Sermon Illustrations

Ivan S. Prokhanov was an evangelical preacher in Russia in the early part of this century. He was arrested at gunpoint. Several times he was put in prison. During the Bolshevik reign of terror he nearly starved to death. One winter he nearly froze to death. He wrote a book, In the Cauldron...

According to the book, The Twentieth Century, the invention of typing correction fluid was the product of necessity. Betty Nesmith (incidentally, the mother of former "Monkee" Michael Nesmith) had made so many typing mistakes she created a concoction that would cover the...

Someone said, "Marriage is like the army. Everybody complains, but you'd be surprised how many re-enlist." Hollywood stars seem especially prone to it. Zsa Zsa Gabor has been married nine times, Mickey Rooney eight, Liz Taylor eight, Jerry Lee Lewis six and Billy Bob Thornton...

For Susie Lockheed, beauty is more than skin deep. The press carried reports of Susie who is the owner of a dog names Sam. He is a three time winner of the "World's Ugliest Dog Contest" Sam is a 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested. He is an unusual breed to begin with, but he...

Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt. Burn him...

Harvard Professor Harvey Cox said, "Not to decide, is to decide not to."

The late Joe Bayly wrote about the death of the young from firsthand experience. He lost three children: one at eighteen days, after surgery: another at five years, with leukemia; the third at eighteen years, after a sledding accident complicated by mild hemophilia. Joe said, "Of all the deaths that of a child is most unnatural and...

In her book The Key to a Loving Heart, Karen Mains includes a parable about the church titled "The Brawling Bride." It tells about the most climactic moment in a wedding ceremony. The families have been seated. The groom and his attendants are in their places. The minister is waiting, Bible in hand. The bridesmaids have...

An enthusiastic believer in Christ, Dan Richardson, lost his battle with cancer. But his life demonstrated that even though the physical body may be destroyed by disease, the spirit can remain triumphant. This poem was distributed at his memorial service: Cancer is so limited It cannot cripple love, It cannot shatter hope,...

George Muller, after having read the Bible through one hundred times with increasing delight, made this statement: "I look upon it as a lost day when I have not had a good time over the Word of God. Friends often say, 'I have so much to do, so many people to see, I cannot find time for Scripture study.' Perhaps there are not ...