Plan for: Thanksgiving | Advent | Christmas

Sermon Illustrations

Good Hope, Alabama is a small town with small town values. In Cullman County you can’t legally buy beer. Daystar Church, which had grown dramatically under pastor Jerry Lawson, ran up against the sensibilities of this conservative north Alabama community by focusing a month-long series on sex. To advertise this series the church put on a blue billboard along highway 69 a drawing of a bride and groom with the web address “GreatSexGodsWay.com.” Let me repeat that slowly!

City Hall had a few complaints about the church’s sexy signs from a handful of people. Pastor Lawson said that people were missing the point. He wanted parents to talk to their children about sex before they learned too much immorality from TV or playground buddies. He said the sermons were more than a marketing technique for the church. The church needed to be out front on the topic of sex because even kids’ TV shows depict illicit relationships and homosexuality.

One of the ironies of the controversial series, which coincided with Valentine’s Day, was that the sermons were as straight-laced as they get. The series taught that God intends sex to be enjoyed solely within a heterosexual marriage, and that anything else—adultery, pornography, homosexuality, even ‘sexual arousal’ outside of marriage—is sin.

Related Sermon Illustrations

  • E. M. Bounds Writes In "The Possibilities Of ...

    Contributed by John Quigley on Mar 1, 2005
    based on 1 rating
     | 7,338 views

    E. M. Bounds writes in "The Possibilities of Prayer" : "THE ministry of prayer has been the peculiar distinction of all of God’s saints. This has been the secret of their power. The energy and the soul of their work has been the closet. The need of help outside of man being so great, man’s natural ...read more

  • William Bathurst: O For A Faith!

    Contributed by Jeff Simms on Aug 24, 2003
     | 3,994 views

    William Bathurst once said, “O for a faith that will not shrink, Tho pressed by every foe, That will not tremble on the brink Of any earthly woe! That will not murmur nor complain Beneath the chastening rod, But, in the hour of grief or pain, Will lean upon its God; A faith that shines ...read more

  • Let Me Illustrate By Telling You About How My ...

    Contributed by Todd Stiles on Feb 8, 2007
     | 1,683 views

    Let me illustrate by telling you about how my kids used to respond to me and Julie during discipline when they were very young. When they would disobey or do wrong, and the sin called for a spanking, I recall vividly the words, “Mercy, daddy, mercy!” Or, “Mercy, mommy, mercy!” What were they asking ...read more

  • The Bay Of Fundy At The Head Of The ...

    Contributed by John Ingham on Aug 19, 2004
    based on 2 ratings
     | 5,060 views

    Illustration: The Bay of Fundy at the head of the St. Lawrence River is 110 miles long and 32 miles wide when it empties into the bay. It is a spectacle to see the currents of the mighty St.Lawrence rushing to meet the tides of the Atlantic Ocean. You would think there could never be anything that ...read more

Related Sermons