Illustrations

Jonathan Whitfield was preaching to coal miners in England.

He asked one man, “What do you believe?”

“Well, I believe the same as the church.”

“And what does the church believe?”

“Well, they believe the same as me.”

Seeing he was getting nowhere, Whitfield said, “And what is it that you both believe?”

“Well, I suppose the same thing.”

Many Christians seem to know as much about what they believe as that coal miner.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A little girl got home from Sunday school, where she had been taught Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” She asked her mother what the verse meant. Her mom said, “Well, it means that when you are good and kind and thoughtful and obedient, you are letting Christ’s light shine in your life before all who know you.”

During a tour of a large manufacturing plant, a visitor noticed a man using a fiery torch of high intensity to work on huge slabs of steel. Operating from a blueprint on a nearby table, a pointer traced the pattern and then by a clever system of levers enlarged the design as it was burned into the metal.

George Mueller read the Bible through over 100 times. He also wrote over 30,000 letters per year for 40 years. He had nine assistants working in a dozen languages. He pastored 1200 believers, had the oversight of five large orphanages and a huge publishing house, printed and distributed millions of books, tracts, and Bibles. He said, “I never think of going to my work without first having a good season of time with God and my Bible.”

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

I heard once of a man who dreamed that he was swept into Heaven, and oh, he was so delighted to think that he had at last got there. All at once one came and said: “Come, I want to show you something.” He took him to the battlements, and he said, “Look down yonder; what do you see?”

“I see a very dark world.”

“Look and see if you know it.”

“Why, yes,” he said, “that is the world I have come from.”

“What do you see?”

“Men are blindfolded there; many of them are going over a precipice.”

A young student once asked the discoverer of the anesthetic property of chloroform, Sir James Simpson, what he considered his greatest discovery. The man of science and the man of God answered, “The greatest discovery I ever made was when I discovered that I was a great sinner and that Jesus Christ is my Saviour.”

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

I am not what I might be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be. But I thank God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”—John Newton

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

During World War II, England needed to increase its production of coal. Winston Churchill called together labor leaders to enlist their support. At the end of his presentation he asked them to picture in their minds a parade which he knew would be held in Picadilly Circus after the war.

Hebrews 12:1 admonishes Christians to “Lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.”  Many times those weights are simple distractions that create enormous drag. One preacher illustrated it this way: “It’s perfectly legal to run a race in army boots.” He said it wasn’t wise and would guarantee failure, but you can legally do it. Many of the things that prevent spiritual growth and development are legal, they just don’t lead to success.

Source: The Last Men’s Book You’ll Ever Need, David Moore

Ask anyone about the color of bubble gum and they’ll invariably say “pink.”  In 1928, Walter Diemer accidentally created the first successful batch of bubble gum while playing around with different recipes. He made it pink because, at the time, that was the only food coloring available in the factory. When contemplating whether to discard or memorialize something, it might be wise to chew a piece of bubble gum and think about the initial reasoning behind that particular tradition.

Source: Houston Chronicle