Sermon Illustrations
Alive In The Earthquake
It’s a fascinating story that comes out of the 1989 earthquake which almost flattened Armenia. This deadly tremor killed over 30,000 people in less than four minutes. In the midst of all the confusion of the earthquake, a father rushed to his son’s school. When he arrived there he discovered the building was flat as a pancake.
Standing there looking at what was left of the school, the father remembered a promise he made to his son, “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!” Tears began to fill his eyes. It looked like a hopeless situation, but he could not take his mind off his promise.
Remembering that his son’s classroom was in the back right corner of the building, the father rushed there and started digging through the rubble. As he was digging other grieving parents arrived, clutching their hearts, saying: “My son! “My daughter!” They tried to pull him off of what was left of the school saying: “It’s too late!” “They’re dead!” “You can’t help!” “Go home!” Even a police officer and a fire-fighter told him he should go home. To everyone who tried to stop him he said, “Are you going to help me now?” They did not answer him and he continued digging for his son stone by stone.
He needed to know for himself: “Is my boy alive or is he dead?” This man dug for eight hours and then twelve and then twenty-four and then thirty-six. Finally in the thirty-eighth hour, as he pulled back a boulder, he heard his son’s voice. He screamed his son’s name, “ARMAND!” and a voice answered him, “Dad?” It’s me Dad!” Then the boy added these priceless words, “I told the other kids not to worry. I told ’em that if you were alive, you’d save me and when you saved me, they’d be saved. You promised that, Dad. ‘No matter what,’ you said, ‘I’ll always be there for you!’ And here you are Dad. You kept your promise!”
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”
A teacher forwarded this list of comments from test papers, essays, etc., submitted to science and health teachers by elementary, junior high, high school, and college students. As she noted, “It is truly astonishing what weird science our young scholars can create under the pressures of time and grades.”
“The body consists of three parts – the branium, the borax, and the abominable cavity. The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five – a, e, i, o, and u.”
“Nitrogen is not found in Ireland because it is not found in a free state.”
“H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water.”
“To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.”
“When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.”
“Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.”
“Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars.”
“Blood flows down one leg and up the other.”
“Respiration is composed of two acts, first inspiration, and then expectoration.”
“The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader.”
“Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire.”
“A super saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.”
“Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas.”
“The pistol of a flower is its only protections agenst insects.”
“The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have ben taken off.
The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to.”
“A permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines, eight cuspids, two molars, and eight cuspidors.”
“The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight.”
“A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is.”
“Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through Africa.”
“Germinate: To become a naturalized German.”
“Liter: A nest of young puppies.”
“Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat.”
“Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away.”
“Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky.”
“Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot.”
“Vacuum: A large, empty space where the pope lives.”
“Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative.”
“To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.”
“For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until the heart stops.”
“For dog bite: put the dog away for several days. If he has not recovered, then kill it.”
“For head cold: use an agonizer to spray the nose untill it drops in your throat.”
“To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow.”
Quoted from http://www.innovation.cc/humour.htm
Logic
A teacher was giving her pupils a lesson in logic.
“Here is the situation,” she said.
“A man is standing up in a boat in the middle of a river, fishing. He loses his balance, falls in, and begins splashing and yelling for help.
“His wife hears the commotion, knows he can’t swim, and runs down to the bank. Why do you think she ran to the bank?”
A little girl raised her hand and suggested, “To draw out all his savings?”
Quoted from funny(at)net153.com email list
At the end of Sunday School little Joey asked his teacher a question:
“Mr. Goldblatt,” announced little Joey, “there’s something I can’t figure out.”“What’s that, Joey?” asked Goldblatt.
“Well, according to the Bible, the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, right?”
“Right.”
“And the Children of Israel beat up the Phillistines, right?” “Er, right.”
“And the Children of Israel built the Temple, right?” “Again you’re right.”
“And the Children of Israel fought the Egyptians, and the Children of Israel fought the Romans, and the Children of Israel were always doing something important, right?”
“All that is right, too,” agreed Goldblatt. “So what’s your question?”
“What were all the grown-ups doing?”
Changing The World Through Changing Yourself
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
Unknown Monk (1100AD)
Three Seasons Of Timing
“When it comes to change, there are three seasons of timing: People change when they hurt enough that they have to, when they learn enough that they want to, and when they receive enough that they are able to.”
John Maxwell
Forty Days Of Love
Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective? One church chose as its Lenten theme, “Forty Days of Love.” Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways. The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives.
After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as “kind of macho, a former football player who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man.” The man told his pastor, “I love you and I love this church, but I’m not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It’s OK for some folks,” he said, “but it’s a little too sentimental and syrupy for me.”
A week went by. The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again. “I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday,” he told him, “about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong.”
“Wednesday?” his pastor repeated “What happened on Wednesday?” “I got one of those letters!” the man said. The letter came as a total surprise. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from. It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time. “Every time I read it,” he said, “I get tears in my eyes.” It was a transforming moment in this man’s life. Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church. This changed his entire outlook. “I was so moved by that letter,” he said, “I sat down and wrote ten letters myself.”
Quoted from: www.devotions.net/devotions/files/2001/01jan/23.htmThe Rat Trap
A rat looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. What food might it contain? He was aghast to discover that it was a rat trap. Retreating to the farmyard the rat proclaimed the warning; “There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Rat, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The rat turned to the pig and told him, “There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!” “I am so very sorry Mr. Rat,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured that you are in my prayers.”
The rat turned to the cow. She said, “Like wow, Mr. Rat, a rat trap. I am in grave danger. Duh?” So the rat returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s rat trap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a rat trap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was an enormous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.
His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer’s wife did not get well. She died, and so many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.
So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when there is a rat trap in the house, the whole farmyard is at risk.
Quoted from http://www.cybersaltlists.org email list
The Good Samaritan
A Sunday School teacher was telling the story of the Good Samaritan to her class of 4-5 year olds.
She was making it as vivid as possible to keep the children interested in her tale.
Then she asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?”A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, “I think I’d throw up.”
How Much You Care
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.