Sermon Illustration

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