1.G 09. Illustrations Bridge Difficult Places

Illustrations Bridge Difficult Places.

Then there is another element for you to consider.

Illustrations are invisible tactics. A minister often hovers between the “ ought to do,” and the “ how to do.” He knows there is a subject that ought to be preached about; and yet, if he should deliberately preach on that topic, everybody would turn around and look at Mr. A, who is the very embodiment of that special vice or fault or excellence.

There are many very important themes which a minister may not desire to preach openly upon, for various reasons, especially if he wish to remain in the parish. But there are times when you can attain your object by an illustration pointed at the topic, without indicating whom you are hitting, but continuing your sermon as though you were utterly unconscious of the effect of your blow. When I was settled at Indianapolis, nobody was allowed to say a word on the subject of slavery.

They were all red-hot out there then; and one of the elders said, “ If an abolitionist comes here, I will head a mob to put him down.” I was a young preacher. I had some pluck; and I felt, and it grew in me, that that was a subject that ought to be preached upon; but I knew that just as sure as I preached an abolition sermon they would blow me up sky high, and my usefulness in that parish would be gone. Yet I was determined they should hear it, first or last. The question was, “ How shall I do it?” I recollect one of the earliest efforts I made in that direction was in a sermon on some general topic. It was necessary to illustrate a point, and I did it by picturing a father ransoming his son from captivity among the Algerines, and glorying in his love of liberty and his fight against bondage. They all- thought I was going to apply it to slavery, but I did not. I applied it to my subject, and it passed off; and they all drew a long breath.

It was not long before I had another illustration from that quarter. And so, before I had been there a year, I had gone over all the sore spots of slavery, in illustrating the subjects of Christian experience and doctrine. It broke the ice.

You may say that that was not the most honour able way, and that it was a weakness. It may have been so; but I conquered them by that very weakness.

If you find that it is necessary to do a thing, make up your mind to do it. If you cannot accomplish it in the very best way, do it by the next best, and so on; but see to it that it is done by the best means at your command. Go to the bottom of it, and work at it until you attain the desired result.

Thus, in using an illustration pointed at a certain fault or weakness among your people, as I have done a thousand times (and I speak within bounds), never let it be known that you are aiming at any particular individual. Sometimes a person will say to me, “There is great distress in such a family, and they will be in your church; can’t you say something that will be useful to them? “ If I were to bring that case right before the congregation, in all its personal details, it would scandalise the Church, and repel the very people whom I wanted to help. But suppose, while I am preaching, I imagine a case of difference between husband and wife, who are, perhaps, hard, suspicious, and unforgiving toward each other, and I take the subject of God’s forgiveness, and illustrate it by the conduct of two couples, one of which stands on a high and noble plane, and the other on a low, selfish plane.

They do not suppose that I know anything about their difficulty, because, when I am hitting a man with an illustration, I never look at him. But such a man or woman will go home, and say, “Why, if somebody had been telling him of my case, he could not have hit it more exactly.” They take it to heart, and it is blessed unto them. I have seen multitudes of such cases.