Sermon Illustrations

Bertrand Russell once said, "I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I become certain that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk to my gardener, I'm convinced of exactly the opposite." We can only guess what had affected the gardener. Perhaps it was working in the earth, in close harmony with...

This is the actual text of a court order in a Kentucky county in 1858. "MANU-MISSION: It is ordered that Sam, a man of color, who was manumitted under the will of Joshua Childers, dec'd, be summoned to court to say whether or not he accepts his freedom." Isn't that remarkable. We can hardly imagine that Sam did not...

In Greek mythology the Underworld ruled by Hades (Romans called him Pluto) was a dark and gloomy place. Mighty rivers ran through it. One was called the Lethe. Whoever drank from that river forgot the past. Was it a curse or a blessing? Surely there are times when our problems come from forgetting the past. There is much...

Each September in the country of Malaysia Chinese people there celebrate the Mooncake Festival. It is observed a time when the moon is very bright and supposedly closer to the earth. The festival is filled with superstitions and pagan ideas. Mooncakes are round meat pies, stuffed with eggs, pork and bean paste. Once they...

For a long time the center of Christianity in Europe was not Rome but Constantinople. In the Imperial Palace they placed a throne; a throne on which no one ever sat. On that empty throne they put a copy of the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. One wonders if it was only symbolic. Certainly all symbols and all ...

Every year Queen Elizabeth II addresses the British Parliament. She must follow a long-standing custom. She must go first to the House of Commons. She knocks on the door. It is opened and then shut in her face. Then she goes to the House of Lords to make her speech. Why this ritual? Because there is one place in her...

In 1924 Bill Havens was set to go to the Olympic games in Paris as a rower. He was the best in the United States and considered to be the best in the world. His wife was about to give birth and he thought he ought to stay with her. It was a tough decision. It was twenty-four years later that he knew he had made the right ...

The little Ball City Baptist Church near the tiny town of Luck, North Carolina, has been closed for years. Young people moved way from the community. The older members died out one by one. But if you passed the church today you would not know that it was no longer operating. The grass is mowed, the windows are...

Writing in Southern Living magazine Jennifer Greer recounted a visit she made to the old family cemetery in Nelson County, Kentucky. She had talked there with her cousin who cared for the cemetery as a volunteer just as his father and his uncle had done before him. But he was worried that the next generation might not keep...

In the Sixth century the Emperor Justin II presented to the Vatican a cross. It was made of gold and covered with precious stones. The value of it is beyond calculating. In the center was a splinter of wood. That splinter seems out of place in such a jeweled cross until you know that Justin believed it was a splinter of...