Illustrations

The Old Testament contains sixty major prophecies and 270 ramifications about the Messiah. Jesus fulfilled every one of these predictions. The probability of Jesus fulfilling merely eight of the sixty major prophecies is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.

There is a fable of an eagle which could out fly another, and the other eagle didn’t like it. The envious eagle saw a sportsman one day, and said to him, “I wish you would bring down that eagle.” The sportsman replied that he would if he only had some feathers to put on his arrow. So the eagle pulled one out of his wing. The arrow was shot, but didn’t quite reach the rival eagle; it was flying too high. The envious eagle pulled out more feathers, and kept pulling them out until he lost so many that he couldn’t fly. The sportsman then turned around and killed him.

From Acts 12:2 we know that Herod beheaded the apostle James, brother of John, but do you know the rest of this story?

I have a glove here in my hand. The glove cannot do anything by itself, but when my hand is in it, the glove can do many things. True, it is not the glove, but my hand in the glove that acts. The Christian is a glove. It is the Holy Spirit in us, the hand, who does the work. We must room for the hand so that every finger in the glove is filled.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A young boy sat in church and watched as the offering plate was being passed. Wanting to give something, he reached inside his pocket for something to put in. To his dismay, he had nothing inside. As the plate was passed down the row and came to him, he put the plate on the ground and stepped inside. He had nothing monetary to give, but he gave the most important thing he had—himself.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A German botanist, who was traveling in Turkey, saw a rare flower hanging from an inaccessible precipice. He offered ten piastres, then twenty, then half-a-sovereign, and, finally, one pound, to a tempted but hesitating boy, if he would be slung over with a rope and cut the plant. The boy, struck with a new thought, said, “Wait a moment, and I will go for my father to come and hold the rope; then I will willingly go down and get it.”

Three-year-old Shawn accompanied his dad to church on Easter. The father wanted his son to understand the meaning of Easter, so he tried to explain the significance of the cross which hung at the front of the church. He said, “Jesus died because people nailed him to the cross.” The little boy’s eyes widened as he scanned the church. He asked his dad, “You mean these people?”

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.—Isaiah 53:5

A hunter raised his rifle and took careful aim at a large bear. When he was about to pull the trigger, the bear spoke in a soft soothing voice, “Isn’t it better to talk than to shoot? What do you want? Let’s negotiate the matter.” Lowering his rifle, the hunter replied, “I want a fur coat.”

Finding the Ten Commandments can be a challenge for many adults (Exodus 20). Imagine the looks a Sunday School teacher got when she inquired of their whereabouts in a class for five-year-olds. After a few moments of blank stares she asked again, “Can anybody tell me where to find the Ten Commandments?” Finally, a little kid offered, “Have you looked them up in the Yellow Pages?”

Source: King's Treasury of Dynamic Humor, King Duncan

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

In February 1891, the Star of the East was whale hunting off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. While pursuing a large sperm whale, one of the two boats was capsized by the leviathan. The hunters went on to kill the whale but feared two of their men had drowned. James Bartley was one of the missing fishermen. The crew mourned their loss but also had a tremendous task of preparing this giant sea monster. They worked until midnight removing blubber from the eighty-foot long, eighty-ton fish. The next morning they hoisted the whale's stomach on deck.