RASPUTIN A little bit of hell spilled over on the world because two people believed in a false prophet. In his brilliant book, Nicholas and Alexandra, Robert K. Massie tells how the Tsar and Empress…
Sermon Illustrations
CLEAR MOTIVATION People go to college for a variety of reasons, but Bob Kuechenberg, formerly of the Miami Dolphins, may have given the best reason yet in an interview with Newsweek: My father and uncle…
THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT The arrangements had been made and I was excited. My husband and I had not had a date for at least two months. Our mutual birthday time had arrived and…
A LOSS FOR WORDS A fellow bumped into his old friend whom he hadn't seen in many years. He asked, "How's your wife?" He replied, "She's in heaven." Without thinking, he responded, "Oh, I'm sorry."…
INSPIRED BY THE BEST Leonardo da Vinci had started work on a large canvas in his studio. For awhile he worked at it -- choosing the subject, planning the perspective, sketching the outline, applying the…
THE CHALLENGE Give me not pallid ease; Give me races to run, Mountains to climb, Burdens to lift. Give me not nations to rule; Give me people to love, Worlds to serve And God to…
IF HE JUST UNDERSTOOD Alice Lee Humphres, in her book Angels in Pinafores, tells about her experiences as a first grade teacher. She tells about one little girl who came to school one winter day…
A MAN COULD GET HURT A man decided to commit suicide. Saturating his body with gasoline, he put a rope around his neck, tied it to a tree limb that jutted out over a river.…
NO REGRETS I have wept in the night/For the shortness of sight/That to somebody's need made me blind; But I never have yet Felt a tinge of regret/For being a little too kind.
THE LONELY IN THE CROWD A few years ago, the press carried a heartrending story of a young father who shot himself in a tavern telephone booth. James Lee had called a Chicago newspaper and…
THOSE ROTTEN KIDS "Our youths love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority -- they show disrespect for their elders, and love to chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the…
LOVE IS EVERYWHERE After eighteen months in the ministry, a pastor went to his file cabinet to pull out the "Love" file. He discovered he didn't have one. Impossible! It must be misfiled. He searched…
EXERCISING HER OPTIONS Joni Dunn was an intermediate skier in 1972 when she skidded off a Vermont mountain trail. She plunged 100 feet into a deep ravine, fracturing her spine in seven places, and her…
SEARCH ME -- I DARE YOU In the July 19, 1948, edition of Time magazine, under the heading of "National Affairs," under the subheading of "Heros" -- a heroine: A young woman newly awarded the…
NO IRON LUNG The following is from Robert Schuller's book Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking, (pp. 39, 40): A polio victim who required an iron lung to breathe learned to breathe without it -- even…
HANDICAP'S TRIUMPHS John Bartel was a healthy, athletic twenty-year-old young man and gradually taking full charge of the family dairy farm with all its multiple duties. It was a beautiful spring day in the lusciously…
SPORTING OBSTACLES On Nov 8th, 1970, there was a hard fought game between the New Orleans Saints and the Detroit Lions. The game was nip and tuck and it came down to the last final…
IGNORING HANDICAPS In a small town in the Midwest where I spent six years of my early youth, there lived a mentally retarded adult named Myron. It was during depression years and there was no…
WHAT DO YOU WALK ON? When William Pitt was prime minister of Great Britain, he moved about painfully on crutches. A man came to him one day complaining that he had been given an impossible…
ATTITUDE AND HANDICAPS I knew a man who was a member of our church. He had retired and was able finally to devote some time to work in his workshop. In the course of completing…
