There is a story about the president of a corporation who called a meeting of all employees just before quitting time one day. Together with a younger, coverall-clad man, he mounted the platform and proceeded…
Sermon Illustrations
Some of you may remember A.J. Cronin’s very popular novel, “The Keys of the Kingdom.” One of the main characters in the book is Father Chisholm, a missionary priest who has worked almost all of…
In an essay entitled “Overtaken By Joy,” Ardis Whitman writes of a beautiful moment when she was completely overtaken by the Miracle of God’s creation: I had been working all night on a manuscript. it…
”Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) Clad in the…
Almost four hundred years ago, in the great Italian center of the arts, Florence, a block of the purest marble, seventeen feet high, lay on its side gathering dust in the workyard behind the cathedral.…
There was a man who lived in the sixteenth century called Lorenzo D’Medici. He was one of the better members of the famous (sometimes infamous) D’Medici family. They called him “Lorenzo the Magnificent” because he…
An old gentleman is seated on a train, quietly looking out the window, noticing everything that passes by: the lines of houses, the wire-connected poles, the rolling clouds, the children at play. A woman he…
When Noah and his family had completed their journey aboard the ark, they paused for a moment to look back. Noah’s wife suggested they do something with the ark to prevent it from becoming an…
In Bill Cosby’s classic story of “Noah and the Ark,” after building the Ark, Noah has been working for days to get the animals on board. As he struggles to get the second hippopotamus up…
There is the story of the young Army officer in World War I who was graduated as a second lieutenant a year ahead of time because officers were needed desperately. This young man, who had…
Close-minded people put others down, Open-minded people are tolerant and understanding. Close-minded people can’t see the good in people who disagree with them, Open-minded people see some good in everyone. Close-minded people mind other people’s…
Many of the world’s finest Oriental rugs come from small villages in the Middle East. The rugs are produced by hand by a crew which is directed by a master rug weaver. Most of the…
A close friend of Leopold Stokowski, the famous orchestra conduutor, has written that Stokowski often said to him, “Don’t ask me about what was, but what is to come.” This was typical of Stokowski’s attitude…
Optimists have been described in many ways: An optimist is a man getting married at the age of 75 and looking for a house near a school! An optimist is having three teenage sons and…
A little green man was standing in a village square. “Are you from Mars?” asked one of the villagers. “Yes,” said the little green man. “Are all of you green like that where you come…
You can tell with certainty that men, not women, wrote most of the early mythology concerning the creation of the world and the beginning of mankind. You can tell it because of the recurring theme…
A notorious con artist died suddenly one night and began to worry about what awaited him. He left behind scores of families he had cheated through crooked business ventures. But when he got to his…
A newspaper comic strip ran an episode on the theme of the Ten Commandments. It shows an elderly woman sitting up in bed in communication with her dead husband’s spirit. Apparently she is resentful of…
A little girl demanded that her father read her the same bedtime story every night. When her father tried to read from other books the child would cry and insist that he read her favorite…
“Now, son, there is a wonderful example for you in the life of the ant,” said the earnest father. “Every day the ant goes to work and labors hard all day long. He never wastes…
