Sermon Illustrations

At a luncheon in a certain city a respected millionaire got up to testify that "I owe it all to the Lord." He then shared his secret. "When I was a young fellow, a call was made for me to surrender all. Young as I was, and poor as I was, everything I had I surrendered to Christ. I didn't have much money, but I put it on the table -- all...

God-filled people come in many shapes and disguises. During preparation for one of our evangelistic crusades in Latin America some years ago, a very poor, shoeless, unshaven man attended one of our week-long biblical counseling courses. Generally, the better educated, socially established, and spiritually mature lay leaders of...

A pastor's wife went to an aerobic dance class to lose a little weight, be herself, and all that. The place was jammed with divorced women who complained that men are "a bunch of pigs," "indifferent," and "unfulfilling." And this woman, a pastor's wife, bought into it, and eventually walked out on her husband. Why? Primarily...

Gladys Aylward rightly has been called the most noted single woman missionary of the 20th century. Her story has been told in a popular biography, a film starring Ingrid Bergman, and a BBC This Is Your Life feature. If you'd met Gladys in her younger days, however, you would have...

When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, local Russian officials reopened an old Orthodox church building in what was then still Leningrad and turned it over to a Baptist pastor and his congregation. The ornate beauty of the church had long since been obliterated. Only the shell remained. One day, while working to fix up the...

A few summers ago two Britishers ran 2,027 miles along the length of the 14 highest mountains in the world. In the process they climbed a whopping 290,000 feet and traversed 64 mountain passes. The Himalayas furnish some pretty grueling terrain, indeed. Brothers Richard and Adrian Crane ran...

One of the most prominent features of the Portland skyline is the Oregon Convention Center with twin towers stretching 260 feet above the complex. Shortly before the center was completed, however, its impressive jade-green glass towers suddenly posed a problem that threatened to delay the opening of the $90 million...

Today, in an effort to be sophisticated and contemporary, many Christians have stopped trying to persuade others to follow Jesus Christ. I, too, have been guilty of this. When we lived in Mexico City, my next-door neighbor was a young television personality. We would chat from time to time, and he even mentioned that he...

Towering over the resort town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies is Mt. Rundle. The mountain is named for Robert Rundle, first missionary to come to that part of the world. Robert Rundle was a Methodist missionary who came to convert the Cree Indians to Christianity. He learned their language and labored among them from...