Sermon Illustration

We're not quite sure who it was, but someone spent a significant chunk to promote messages from God. On behalf of an anonymous client, The Smith Agency in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, launched the advertising campaign in September 1998. "This individual simply appeared in our office one day last spring and hired us on the spot," said Andrew Smith, the agency's president. "However, our agreement prohibits us from releasing his name. I will say he is quite well known." More than a dozen different messages, all signed by God, appeared on area billboards and buses. Among the messages: Let's Meet at My House Sunday Before the Game.--God C'mon Over and Bring the Kids.--God What Part of "Thou Shalt Not ..." Didn't You Understand?--God We Need to Talk.--God Keep Using My Name in Vain And I'll Make Rush Hour Longer.--God Loved the Wedding, Invite Me to the Marriage.--God That "Love Thy Neighbor" Thing, I Meant It.--Go...

On his night job at Taco Bell, 17-year-old Nicholas Zenns was taking orders at the drive-up window. He heard a woman scream, turned, and saw very pregnant Devorah Anderson standing in front of him. The high-school student pulled off his headset, called the paramedics, and tried to make the woman comfortable. But the baby wouldn't wait. "The baby's head just popped out into my hands," Nicholas said. Paramedics finally arrived and took baby and parents to the hospital. Nicholas cleaned up, "sterilized my hands about a thousand times," and finished his shift. Nicholas says this event changed his perspective. "Things have been pretty bad in my life lately, and then I got to do this. I'm really glad." In the same way, nothing makes life more meaningful than leading someone to new birth in Christ.

The Times-Reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio, reported in September 1985 a celebration at a New Orleans municipal pool. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at any New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, two hundred people gathered, including one hundred certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, thirty-one, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season. I wonder how many visitors and strangers are among us drowning in loneliness, hurt, and doubt, while we, who could help them, don't realize it. We Christians have reason to celebrate, but our mission, as the old hymn says, is to "rescue the perishing." And often they are right next to us.

Survivor Eva Hart remembers the night, April 15, 1912, on which the Titanic plunged 12,000 feet to the Atlantic floor, some two hours and forty minutes after an iceberg tore a 300-foot gash in the starboard side: "I saw all the horror of its sinking, and I heard, even more dreadful, the cries of drowning people." Although twenty life-boats and rafts were launched-too few and only partly filled-most of the passengers ended up struggling in the icy seas while those in the boats waited a safe distance away. Lifeboat No. 14 did row back to the scene after the unsinkable ship slipped from sight at 2:20 A.m. Alone, it chased cries in the darkness, seeking and saving a precious few. Incredibly, no other boat joined it. Some were already overloaded, but in virtually every other boat, those already saved rowed their half-filled boats aimlessly in the night, listening to the cries of the lost. Each feared a crush of unknown swimmers would cling to their craft, eventually swamping i...

A friend of ours was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean. As our friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water. Our friend was puzzled. He approached the man and said, "Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing." "I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here from lack of oxygen." "I understand," my friend replied, "but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. ...

"One Puerto Rican lady, after getting saved in church, came to me with an urgent request. She didn't speak a word of English, so she told me through an interpreter, 'I want to do something for God, please.' " 'I don't know what you can do,' I answered. " 'Please, let me do something,' she said in Spanish. " 'Okay. I'll put you on a bus. Ride a different bus every week and just love the kids.' "So every week she rode a different bus--we have fifty of them--and loved the children. She would find the worst-looking kid on the bus, put him on her lap, and whisper over and over the only words she had learned in English: 'I love you. Jesus loves you.' "After several months, she became attached to one little boy in particular. 'I don't want to change buses anymore. I want to stay on this one bus,' she said. "The boy didn't speak. He came to Sunday school every week with his sister...

On a dangerous sea coast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew. Some members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it ...

To: Jesus, son of Joseph Woodcrafter, Carpenter shop, Nazareth. From Jordan Management Consultants Dear Sir Thank you for submitting resumes of the 12 men you have picked for management positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken our battery of tests; we not only ran the results through our computer, but also arranged personal interviews for each of them with our psychologist and vocational aptitude consultant. It is our opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, education, and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We would recommend that you continue your search for persons of experience in managerial ability and proven capability. SIMON PETER is unstable and given to fits of temper. ANDREW has absolutely no qualities of leadership. The two brothers, JAMES AND JOHN, the sons of Zebedee, place personal interest above company loyalty. THOMAS demonstrates a questioning ...