《Sermon Illustrations (D~F)》(a compilation) table of contents
Download 1.31 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- DISOBEDIENCE
- DISPENSATIONALISM
- DISTRACTION
- DIVERSION
- DIVISION
DISILLUSIONBabe Ruth had hit 714 home runs during his baseball career and was playing one of his last full major league games. It was the Braves versus the Reds in Cincinnati. But the great Ruth was no longer as agile as he had once been. He fumbled the ball and threw badly, and in one inning alone his errors were responsible for most of the five runs scored by Cincinnati. As the Babe walked off the field after the third out and headed toward the dugout, a crescendo of yelling and booing reached his ears. Just then a boy jumped over the railing onto the playing field. With tears streaming down his face, he threw his arms around the legs of his hero. Ruth didn't hesitate for one second. He picked up the boy, hugged him, and set him down on his feet, patting his head gently. The noise from the stands came to an abrupt halt. Suddenly there was no more booing. In fact, hush fell over the entire park. In those brief moments, the fans saw two heroes: Ruth, who in spite of his dismal day on the field could still care about a little boy; and the small lad, who cared about the feelings of another human being. Both had melted the hearts of the crowd. Ted W. Engstrom, The Pursuit of Excellence, 1982, Zondervan Corporation, pp. 66-67. DISOBEDIENCEElisabeth Elliot, at Urbana 76, told of her brother Thomas Howard. Their mother let him play with paper bags she'd saved if he put them away afterwards. One day she walked into the kitchen to find them strewn all over the floor. Tom was out at the piano with his father singing hymns. When confronted, he protested, "But Mom, I want to sing." His father stated, "It's no good singing God's praise if you're disobedient." Elisabeth Elliot. DISPENSATIONALISMNo illustrations yet. DISPUTEDISSONANCEIn his early years, American landscape photographer Ansel Adams studied piano and showed some talent. At one party, however, as Adams played Chopin's F Major Nocturne he recalled that "In some strange way my right had started off in F-sharp major while my left had behaved well in F-major. I could not bring them together. I went through the entire nocturne with the hands separated by a half-step." The next day a fellow guest gave Adams a no-nonsense review of his performance: "You never missed a wrong note!" Daily Walk, May 14, 1992. DISTRACTIONThere is a story involving Yogi Berra, the well-known catcher for the New York Yankees, and Hank Aaron, who at that time was the chief power hitter for the Milwaukee Braves. The teams were playng in the World Series, and as usual Yogi was keeping up his ceaseless chatter, intended to pep up his teammates on the one hand, and distract the Milwaukee batters on the other. As Aaron came to the plate, Yogi tried to distract him by saying, "Henry, you're holding the bat wrong. You're supposed to hold it so you can read the trademark." Aaron didn't say anything, but when the next pitch came he hit it into the left-field bleachers. After rounding the bases and tagging up at home plate, Aaron looked at Yogi Berra and said, "I didn't come up here to read." Nehemiah, Learning to Lead, J.M. Boice, Revell, 1990, p. 38. 
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev used to tell of a time when there was a wave of petty theft in the Soviet Union. To curtail this the authorities put up guards around the factories. At one timberworks in Leningrad, the guard knew the workers in the factory very well. The first evening, out came Pyotr Petrovich with a wheelbarrow and, on the wheelbarrow, a great bulky sack with a suspicious-looking object inside. "All right, Petrovich," said the guard, "what have you got there?" "Oh, just sawdust and shavings," Petrovich replied. "Come on," the guard said, "I wasn't born yesterday. Tip it out." And out came nothing but sawdust and shavings. So he was allowed to put it all back again and go home. When the same thing happened every night of the week the guard became frustrated. Finally, his curiosity overcame his frustration. "Petrovich," he said, "I know you. Tell me what you're smuggling out of here, and I'll let you go." "Wheelbarrows, my friend, " said Petrovich, "wheelbarrows." quoted in The Devil's Gauntlet. DIVERSIONA former police officer tells of the tactics of roving bands of thieves: "They enter the store as a group. One or two separate themselves from the group, and the others start a loud commotion in another section of the store. This grabs the attention of the clerks and customers. As all eyes are turned to the disturbance, the accomplices fill their pockets with merchandise and cash, leaving before anyone suspects. "Hours--sometimes even days--later, the victimized merchant realizes things are missing and calls the police. Too late." How often this effective strategy is used by the Evil One! We are seduced into paying attention to the distractions, while evil agents ransack our lives. In times when well-publicized sins have captured our attention, we do well to check our own moral pockets to see if we have anything left. Tom McHaffie. DIVISIONCalvin, who saw that the Devil's chief device was disunity and division and who preached that there should be friendly fellowship for all ministers of Christ, made a similar point in a letter to a trusted colleague: "Among Christians there ought to be so great a dislike of schism, as that they may always avoid it so fast as lies in their power. That there ought to prevail among them such a reverence for the ministry of the word and the sacraments that wherever they perceive these things to be, there they must consider the church to exist...nor need it be of any hindrance that some points of doctrine are not quite so pure, seeing that there is scarcely any church which has not retained some remnants of former ignorance." Charles W. Colson, The Body, 1992, Word Publishing, pp. 107-108.
During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite so that he could control them. Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused. Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp. When the war was over, feelings of bitterness ran deep between the groups and there was much tension. Finally they decided that the situation had to be healed. Leaders from each group met at a quiet retreat. For several days, each person spent time in prayer, examining his own heart in the light of Christ's commands. Then they came together. Francis Schaeffer, who told of the incident, asked a friend who was there, "What did you do then?" "We were just one," he replied. As they confessed their hostility and bitterness to God and yielded to His control, the Holy Spirit created a spirit of unity among them. Love filled their hearts and dissolved their hatred. When love prevails among believers, especially in times of strong disagreement, it presents to the world an indisputable mark of a true follower of Jesus Christ. Our Daily Bread, October 4, 1992.
Being much concerned about the rise of denominations in the church, John Wesley tells of a dream he had. In the dream, he was ushered to the gates of Hell. There he asked, "Are there any Presbyterians here?" "Yes!", came the answer. Then he asked, "Are there any Baptists? Any Episcopalians? Any Methodists?" The answer was Yes! each time. Much distressed, Wesley was then ushered to the gates of Heaven. There he asked the same question, and the answer was No! "No?" To this, Wesley asked, "Who then is inside?" The answer came back, "There are only Christians here." (1 Corinthians 1:10-17) Source Unknown.
Charles Wesley wrote some of his hymns to promote his brother John's doctrine of entire sanctification. The second verse of his "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" asks God to "take away our bent to sinning." This was too much for Calvinist Augustus Toplady. In a magazine of which he was editor, Toplady wrote an article in refutation, detailing a picture of man's potential for sinning. He arrived at the mathematical conclusion that a man of eighty is guilty of many millions of sins, a debt he can never hope to pay but for which he need not despair because of the sufficiency of Christ. He closed the article with an original poem. "A Living and Dying Prayer for the Holiest believer in the World." This poem, now one of the most beloved hymns of all time, and know under the title, "Rock of Ages," was born out of party spirit Frederick John Gilman, The Evolution of the English Hymn, Macmillan, 1927, pp. 223-225.
It is said that when the British and French were fighting in Canada in the 1750s, Admiral Phipps, commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec. He was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive, then support them when they attacked the city. Phipps' navy arrived early. As the admiral waited, he became annoyed by the statues of the saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral, so he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships' cannons. No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the "saints." Daily Bread, October 6.
An issue of National Geographic included a photograph of the fossil remains of two saber-tooth cats locked in combat. To quote the article: "One had bitten deep into the leg bone of the other, a thrust that trapped both in a common fate. The cause of the death of the two cats is as clear as the causes of the extinction of their species are obvious. When Christians fight each other, everybody loses. As Paul put it, "if you keep biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other" (Galations 5:15) Peter A. Alwinson.
Directory: Topics Topics -> ES18 topics intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc) Working Group I Topics -> Non-Governmental Organizations And Their Relation to Transboundary Water Resources Topics -> United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Mandatory hiv testing August 1996 Topics -> Policy Options for Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion Download 1.31 Mb. Share with your friends:
|