DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN! One day Sam Jones got 50 cents too much in his pay envelope, but he didn't say a word. During the week the paymaster found out his mistake, and on…
Sermon Illustrations
CHRISTIANS CONTRA MUNDUM Thus it was from the beginning and so it is today. Yet the early Christians had one great advantage over us; then it was clear that the surrounding culture was groping in…
WHEN IN DOUBT -- STALL According to Gene Brown in the News-Times, dealing with the subject "What to Do When Your Spouse Asks for a Divorce," the gist of the advice by psychiatrist Steven S.…
THE WAGES OF SIN IS STUPIDITY I used this story from Ann Landers in a recent sermon to illustrate some of the teachings of Proverbs on the foolishness of unfaithfulness to marriage vows. It seems…
PERSPECTIVE ON GROWING OLDER Being as I'm now in my middle fifties, I occasionally give some thought to those years, down the road a ways, when I might want to retire. My financial advisor tells…
SEEING WITH A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE Sculpturess Louise Nevelson says that she collects things "for my eye." And she has an exceptional eye. She believes that any of us can live in great beauty anywhere, as…
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT -- OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES A group of kindergarten children visited the local police station and viewed the pictures of the 10 most wanted men. One child pointed to a…
THE ZIGZAG PATH We climbed the height by the zigzag path And wondered why -- until We understood it was made zigzag To break the force of the hill. A road straight up would prove…
THE ENDS THEREOF ARE THE WAYS OF DEATH One day a man, out hiking in the country, happened to see a magnificent golden eagle flying upward into the sky. He watched it with delight and…
IT'S ALL IN YOUR PERSPECTIVE There was a women's tournament at the golf club, and the turnout was so great the women had to use the men's locker room as well as their own. Naturally,…
ACKNOWLEDGING My wife was babysitting with little Ashley, our Director of Youth Ministries' three-year-old. Ashley has one of those tiny cars that a pre-schooler can get in and peddle around with their feet, and it…
HELPING TO MAKE MICKEY ACCEPTABLE Earlier this month, the in-house magazine for France's left- wing intellectuals came out with a cover that showed a jubilant Mickey Mouse flying over the Eiffel Tower. "American Cultural Invasion,"…
MARVELOUS DISCOVERY The story is going around that up in the Stanford Research Laboratories they have made an important change in procedure recently. Instead of using rats in their experiments they are now using attorneys.…
DEALING WITH DEATH -- THEORY AND PRACTICE Philip Anderson of Chicago Theological Seminary tells a favorite story to illustrate that long, long distance between pedalogical theories of pastoral care and the actual practice of parish…
ONE MUST OBSERVE A certain Irish priest, newly arrived in New York City, decided to visit the section known as the Bowery, haven of homeless alcoholics and other derelicts. As he walked along one of…
HOPE AND DESPAIR Hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair. Despair all too readily embraces the ills it foresees; hope is an energy and arouses the mind to explore every possibility to…
TO APPEAR HUMBLE Richard Marius writes of Thomas More: He was ambitious, but he did not want people to know that he was. He loved the praise of the crowd and worked hard to create…
COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING Little Kate came home from kindergarten one day and announced that she had learned a new song -- "God Bless America." To demonstrate, she sang a few bars. "God bless America, land…
COMMUNICATION -- HOW IS THE MESSAGE COMING ACROSS? Sam Newell tells about using a story from Parables, Etc. in a recent missions conference in the State of Washington. He retold the Aesop's fable about the…
IF THE SHOE FITS I was reminded of an oldie but goodie by Robert Strand of Grand Junction, Colorado. In the middle of a service and just before the sermon, one lady in the congregation…
