live!
Have you ever heard the testimony of Charles Spurgeon? He lived in England in the 1800’s and became one of the most famous preachers in the world. But as a young man he was lost in sin; so how did he come to Christ?
Well here’s the story, according to Spurgeon.org.* In January 1850 a snowstorm interrupted his journey and he ducked into a Primitive Methodist chapel. The regular minister didn’t make it in, so apparently one of the parishioners got up to deliver a message.
The text was “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” Well the thin man spoke for about ten minutes and ran out of things to say. Then he noticed Spurgeon, a stranger in the sparse crowd.
He fixed his eyes on Spurgeon and said, “Young man, you look very miserable.”
Spurgeon said it was a “good blow” and struck him right at home.
The speaker continued, “And you always will be miserable – miserable in life, and miserable in death – if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.”
Then the man lifted up his hands and shouted, Spurgeon said, “as only a Primitive Methodist could do.” He said, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live.”
And Spurgeon said, “I saw at once the way of salvation. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, ‘Look!’ What a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him!.”
Yes, the story of Moses and the serpent seems quaint and ancient.
But then Jesus made it as current as today’s newspaper when He compared it to Himself.
The Son of Man was lifted up for your sins and mine. We can be spared from sin’s poison and live eternally!
And what does it take?
“Look!” said the Primitive Methodist preacher, “Look!”
You have nothing to do but to look to Jesus and live.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
* http://www.spurgeon.org/heathbio.htm
© 2010 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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