Illustrations

“In trial and weakness and trouble, He seeks to bring us low, until we learn that His grace is all, and to take pleasure in the very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. His presence filling and satisfying our emptiness, becomes the secret of humility that need never fail.”—Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, Andrew Murray

You often find in a book or manuscript a star calling your attention to a footnote or explanation. That star the printer calls an asterisk. But all the stars of the night-heaven are asterisks, calling your attention to God, an all-observing God. Our every nerve a divine handwriting; our every muscle a pulley divinely swung; our every bone sculptured with divine suggestiveness; our every eye a reflection of the divine eye.

Source: The Wisdom and Wit of T. De Witt Talmage

A bell buoy rings only during storms. The beating of the waves and wind bring out the music that is within it, so too do trials reveal what is inside a person.

Source: Bible Truths Illustrated, J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

I remember being in a city where I noticed that the people resorted to a favorite well in one of the parks. I said to a man one day: “Does the well never run dry?”

The man was drinking of the water out of the well; and as he stopped drinking, he smacked his lips, and said: “They have never been able to pump it dry yet. They tried it a few years ago. They put the fire-engines to work, and tried all they could to pump the well dry; but they found there was a river flowing right under the city.”

Thank God, the well of salvation can never run dry either!

A great many people say, you must hear both sides; but if a man should write me a most slanderous letter about my wife, I don’t think I would have to read it; I should tear it up and throw it to the winds. Have I to read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both sides? Have I to take up a book that is a slander on my Lord and Master, who has redeemed me with His blood? Ten thousand times no! I will not touch it.

Source: Moody’s Stories, D. L. Mody

A pastor stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and watched as a man in tears lay a wreath at the base of the memorial. The pastor put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and the man said, “Twenty-five years ago he stepped into the line of fire for me, the least I can do is say, ‘Thanks.’”

Source: Unknown

“However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.” — Douglas MacArthur

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”— President Ronald Reagan

At the battle of Inkerman in 1854 a soldier was just able to crawl to his tent after he was struck down. When found, he was lying upon his face, his open Bible before him, his hand glued fast to John 11 by his life-blood which covered it. When his hand was lifted, the letters of the printed page were clearly traced upon it, and with the ever-living promise in and on his hand, they laid him in a soldier’s grave. The words were: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

A man was once conversing with a Brahmin priest, and he asked: “Could you say, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life?’”

“Yes,” replied the priest, “I could say that.”

“But could you make any one believe it?”

Christ proved His superiority right there. His character and His actions were back of His words. He exhibited His divine power to silence His enemies.

Source: Moody’s Stories, p. 64

For the twentieth anniversary of Larry King Live, Barbara Walters interviewed the man who became famous interviewing others. She asked him direct and revealing questions. Two of the most telling responses came when she probed about fear and faith. Walters asked King, “What is your greatest fear?”

He immediately replied, “Death.” This interview occurred in 2005 when he was at the very top of his career and had much to lose, but none of that mattered compared to the fear of death.

Her follow-up question was, “Do you believe in God?”