Sermon Illustrations

The city dump. That's what it was that day in 1904 when a young black woman, Mary McCloud Bethune, saw it. Nevertheless, she and other willing hands built a shack on that desolate place, for she had a dream that, with God's help, she could help other black women learn to read and write.

George, did you chop down the cherry tree? No, dad. I think you are lying. No, no, no! I swear I did not chop down the cherry tree. Son, I saw you out there with your ax. Your punishment will be worse if you lie. Now, tell me the truth! Dad, I answered your question truthfully. S

I'm sure we all felt bad over the tragic death of Christina Onassis at the age of 38. Many of her problems stemmed from the poverty she experienced at home as she was growing up. As her stepsister Henrietta Gelber commented: "She lacked a sense of achievement, what she was striving for w

The saintly Horatius Bonar, reflecting on this subject, realized that the little things can either make or break the Christian. He wrote, "A holy life is made up of a multitude of small things. It is the little things of the hour and not the great things of the age that fill up a life lik

A teacher asked her group of 1st graders to draw something on their papers - whatever they wished. The teacher came around and saw little Frankie and he was busy at work. She said, "What are you drawing a picture of?" Frankie responded without hesitating, "I'm drawing a picture of God." T

I saw a sign outside a church in Atlanta. On the sign was the name of the church, the name of the minister and, under that, the title of the sermon. The title for the sermon was "Do You Know What Hell Is?" Under that title, in capital letters, it read, "Come Hear Our Organist Sunday Morni

Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq has built 50 palaces at a probable cost of two billion dollars. Each one has an underground bunker covered by concrete two feet thick reinforced with steel. They can withstand the blast of a five hundred pound bomb. Some are so far beneath the ground they

If I straighten the pictures on the walls of your home, I am committing no sin, am I? But suppose that your house were afire, and I still went calmly about straightening pictures, what would you say? Would you think me merely stupid or very wicked?... The world today is on fire. What are

I love the story of the second grader named Mike. On the way to school Mike's arm bumped against a seat on the bus and it made a big scrape and bled until blood got all over his clothes. He had forgotten to put his homework paper in his book bag so he got in trouble. At recess he was hit

Each day in the United States an average of 41,096 calls are made to dial-a-porn and only 875 calls are made to dial-a-prayer. -Sermons Illustrated May/June 1990