Sermon Illustration

Do you wander abroad in foreign lands? Are you solitary among crowds? Are you weary of seeing endless faces that have no history for you and touch no string in your nature, and do you at last come upon a countryman speaking your language, your sweet mother tongue, whom you distinguish by ear before you can see him, and do you cry out, “Our countryman! our countryman”? How much is there in that our, which appropriates! How much pride and affection is blended with the appropriation when we say, “Our circle, our family, our companion, our friends, our child!” How many circuits of love does this word take! And how vast is the meaning when the soul, looking upon God, clasps him with this embrace, and is able to say, “My Father”; or when men standing as a congregation of Christians are able to say “Our Father!”

Paul, in describing the forgiveness of God produced through Jesus Christ, uses this remarkable figure: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,” It is like taking an indictment in court, and tearing it up and throwing it away. It is like taking a title-deed of a man’s possession, a paper on which is written evidence that is fatal to his claim, and blotting it, or burning it. It is like taking away proof against a man which may lead to his injury.

Some talk as if we were saved just because Christ paid our debt, representing God’s share in the transaction as little else than that of a severe, stern, unrelenting creditor, who takes no interest in his imprisoned debtor beyond letting him out when the surety has taken up the bond. Is this true? Is it fair to God? True? It is utterly false. Salvation flows from a higher source than Calvary. It has its fountain, not in the cross of the incarnate Son, but in the bosom of the eternal Father. The central trust of the Bible, that on which I lay the greatest stress, is this, that God does not love us because Christ died for us, but that Christ died for us because God loved us. I do not disparage the work of Christ; far be such a thought from me. Yet Christ Himself is the gift of our Father’s love.

A wise father found it necessary recently to punish his little daughter. Later in the day the little girl, who had been greatly offended at first, came to where he was and, climbing into his lap, threw her arms around his neck, and said: “Papa, I do love you.” “Why do you love me, my child?” the father asked. “Because you try to make me good, papa.” We ought to keep that childlike wisdom throughout all our mature years. If God chastises us it is because He loves us as children, and in all His dealings with us is ever trying to make us good.

A friend of mine said to a lifesaver at Newport, Rhode Island: “How can you tell when anyone is in need of help when there are thousands of bathers on the beach and in the water making a perfect hubbub of noises?” To which he answered: “No matter how great the noise and confusion, there has never been a single time when I could not distinguish the cry of distress above them all. I can always tell it.” And that is exactly like God. In the midst of the babble and confusion He never fails to hear the soul that cries out to Him for help amid the breakers and storms of life.

Some years since the managers of a Young Men’s Christian Association missed a great opportunity by not knowing the value of a certain painting. A friend of the institution had given a picture for the walls of the building, not having suitable room for it in his own home. One day he offered to sell it to them, asking fifty dollars for it. When they declined the offer he said they might have it for twenty-five dollars; but they still declined to purchase it. Not long afterwards he died. In disposing of the estate his executors took the picture from the building and sent it to a picturemart. There it was soon recognized as the work of a master and finally identified. Thirty-five thousand dollars was offered for it, and later fifteen thousand more. Fifty thousand for a picture once offered for twenty-five dollars! How forcibly that illustrates the way men underestimate the value of religion. They think it is good for the low, the poor, the weak, the dying, not realizing that it is needfu...

A little girl had been away all day with the family of a neighbor; they were belated in their return, and, instead of reaching home before dark, as they expected, it was almost midnight when they arrived at the house. “I will get out first and rouse your father,” one of the gentlemen said to the little girl. “Rouse him!” said the child; “my father won’t have to be roused. He’s waiting for me.” Men out of Christ, do you imagine that it is only through continued beseeching that you can gain the ear of God? Let me tell you, your Father doesn’t have to be roused. He’s waiting for you.