Several years ago on NBC’s “Tonight Show” Johnny Carson read the following item from the lost and found column from a midwestern newspaper: LOST DOG-BROWN FUR, SOME MISSING DUE TO MANGE, BLIND IN ONE EYE,…
Sermon Illustrations
A group of well-intentioned people met to discuss ways and means of helping a friend who had been down on his luck. Knowing him to be an extremely proud person who would not accept money,…
The members of a health club were assembled for a meeting on nutrition and exercise. The dietitian leading the discussion asked each in turn to describe their daily routine. The first participant admitted to certain…
During her son’s campaign for the presidency, the late Lillian Carter squared off with an overly aggressive reporter. ”Your son,” the reporter said, “has been traveling the country, telling people not to vote for him…
A husband and wife, together with their young son, were invited to a neighbor’s wedding. For the little boy, it was the first opportunity to attend such an affair. As the family entered the Church,…
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). After several years of marriage, the wife of a certified public accountant began to think that her…
There is the story of the “changed man” who was asked, ”You stopped smoking because she asked you?” ”Yes,” he answered. ”And you stopped drinking because she asked you?” ”Yes.” ”And you stopped swearing because…
A minister put an advertisement in the local paper for a well-rounded handyman who could fix things around the Church and help out with the routine chores. The next morning a well-dressed young man came…
Romantic love is an essential ingredient of human development. The problem arises when romantic love is projected, promoted and propagandized as the living end, the goal, the pinnacle of life’s experience. Romantic love is not…
The scientific “Second Law of Thermodynamics” states that any closed system left to itself tends toward greater randomness; that is to say, it breaks down. It takes an ordered input of energy to keep anything…
No wonder people never go alone on a roller coaster. Like marriage, it is a trip on which one needs a strong seat-mate, someone to cling to, to clutch frantically when the long, perilous descents…
A little, four-year-old girl asked her mother to check out a popular collection of folk songs on cassette from the local library. The next day as the mother passed her daughter in the play room,…
“I am the gate. Whoever enters through Me will be safe...The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy. I come that they might have life and have it to the full” (John 10:9,10).…
“Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls” (Matthew 13:45). There is a story of a poor fellow who had spent years desperately searching for the meaning of life.…
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that…
The editors of “Life Magazine” have compiled an inspiring new collection of essays in answer to their question, “What is the meaning of life?” From more than 25 countries, 200 poets, scientists, philosophers and just…
If anyone has hurt me or harmed me knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word, or deed, I freely forgive them. And I too ask forgiveness if I have hurt anyone or harmed anyone knowingly or…
There is an ancient Greek legend about a woman who comes down to the River Styx to be ferried across to the region of departed spirits. The kindly ferryman reminds her that if she drinks…
A man observed in wonder the miraculous creation of the six oak trees that stood on his property: In my yard stand magnificent oaks that are more than one-hundred years old. I look at them…
A farmer tells the story of the “Miracle Tree” – an old orange tree on his property which had been badly damaged during a brush fire. Practically all the leaves were burned off and in…
