《Sermon Illustrations (D~F)》(a compilation) table of contents
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- DOCTRINE
- Statistics and Stuff
- DOORMATS
- DOSTOEVSKY
DOCTORAccording to a study published by Yale researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a third of American doctors do not have a regular doctor, a ratio much higher than for the overall population. As many as 18 percent of Americans do not have a regular source of health care. The study found that pediatricians were the most likely to have a doctor, while internists, pathologists, and surgeons were much less likely to have a regular doctor. from The New York Times, Tuesday, December 12, 2000, p. D8. 
HumorA severe rash prompted a man from a rural area to come to town to be examined by one of my colleagues. After the usual history-taking followed by a series of test, the physician advised the patient that he would have to get rid of the dog that was evidently causing the allergic reaction. As the man was preparing to leave the office, my colleague asked him out of curiosity if he planned to sell the animal or give it away. "Neither one," the patient replied. "I'm going to get me one of them second opinions I been reading about. It's a lot easier to find a doctor than a good bird dog." George Hawkins, M.D. in Medical Economics, in Reader's Digest, January, 1982. DOCTRINEA pastor I know, Stephey Belynskyj, starts each confirmation class with a jar full of beans. He asks his students to guess how many beans are in the jar, and on a big pad of paper writes down their estimates. Then, next to those estimates, he helps them make another list: Their favorite songs. When the lists are complete, he reveals the actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looks over their guesses, to see which estimate was closest to being right. Belynskyj then turns to the list of favorite songs. "And which one of these is closest to being right?" he asks. The students protest that there is no "right answer"; a person's favorite song is purely a matter of taste. Belynskyj, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame asks, "When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song?" Always, Belynskyj says, from old as well as young, he gets the same answer: Choosing one's faith is more like choosing a favorite song. When Belynskyj told me this, it took my breath away. "After they say that, do you confirm them?" I asked him. "Well," smiled Belynskyj, "First I try to argue them out of it." Tim Stafford, Christianity Today, September 14, 1992, p. 36.
Statistics and StuffWe have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in churches and expect nothing better. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science, and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out. Little by little Christians these days are being brainwashed. One evidence is that increasing numbers of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe, but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition. Moral power has always accompanied definite beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God that lives and abides forever. A.W. Tozer. DOORMATSHave you ever heard of the "Dependent Order of Really Meek and Timid Souls"? When you make an acrostic of its first letters, you have "Doormats." The Doormats have an official insignia--a yellow caution light. Their official motto is: "The meek shall inherit the earth, if that's OK with everybody!" The society was founded by Upton Diskson who wrote a pamphlet called Cower Power. Swindoll, The Quest For Character, Multnomah, p. 44. DOSTOEVSKYHe was 25 and had already captured the hearts of Russia with his novel Poor Folk. Fame quickly went to his head. He drank immoderately and partied wildly. He carelessly criticized the Czarist regime. You did not to that in Czarist Russia. He was arrested in St. Petersburg and sentenced to death by the firing squad along with several other dissidents. It was a cold December morning. Dressed in a white execution gown, he was led to the wall of the prison courtyard with the others. Blindfolded, he waited for the last sound he would hear, the crack of a pistol echoing off the prison walls. Instead he heard fast paced footsteps; then the announcement that the Czar had commuted his sentence to ten years of hard labor. So intense was that moment that he suffered an epileptic seizure, something he would live with the rest of his life. In that Siberian prison Fyodor Dostoevsky was allowed only a New Testament to read. There he discovered something more wonderful, more true than his socialistic ideals. He met Christ, and his heart was changed. Upon leaving prison he wrote to a friend who had helped him grow in Christ, "To believe that there is nothing more beautiful, more profound, more sympathetic, more reasonable, more manly and more perfect than Christ. And not only is there nothing but I tell myself with jealous love that there can be nothing. Besides, if anyone proved to me that Christ was outside the truth and it really was so that the truth was outside Christ, then I would prefer to remain with Christ, than with the truth." Dostoevsky returned to civilian life. He wrote feverishly and produced his prison memories, The House of the Dead, and then Crime and Punishment, followed by many other major works. Yet his church attendance was sporadic, and he never grew as a Christian. He neglected Bible study and the fellowship of other believers. No Christian took him under his wing to disciple him. He began to drink. He gambled. Excessive drinking and compulsive gambling unraveled his life so that he died penniless and wasted. He felt prison with his flame lit for Christ and died with nothing more than smoldering embers. The tragedy of Fyodor Dostoevsky is not so much what he became but what he could have become for Christ. In the words of the poet, "of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'" J. Stowell, Fan The Flame, Moody, 1986, p. 24.
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