Archive for the ‘Sermon Illustrations’ Category

David Jeremiah on the Need of Patience

Posted: April 5, 2013 in Sermon Illustrations
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Time Magazine published an article by Nancy Gibbs entitled “How America has Run Out of Time.” She wrote about the escalating value of time coincides with my personal observations:

There was once a time when time was money. Both could be wasted or both well spent, but in the end, gold was the richer prize. As with almost any commodity, however, value depends on scarcity. And these are the days of the time famine. Time that once seemed free and elastic has grown tight and elusive, and so our measure of it worth is dramatically change. In Florida a man bills his ophthalmologist $90 for keeping him waiting an hour. In California a woman hires somebody to do her shopping for — out of a catalog. Twenty bucks pays someone to pick up the dry cleaning, $250 to cater dinner for four, $1500 will buy a ax machine for the car. “Time,” concludes pollster Luis Harris, who has charted America’s loss of it, “may have become the most precious commodity in the land.

With time becoming so precious, is it any wonder that waiting has become the most hated and frustrating experience in life? We wait in bank lines, in supermarket lines, at the doctor’s office and on the freeway. And while we wait, we fret because we are wasting time.

Have you noticed how long we wait when we go out to eat? We wait to be seated. We wait for the menu. We wait to place our order. We wait for our food. We wait for the check. And finally we wait for the opportunity to pay the check. And the restaurant has the audacity to refer to the one who oversees all of this as “the waiter.” The customer is the waiter.”

I am told that the great New England preacher Phillips Brooks was known for his calmness and poise. His intimate friends, however, knew that he too suffered moments of frustration and irritability  One day a friend saw him acing the floor like a caged lion. “What is the trouble, Dr. Brooks?” asked the friend. “The trouble is,” replied Brooks, “that I’m in a hurry, but God isn’t.”

Illustration of Pushing Important People Out of Your Life

Posted: November 27, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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Several years ago a Christian journal published a heartbreaking story about an event that occurred in the life of one of Chicago’s most well known surgeons. Doctor Lee Winters was awakened one morning around one o’clock in the morning. He was told there had been an accident and a young boy was in the hospital near death. It would take doctor Leo Winters’ skill to save this boy’s life. So when he received the call, without any hesitation Doctor Winners rushed out of bed and dressed. He grabbed his car keys and ran to his car. As he made his way through downtown Chicago he decided to take a short cut through a rather dangerous area. In fact it was known for its rough gangs. He knew it would be worthwhile to him because there was precious seconds standing between him and the young boy’s death. Something happened as he stopped at the  stoplight. While there waiting for the light to turn a man wearing an old green flannel shirt and a gray hat suddenly rushed from the shadows. The stranger opened the car door grabbed the doctor and threw them out of the car all the while screaming I’ve got to have your car. The doctor tried to plea the situation with the man but the man was gone before he could even uttered two words.

It took Doctor Winners at least forty-five minutes to get the hospital and more than an hour had passed. The nurses shook their heads sadly. They wondered why he delayed.

They told him, “You’re too late Doctor Winners the boy died thirty minutes ago.” Dr. Winners was devastated. Thirty minutes had been that length of time that he’d spent looking for a ride because his car had been taken away. He asked about the family. The nurses told him,  “You’ll find his father grieving is in the chapel.”

“He’s very confused. He doesn’t understand why you didn’t come.” Without taking any time to explain to the staff, Doctor Winners hurried down the hallway and found that grieving father in the chapel with his head in his hands. The father was wearing that old green flannel shirt with his gray hat in his hands. In his desperation to get to the hospital he had pushed from his life the man who could have saved his son.

You can make the application of this illustration to different life situations. I planned to use it in warning parents not to be nick picking with their pastors in front of their children and push this person out of the lives of their children. God could use these doctors of the soul to save their children.

This illustration is told by Stephen Davey on Youtube and is titled “The Cure.” Davey has a number of other Youtube stories: The Call, The Window, The Aisle Seat, etc.

David Jeremiah on Thanksgiving

Posted: November 17, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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Thanksgiving is also the opposite of discontent. It’s easy for us to become disgruntled with various factors in our lives; but let’s be like one man who was thankful….

- For the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat.

- For all the complaining I hear about the government because it means that I have freedom of speech.

- For the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I am alive.

- For the teenager who is not doing dishes but is watching TV because that means he is at home and not on the streets.

- For the taxes that I pay because it means that I am employed.

- For the lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home.

- For weariness at the end of the day because it means I have bee capable of working hard.

- For the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking and that I have been blessed with transportation.

Sermon Illustration on Enjoying the Blessings of Salvation by Erwin Lutzer

Posted: October 12, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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On March 11, 1898, a teenager by the name of Peter Dyneka sailed away from his home country of Russia, bound for Nova Scotia. For him, it was literally the other side of the world. He would become an evangelist, greatly used by God. But God was about to teach him an unforgettable lesson.

His family had saved for months in order to purchase this ticket to his future. Peter’s mother had packed enough food for the long journey. Mostly bread and garlic – they could not afford very much.

Every day, Peter would look longingly through the windows of the ship’s dining room as the wealthy patrons enjoyed their extravagant meals. Oh how he envied them, as he returned to his little room and ate his black bread and garlic.

About halfway through the voyage, some of the sailors noticed his predicament and promised him that if he would take their chores and do their work in the kitchen, they would give him meals in return. Peter was delighted and began to work very hard – and he was given meals in the back of the kitchen, as promised.

It was not until the very last day of the voyage that Peter discovered the truth – three meals a day in the ship’s dining room were included in the price of his ticket. He belonged in there with the others; he had been tricked into all of that work, to get food that already belonged to him (Erwin Lutzer, You’re Richer Than You Think (Victor Books, 1978), p. 9).

David Jeremiah on Romans 8:28

Posted: October 6, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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When I was a senior in college, God called me to the pastorate. Almost overnight I knew that God had changed the direction of my life. I didn’t mind the new focus, but I was troubled by one aspect of it: I had been headed in another direction almost my entire life. I had been interested in radio from the time I was young. I used to build amateur radios and string antenna wire all over our house. And when I grew older, I got involved in radio production, working as a “dj” in college at an FM station. I then helped our college start its own Christian radio station. So I just assumed I would always be involved in some aspect of radio broadcasting as a career.

But I followed the Lord’s leading and went to seminary after college to prepare for the pastorate. After four years of seminary, I did further graduate work and then accepted a call to start a new church in Indiana. About halfway through my time at that church, radio reappeared “out of the blue.” I got a call from a local radio station asking if I’d like to host a live radio program. From that program grew another, and another, until finally, today, I am as involved in radio as I can possibly be. The program I host now is broadcast all over the world in several languages and can be heard in North America just about everywhere a radio is turned on. So, God said “No” to radio only for a while. I laugh sometimes when I think of my original radio “vision” and what God eventually did. God had a better plan—He always does.

Sometimes it’s difficult to see at the moment what God is doing in our lives. That was true for John Newton when he experienced a crisis in 1754. As he sat having tea with his wife before leaving to captain a ship on a journey to Africa, he suddenly crumpled to the floor unconscious. It was later determined he had had an epileptic seizure. He resigned as captain of the ship and never went to sea again. He later found out that the new captain of that ship was killed when the slaves on board revolted and took over the ship. John Newton’s plans were changed, but his life was spared. After this incident, Newton’s wife, Mary, became ill. She hovered near death for nearly a year during which time Newton cared for her instead of working. When his money ran out, he took a job in Liverpool as a surveyor and reluctantly moved there, leaving Mary in the care of others. He believed he’d never see her alive again. Two months after settling in Liverpool, Mary made a miraculous recovery.

Through all these events, John Newton was learning that God’s hand was always directing him, causing everything to work together for his good. God’s providence was active in all areas of life, even the little things. His grace was sufficient to meet every need and to show how, eventually, all the pieces of life fit together (David Jeremiah. Captured by Grace, page 94).

Sermon Illustration: We Love To Blame Others

Posted: September 29, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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I found one article amusing in a recent World Magazine. The article chronicles the lawsuit of Timothy Dumouchel against Charter Communications, his Wisconsin cable company. He is threatening to sue Charter Communications because, he says, “the company has turned his entire family into lazy channel surfers against their will.” He says he told them to discontinue the cable service, but they only stopped billing him. After repeated attempts to shut it down – as if he couldn’t just turn it off – he now says the resulting TV addiction has harmed his family. I quote, “I believe the reason I smoke and drink every day and my wife eats too much is because we watched TV every day for the last four years.” In other words, Charter made them addicted to TV. Now listen to this, he says he will, “drop the suit in exchange for free lifetime internet service from Charter” (In Stephen Davey’s sermon on Romans 8:26-27).

A Humorous Illustration about, Well I’m not sure about what it is an illustration!

Posted: September 12, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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A young man was visiting Amish country in Pennsylvania. He happened to see an old Amish couple coming out of a store and walking to get into their horse drawn cart.

He ran over and said, “Hello. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve always wanted to meet an Amish couple.”

The woman elbowed her husband in the ribs and said, “What did he say?”

The farmer looked at his hard of hearing wife and said, “He wanted to meet us.”

The young man went on, “So, you farm nearby?”

“Yes,” the man politely said, “we’ve been farming here all our lives.”

His wife ribbed him again and said, “What did he say?”

“He wanted to know if we had a farm around here.”

The young man asked, “Do you have children living nearby?”

“Yes,” the man said, “We have seven sons and three daughters living near us . . . some of them living with us.”

Before he could finish, his wife interrupted, “What’d he say?”

“He wanted to know if we had family around here.”

Then the young man confessed, “I actually dated an Amish girl once, but she was so bossy and wanted to tell me what to do and never would let me make up my own mind.”

Again, the wife interrupted and said, “What’s he saying now?”

“He said he thinks he knows you.”

(By Stephen Davey in a sermon: An Incredible, Immortal Inheritance from Romans 8:16-18)

Sermon Illustration: Living Your Entire Life for the Piltdown Man instead of the God/Man

Posted: September 3, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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In his book, Bones of Contention, professor Marvin Lubenow tells the sad story of Sir Arthur Keith, one of the greatest anatomists of the twentieth century. Sir Arthur Keith was born in 1866 and died in 1955. According to his autobiography, as a young man he attended evangelistic meetings in Edinburgh and Aberdeen and watched students make their commitments to Jesus Christ. He himself often felt “on the verge of conversion,” yet he resisted, rejecting the gospel because he felt that the Genesis account of Creation was just a myth and the Bible was merely a human book.

In 1908, a discovery was made of some bones, buried deep in a gravel pit, just forty miles from downtown London. Keith became intrigued by the discovery and soon, it was announced by the Geological Society of London that these were the remains of the earliest know Englishman, Eoanthropus dawsoni – otherwise known as Piltdown Man. The vast majority of paleoanthropologists worldwide hailed this as a great discovery of our human ancestors.

Piltdown Man became the obsession of Sir Arthur Keith. To him it was the validation of his evolutionary beliefs – the missing link – and he wrote more on Piltdown Man than anyone else – even though some five hundred doctoral dissertations were written about this discovery. Sir Arthur Keith’s famous work, The Antiquity of Man, centered on the Piltdown fossils.

In 1953, science caught up with speculation, and the British Museum proclaimed the entire thing a fraud. The jawbone was not much older than the year it was found. The bones had been treated with iron salts to make them appear old; scratch marks, invisible to the naked eye, revealed that the sharp teeth had been recently filed down.

Sir Arthur Keith was eighty-six years old when some of his colleagues visited him at his home to break the news that the fossil he had trusted in for forty years was a hoax, just two years before he died. The bones he had been obsessed with, convinced they proved Creation a myth, had themselves been a fraud . . . and his writings were nothing more than myth and speculation (Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Nashville, TN, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000, p. 156).

For whom are you investing your life?

Sermon Illustration on the Accountability of our Words

Posted: September 1, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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A mother who was preparing dinner one evening, when her little boy came running into the kitchen.

She asked, “Well, what’s Mama’s little darling been doing all day?”

He replied, “I’ve been playing mailman.”

“Mailman,” the mother wondered out loud, “how could you do that when you don’t have any letters?”

“Oh, I had a whole bunch of letters,” he said. “What letters?”

The little boy answered, “All those letters I found in the bottom drawer of your dresser all tied up with v ribbons . . . I put one in every mailbox on our street.”

This illustration was given by Stephen Davey that he read in James Merritt, Friends, Foes, and Fools: The Wisdom of Proverbs for Fathers (Nashville, TN, Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), p. 40. Stephen Davey’s sermon is entitled A New Obsession on Romans 8:5-11 (at Wisdom for the Heart).

This mother had her neighbors unwittingly read and discover her words. What about this statement by Jesus, ”Every idle word that men will speak, they will give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36).

Sermon Illustration on the Conflict of our Two Natures

Posted: August 31, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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John Philipps illustrates the conflict of the two natures in every believer that Paul discussed in Romans 7 and 8:

Certain types of criminals were executed by the Romans with special brutality. Sometimes if the man had committed a murder, he was bound hand to hand, face to face with the corpse of his victim and then thrown out into the heat of the Mediterranean sun. As the corpse decayed, it ate death into the living man and became to him, in the strictest literal sense, “a body of death” (Romans 7:24). Paul sees the carnal believer thus bound to the old nature and truly a wretched man (Exploring Romans, page 119).

Suppose a biologist were to perform an experiment by grafting at a given stage of development a butterfly to a spider and do so in such a way that the two creatures were fused into one and thus grew to maturity. What a clash of instincts there would be in a monstrosity like this. One part of the creature’s nature would long for the clear vault of heaven, while the other part would crave a web in a dark corner and a diet of blood. What could be done with such a creature? Nothing, except put to death. There is a sense in which, in the Garden of Eden, Satan performed just such diabolical surgery on the human race. Part of his own personality, so to speak, was grafted onto the human personality and the product of this union is the “flesh.” There is only one thing God can do to the flesh and that is to put it to death (page 120).

By the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us believers we can put to death the influence of our sinful nature (Romans 8:13). MacArthur quotes the Scottish theologian David Brown, “If you don’t kill sin, sin will kill you” (The MacArthur NT Commentary, Romans 1-8, page 423).

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