In Sermon Illustrations: "Almost"

If We Set Ourselves Up As The Judge Of Who Is And ...

Contributed by K. Edward Skidmore on Oct 11, 2007

If we set ourselves up as the Judge of who is and is not righteous, we’ll get it wrong as often as we’ll get it right. Through the years I’ve had numerous occasions when folks warned me to watch out for other people in a church. The amazing thing is that --- in almost every case --- the people I ...read more

Denomination: Christian/Church Of Christ

The Many Uses Of The Word In ...

Contributed by D. Greg Ebie on Jan 22, 2008

ILLUSTRATION: The many uses of the word in English convince me that grace is indeed amazing—truly our last best word. It contains the essence of the gospel as a drop of water can contain the image of the sun. The world thirst for grace in ways it does not even recognize. . . “The world can do ...read more

Denomination: Assembly Of God

It's Frustrating Because We Often Don't Know ...

Contributed by Mark Eberly on Aug 25, 2008

It’s frustrating because we often don’t know what to do. It’s almost like the rule are constantly changing. Anybody remember the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes? It was about a kid and how in his imagination his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, comes to life and they have great fun together. One of their ...read more

Denomination: Church Of God

Kids Mirror ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Feb 13, 2009

KIDS MIRROR PARENTS An American Bible Society study conducted by Weekly Reader Research found children do mirror their parents’ behavior. Parents who attend church weekly tend to have teens that worship weekly, while 78% of parents who never attend worship services have teens who never attend, ...read more

Scripture: Ephesians 6:4

Tags: Parenting

Allure Of Lust And Greed

Contributed by David Baeder on Jun 10, 2009

ALLURE OF LUST AND GREED Last night they had another one of those Dateline stings. In the sting, an undercover agent poses as a 13-15 year old on the internet, in one of those on-line chat rooms. Almost every man who came to a house to meet an underage girl for immoral purposes had seen previous ...read more

Tags: Sin Bondage To

Denomination: Christian/Church Of Christ

Potential Through Pain

Contributed by Dale Pilgrim on Jul 19, 2009

POTENTIAL THROUGH PAIN Theologian William Barclay comments and illustrates with a story: "Suffering, if accepted in humility and trust and love, can repair the weaknesses of a {person's} character and add the greatness which so far is not there. It is said that Sir Edward Elgar once listened to a ...read more

Tags: Hardship Of Life

Denomination: Salvation Army

The Secret To Michael Jordan's Success

Contributed by Spencer Miller on May 26, 2013

Michael Jordan is probably the greatest basketball player in the history of the game, and at one time he was asked about the so-called secret of his success. And Mr. Jordan answered by saying; "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted ...read more

Tags: Prayer Persistence

Denomination: Baptist

Jim Wallis Writes In The Call To Conversion ...  PRO

Contributed by Alan Stokes on Mar 2, 2001

Jim Wallis writes in The Call to Conversion (HarperCollins, 1992, p. 108) his testimony: "When I was a university student, I was unsuccessfully evangelized by almost every Christian group on campus. My basic response to their preaching was, “How can I believe when I look at the way the church ...read more

Tags: Sharing Your Faith, Sharing My Testimony, Apologetics General

Denomination: Holiness

Income Tax  PRO

Contributed by Ted Sutherland on Apr 3, 2001

From Reader’s Digest: It’s time to pay my income tax And, brother, that’s no joke. For after paying IRS I find that I R broke! —Jerry Henderson in Lubbock, Texas, Avalanche-Journal As April 15 draweth nigh, My spirits start to droop. A poor, downtrodden slave am I, In short, an income ...read more

Scripture: John 8:36

Tags: Money, Poverty, Giving General

Denomination: Baptist

In Other Words, We Begin Our Christian Life In ...  PRO

Contributed by Bill Sullivan on Jul 11, 2001

In other words, we begin our Christian life in God’s grace, and then quickly abandon grace, and try to live our life, and almost to continue to earn our salvation, - by what we do, by our works. Author Jerry Bridges puts it like this: "We tend to give an unbeliever just enough of the gospel to get ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 25:14-30

Tags: Character, Faith Vs. Works, Sowing, Tares, Weeds, Judgment, Grace  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational

Film Maker Walt Disney Was Ruthless In Cutting ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Apr 17, 2006

Film maker Walt Disney was ruthless in cutting anything that got in the way of a story’s pacing. Ward Kimball, one of the animators for Snow White, recalls working 240 days on a 4 1/2 minute sequence in which the dwarfs made soup for Snow White and almost destroyed the kitchen in the process. ...read more

Tags: Character

Joseph Parker, A Pastor From 1874 Until His ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 18, 2007

Joseph Parker, a Pastor from 1874 until his death in 1902, wrote the following in his autobiography…Up until the age of 68 I never had a religious doubt. Then my beloved wife died. My faith collapsed. “In that dark hour, I almost became an atheist. For God had set his foot upon my prayers and ...read more

Tags: God In The Hardships

Frances Ridley Havergal Made An Interesting ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 18, 2007

Frances Ridley Havergal made an interesting comment on this rest: Begin at once, before you venture away from this quiet moment, ask your King to take you wholly into his service, and place all the hours of this day quite simply at his disposal, and ask him to make and keep you ready to do just ...read more

Tags: Salvation

For Over Fifteen Years I Have Been Asking People ...  PRO

Contributed by Hal Seed on Jul 27, 2007

“For over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance while the father is still living. The answer has almost always been emphatically the same.” …the conversation runs ...read more

Scripture: Luke 15:12-32, Mark 4:1-9, Mark 4:35-41

Denomination: Baptist

Dale Rooks, A School Crossing Guard In Florida, ...

Contributed by Paul Wallace on Oct 28, 2008

Dale Rooks, a school crossing guard in Florida, tried everything to get cars to slow down through the school zone. But nothing worked…until he took a blow dryer and wrapped it in electrical tape, making it look like a radar gun. Dale just points the thing at cars, and it’s incredible how quickly ...read more

Tags: Obedience

Denomination: Wesleyan

Change

Contributed by Larry Wilson on Aug 7, 2010

Bound by Tradition Warren Wiersbe tells us, “Over the years I have seen churches . . . flounder and almost destroy themselves in futile attempts to embalm the past and escape the future. Their theme song was, ‘As it was in the beginning, so shall it ever be, world without end, Amen.’ Often I’ve ...read more

Tags: Church, Change

Denomination: Baptist

Back Where We Started

Contributed by Bruce Ball on Apr 25, 2011

BACK WHERE WE STARTED I have a photograph, taken of my father’s father around 1910, when he was about 28. I put that photograph next to a photo of me that was taken when I was 30. The poses were just about the same. And surprisingly, the only real different between the two photos is that he was ...read more

Tags: Noah

Denomination: *other

Elizabeth Elliot: "If The Only Thing You Have To ...

Contributed by Scott Spencer on Aug 1, 2011

Elizabeth Elliot: "If the only thing you have to offer is a broken heart, you offer a broken heart. Realizing that nothing I have, nothing I am will be refused on the part of Christ, I simply give it to Him as the little boy gave Jesus his five loaves and two small fishes--with the same feeling of ...read more

Tags: Faith Vs. Works

Denomination: Calvary Chapel

A Desperate Situation

Contributed by Sermon Central on May 5, 2012

A DESPERATE SITUATION The old preacher Vance Havner used to say, "The tragedy of our time is that the situation is desperate but the saints are not." Three weeks before President John Kennedy was assassinated, he said, "Almost all presidents leave office feeling that their work is unfinished. I ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 9:35-38

Tags: Evangelism Urgency

A Word About Bread And Stones:

Contributed by Jonathan Spurlock on Jul 18, 2024

Text: Luke 4:1-4, KJV: 1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. 3 And the devil said unto him, If thou ...read more

Scripture: Luke 4:1-4

Tags: Bread, Jesus Christ, Temptations, Stones, The Devil  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Baptist