Sermons & Devotionals by Sermon Illustrations I

We cannot arrive at a true understanding of God's Word by detaching texts from their contexts to find personal meaning in them and be feeding them into the world of our private preoccupations and letting that world impose new senses on old phrases. A theological student whom later I knew as a senior... Read More

The Holy Spirit's distinctive role is to fulfill what we may call a floodlight ministry in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. So far as this role was concerned, the Spirit "was not yet" (John 7:29, literal Greek) while Jesus was on earth; only when the Father had glorified him (John 17:1, 5) could t... Read More

A truly humble man is hard to find, yet God delights to honor such selfless people. Booker T. Washington, the renowned black educator, was an outstanding example of this truth. Shortly after he took over the presidency of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he was walking in an exclusive section of town ... Read More

He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the Almighty and the Christian confessions which would become the pillars of the new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially... Read More

Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped. Augustine. Hideyoshi, a Japanese warlord who ruled over Japan in the late 1500s, commissioned a colossal statue of Buddha for a shrine in Kyoto. It took 50,000 men five years to build, but the work h... Read More

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. Will Rogers. Shortly after the 1912 presidential election, Woodrow Wilson visited an aged aunt whom he hadn't seen for a long time. "What are you doing these days, Woodrow?" she asked. "I've just been elected president," replied Wilson. "Oh, yes? Pr... Read More

The next time you feel yourself feeling confident, challenge yourself to do the impossible. You just may. There are legions of people with unchallenged genius potential. In 1912, two Irish music hall players were spending an afternoon in a pub at Stalybridge in Cheshire, England. They were extolling... Read More

"Since God has put His work into your weak hands, look not for long ease here: You must feel the full weight of your calling: a weak man with a strong God." Lady Culross to John Livingston of the Covenanters, quoted in Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, Ruth Bell Graham, 1991, Focus on the Family Pu... Read More

The mystery of the humanity of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding. Martin Luther, Table Talk. Long ago, there ruled in Persia a wise and good king. He loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived. He wanted to know about their hardships. Often he dre... Read More

Commentary and Devotional We begin by trusting our ignorance and calling it innocence, and by trusting our innocence and calling it purity. And when we hear these rugged statements of our Lord's (Matthew 15:18), we shrink and say: "But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart." Either Jesu... Read More

It is the eyes of other people that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither a fine house nor fine furniture. Benjamin Franklin. For many years Sir Walter Scott was the leading literary figure in the British Empire. No one could write as well as he. Then the works of Lord Byron b... Read More

He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life. Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water. Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King. Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons. Jesus wept, yet... Read More

ur Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a ho... Read More

My greatest thought is my accountability to God. Daniel Webster. The Judgment seat "is meant for us professing Christians, real and imperfect Christians; and it tells us that there are degrees in that future blessedness proportioned to present faithfulness." Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910. It is Chri... Read More

The idea of hell and judgment are nowhere to be found [in Betty Eadie's bestseller, Embraced By The Light, on the N.Y. Times bestseller list for more than 40 weeks, including 5 weeks as #1]. In November 1973 Eadie allegedly died after undergoing a hysterectomy, and returned five hours later with the... Read More

A socialist once came to see Andrew Carnegie and soon was railing against the injustice of Carnegie having so much money. In his view, wealth was meant to be divided equally. Carnegie asked his secretary for an assessment of everything he owned and at the same time looked up the figures on world pop... Read More

My friend Dr. Roy Gustafson has the finest illustration of justification I have ever heard. It seems that there was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. ... Read More

Mamie Adams always went to a branch post office in her town because the postal employees there were friendly. She went there to buy stamps just before Christmas one year and the lines were particularly long. Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a stamp machine... Read More

Burghardt DuBois, the great black educator, sociologist, and historian, upon completion of studies at Fisk, Harvard and the University of Berlin, was convinced that change in the condition of the American black could be effected by careful scientific investigations into the truth about the black in ... Read More

On his deathbed, British preacher Charles Simeon smiled brightly and asked the people gathered in his room, "What do you think especially gives me comfort at this time?" When they all remained silent, he exclaimed, "The creation! I ask myself, 'Did Jehovah create the world or did I?' He did! Now if ... Read More