Sermon Illustration

An old fable tells of a man cursed with the power of seeing other human beings, not in the beauty of flesh and blood, but as skeletons gaunt and grisly. Some saints seem to have taken upon themselves this curse. Do you feel that you are the only one who is right with the Lord—that everybody else is a spiritual skeleton because he is not of the same denominational stripe or has not the same scruples of conscience as you? Take him or her into your circle of believers as Paul did, as long as they are calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many years ago in Germany, so the story goes, there lived a shoemaker who had a habit of speaking harshly of all his neighbors who didn’t think quite as he did about religion. The pastor of the parish in which he lived heard of this and felt he must give him a lesson. So he went to the shoemaker one morning and said, “Will you please take my measurements for a pair of boots?” “With pleasure, sir,” answered the shoemaker. “Please take off your boot.” The clergyman did so, and the shoemaker measured his foot from toe to heel and over the instep, and wrote it all down in his notebook. As he was writing up his measurements, the pastor said, “My son also needs a pair of boots.” “I’ll be glad to make them, too. When can I take his measurements?” “Oh, that’s not necessary,” said the pastor. “The lad is only twelve, but you can make my boots and his from the same last.” The shoemaker looked at him with a puzzled smile and said, “That would never do. They would never fit such a youn...

The story is told of a man and an angel who were walking along together. The man was complaining about his neighbors. “I never saw such a wretched set of people,” he said, “as are in this village. They are mean, greedy, selfish, and careless of the needs of others. Worst of all, they are forever speaking evil of one another.” “Is it really so?” asked the angel. “It is, indeed,” said the man. “Why, only look at this fellow coming toward us! I know his face, though I cannot remember his name. See his little shark-like, cruel eyes, darting here and there like a ferret’s, and the lines of hardness about his mouth! The very droop of his shoulders is mean and cringing, and he slinks along instead of walking.” “It is very clever of you to see all this,” said the angel, “but there is one thing that you did not perceive—that is a mirror we are approaching.”

What does the criticism of others do to our inner self? Take the case of Col. George Washington Goethals. While contending with the manifold problems of geography and climate in the building of the Panama Canal, he had to endure the carping criticism of countless busybodies back home who freely predicted he would never complete his task. But he pressed steadily forward in his work and said nothing. “Aren’t you going to answer your critics?” a subordinate inquired. “In time,” Goethals replied. “How?” The great engineer smiled. “With the canal,” he said.

An officer on the battlefield aimed his cannon toward what he thought was the distant enemy. Just before he fired, the commander, looking through his field glasses, shouted, “Your aim seems perfect, but stop! They are not the enemy; they are our own people.” Did you ever think that when you aim criticism at God’s people so thoughtlessly, you are actually aiming your cannon at the Lord of your brethren?

A man came up to Moody once and criticized him for the way he went about winning souls. Moody listened courteously and then asked, “How would you do it?” The man, taken aback, mumbled that he didn’t do it. “Well,” said Moody, “I prefer the way I do it to the way you don’t do it.”

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?”

Henry Ward Beecher, while walking down a street, passed a newsboy shivering in the cold. Being moved with compassion toward him, the great preacher bought up all his newspapers, and when he handed over the money to him, he said, “Surely you are cold?” “I was,” replied the lad with a gulp, “till you passed, sir.”

During one of Mr. McKinley’s congressional campaigns he was followed from place to place by a reporter for a paper of the opposite political party. The reporter was one of those shrewd, persistent fellows who are always at work, quick to see an opportunity, and skilled in making the most of it. While Mr. McKinley was annoyed by the misrepresentation to which he was almost daily subjected, he could not help admiring the skill and tenacity with which he was assailed. His admiration, too, was not unmixed with compassion—the reporter was ill, poorly clad, and had an annoying cough. One night Mr. McKinley took a closed carriage to a nearby town at which it had been announced he would speak. The weather was wretchedly raw and cold. He had not gone far when he heard that cough and knew that the reporter was riding with the driver in the exposed seat. McKinley called to the driver to stop so he could get out. “Get down off that seat, young man,” he said. The reporter obeyed, thinking the time ...

Each of us has certain legal rights in life. It is our privilege to insist that we enjoy every one of them. But in so doing we may commit moral wrong which would be injurious, not only to others, but also to ourselves and thus rob us of that most essential peace of heart. One of the apartments owned by a Christian landlord is rented by a widow with four children. Month after month, as a result of the hard work of that poor widow, the rent is paid. But suddenly she gets sick and is unable to pay the rent. The landlord has every legal right to call upon the authorities to evict this woman and her children from the apartment. His act would be legally right but morally wrong, i.e., right according to the letter, but wrong according to the spirit. If he shows kindness to this woman and her children and allows them to stay on in the apartment in spite of the fact they are not able to pay rent, he is showing the Christian quality of compassion. It is wiser to be willing to allow our legal rig...

During a spelling contest in which the prize was a fine Bible, the contestants were finally reduced to two—Betty, the daughter of a poor, hard-working widow, and Susan, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. The sympathy of the school was with the poor girl. Finally Susan misspelled a word, and Betty won the coveted prize. Going home, Susan’s mother said to her daughter, “Couldn’t you have spelled that word?” “Yes, Mother.” “Then why didn’t you do it?” “Well, you know Betty is quite poor, and she doesn’t get many presents. She wanted the Bible very much, and she tried so hard for it that I thought I’d let her have it.” “What made you do that, Susie?” “My Sunday school lesson, Mother, which said, ‘in honor preferring one another.’ So I thought I’d try it, and I’m glad I did.” A few days later, Susan received as a birthday present a beautiful Bible, and on the flyleaf was written the text, “In honor preferring one another” (Rom. 12:10).

A young man was on the border of nervous collapse as he lay on the operating table. Among the nurses, he noticed one watching him intently. He thought he knew her and called her to him. “Yes,” she said, “We have met before.” Then he whispered, “Would you mind holding my hand?” She gripped it and he lay calmly waiting for the operation. What a strong thing sentiment is! It can conquer a man’s fears even in the face of life’s most serious crises.

Martin of Tours was a man in whom faith and works combined to make him a true Christian. One day he met a beggar who asked for alms. Martin didn’t have any money, but he saw that the beggar was freezing, so he gave him what he had. He took off his soldier’s overcoat, old and faded as it was, cut it in half, and wrapped half around the beggar. During the night Martin had a dream. He saw heaven opened, and Christ wearing half an overcoat. One of the angels asked, “Lord, why are you wearing that shabby old coat?” Christ answered, “Because my servant gave it to me.” It was only a dream, but it illustrates the truth that Christ taught, that whatever we do for others in His name, He accepts as a gift to Him.

The word “pontiff,” used to designate the highest religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, namely the Pope, has an interesting history. This was the name which, in the old pagan religion of ancient Rome, was given to the chief priests. The pontiffs were those who were invested with pontifical power. The name as it was first applied meant “the makers of bridges.” Why it was used to designate a religious order we hardly know. Perhaps those old Roman pontiffs were specially employed in consecrating those mighty instruments of earthly peace and civilization, the great roads and bridges by which the old Romans tamed and subdued the world. But in a moral and spiritual sense we ought all to be makers of bridges. Pontiff or no pontiff, minister or no minister, every Christian who walks in his Master’s steps ought to make it his special business to throw bridges across those moral rents and fissures which divide us one from the other. Across these various gulfs and chasms let every one len...

Queen Victoria was a close friend of Principal and Mrs. Tullock, of St. Andrews. Prince Albert died and Victoria was left alone. Just at the same time, Principal Tullock died and Mrs. Tullock was left alone. Quite unexpectedly, Queen Victoria came to call on Mrs. Tullock when she was resting on a couch in her room. The Queen stepped forward. “My dear,” she said, “don’t rise. I am not coming to you today as a queen to a subject, but as one woman to another who has lost her husband.” She put herself in her friend’s place. That is what God did for us. That is what we should do for others.