Sermon Illustration

There was school with a class of students that no teacher had been able to handle. Two or three teachers had been run off from this school in one year by the unruly students. A young man, just out of college, heard about the class and applied to the school. The principal asked the young man, "Do you know what you are asking for? No one else has been able to handle these students. You are just asking for a terrible beating." After a few moments of silent prayer, the young man looked at the principal and said, "Sir, with your consent I accept the challenge. Just give me a trial basis." The next morning the young man stood before the class. He said to the class, "Young people, I came here today to conduct school. But I realize I can't do it by myself. I must have your help." One big boy, they called Big Tom, in the back of the room whispered to his buddies, "I won't need any help. I can lick that little bird all by myself." The you...

Zaleusus flourished about 500 B.C. His government over the Locrians was severe but just. In one of his decrees he forbade the use of wine unless it were prescribed as medicine; and in another he ordered that all adulterers should be punished with the loss of both their eyes. When his own son became subject to this penalty, the father, in order to maintain the authority of the laws, but to show parental leniency, shared the penalty with his son by ordering one of his own eyes to be thrust out along with one of his offending son. In this way, the majesty of his government was maintained, and his own character as a just and righteous sovereign was magnified in the eyes of his subjects.

There was a little girl whose parents had had a miserable marriage and were divorced, having nothing in common save their affection for the child. One day as the girl was playing in the street she was knocked down by a bus and seriously injured. Taken to the hospital, she was examined by the doctors but was found to be beyond human aid. Hastily summoned to the hospital, her parents heard the sad news and stood silently, one on either side of the bed, looking down helplessly at the little girl. As they stood there, the child’s eyes suddenly opened and seeing her parents she tried to smile. Then drawing one arm from under the sheet, she held it out in the direction of her father. “Daddy,” she said, “give me your hand.” Turning to her mother, she stretched out her other arm. “Mummy,” she said, “give me your hand.” Then with a final effort of her fast-ebbing strength she drew them close together. This is a picture of what Christ did on the cross. The Savior took the hand of sinful hateful ...

A man had the duty to raise a drawbridge to allow the steamers to pass on the river below and to lower it again for trains to cross over on land. One day, this man’s son visited him, desiring to watch his father at work. Quite curious, as most boys are, he peeked into a trapdoor that was always left open so his father could keep an eye on the great machinery that raised and lowered the bridge. Suddenly, the boy lost his footing and tumbled into the gears. As the father tried to reach down and pull him out, he heard the whistle of an approaching train. He knew the train would be full of people and that it would be impossible to stop the fast-moving locomotive, therefore, the bridge must be lowered! A terrible dilemma confronted him: if he saved the people, his son would be crushed in the cogs. Frantically, he tried to free the boy, but to no avail. Finally, the father put his hand to the lever that would start the machinery. He paused and then, with tears he pulled it. The giant gears b...

One of the old favorites is the story of the father and son who worked for months to build a toy sailboat. Every night when he came home from work the man and his boy would disappear into the garage for hours. It was a labor of love—love for each other and for the thing they were creating. The wooden hull was painted bright red and it was trimmed with gleaming white sails. When it was finished, they traveled to a nearby lake for the boat’s trial run. Before launching it the father tied a string to its stern to keep it from sailing too far. The boat performed beautifully, but before long a motorboat crossing the lake cut the string, and the sailboat drifted out of sight on the large lake. Attempts to find it were fruitless, and both father and son wept over its loss. A few weeks later as the boy was walking home from school he passed his favorite toy store and was amazed to see a toy sailboat in the window—his sailboat! He ran inside to claim the boat, telling the proprietor about his e...

One evening a woman was driving home when she noticed a huge truck behind her that was driving uncomfortably close. She stepped on the gas to gain some distance from the truck, but when she sped up the truck did too. The faster she drove, the faster drove the truck. Now scared, she exited the freeway. But the truck stayed with her. The woman then turned up a main street, hoping to lose her pursuer in traffic. But the truck ran a red light and continued the chase. Reaching the point of panic, the woman whipped her car into a service station and bolted out of her auto screaming for help. The truck driver sprang from his truck and ran toward her car. Yanking the back door open, the driver pulled out a man hidden in the backseat. The woman was running from the wrong person. From his high vantage point, the truck driver had spotted a would-be rapist in the woman’s car. The chase was not his effort to harm her but to save her even at the cost of his own safety. Likewise, many people run from...

A Japanese soldier by the name of Shoichi Yokoi lived in a cave on the island of Guam to which he fled in 1944 when the tides of war began to change. Fearing for his life, he stayed hidden for twenty-eight years in the jungle cave, coming out only at night. During this self-imposed exile he lived on frogs, rats, snails, shrimp, nuts and mangoes. Even when he figured out the war was over he was afraid to come out for fear he would be executed. Two hunters found him one day and escorted him to freedom. He was living all this time under the indictment of sins that had all been dealt with—but he simply had not appropriated the atonement that was available.

There was a law in Tokyo about 1900 that no foreigner could take up residence there unless he had a “substitute.” There were natives who hired themselves out for this purpose. If the foreigner broke any law, the substitute suffered the penalty for it, even if the penalty were death. In a similar way, our standing before God and his law is only obtainable through the substitutionary work of His Son. And this substitutionary work is obtained without any fee—only faith in Him. James M. Gray

The story of Christ’s coverage for sins has been told so often to some of us that the message just doesn’t seem to get through. We are jaded. Somehow we need to find ways to get the message through in vital and fresh and arresting ways. There is a wonderful story about a young family moving into a new house. The move had been scheduled weeks in advance, but when the day approached the husband announced that an important meeting had been called at the office, and he would be unable to help. Consequently, the wife had to handle the move by herself. After the moving van had pulled away, the wife found herself standing in the living room of the new house surrounded by boxes to be unpacked, appliances to be hooked up, a screaming baby, and a five-year-old who decided to throw one of his metal toys through the picture window. Fortunately, the child wasn’t hurt, but the jagged glass was scattered everywhere and a brisk wind was blowing through the opening. The wife was now so upset that she s...

Nikolai Berdyaev, who abandoned Marx for Christianity, insists that neither history nor theology nor the church brought him to the Christian faith, but a simple woman called only Mother Maria. He was present at a concentration camp when the Nazis were murdering Jews in gas chambers. One distraught mother refused to part with her baby. When Maria saw that the officer was only interested in numbers, without a word she pushed the mother aside and quickly took her place. This action revealed to Berdyaev the heart of Christianity—and what atonement means.

We crucified him on a stick, but we have always had a curious feeling that He somehow managed to get hold of the right end of it. George Bernard Shaw

A friend visited an elderly woman badly crippled by arthritis. When asked, “Do you suffer much?” she responded, “Yes, but there is no nail here,” and she pointed to her hand. “He had the nails, I have the peace.” She pointed to her head. “There are no thorns here. He had the thorns, I have the peace.” She touched her side. “There is no spear here. He had the spear, I have the peace.” That is what the atonement of Jesus Christ means for us—He gave of himself so that we might have the peace. Ralph Turnbull, If Only Had One Sermon to Preach

It was a mountain one-room school house where severe discipline was used to keep the rowdyism of uninterested pupils in check. The noon recess was ended and the teacher was interrogating the class with regard to the disappearance of Sally Jane’s lunch. After a few minutes of verbal threats and demands, a sob was heard. It was little Billy—a thin, undernourished child. His family was the poorest of the poor. “Did you take Sally Jane’s lunch?” demanded the teacher. “Yes, sir,” mumbled Billy through his tears. “I was hungry.” “Nevertheless, you did wrong to steal and you must be punished,” declared the teacher. As the teacher removed the leather strap from its place on the wall, Billy was ordered to the front of the room and told to remove his shirt. The arm of the teacher was raised over the bent and trembling form of little Billy. “HOLD IT, TEACHER!” shouted a husky voice from the rear of the room. It was Big Jim striding down the aisle removing his shirt as he came. “Let me take his wh...

Henry Ward Beecher said that a man who was starving to death would not go into the laboratory to try and figure out how wheat germinates in the soil nor demand a chemical analysis of bread. So those who are really conscious of their need for forgiveness are not concerned with the mechanics of the atonement, but only concerned that they themselves are the recipients of its effects. See: Romans 3:24; Ephesians 2:13-15; Hebrews 9:12-15; 1 John 4:10

A distressed father sat at the bedside of his comatose son, hurt playing basketball. At a crucial point in the game the 16-year-old lunged for an errant pass going out of bounds. As he toppled over a spectator’s chair, one of its legs caught him in the stomach and damaged vital organs. Because he felt little pain, the teen continued to play the game’s final minutes while he homorrhaged internally. By the time the pain grew enough to warrant a trip to hospital, it was almost too late. The doctors worked frantically to save him, but the outcome was uncertain. Though the son eventually recovered, those awful hours of waiting for the slightest signs of recovery forced family members to ask questions they’d never before faced. The father was alone on his bedside shift one evening when the pastor visited. Trembling with emotion, the father asked, “Will God kill my son to punish my sin?” “No,” said the young minister, searching for words that would comfort and grant renewed trust in the God t...

When I was a little boy, my mother would go to Margulie’s, the little grocery store two or three blocks from our house, get what she needed and tell Mr. Margulie to put it on her bill. He’d open his great big ledger book, turn to the page that had our name on it, and record what Mama had bought. Every once in awhile, Mama would send me to Margulie’s for something and tell me to put it on our bill. Now, I never paid the bill that was on the books. I just kept charging stuff. As I got older, I realized that Daddy had paid the bill. By the time I got ready to charge the next piece of bologna, the first piece had already been paid for. The books were clean, because Daddy had already paid for everything I charged. God said blessed is he who went down to Mr. Margulie’s store. When he got there, his books were clean because Daddy had already paid the bill. He didn’t have to pay his account; it had already been paid. God said that when you come before Him and you sincerely repent, the record o...

Ron Rand writes in For Fathers Who Aren’t in Heaven: “Michael usually takes his family out each week to see a movie or sports event. When they come home, they make a fire in the fireplace and pop popcorn. During one of these evenings, little Billy made a real pest of himself in the car on the drive home, so he was punished by being sent to sit in his bedroom while the rest of the family had popcorn. “After the family had the fire going and the popcorn ready, Michael went back to Billy’s room and said, ‘You go out with the others. I’ll stay here and take your punishment.’ Through Michael’s action, the entire family experienced a vivid example of what Jesus did for everyone.” —Terry Fisher, San Diego, California. Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 2. See: John 15:13; Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 3:16.

Paul Harvey tells a story about Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare, the Navy’s number-one ace in the Second World War and the first naval aviator ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is named for him. What “Butch” O’Hare became, however, was made possible because someone else paid a great price. That someone else was Butch’s father, Edward J. O’Hare, a slick lawyer for the gangster Al Capone. “Artful Eddie,” as he was known, had money and power, but one day he squealed on Capone. The reason for this sudden change of heart? He wanted to give his son a break, he said. Before long, the mob silenced Artful Eddie with two shotgun blasts. But because of Eddie’s courageous change of heart, his son Butch was accepted at Annapolis: Eddie’s confession and subsequent death satisfied admissions people that the family’s mob connections were severed. Artful Eddie paid with his own life for his son’s chance to make good, something that Jes...

A boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon, when a bumblebee flew in the car window. The little boy, who was allergic to bee stings, was petrified. The father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then released it. The boy grew frantic as it buzzed by him. Once again the father reached out his hand, but this time he pointed to his palm. There stuck in his skin was the stinger of the bee. “Do you see this?” he asked. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’ve taken the sting for you.” We do not need to fear death anymore. Christ has died and risen again. He has taken the sting from death. —Adrian Dieleman, Waupun, Wisconsin. Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 1. See: John 10:11; 1 Corinthians 15:55-58; 2 Corinthians 5:15.

In the 1993 hit film In the Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood played Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan. Horrigan had protected the life of the President for more than three decades, but he was haunted by the memory of what had happened thirty years before. Horrigan was a young agent assigned to President Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963. When the assassin fired, Horrigan froze in shock. For thirty years afterward, he wrestled with the ultimate question for a Secret Service agent: Can I take a bullet for the President? In the climax of the movie, Horrigan does what he had been unable to do earlier: he throws himself into the path of an assassin’s bullet to save the chief executive. Secret Service agents are willing to do such a thing because they believe the President is so valuable to our country and the world that he is worth dying for. Obviously they would not take a bullet for just anyone. At Calvary the situation was reversed. The President of the Universe actually took a...