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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for September 28, 2010
“Get the Beam Out of Your Eye”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Do I need to ask for God’s help to keep me from watching dirty movies on HBO?
No.
Why not?
Because I don’t have HBO.
That’s a simple concept, isn’t it?
So what am I going to say to the man who comes to me and says, “I need you to pray for me. I need God to help me stop watching dirty movies on HBO.”
Yes, I’ll probably pray for the man, but first I’m going to bluntly say, “Get rid of HBO.”
Sometimes people hyper-spiritualize things and turn them into something far more complicated than they really are.
Jesus said to get the beam out of your eye. Just get it out.
He said it in the context of picking out the small sins of others while having big sins of your own. It’s like pointing out a splinter in their eye while having a beam in your own eye. How can you help them with a splinter while you have your own beam? First of all, get the beam out of your eye, Jesus said, then you can help with their splinter.
Let’s look at this from a couple of different angles.
First of all, the main action point is to get the beam out of your own eye. What does that mean?
Get rid of the big whopping sins! That’s what I think it means.
Stop killing. Stop stealing. Stop fornicating or committing adultery. Stop being violent. Stop being perverted.
Isn’t that a simple concept? Get the beam out of your eye, Jesus said.
Did He tell us how?
Look at the very next passage in Matthew chapter seven. He said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
So do you want to get the beam out of your eye? Do you want to put a stop to your big whopping sins? Then ask, seek and knock. Make your requests known to the Lord. Seek Him and find the answers to your problems.
Jesus hammered home His point by saying, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
So ask the Lord to deliver you from those sins.
And there’s more. At the end of chapter seven Jesus said “…everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
So that’s another thing to do to remove the beam from your eye; listen to Jesus’ words and put them into practice.
This is a powerful one-two punch for getting the beam out – take it to the Lord in prayer, then hear His words and put them into practice.
So I think that’s the main action point of Jesus’ teaching in those verses. Get the beam out of your eye.
Maybe you thought the main action point was to keep your mouth shut about your brothers’ sins, but that’s not it. It’s not that you let your brother keep on sinning. It’s that you work on your own sins, then help him work on his.
Years ago, the head of our local Teen Challenge had a drug problem. With God’s power he got that beam out of his eye, praise the Lord! And now he spends his time helping other men with their drug problems.
See how that works? “Then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye,” Jesus said in Matthew 7:5.
Hurry up and get the beam out of your eye so you can help your brother with whatever is in his eye.
Now let me touch on one more angle of this teaching. What if someone with a beam in their own eye approached me about something in my eye? My knee-jerk response could be to say, “What? Why would I listen to you? You have a beam in your eye!”
That’s like saying I would ignore someone who was covered with spiders who said, “Dude, there’s a spider on your sleeve.”
Would I ignore him because he had a much bigger spider problem than mine? Not at all!
Now he may not be a good person to help me with my spider problem, but I am still going to look at my sleeve for a spider. And if I find one, I’m going to do something about it – and it doesn’t matter where the news came from.
Does that make sense? If someone points out a speck in your eye, the fact that they have a beam in their eye shouldn’t stop you from checking to see if it’s true.
So check your eyes. Start by looking for beams, those big whopping sins that are obvious – and get them out.
Get the beam out of your own eye, Jesus said. Then you will be able to do the important work of helping your brother with whatever is in his eye.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 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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