Sermon Illustrations

An eleventh century German king, Henry III, grew tired of ruling. He applied to a monastery to spend the rest of his life in quiet contemplation. The prior asked if he, a king, could live out a vow of complete obedience. "I will," said the king. "Then you are accepted. Your first duty is to return t

Fanny Crosby The famous blind songwriter Fanny Crosby wrote more that 8,000 songs. This fact and other interesting highlights in the life of Miss Crosby were revealed by Warren Wiersbe in his book Victorious Christian. Wiersbe explained that when Fanny was only 6 weeks old a minor eye inflammati

A group of students at Harvard once tried to fool the famous professor of zoology Agassiz. They took parts from a number of different bugs and with great skill attached them together to make a creation they were sure would baffle their teacher. On the chosen day they brought it to him and asked that

Jesse James killed a fellow in a bank robbery and shortly thereafter was baptized in the Kearney Baptist Church. Then he killed another man, a bank cashier, and joined the church choir and taught hymn-singing. He liked Sundays, Jesse did, but he couldn't always show up at church. On two Sunday's, he

C.S. Lewis called pride "spiritual cancer," which eats up love and contentment. It is actually a sign of our own insecurity and feelings of inferiority. Spurgeon poetically warned us not to be proud of race, face, or place.

Divine Call to Repentance The term "posthaste" goes back to the time of Henry VIII. Postmasters were given relays of horses to carry messages for the king to important cities in England. Because some couriers were irresponsible and wasted time in taverns and inns on the way, a drastic law was put

When the Crystal Palace Exhibition opened in 1851, people flocked to London's Hyde Park to behold the marvels. One of the greatest marvels back them was steam. Steam plows were displayed. Steam locomotives, steam looms, steam organs, even a steam cannon. Of all the great exhibits that year, th

Airman Jones was assigned to the induction center, where he advised new recruits about their government benefits, especially their GI insurance. It wasn't long before Captain Smith noticed that Airman Jones was having a staggeringly high success-rate, selling insurance to nearly 100% of the recruit

A guest at a hotel was in a hurry to check out when he realized he did not have his briefcase. He went to the bellboy and said, "Would you please hurry to room 1203? I think I left my briefcase there. My limo for the airport leaves in six minutes, so please hurry." The man checked out, and after a f

If you think issues of uncleanness are limited to the ancient world, consider this cover story headline last year from an issue of U.S. News World Report: "The Future of Water: Costly - Dirty - Scarce." The article began with an account of dirty water in Atlanta, where in some neighborhoods it