Illustrations

When G. Campbell Morgan was a young man he visited two elderly ladies each week to read the Bible to them. When he read Matthew 28:20, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” He said, “Isn’t that a wonderful promise?” One of the ladies quickly replied, “Young man, that is not a promise. It is a fact!”

All of God’s promises are fact.

Source: The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: The Complete New Testament, Warren Wiersbe

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

During the civil war Abraham Lincoln met with a group of ministers for a prayer breakfast. One of the ministers said, “Mr. President, let us pray that God is on our side”. Lincoln’s response showed far greater insight, “No, gentlemen, let us pray that we are on God’s side.”

Source: Unknown

The story is told of a man who sold his house for an incredible bargain with just one stipulation: he would retain ownership of one small nail protruding over the door.

After several years, he wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell it. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.

If we leave even one small sin in our life Satan will hang his rotting garbage on it.

Admiral Heihachiro Togo, whose brilliant tactics had destroyed the Russian fleet at the battle of the Sea of Japan in 1905, visited the United States shortly after the Russo-Japanese War. At a state dinner in Admiral Togo’s honor, William Jennings Bryan was asked to propose a toast. Because Bryan was well known as a strict teetotaler, it was feared that an embarrassing breakdown of protocol was about to occur. But as Bryan stood to propose his toast, he held up his glass and said, “Admiral Togo has won a great victory on water, and I will therefore toast him in water.

By the time young people reach the 10th grade, only three in ten are non-drinkers. Results of a study indicate that about a third of high school students are moderate to heavy drinkers in the classification of scientists who organized students into six categories: abstainers, infrequent, light, moderate, moderate-to-heavy, and heavy drinkers. Ease of availability is related to heavier drinking. Those states that allow 18-year-olds to purchase alcohol have heavier drinking.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!—Shakespeare

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A walk in the Spirit will of necessity be a walk in accordance with the Word the Spirit has inspired. The parallel between Ephesians 5:18-21 and Colossians 3:15-17 is significant. The same results are said to flow from being filled with the Spirit in the first cast, and being filled with the Word in the second. To remain filled with the Spirit, and thus enjoy His continuing sanctifying work, will mean continuing to be filled with the Word. The relationship is obvious.

John Kenneth Galbraith was a noted economist in the early 1900s who was called upon by many dignitaries to help sort the economic markets. He wrote the following story in his autobiography about his housekeeper:

How rich is rich? According to a survey of people who ought to know, the answer is $1 million to $5 million in assets. Investment managers Neuberger & Bergman sponsored the survey of people who stand to give or receive inheritances (median household assets: $500,000). Paradoxically, 55% of those whose assets ranged from $1 million to $5 million don’t consider themselves wealthy.

Source: U.S.A. Today, November 11, 1991

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

When a drum major tossed his baton in Ventura, California, it hit two 4000-volt power lines, blacking out a ten-block area and putting a radio station off the air. The baton melted.

A bank robber in Los Angeles told the clerk not to give him cash, but to deposit the money to his checking account.

On his first assignment for a Chicago newspaper, a rookie reporter drove a company car to a car-crushing plant, parked in the wrong spot, and returned from interviewing the manager just in time to see the vehicle being compacted into scrap metal