THE PRICE THEY PAID Have you ever wondered what happened to those men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had…
Sermon Illustrations
USING YOUR HEAD Young Wilbert came home from school and announced to his mother, "I got two free ice cream cones this afternoon." "How?" asked his mother. "I certainly hope you didn't swipe them." "Oh,…
BEAUROCRACY I think you'll appreciate this story I recently found in Chestnuts: An office worker in a San Francisco company applied through channels for a job with a government agency in Washington. While he was…
INSOMNIA An honest letter was sent to the Internal Revenue Service. It stated: "Dear Sirs: I cannot sleep. Last year, when I filed my income tax return, I deliberately misrepresented my income. Now I cannot…
THE MODERN UNDERSTANDING Lester Weeks, Pastor of the First Christian Church of Platte City, Missouri sends in this true incident to begin our Christmas issue: Last November my choir director asked me if I would…
PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE A mother came to President Lincoln seeking the pardon of her son, under sentence of death. The result of her pleading was that Lincoln issued a pardon. After leaving him, as she passed…
COPING WITH THE SCARS LEFT BY KIDS One of our members shared a book with me recently that I had missed when first published in 1980, called When Parents Cry by Joy P. Gage. (Accent…
DEDICATION John Drakeford dedicated one of his books: "To my two sons, Warwick and Brenton, teachers in the art of family living, who in the process have put gray hairs in my head, bills in…
LIFE IN THE PIRANHA BOWL Did you ever feel, as a pastor, that your life could be described as "Life in the Piranha Bowl." As John Killinger puts it in Christ in the Seasons of…
LINCOLN It comes as a shock to me to realize that the man who could write the Second Inaugural Address, regarded by many as the noblest of all political documents, and the Gettysburg Address, had…
PARENTAL PERSPECTIVE It is said of Boswell, the famous biographer of Samuel Johnson, that he often referred to a special day in his childhood when his father took him fishing. The day was fixed in…
PROGRAM PRESSURES I 'm sure you've heard the old story about the two men who met on the street. One said to the other, "Have you heard about Harry? He embezzled the company out of…
THE CULTURALLY POLITE FACADE When dealing with the issue of honesty we must always consider the matter of putting on a good appearance for social purposes. Missionaries have to pretend to like strange and exotic…
THE FOUR SPEECHES According to Bits & Pieces, William Lyon Phelps, the late Yale professor and lecturer, once said that he got credit for only one-fourth of his after-dinner speeches. "Every time I accept an…
HURRY! An insurance agent received a phone call from an excited woman. "I want to insure my house," she said. "Can I do it by phone?" "I'm sorry," answered the man, "but I'd have to…
EMERGENCY A man was filling out an application for a factory job, and was puzzled by the blank after "Person to notify in case of accidents." Finally he wrote, "Anybody in sight." Funny Funny World
TESTING The tree that never had to fight For sun and sky and air and light, Never became a forest king, But lived and died a common thing. The man who never had to toil,…
PERSPECTIVE DETERMINES OUR REJECTION As Anne Herbert reminds us of Ngaio Marsh's rhetorical question: "Why is the spot of red in the forest so beautiful when we think it's a flower, and so horrible when…
FROM CHILDREN TO GOD "Dear God, What is it like to die? I just want to know, I don't want to do it." Signed, "Michael." Also, "Dear Lord, My grandma just went to heaven. Please…
WHY BE AFRAID OF DEATH Why be afraid of death, as though your life were breath? Death but anoints your eyes with clay. O glad surprise. Why should ye be forlorn? Death only husks the…
