Illustrations

 A little boy carried his new boat to the river. He placed it in the water and let out the string. All at once a strong current caught the boat. He tried to pull it back to shore, but the string broke and the little boat raced downstream.

The little boy searched for the boat until night fell and he went home with a heavy heart. A few days later he saw his boat in a store window. He spoke to the store manager: ”Sir, that’s my boat in your window! I made it!”

In Bible times a seal was the way a person identified something that he owned. For example, business men would purchase timber in Lebanon. When they purchased it they stamped it with their seal. The logs were then floated down the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea to the port where the buyers could collect their logs. Any log with their mark of ownership on it belonged to them.

The Christian is sealed with the Holy Spirit—he has God’s mark of ownership, and God does not give up His own.

Source: Unknown

Matinee idol Alexander Rostovzev was converted while playing the role of Jesus in a sacrilegious play entitled “Christ in a Tuxedo.” He was supposed to read two verses from the Sermon on the Mount, remove his gown, and cry out, “Give me my tuxedo and top hat!” But as he read the words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted,” he began to tremble. Instead of following the script, he kept reading from Matthew chapter five, ignoring the coughs, calls, and foot-stamping of his fellow actors.

Dr. Harry Ironside taught that salvation was like Noah inviting an unbeliever to trust God’s Word and board the ark. Some believe that salvation is like Noah putting a peg on the outside of the ark and saying, “If you just hang on through the storm, you’ll be saved.” God holds onto the Christian—not the other way around.

“My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” John 10:29

Source: Unknown

The last paragraph of Patrick Henry’s will says, “I have now disposed of all my property for my family; there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had this, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich, and if they have not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.”

The thief had nails through both hands, so that he could not work; and a nail through each foot, so that he could not run errands for the Lord; he could not lift a hand or a foot toward his salvation; and yet Christ offered him the gift of God, and he took it. He threw him a passport, and took him with Him into Paradise.

Source: Day By Day With D. L. Moody, D. L. Moody

At the end of World War II a young Bible college student in Illinois met Ira Hayes on the streets of Chicago. In an effort to offer him hope, Bill shared John 3:16. Ira stopped him, “Do you remember Iwo Jima? I’m the man who put the flag on Mt. Suribachi. They’re building a monument to us. I don’t need God.” Three months later, national papers carried a story of a 32 year old man who died of alcoholism and tuberculosis. His name was Ira Hayes.

Source: Unknown

A devout Quaker was watching his new neighbor move in next door. After all kinds of modern appliances, electronic gadgets, plush furniture, and costly wall hangings had been carried in, the onlooker called out, “If you find you’re lacking anything, neighbor, let me know and I’ll show you how to live without it.”

Source: Unknown

“If we would find content[ment], let us go to homes where women are crippled with rheumatism, or dying of cancer, where comforts are few, where long hours of loneliness are not broken by the intrusion of friendly faces, where the pittance of public charity hardly suffices for necessary need, to say nothing of comfort, it is there that contentment reveals itself like a shy flower. How often in the homes of the wealthy one has missed it, to find it in the homes of the poor! How often it is wanting where health is buoyant, to be discovered where disease is wearing out the strength!

F. B. Meyer held meetings in Northfield, Massachusetts and large crowds thronged to hear him. Then G. Campbell Morgan came to Northfield and people flocked to hear his brilliant expositions of Scripture. Meyer confessed that at first he was envious. He said, “The only way I can conquer my feelings is to pray for Morgan daily, which I do.”

Source: Acts, Lou Nicholes