Sermon Illustration

A certain father was a chronic growler. He was sitting with his family in the presence of a guest in the parlor one day when the question of food came up. One of the children, a little girl, was telling the guest very cleverly what food each member of the family liked best. Finally it came to the father’s turn to be described. “And what do I like, Nancy?” he asked laughingly. “You,” said the little girl slowly, “well, you like most anything we haven’t got.”

Unfortunately, even among Christians there are those who are chronic grumblers. A woman of this type grumbled at everything and everybody. But at last the preacher thought he had found something about which she could make no complaint—the lady’s crop of potatoes was certainly the finest for miles around. “Ah, for once you must be pleased,” he said with a beaming smile as he met her in the village street. “Everyone is saying how splendid your potatoes are this year.” The lady glared at him as she answered, “They’re not so poor. But where’s the bad ones for the pigs?” If the mouth is given to grumbling, then the heart is lacking in submissiveness to God.

Robert Hall, the great Baptist preacher, used to be subject to occasions of great physical pain, in the course of which he would roll on the ground in sheer agony. When the pain was over, the first words he used to say were, “I hope I didn’t complain.” How much more effective our witness for Christ would be if we didn’t complain so much about our trials of faith.

A young man who was trying to establish himself as a peach grower had worked hard and invested all his money in a peach orchard. It blossomed wonderfully but then came a killing frost. He didn’t go to church the next Sunday, nor the next, nor the next. His minister went to see him to discover the reason. The young fellow exclaimed, “I’m not coming any more. Do you think I can worship a God who cares for me so little that He would let a frost kill all my peaches?” The old minister looked at him a few moments in silence, then said kindly, “God loves you better than He does your peaches. He knows that while peaches do better without frosts, it is impossible to grow the best men without frosts. His object is to grow men, not peaches.” We are sometimes so concerned about our material possessions that we fail to realize that setting our hearts upon them can stunt our spiritual development. God often has to open our eyes to life’s real values by taking from us its lesser ones.

A large family sat around the table for breakfast one morning. As the custom was, the father returned thanks, blessing God for the food. Immediately afterward, however, as was his bad habit, he began to grumble about hard times, the poor quality of the food he was forced to eat, the way it was cooked, and much more. His little daughter interrupted him saying, “Father, do you suppose God heard what you said a little while ago?” “Certainly,” replied the father with the confident air of an instructor. “And did He hear what you said about the bacon and the coffee?” “Of course,” the father replied, but not as confidently as before. Then his little girl asked him again, “Then, Father, which did God believe?”

For a long time a gentleman used to drop a penny into the hat of a poor beggar who sat by a church door in Madrid. For a week, however, the gentleman was confined to his house by illness. When he was able to return to business he put the usual coin into the hat of the beggar. “Pardon me, señor,” said the latter; “have you not a little account to settle with me?

On a train one summer a young girl was boiling over with indignation at a preacher who had been asking her some plain questions about her soul. “Why, he even asked me if I were sure I was really on the road to heaven,” she said. “He had no right to talk like that to me, and to make me feel perfectly dreadful.”