DEMOSTHENES When Demosthenes, the famed Greek orator, first spoke in public, he was hissed off the platform. His voice was harsh and weak and his appearance unimpressive. He determined that his fellow citizens would yet…
Sermon Illustrations
PERSISTENCE Among those who have overcome adversity include: Beethoven, whose best works were composed after he had lost his hearing; Louis Pasteur, whose greatest discoveries were made after he had suffered a stroke which threatened…
GOD'S ATTENTION GETTERS Joyce Jones is a renowned concert organist and teacher at Baylor University. Several years ago she played the first full concert on the new pipe organ at the Crystal Cathedral in California,…
DESPITE BLINDNESS George Matheson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1842. Before he reached the age of two, it was discovered that his eyesight was defective. He, his parents, and the specialists fought a heroic…
FAILURE AND PERSEVERANCE When he was seven years old, his family was forced out of their home on a legal technicality, and he had to work to help support them. At age nine, his mother…
TRUE TALE Fred Craddock, while delivering the Lyman Beecher Lecture series on preaching at Yale University, related this story from his personal life: A few years ago my wife and I were on vacation in…
PREJUDICE A first grader went on her first day to a newly integrated school at the height of the segregation storm. An anxious mother met her at the door to inquire, "How did everything go,…
A THOUGHTLESS WORD/A POWERFUL WORD Rev. Gregory Oravec, O. S. B., sent the following stories to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: In the country church of a small village an altar boy serving…
EVEN THE WORST OF SERMONS An English vicar was most unhappy to learn, after preaching a powerful sermon against betting, that one of his own wardens was a heavy gambler. Immediately, the vicar hurried over…
FROM THE NEWS Titles are so important that many of them get changed over the years. One particular product started out as Mr. Pemberton's Triplex Liver Pills. But that didn't wash, so he made it…
THE MEANEST MOTHER "I had the meanest mother in the world," writes a housewife who is now raising a family of her own. "While other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal,…
SORROW -- THE TEACHER I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chatted all the way; But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow, And ne'er…
I NEED A SENSE OF PEACE Give me peace, O God, a central peace. Let me know that at the heart of turbulence there is the final calm that comes from faith in you, that…
GIVING LOVE AWAY From Pastor Edward W. Frost of the First Christian Church of Salem, Illinois: 62881 One evening just before the great Broadway musical star, Mary Martin, was to go on stage in South…
AFFIRMATION AND IDENTITY Robert Manning tells the story of a lonely, motherless boy of fourteen years who met two new teachers in his freshman year of high school. One said to him, "I don't like…
WHO, INDEED? Who comforts me in moments of despair? Who runs fingers lightly through my hair? Who cooks my meals and darns my hose? Squeezes nose drops in my nose? Who always has a word…
THE TENACIOUS STUPID NATURE OF PREJUDICE A Chinese man and a Jewish man were eating lunch together. Suddenly, without warning the Jew gets up, walks over to the Chinese fellow and smashes him in the…
FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT A man was watching his 80-year-old neighbor planting a small peach tree. He inquired of him as follows: "You don't expect to eat peaches from that tree, do you?"…
STEWARDSHIP OF YOUR LIFE Life is a leaf of paper white Whereon each one of us may write His word or two And then comes night. Greatly begin, though thou have time But for a…
CHRIST AND BUDDHA -- AN EXTRAORDINARY DIFFERENCE Frederick Buechner, in his book Now and Then, has a section on his comparison of the teachings of Buddha and Jesus Christ, a topic he wrestled with when…
