Illustrations

Charles McKinley, had four weeks of vacation coming, so he decided to visit his parents in DeSoto, Texas. Rather than buy a plane ticket from New York to Dallas for $320, McKinley, a shipping clerk, packed himself into a shipping crate and air-expressed himself home, charging the fees to his employer. When the crate was delivered to his parents' front step, McKinley pushed out of the box and shook hands with the "shaken and frightened" delivery driver. The driver called the police. After an investigation by the FBI, the U.S.

Anthony Fernando, a twenty-one-year-old man living in Colombo, Sri Lanka, went fishing one day off the coast of the island. He had no idea he would never make it back alive. A forktail gar fish jumped out of the water and cut him on the neck with its tail. He bled to death before a fellow fisherman could get him to a hospital.

In the spring of 1894, the Baltimore Orioles came to Boston to play a routine baseball game. But what happened that day was anything but routine. The Orioles’ John McGraw got into a fight with the Boston third baseman. Within minutes all the players from both teams had joined in the brawl. The warfare quickly spread to the grandstands. Among the fans the conflict went from bad to worse. Someone set fire to the stands and the entire ballpark burned to the ground. Not only that, but the fire spread to 107 other Boston buildings as well.

If alcoholism is a disease, it is the only disease that is contracted by an act of the will; the only disease that requires a license to propagate it; the only disease that is bottled and sold; the only disease that promotes crime; the only disease that is habit-forming; the only disease that is spread by advertising; and the only disease that requires outlets to spread it.

Source, The Sword Scrapbook II

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

Ralph was head over heels in trouble, but doing little to help himself. A friend advised, “Ralph, you’ve got two hands, why don’t you do something?”

“I am,” Ralph replied, “I’m wringing both of them.”

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A young missionary, Herbert Jackson, was given a car to help him in his work. The car was a major asset, but it had one difficulty—it would not start without a push or a jump-start. Jackson devised a system to cope with the car’s inability to start. When he was ready to leave his home, he went to a nearby school and asked permission to bring some of the children out of class to help him push-start his car.

The following was found written in the fly leaf of Evangelist Billy Sunday’s Bible after he died:

Twenty-nine years ago, with the Holy Spirit as my Guide, I entered at the portico of Genesis, walked down the corridor of the Old Testament art galleries, where pictures of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Isaac, Jacob, and Daniel hung on the wall. I passed into the music room of Psalms where the Spirit sweeps the keyboard of nature until it seems that every reed and pipe in God’s great organ responds to the harp of David, the sweet singer of Israel.

Two men went to the recruiting office in London to join a guards regiment. The standard height for a guardsman was a minimum of six feet. One man was taller than the other, but when they were measured officially both were disqualified. The shorter of the two measured only five feet seven inches and was far too short; his companion measured five feet eleven and a half inches and, stretch to his uttermost as he did, he could not make it any more. Nor did his pleas avail.

A self-righteous man once boasted to a Christian friend of his, “You know, John, I’m not such a bad fellow. There are many worse than I!” His friend replied, “Ivor, you are measuring yourself by the wrong standard. You measure yourself by the harlots and drunkards you see on Skid Row and you feel quite satisfied by comparison. But go and measure yourself alongside Jesus Christ and see how you make out.” No person’s life cuts much of a figure when placed alongside the perfect life of Christ. The life of the Lord Jesus shows us how crooked and defiled our own lives really are.

Two men, driving in Southern California, got into a battle of road rage after one cut the other off in a parking lot. The hot-headed men sped out of the parking lot in a fit of anger, chasing, driving recklessly, dodging and weaving in and out of traffic. They endangered a lot of lives before  one finally forced the other to careen out of control. The driver frantically tried to regain control, but in the process an innocent little girl on a nearby sidewalk was killed. A young life was taken simply because two men became needlessly angry at each other.