Sermon Illustrations

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a lot more if I had been understood." (Clarence Darrow)

Could the Untied States be headed down a path similar to that of ancient Rome? Let's look at the five key reasons for Rome's downfall, as set forth by Edward Gibbon in his classic work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The are: (1) The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home. (2

Dr. E. Stanley Jones, the famous missionary, wrote a charming and delightful autobiography called A Song of Ascents. He tells about a layman, a newspaper-man, a mutual fried, who was called upon to conduct a funeral service. Being an exact man, he wanted to do it properly and in the best Christian t

David Jeremiah notes that, "One of the better known treasure hunts in modern times has been the quest to find the rumored wealth known as the "Beale treasure." The hunt began when an eccentric man, who left the East for the gold and silver mines of the West, returned home, supposedly hid a vast amou

Ruth Bell Graham writes of an encounter she had with a young Indian student named Pashi. She spoke with Pashi about Christ, to which he replied, "I would like to believe in Christ, and many in India would like to believe, but we have never seen a Christian who was like Christ." A friend of Mrs. Gr

You got it from your father; it was all he had to give. So it's yours to use and cherish, for as long as you may live. If you lose the watch he gave you, it can always be replaced, But a black mark on your name, son, can never be erased. It was clean the day you took it, and a worthy name to bear,

"It is a gloomy moment in the history of our country. Not in the lifetime of most men has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. The domestic economic situation is in chaos. Our dollar is weak throughout the world. Prices are so h

During the 1840's in the Fiji Islands of the Pacific, a man was worth $7. You could buy a man for a musket. After you bought him, you could starve him, work him to death, whip him or eat him. (Cannibalism was very popular in those regions.) But if you visited the Fiji Islands 40 years later, you cou

In her book Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, Marva Dawn describes her experience at the 1987 Vancouver World's Fair, where the Christian pavilion's presentation utilized glitzy double-reversed photography and flashing lasers. "When I tried to explain my qualms about the production to an attendant

A General Electric ad raises the question: "What was Thomas Edison's biggest blunder?" The ad reveals that Edison opposed the theory of alternating current developed by Charles Steinmetz. The ad concludes by stating that Steinmetz was almost refused admission at Ellis Island as an unfit immigrant.