Sermon Illustration

It always pays to live up to the law of kindness. One cannot always tell what great results will come in the train of seemingly small deeds that are performed with a desire to be helpful. An engineer of a passenger-train on a Mississippi railroad was driving through a snowstorm, eagerly scanning the track as far as he could see, when, halfway through a deep cut, something appeared lying on the rails. It was a sheep with her two little lambs. His first thought was that he could rush on without any damage to his train; but the sight of the innocent family cowering in the storm touched him, and he pulled the air-brake and sent his fireman ahead. In a few minutes the fireman came back with a terrified face. There had been a landslide, and just beyond the cut the track was covered with rocks. It seemed certain that if the train had gone on at full speed, in the blinding snow, it would have been impossible to stop in time to escape disaster. In the absolute sense the incident was provident...

Two mechanics, going home one cold night, passed a lame man who had been on the street all day trying, with little success, to sell his poor wares. “Dear me!” said one of them, “how miserable that poor fellow looks. If I had plenty of money, I should like nothing better than to relieve such cases. The first thing I would do would be to get him a good pair of shoes and a comfortable crutch that would make walking less painful for him.” In the meantime, his friend had stopped and was talking to the lame man. “Pretty bad walking, neighbor,” he said cheerily. “Take my arm and maybe you can get along better. I am going your way; that is, if you will tell me where you live.” He did not stop until he had seen the man safe in the little room and had succeeded in kindling a fire. He filled the cracks around the window with paper, and left the poor man by his steaming kettle, cheered and comforted. He did not say anything about his benevolent desires. He had no money, but he had given freely o...

More lost men and women have been rescued by the thought that somebody believed in them, than by any other human agency. There is nothing that will go so far toward making your class the most giddy or the most unruly class in the school, as to once let them know that they bear such a reputation. I recall just now a striking instance of this sort. In a certain village the grade of conduct in the public school had fallen so low that the teachers universally agreed that it was beyond them. One after another came with stern visage and artfully laid plans, determined to conquer the belligerents. But all in vain. Finally, there came a teacher, a lover of young people, and a man of such guileless mind that he seemed to have no other thought than that his gentleness would be returned in kind. To their own astonishment, the scholars found that there was something about him that put them on their good behavior when they were in his presence. Still, there were threats as to the daring pieces of...

A good lady, living in a large city, was passing a saloon just as the keeper was thrusting a young man into the street. He was very pale, and his haggard face and wild eyes told that he was very far gone on the road to ruin, as with profane speech he brandished his clenched fists, threatening to be revenged upon the man that had ill-used him. He was so excited and blinded with passion that he did not see the lady who stood very near to him, until she laid her hand upon his arm, and asked, in a gentle, loving voice, what was the matter. At the first kind word the young man started as though a heavy blow had struck him, and turned quickly around, more pale than before, and trembling from head to foot. He surveyed the lady from head to foot, and then, with a sigh of relief, he said: “I thought it was my mother’s voice; it sounded strangely like it. But her voice has been hushed in death for many years.” “You had a mother, then,” said the lady, “and she loved you?” The young man burst in...

A New York Sunday-school superintendent urged his teachers to bring new children with them the next Sunday, and as he walked down Sixth Avenue attempted himself to win a street boy. “Will you go to Sunday School?” he said, and in the vernacular of the street the boy said, “Nope.” The superintendent said: “We have picture papers for every boy,” and he would not come. “We have music, we have everything to make you have a good time,” and the boy steadily refused. Disappointed, the superintendent turned away and, when he had gone a short distance, he heard the patter of little feet behind him and, turning back he saw the boy. He said with an earnest, eager look: “Mister, are you there?” and the superintendent said, “Yes, I am there.” “Well,” he said, “next Sunday I’ll be there.” And he was. Sunday School papers, music, and other attractions of school were simply the first mile, the spirit of the superintendent was the second mile, and was an influence the boy could not shake off. —J. Wil...

We are so related to each other that we are continually leaving impressions on those we touch. It is easier to do harm than good to other lives. There is a quality in the human soul which makes it take more readily and retain more permanently touches of sin than touches of holiness. Among the ruins of some old temple there was found a slab which bore very faintly and dimly the image of the king, and in deep and clear indentations the print of a dog’s foot. The king’s beauty was less clear than the marks of the animal’s tread. So human lives are apt to take less readily and deeply, to retain less indelibly, the touches of spiritual beauty, and more clearly and permanently the marks and impressions of evil. It needs, therefore, in us infinite carefulness and watchfulness, as we walk ever amid other lives, lest by some word, or look, or act, or influence of ours we hurt them irreparably. —J. R. Miller

A small boy was visiting his grandparents on their farm. In the orchard he noticed a locust coming out of his shell. So he thought he would assist the locust. When telling how he helped the locust, his grandparents said he hurt the locust and did more harm than good, since it is God’s plan the locust works out of the shell himself. Sometimes we can do more help by leaving people alone, and letting them work out their own problems.

Two sons of an officer of the Atlanta police force were convicted of burglary on their father’s evidence and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. The two boys were arrested by their father in the act of burglarizing a store, and he appeared in court as prosecutor. The father, in giving evidence, said: “I tried to raise my boys right, and it nearly killed me when I found them trying to rob the store, but I feel it my duty under my oath as an officer to arrest them and prosecute. I told them they were guilty and they must take their punishment.” “There is indeed a real man,” said the Judge when the father had finished speaking, “and an officer who has the highest possible regard for his oath. He deserves to rank with the old Roman judge who condemned his own son.” Our heavenly Father is not only compassionate, but just. Love must yield where disobedience calls for justice.

It was my sad lot to be in the Chicago fire. As the flames rolled down our streets, destroying everything in their onward march, I saw the great and the honorable, the learned and the wise, fleeing before the fire with the beggar and the thief and the harlot. All were alike. As the flames swept through the city, it was like the judgment day. The Mayor, nor the mighty men, nor the wise men could stop these flames. They were all on a level then, and many who were worth hundreds of thousands were left paupers that night. When the day of judgment comes there will be no difference. When the Deluge came there was no difference; Noah’s ark was worth more than all the world. The day before it was the world’s laughing-stock, and if it had been put up to auction you could not have gotten anybody to buy it except for firewood. But the Deluge came, and then it was worth more than all the world together. And when the day of judgment comes Christ will be worth more than all this world—more than ten ...

In most things we are reasonable enough to withhold judgment until we have examined them in their entirety. For instance, no man attempts to judge as to the vastness and grandeur of the ocean because he has seen a cup of its water; no man judges the beauty and strength of a building from a bit of the brick of which it is built, or of the purpose of the author from a word cut here and there from one of his books. When we look at our own lives, however, logic seems to weaken, and we draw the most unreasonable conclusions. We plunge into some dark cavern and lament, “Oh that all my labor and pains should have come to this! Oh that God should have turned a deaf ear to my pleadings!” If we would wait long enough, we would see that we have been gently forced into the only avenue through which the light we asked for can be reached. Israel stubbornly refusing to look beyond for the land to which the Lord their God would lead them, is not without a counterpart in our modern life

Determination is a necessary qualification for the soul-winner, but it isn’t the only one. A man, who had more determination than devotion, heard a preacher remark that the case of a certain man was hopeless. He made up his mind to show the faithless shepherd what he could do; so he worked day and night till he had induced the man to confess Christ. The convert was, however, soon disgusted with the inconsistent life of the man who had urged him to become a Christian and fell back into his old ways. The worker had silenced the preacher, but he had not saved a sinner. The four men who brought the paralytic to Christ were not simply determined to show the crowd that when they started out to do a thing, they were not to be hindered. The fact that Christ commended their faith shows that they thought more about carrying the man than about carrying their point.

A minister, while crossing the Bay of Biscay, became greatly alarmed as he beheld what he thought was an approaching hurricane. Tremblingly he addressed himself to one of the sailors: “Do you think she will be able to go through it?” “Through what?” inquired the sailor. “That awful hurricane that is coming down upon us.” The old sailor smiled and said: “That storm will never touch us. It has passed us already.” So, in regard to the believer, judgment as to the penalty of our sins is past. We were tried, condemned, and executed, in the person of our surety, Jesus Christ.

While standing at the wharf of a quiet harbor, looking at the shipping which lay at anchor, we heard a young lady remark to a friend: “That nicely painted ship I would choose for a trip across the sea.” He replied: “I would not, but I prefer the dark old vessel near it. For that handsome ship is unsafe; she has been newly painted—but her timbers are rotten.” Very suggestive, we thought, of practical truth. There are painted ships on all seas. Upon the waters of life they are gaily sailing to eternity with an inward decay which will yield to the storm which awaits every mortal mariner.

I went to West Point, and we had an evening meeting in the old chapel. As we passed under the rear gallery to go out, one of the students stopped and said: “I wish you would look at that shield on the wall there; that is the most striking thing at the academy to me.” I looked at the wall; all around there were marble shields set in the wall, and on each shield was the name of one of our Revolutionary generals. Then I looked up at the particular shield to which attention had been called, and that shield was blank. It was there in form just as the others, but with no name on it; simply the words Major General, and the date of the unnamed general’s birth. “What does it mean?” I asked. “Well,” said the cadet, “that is the shield for Benedict Arnold. There is a shield for every Revolutionary general, and one for him too, but the nation would not cut his name on it nor the date of his death. He denied his country; his country has denied him.”

There is an old tale in Scottish history, that a bridegroom was murdered by a friend on the festal day. The cup that his friend presented to him was mingled with poison; and when death was in the castle, the culprit took the fleetest horse from the stable and plunged into the forest. All night long the hooves of that horse struck fire as he went at galloping speed through the forest. The man wanted to get away from the scene of his crime, and would not let the fleet animal rest, but plunged the spurs deep into the horse’s flanks. All night on and on, and as the dawn was breaking he emerged, horse bespattered with foam, breathless from the forest—right before the castle. He had ridden hard, but he had ridden in a circle: he thought he was going away from his crime, and in the morning he came to it. Ah, you cannot get away from your sin unless God takes you away. You cannot by speed of foot get away from your sin, your sin will go to the grave with you, your sin will go to the great wh...

A Boston shoplifter was caught in a comical way. He had stolen a hat in a department store, and ran with it to the escalators; but instead of boarding the one going down, in his haste he took the ascending stairway. He tried hard to run down, but was confronted by the ascending passengers, while all the time the merciless steps were rising. Finally, in spite of his frantic efforts, he was borne back to the head of the stairs again, where he found a policeman awaiting him. This is just a picture of the difficult ways of sinners. They try to escape with their loot, but they find all the ways of providence running against them. Everything conspires to their discovery. “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23). The sinner is his own detective. If there is no policeman at hand, he will arrest himself. If the police-wagon is out of commission, he will run to the courtroom. Remorse is more stern than any judge, and a guilty conscience is more terrible than any prison. Be certain...

If we are to credit the annals of the Russian empire, there once existed a noble order of merit, which was greatly coveted by the princes and noblesse. It was, however, conferred only on the peculiar favorites of the Czar, or on the distinguished heroes of the kingdom. But another class shared in its honor in a very questionable form. Those nobles or favorites who either became a burden to the Czar or stood in his way received this decoration only to die. The pinpoint was tipped with poison—and when the order was being fastened on the breast by the imperial messenger the flesh of the person was “accidentally” pricked. Death ensued, as next morning the individual so highly honored with imperial favor was found dead in bed from apoplexy. Satan offered to confer a brilliant decoration upon Adam and Eve—“Ye shall be as gods” (Gen. 3:5). It was poisoned; the wages of sin is death.

In the palace at Versailles, as if by the irony of fate, is a famous statue of Napoleon in exile. His noble brow is lowered in thought, his mouth is compressed, his chin is resting upon his breast, and his grand eye gazes into space as if fixed on some distant scene. There is something inexpressibly sad in that strong, pale face. It is said that the sculptor represented Napoleon at St. Helena, just before his death. He is looking back upon the field of Waterloo, and thinking how its fatal issue was the result of three hours’ delay. Those three short hours seem ever to write on the walls of his memory—“The summer is ended, the harvest is passed!”

A garrison is not free from danger while it has an enemy lodged within. You may bolt all your doors and fasten all your windows; but if the thieves have placed even a little child within doors, who can draw the bolts for them, the house is still unprotected. All the sea outside a ship cannot do it damage till the water enters within and fills the hold. Hence, it is clear, our greatest danger is from within. All the demons in hell and tempters on earth could do us no injury if there were no corruption in our natures. The sparks will fall harmlessly if there is no tinder. Alas, our hearts are our greatest enemies; they are the little homeborn thieves. Lord, save me from that evil man, myself. —C. H. Spurgeon

General Grant, speaking of charges of cowardice, says: “The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place to judge what is going on. The stragglers in the rear are not to make us forget the intrepid soldiers in front.” But how many judge the Christian Church and religion by its worst representatives!

Do you remember that poem of Southey’s about Sir Ralph, the Rover? In Eastern Scotland, in the old days, a good man had placed a float with a bell attached on the dangerous Inchcape Rock, so that the mariners, hearing it, might keep away. This Sir Ralph, the Rover, in a moment of devilry, cut away both float and bell. It was a cruel thing to do. Years passed. Sir Ralph roamed over many parts of the world. In the end he returned to Scotland. As he neared the coast a storm arose. Where was he? Where was the ship drifting? Oh, if he only knew where he was! Oh, if he could only hear the bell on the Inchcape Rock! But years ago, in his sinful folly, he, with his own hands, had cut it away. Hark! to that grating sound heard amid the storm, felt amid the breakers; the ship is struck; the rock penetrates her, she goes to pieces, and, with curses of rage and despair, the sinner’s sin has found him out; he sinks to rise no more until the great day of judgment.

When Dr. Wayland was president of Brown University and professor of science, his eldest son, who was a senior, in reciting to him one day, drew from his father, by a question, the expression of a certain opinion. “The esteemed author of this book,” said the young man, holding up his father’s textbook on science which the class was using, “holds a different opinion.” “The author of that book, my son,” said Dr. Wayland quietly, “knows more now than he did ten years ago.” The teacher of any science who does not know more now than he did ten years ago, who never finds occasion to modify and qualify and reshape his utterances, is probably a cheap and poor sort of teacher.

It was said of the Roman Empire under the Caesars that the whole world was only one great prison for Caesar, for if any man offended the emperor it was impossible for him to escape. If he crossed the Alps, could not Caesar find him out in Gaul? If he sought to hide himself in the Indies, even the swarthy monarchs there knew the power of the Roman arms, so that they could give no shelter to a man who had incurred imperial vengeance. And yet, perhaps, a fugitive from Rome might have prolonged his miserable life by hiding in the dens and caves of the earth. But, oh, sinner, there is no hiding from God. —C. H. Spurgeon

It was said of the Roman Empire under the Caesars that the whole world was only one great prison for Caesar, for if any man offended the emperor it was impossible for him to escape. If he crossed the Alps, could not Caesar find him out in Gaul? If he sought to hide himself in the Indies, even the swarthy monarchs there knew the power of the Roman arms, so that they could give no shelter to a man who had incurred imperial vengeance. And yet, perhaps, a fugitive from Rome might have prolonged his miserable life by hiding in the dens and caves of the earth. But, oh, sinner, there is no hiding from God. —C. H. Spurgeon

I have read that a frown of Queen Elizabeth killed Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Chancellor of England. What, then, shall the frowns of the King of nations do? If the rocks rend, the mountains melt and the foundations of the earth tremble under His wrath, how will the ungodly sinner appear when He comes in all His royal glory to take vengeance on all that knew Him not, and that obeyed not His glorious Gospel?

The following anecdote is by J. Wilbur Chapman: “I was once a pastor at Schuylerville, New York, where on the Burgoyne surrender grounds stands a celebrated monument. It is beautiful to look upon. On one side of it in a niche is General Schuyler, and on the other side, if I remember correctly, General Gates; on the third, in the same sort of a niche, another distinguished general is to be seen, but on the fourth the niche is vacant. When I asked the reason I was told that ‘It is the niche which might have been filled by Benedict Arnold had he not been a traitor.’” —J. Wilbur Chapman

Judge Rooney, of Chicago, fined a man $100 plus court fees and sentenced him to jail for ninety days for impersonating a doctor and practicing medicine without a license. I wonder how many professing Christians, ministers, and laymen would be “hit” by a law fining those who pretended to be Christians and were not. Are we leading or misleading people by our pretensions?

Sir Charles Follett, the chief of Her Majesty’s Customs, speaking on the clever tricks of smugglers, says: “We have had many extraordinary dodges come under our notice. For instance, innocent-looking loaves of bread, when accidentally examined, were discovered to have every particle of crumb removed from them, and the inside crammed with compressed tobacco. This is only one example of manifold specimens of cunning to bring in prohibited goods.” How cunning is our great enemy to bring into our souls his contraband! Evil thoughts, desires, and deeds, covered with the most innocent and harmless-looking excuses; so that we need the wisdom from above if we are not to be unmindful of his devices.

Mr. Jacob A. Riis, whom President Roosevelt once declared to be the most useful citizen in New York City, tells an interesting story concerning his work among the poor in New York. A while ago he went to visit a friend in a suburban town. On the evening of his arrival, as they sat at his table, the host looked around at his flock of five healthy children and said: “I wish you could find for me in the city some poor family—if possible, a widow with children about the age of these—who would be ours to work and advise with and to help over the rough places when they came along. Then each of mine could have his own friend, and he could get more out of it than he would give, I know. Here they are shut off, as you see, from that. All the neighbors are well-to-do.” Mr. Riis promised to try, for he knew the man was right. They were sadly handicapped. The best in them was being starved by the ultra-respectability of their surroundings. So one day he found in a tenement-house on the East Side a ...

Do you know what was eaten on the first Thanksgiving Dinner? Despite what you may have been taught, the Mayflower pilgrims probably didn’t have ambrosia, ham, potato salad, and pumpkin pie. Almost assuredly, with their lack of resources, they had roots, berries, wild fowl and perhaps some hasty pudding. Hasty pudding is simply a cornmeal mush, so named for the short time it takes to prepare it. A chef was preparing a Thanksgiving meal in a restaurant when a young man came running in the back door and shouted at him, “Carl, your house is on fire!” The chef immediately dropped his cookware and bolted out the door with his apron flapping in the breeze. After about fifty yards, he stopped in his tracks and said, “Wait a minute, my name isn’t Carl and I don’t even have a house!” Most of us eat “hasty pudding” more often than we will admit. We go off half-cocked with incomplete information to an uncertain location. Happily, our Creator left this advice: “It is not good to have zeal wit...

The Christian is to find exaltation by humility. Christ advised his hearers, when they went to a great dinner, not to go early and get the best places, but to go in modestly and take a humble seat; and then if it was proper for them to have the higher place, the host would honor them by public invitation to the better seat. It is by being, and not by seeming to be, that one really comes to be exalted. Christ emptied himself of all reputation, laid aside his glory and his riches, and came to the earth to be born among the lowly in the manger of an inn stable; but it was the way toward exaltation, for Paul says: “God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9–11). We, too, shall come to our highest through sacrificing ourselves in ...

In English folklore a story is told of a child of one of Britain’s noble families who was stolen from his house by a chimney sweep. The parents spared no expense or trouble in their search for him, but in vain. A few years later the lad happened to be sent by the master into whose hands he had then passed to sweep the chimneys in the very house from which he had been stolen while too young to remember it. The little fellow had been sweeping the chimney of one of the bedrooms, and fatigued with the exhausting labor to which so many lads, by the cruel custom of those times were bound, he quite forgot where he was, and flinging himself upon the clean bed dropped off to sleep. The lady of the house happened to enter the room. At first she looked in disgust and anger at the filthy black object that was soiling her counterpane. But all at once something in the expression of the little dirty face, or some familiar pose of the languid limbs, drew her nearer with a sudden inspiration, and in a ...

The friendship between Elijah and Elisha is a beautiful story of a strong love growing up between an old man and a young one. Elijah was no doubt often the guest in the home of Elisha’s father, who was a rich farmer. One day Elijah came through the field, past where Elisha was plowing, and, throwing his mantle over the boy’s shoulders, walked away as fast as he could. Elisha knew very well what that meant. It was the call of God to be a prophet. He settled up his affairs at once and went forth with Elijah. As Elijah’s translation drew near, Elisha begged that the mantle of the man of God might fall upon him. He had such reverence and love for Elijah that he longed to be like him, and to be able to go on doing his work when he should lay it down. The humility as well as the elevation of a noble soul is revealed in this longing to carry on the work of the Lord in the spirit of his friend.

One night when I was crossing the Atlantic, an officer of our boat told me that we had just passed over the spot where the Titanic went down. And I thought of all that life and wreckage beyond the power of man to recover and redeem. And I thought of the great bed of the deep sea, with all its held treasure, too far down for man to reach and restore. “Too far down!” And then I thought of all the human wreckage engulfed and sunk in oceanic depths of nameless sin. Too far gone! For what? Too far down! For what? Not too far down for the love of God! Listen to this: He descended into hell, and He will descend again if you are there. “If I make my bed in hell, thou art there” (Ps. 139:8). “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20). “He bore our sin” (see 1 Pet. 2:24); then He got beneath it; down to it and beneath it; and there is no human wreckage lying in the ooze of the deepest sea of iniquity that His deep love cannot reach and redeem. What a Gospel! However far down, G...

It had been a night the like of which Joseph had never dreamed could occur. Away from their home, their friends, and all familiar surroundings, his wife had given birth to a son in a hillside cave ordinarily used to shelter animals in the little town of Bethlehem. As Joseph looked at Mary, asleep now, he cried. He should have been able to provide something better for her tonight. This precious woman who was “highly favored” and “blessed among womankind” had been entrusted to his care. But the best he had been able to do tonight was a cave, a tiny cleared area, and a bed of straw. “I should have been able to do more for her,” he whispered. Then he looked at the baby. So tiny. So helpless. So dependent on Mary and him. But how could it be! This was God’s own son, not his. This baby was the God of creation, of Abraham, of Moses. He was the God of Joseph and Mary. How could he be lying beside Mary now? Many fathers feel guilty that they are unable to do more for their families. Not e...

Praise may well be given to God, even in times of trouble. He gives all spiritual blessings, and they often come through trials. “Tribulation worketh patience” (Rom. 5:3). But though our conditions change He does not. His choice was made before the foundation of the world, and He is unchangeable. He meant us to be holy, and He uses the needful means to this high end. Christ believed: that is the basis of our pardon. Christ loved and served: that is sanctification. The Father chose; the Son redeemed; the Spirit makes holy. We may well sing a doxology. —John Hall

If you are abiding in Christ, you are reproducing yourself in thousands of instances when you are wholly unaware of it. Out of the personal relationship between the soul and Christ come the fruits of holy living. The vine does not bear fruit of itself; it bears its fruit through the branches. Our unconscious influence thus becomes far more fruitful than our conscious influence. In the last great day many will bewail that they have accomplished so little, and, looking at the scanty results, will say, “When saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?” (Matt. 25:37). To find that unconsciously their lives had abounded in fruits well-pleasing in the Master’s sight. It is from such holy lives as this that is derived our Master’s highest joy. It is when the whole body of Christ becomes instinct with His Spirit that the world is made conscious of His divine headship over the church.