LOOK FOR THE MUSIC Herbert Feis relates how George Gershwin was talking to a friend on the crowded beach of a resort near New York City. The sounds and shrieks of voices pierced their conversation.…
Sermon Illustrations
THE BOTTOM LINE I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right,…
HOW TO KNOW WHEN IT'S TIME TO MOVE You know it's time to move to another church when some mornings you'd rather go to the dentist and have a root canal than go to work.…
LOVE AND THE ENEMY We found ourselves on the same track with several carloads of Japanese wounded (after the Kwai prison-camp). These unfortunates were on their own without medical care. No longer fit for action…
STEP ONE The first step in solving any problem is to begin.
LOVE WALKS WITH YOU IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH How often it has been the case where an emergency has revealed the deepest heart convictions? Three American divisions had pressed the defending…
AMBITION, CANDOR AND HUMILITY One last Churchill story before parting. Winston Churchill was a man who did things whole hog or not at all. As Taylor points out in his biography: At the age of…
HUMILITY -- THE GIFT OF STANDING BY Donald Grey Barnhouse told the story (supposedly true) about Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. When he moved to Washington, D.C., to take up his duties as Chief Justice…
PRIDE I once heard a missionary tell how he was trying to do translation work in a particular tribe and found it hard to translate the word "pride" or at least the concept. He finally…
THE DIFFICULTY OF SELF-DISCIPLINE Then there was the old fable of the frog who wanted to go south with the geese. They discussed the wonderful southern climate and the fall migration so much that the…
HUMILITY I have long remembered the story of the college girl who visited the home of Beethoven. She slipped under the rope and began playing Beethoven's piano. She said to the one in charge, "I…
HUMILITY Success can sometimes dazzle you in the achieving, but there's usually someone around to help you keep perspective. TV anchorman Tom Brokaw has a story about that: Brokaw was wandering through Bloomingdale's in New…
TRUE CONVERSION The following is from Maxie Dunnam's Commentary on Galatians by Word Books (Galatians 6:15, A New Creation, page 132): Paul's testimony is repeated over and over again as persons respond in faith to…
REPENTANCE Repentance is a hearty sorrow for our past misdeeds, and a sincere resolution and an endeavor to the utmost of our power, to conform all our actions to the law of God. It does…
REVEALING SLIP Pastor Sam Thompson of Dove Creek, Colorado sent in this from his own experience: r81324 At the close of a sermon one Sunday morning one of the members of the church came forward…
RETELLING THE STORY AS IF -- CONTINUED Last month I wrote about the possibility of retelling a familiar story from the Bible with an entirely different slant, bias or premise. Here's one that was reported…
MY SON, MY SON The story is told of a fine Scottish Christian man who was a successful business man and who had one son. He was proud of his boy for he was for…
RESOURCEFUL AND READY IN OUR SIN Here's a version of an old chestnut that comes around from time to time in a new guise. It seems there was a man with a problem that he…
FORGIVE AND FORGET Bruce Larson tells the true story of a Catholic priest living in the Philippines, a much- loved man of God who once carried a secret burden of long- past sin buried deep…
MERCY Of course the classic quote on mercy is that of Portia in the Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I, lines 186-197. The quality of mercy is not strain'd It droppeth as the gentle…
