SANCTIFICATION BUSINESS "Let me be taught," wrote Henry Martyn, "that the first great business on earth is the sanctification of my own soul..."
Sermon Illustrations
CHARACTER COLLATERAL Someone asked financier J. P. Morgan what the best collateral was that a customer could give him. Morgan replied, "Character."
CHARACTER SEEN IN THE DARK G. Campbell Morgan was riding with D. L. Moody, when suddenly Moody asked, "What is character anyway?" Morgan knew that the evangelist wanted to answer his own question, so he…
SUPPORT NOT NEEDED The noted English architect Sir Christopher Wren once built a structure in London. His employers claimed that a certain span Wren planned was too wide, that he would need another row of…
GOOD DOSE OF FIDELITY A good dose of fidelity -- sheer determination that you won't give up on any area of marriage -- can pull you through the dips when love seems to have disappeared.…
BUT WE ARE WITH NELSON Joseph Conrad, an English Novelist, in one of his essays, quotes from a letter from Sir Robert Stopford. Stopford was one of Horatio Nelson's men. He was commander of one…
DEPENDENT ON GOD'S GRACE OPPOSITION Troubled on every side, yet not in distress. TRIBULATION Handicapped, but never frustrated. Sore pressed at every point, but never hemmed in. Perplexed, but not in despair. CONSTERNATION Puzzled, but…
EVIL WORKED FOR GOOD Trouble - Samuel L. Brengle's little classic, Helps to Holiness, was originally written as a series of articles during a period of convalescence after a tough kid threw a brick at…
WHERE TRIBULATION COMES FROM The word "tribulation" comes from the Latin word "tribulum." A tribulum was a heavy wooden frame with iron spikes beneath it. This frame was drawn by oxen across the threshing floor…
CONSISTENCY IN PERSECUTION No follower of Christ should fear the frown of the world. If a blind man bumps into you, you don't resent him. Most would feel compassion for the man. There will be…
ELECTRICAL CONDUCTOR Just as electricity must work through the means of a conductor, so the Holy Spirit must work through the means God has provided: prayer, God's Word, and suffering. As a Christian reads the…
SPIRITUAL TIME LAPSES Someone has suggested that our reaction at times of difficulty exhibits our spiritual maturity. What is the time lapse between a personal disappointment and your praising the Lord? If only a matter…
BRINGING LIGHT TO THE DARKNESS Willard Hotchkiss, pioneer missionary in Africa: I have dwelt forty years practically alone in Africa. I have been thirty-nine times stricken with the fever, three times attacked by lions, and…
MORE THAN A POINT OF VIEW To follow Christ is something much more. You must put your whole life into it and leave behind whatever hinders you from following Him. I don't know what it…
DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE We could take a lesson from Lewis Carroll's book, Through the Looking Glass: "I can't believe that," said Alice. "Can't you?" said the Queen in a pitying tone. "Try again; draw a…
PULPIT DEATH CALLS The pulpit calls those anointed to it as the sea calls its sailors; and like the sea, it batters and bruises, and does not rest... To preach, to really preach, is to…
THINKING OF A BETTER WAY Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of…
LITTLE BITS OF CHANGE "But these are gifted people," you may say. Being gifted has very little to do with it. Maybe you and I haven't been given those bursts of genius, those flashes of…
HIS BURDEN NOT MINE Amy Carmichael tells how she wearied of fighting for the temple girls of India. The opposition to her work was so strong, and the forces that bound those girls were so…
SPURGEON ON PREACHING It may be light work to you men of genius and learning; but to me it is life and death work. Often have I thought that I would rather take a whipping…
