Sermon Illustrations

"If we will admit our inadequacy, we can have God's adequacy. . . . The greatest problem in the church is trying to do God's work with man's strength. . . . The key to Christian sufficiency is realizing that everything comes from God and nothing comes from me." (Ray Stedman)

A schoolteacher injured his back and had to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. It fit under his shirt and was not noticeable at all. On the first day of the term, still with the cast under his shirt, he found himself assigned to the toughest students in school. Walking confiden

On the first day of college, the Dean addressed the students, pointing out some of the rules: "The female dormitory will be out-of-bounds for all male students, and the male dormitory to the female students. Anybody caught breaking this rule will be fined $20 the first time." He continued: "Anyb

Satanic activities continually make the headlines. Bombing, murder, rape, fraud - the depressing accounts are endless. I can almost hear the devil's sinister laugh as he sees the pessimism and hopelessness these reports create in the hearts of people everywhere. Good news, on the other hand, is upl

Over 2,000 years ago a young Greek artist named Timanthes studied under a respected tutor. After several years, the teacher's efforts seemed to have paid off when Timanthes painted an exquisite work of art. Unfortunately, he became so enraptured with the painting that he spent days gazing at it. One

In his book The Prophets, Norman Podhoretz points out that idolatry is not so much to "go after other gods" as to make a god of oneself. The "worshippers of idols . . . were bowing down to the work of their own hands. What they were worshiping was themselves. And in worshiping themselves, in trustin

Full Bible Intelligence When a new FBI agent is hired he is given intensive training. As part of the program, he is taught to watch for counterfeit money. He makes a thorough study of the genuine bills-not the phonies-so that he can spot the fake currency immediately because of its contrast to the

A man walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. He says he is going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for such a loan, so the man hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce parked on

The American Astronomical Society, meeting in Arlington, Virginia are intrigued by evidence of some kind of a "great attractor", an immense gravitational magnet, pulling powerfully at our milky way and at more than a hundred other galaxies. It is causing a dramatic distortion in the all expansion of

In his book What's Good About This News? (Westminster John Knox Press), David Bartlett tells this story: "My wife and I have friends who have a wonderfully mixed family, mixed in part because one of their sons is their biological offspring and the other children are adopted. Not long ago they were