sermon-illustrations
Featured Illustration
A Sin to Play Football
A number of years ago, when sabbath laws were still a contentious issue, a church group was picketing a stadium just before a Sunday game. When Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay arrived, the minister confronted him sternly, saying, “Sir, don’t you know that it is a sin to play football on Sunday?” McKay paused, then responded with his signature dry humor, “Well, the way the Tampa Bay Bucs are playing, it sure is.”
Search by topic, scripture, category etc..
33 Results in 136ms
Display
Sorted By
-
illustration
Power is Present Everywhere
Power is present in almost all social situations we find ourselves in. Whether it be the corporation you work at, the village zoning committee, the street crew you work on, the neighborhood, the playg... -
illustration
The Cellist of Sarajevo
From 1992 to 1995 the world witnessed one of the worst civil conflicts, the Bosnian War. Three factions, each tied to a religion (Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks), began attacking... -
illustration
The Life-Sustaining Power of Hope
Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu... -
illustration
To the Roofs
On the evening of October 15, 1940, London experienced one of the fiercest attacks of the Blitz. A total of 480 German aircraft dropped approximately 386 tons of high explosives and 70,000 incendiary ... -
illustration
When Decisions have Fateful Consequences
The famous poem The Charge of the Light Brigade includes these haunting lines: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred… Someone had blundered. Theirs not to reason why, ... -
illustration
A King Sat on the Rocky Brow (Summit)
In this poem by Lord Byron, the poet re-imagines the ancient battle of Salamis, in which Xerxes, king of Persia was defeated by a Greek coalition in 480 B.C. The poem highlights how quickly the fortun... -
illustration
Are you all right, my Lad?
When Napoleon was bombing Vienna in 1805, his shells rained down across the city, striking buildings at random. One cannonball crashed into a schoolroom, shattering walls and windows. Inside, an eight... -
illustration
I Knew You would Come
Though Jim was just a little older than Phillip and often assumed the role of leader, they did everything together. They even went to high school and college together. After college they decided to jo... -
illustration
Put Your Hand into the Hand of God
King George V of Britain, who was king during the tumultuous years of World War I, shared a New Year’s card with his friends that featured a drawing of an open gate. Below the image, he included thi... -
illustration
The Kingdom is Here for Me
A young Russian, deeply moved by the teachings of Tolstoy and the New Testament, had become a conscientious objector. Standing before a magistrate, he spoke passionately about a life that loves its en... -
illustration
Into the Darkest Hour
It was a time like this, war and tumult of war, a horror in the air. Hungry yawned the abyss— and yet there came the star and the child most wonderfully there. It was a time like this ... -
illustration
The Enemy Lines are Hard to Find
A friend of mine who is a child psychologist told me about something one of her young patients said. It is common practice to give toys to children in the treatment room so they work out their conflic... -
illustration
The Music Must Always Play
As Europe plunged ever deeper into a second world war, the British poet W.H. Auden composed a poem (“September 1, 1939”) that peels back our human tendency to cover up all fear and uncertainty with se... -
illustration
“This is All We Can Do For You Now”
In Elmer Bendiner’s book, The Fall of the Fortresses , he describes one bombing run over the German city of Kassel: Our B-17 ( The Tondelayo ) was barraged by flack from Nazi antiaircraft guns.... -
illustration
When Vasili Arkhipov Saved the World
Everyone knows that during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis we were perilously close to WWIII and nuclear Armageddon. Most people don’t know HOW close we were. Or how much we owe to Vasili Arkhipov. Ark... -
illustration
Dunkirk: A Ragtag Armada
In his book, The Word and Power Church, Doug Banister writes: The spring of 1940 found Hitler’s panzer divisions mopping up French troops and preparing for a siege of Great Britain. The Dutch had al... -
illustration
Bunker Warfare
It was the Fall of 1914. This war was different from those that had come before. The invention of the machine gun, as well as other high-powered weapons, meant that armies could no longer charge thei... -
illustration
There’s No Time for That
I don’t know how much the following episode was dramatized for a Hollywood script, but in the movie Gettysburg, General Lee is portrayed as being furious with General J. E. B. Stuart, who took his cav... -
illustration
Music in Wartime
From 1992 to 1995 the world witnessed one of the worst civil conflicts, the Bosnian War. Three factions, each tied to a religion (Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks), began attacking... -
illustration
Human Nature: Fighting Our Neighbors
In the sixteenth century, there were close to seventy wars involving the nations and states of Europe. The Danes fought the Swedes. The Poles fought the Teutonic Knights. The Ottomans fought the Venet... -
illustration
Chamberlain’s Charge
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College when the Civil War broke out. In 1862, Chamberlain accepted a commission in the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the... -
illustration
A Second Opportunity
Winston Churchill was once asked what prepared him most to speak out against Hitler and risk political suicide during the 1930s. At that time, the official British position (most notably espoused by C... -
illustration
Practicing Corporate Repentance
In his insightful work, Beyond Racial Gridlock, George Yancey provides a multi-faceted picture of both the brokenness of American race-relations, as well as a response couched in the gospel. In this e... -
illustration
Dynamite and the Peace Prize
In 1867, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel awoke one morning to read his own obituary in the local paper: “Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be ki... -
illustration
The Embodiment of their Hopes
I have been reading Julian Jackson’s biography of Charles de Gaulle — it’s exceptional, so far — and I find myself meditating on a story Jackson tells near the beginning of the book. In June of 1940, ... -
illustration
Friends in Peace and in War
Though Jim was just a little older than Phillip and often assumed the role of leader, they did everything together. They even went to high school and college together. After college they decided to jo... -
illustration
Fear, not Bombs, Was the Killer
At 8:17 on the evening of March 3, 1943, bomb-raid sirens bansheed through the air above London, England. Workers and shoppers stopped on sidewalks and boulevards and searched the skies. Buses came to... -
illustration
Afraid of the Dark
The accomplished science fiction writer and futurist H.G. Wells lived through the dark days of the Blitz in London (during the Second World War). One evening, a fellow writer named Elizabeth Bowen fou... -
illustration
Four Thousand Deaths Over a Bucket
From the late Middle Ages until the Renaissance, northern Italy divided into factions who supported rival political powers, which further intensified their border disputes. According to legend, in 132... -
illustration
Managing the Big Battalions of Life
A century ago, men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting feverishly for news of the war. And all the while in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think ...
Page 1 of 2
Index by Topic
A
B
C
- Captives (1)
- Challenges (1)
- Childhood (1)
- Children (1)
- Children Suffering (1)
- Christian Values (1)
- Christmas (1)
- Church and Power (1)
- Circumstances (1)
- Comfort (1)
- Comforting Others (1)
- Commands (1)
- Commitment (1)
- Commitments (1)
- Common Good (1)
- Common Vision (1)
- Community Service (1)
- Conflict (3)
- Confusion (1)
- Consequences (2)
- Conversation (1)
- Courage (3)
- The Christian Faith (1)
D
F
G
M
P
R
S
Index by Reference