80 Sermon Illustrations on Attributes of God

There is a great deal about God that we cannot understand. Who can understand the Trinity? John Wesley very appropriately said, "Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God!"

"Mother, who made God?" "That's a hard question, Jimmy. Why don't you go out and play for awhile?" answered the puzzled mother. When Jimmy insisted on an answer, the mother was inspired to take off her ring and hand it to her little boy, saying to him, "Here, Jimmy, show me the beginning and the end. God is the same way, Son. He has no beginning and no end." Were You There? An amusing radio comedian of many years ago, known as the Baron Munchausen, used to spin wild and improbable tales. When anyone challenged him he would ask, "Vas you dere, Sharlie?" God was there before there was any beginning; He was there when His only begotten Son came into the world, for He entered into human flesh through Him. He was there on the cross, for in Christ He suffered, bled and died for you and me. To anyone who questions this, you can retort, "Were you there? God was, and I prefer to take His Word for it." The Great "I Am" Bishop Beveridge gave a wonderful illustration of one of the names by which God has chosen to call Himself, "I AM": "He does not say, I am their light, their guide, their strength, or tower, but only 'I AM.' He sets, as it were, His hands to a blank, that His people may write under it what they pleased that is good for them. As if He should say: Are they weak? I am strength. Are they poor? I am riches. Are they in trouble? I am comfort. Are they sick? I am health. Are they dying? I am life. Have they nothing? I am all things. I am wisdom and power. I am justice and mercy. I am grace and goodness. I am glory, beauty, holiness, eminency, super-eminency, perfection, all-sufficiency, eternity. Jehovah, I am. Whatever is amiable in itself, or desirable unto them, that I am. Whatsoever is pure and holy, whatsoever is great or pleasant, whatsoever is good or needful to make men happy, that I am."

Six blind men approached an elephant. Each man put out his hand to touch some part of the elephant's anatomy and thought he had grasped the whole. To one the elephant was like a tree, to another like a wall, to a third like a fan, to a fourth like a snake, to a fifth like a spear, and to a sixth like a rope-depending on whether they had touched his leg, his side, his ear, his trunk, his tusk, or his tail. The poem in which this fable is contained concludes that all of them were right, though each of them was wrong. It takes a synthesis of all aspects of God and His creation to get a complete picture of Him-and none of us is so gifted as to be able to comprehend this, though we make some progress as we open our hearts and minds to the various facets of truth we encounter on our heavenward journey. Where Is God? A youngster returning from Sunday school sat by a man in a bus. The man, apparently an unbeliever, seeing her Sunday school paper, decided to make fun of the child and said to her, "Tell me where God is and I'll give you an apple." The little girl thoughtfully turned to her fellow passenger and said in return. "Sir, if you tell me a place where God isn't, I'll give you a basket of apples."

Oppressed by the noonday heat, a tired farmer sat under a walnut tree to rest. Relaxing, he looked at his pumpkin vines and said to himself, "How strange it is that God puts such big heavy pumpkins on a frail vine that has so little strength it has to trail on the ground!" And then looking up into the cool branches of the tree above him, he added, "How strange it is that God puts small walnuts on such a big tree with branches so strong they could hold a man!" Just then a breeze dislodged a walnut from the tree. The tired farmer wondered no more, as he rubbed his head ruefully and said, "It is a good thing there wasn't a pumpkin up there instead of a walnut." Hopefully, when the breezes of life blow, you will remember that God, Who is great and wise, makes no mistakes. He deserves our praise under any circumstance. The Just God A certain man misappropriated a sum of money, never believing that his good Christian friend would take steps to have him punished for embezzlement. Now that he is in jail he knows he depended too much on the kindness and mercy of this Christian, instead of reckoning with his justice. There is great danger in misunderstanding God's essential character. He is a God of justice as well as of love. He will inflict punishment where punishment is due. There is mercy available through Jesus Christ, but that mercy becomes effective only to those who appropriate it, who accept it. Be Merciful J. H. Evans said, "I believe that God often permits me to be chastened by my sin, because I do not make use of my mercies." We often lose our mercies by loving them too well, as the ball of snow is melted by the heat of the hand that holds it, or a rose is spoiled by pressing it too tightly. Theophilus Gale very well said, "Whatsoever I thankfully receive, as a token of God's love to me, I part with contentedly as a token of my love to Him."

As the astronomer Mitchell was one day observing the setting sun through a large telescope and gradually lowering the instrument to keep in view the great body of light slowly sinking in the western sky, there came within his line of vision the top of a distant hill, upon which grew a number of apple trees. In one of these trees were two boys, apparently stealing the apples. One was getting the fruit, while the other appeared to be keeping watch, to make sure that they were not seen. However, seven miles away, Professor Mitchell had his telescope trained on them and was watching their every movement as though he were on the hilltop. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:13). Where Are You Going? We are on our way somewhere-and not just out to lunch after church or to a party next Thursday. A small boy, with his father, was in an elevator going up in the Empire State Building in New York. As they flashed by the 66nd floor, the lad, in considerable anxiety, seized his father's hand, and in an awestruck whisper, said, "Does God know we are coming?" This is an amusing story; but, the serious answer is: Yes, God knows we are coming!

Let us not be like the two little boys on the hilltop, one of whom was up a tree stealing apples and the other watching to make sure they were safe from observation. They were blissfully unaware that someone watched them through a telescope several miles away, noting each motion and even the guilty expression of their faces as plainly as if he had been in the tree with them. How absurd for the boys to conclude that observation ended with their own vision, and that safety was the result of what they could distinguish! In this universe, which is but the result of God's handiwork, we are no more intelligent than these two little boys, if we conclude that God cannot observe us, since we cannot see Him with our own two eyes.

A certain farmer had an unusual weathervane on his barn. Inscribed on the arrow were these words: "God is love." A passerby turned in at the gate and asked the farmer, "What do you mean by that? Do you think God's love is changeable; that it veers about as that arrow turns in the winds?" "Oh, no," replied the farmer, "I mean that whichever way the wind blows, God is still love." The Time to Trust When nothing whereon to lean remains, When strongholds crumble to dust; When nothing is sure but that God still reigns, That is just the time to trust.

Someone asked Augustine where God was before the heavens were created. Augustine replied, "He was in Himself." He is indeed that only self-contained Being; for He is the only Infinite One. And when Luther was asked the same question, he answered, "He was creating hell for idle, proud, and inquisitive spirits like you."

"A young child does not know his father's strength. We are poor, weak creatures, and cannot conceive fully of the perfections of God: we know not what the power of God can do for us." It would be the height of absurdity for the child to think and speak of its father as if he were a child too, and could do no more than the boy's playmates. Yet this is the common error of the children of God. We do not raise our thoughts to a godlike level. We think our own thoughts of God, and straightway we doubt. Oh, that we rose to God's thoughts, and tried to conceive how He looks upon matters! Surely he taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the mountains he weighs in scales. If our troubles were set in the light of God's power, and love, and faithfulness, and wisdom, they would become to us small burdens: why should we not so regard them? Why must we reckon as children? Why not compute our load by our Father's measurement, and then see how easily it will be carried? Estimating divine strength by human standards is one of the childish things which we must put away. O Lord, forgive me for having often limited the Holy One of Israel, and teach me never again to judge after the flesh.

To make this out, that there is no God, he would need to travel abroad over the surrounding universe, till he had exhausted it, and to search backward through all the hidden recesses of eternity; to traverse in every direction the plains of infinitude, and sweep the outskirts of that space which is itself interminable, and then bring back to this little world of ours the report of a universal blank, wherein he had not met with one movement of a presiding God. For man not to know of a God, he has only to sink beneath the level of our common nature; but to deny him, he must be a God himself: he must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead. Dr. Chalmers.

The most remarkable and beautiful of all plants is the stately banyan, the vegetable wonder of India. Each of these marvellous trees is in itself a grove; and some of them are of astonishing size, as they continually grow, and, contrary to most other animal and vegetable productions, seem to be exempted from decay; for every branch from the main body throws out its own roots, — at first in small tender fibres, several yards from the ground, which continually grow thicker, until, by a gradual descent, they reach its surface, where, striking in, they increase to a large trunk, and become a parent tree, throwing out new branches from the top. These, in time, suspend their roots, and, receiving nourishment from the earth, swell into trunks, and send forth other branches; thus continuing in a state of progression so long as the first parent of them all supplies her sustenance. No wonder that the pious Hindoos are particularly fond of this glorious tree, and that they consider its long duration, its outstretching arms, and overshadowing beneficence as emblems of the Deity, of whose wisdom and power it is one of the most striking monuments! Hartwig.

All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of him but in broken and imperfect words. High above all he sits, sublimer than mountains, grander than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits, nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than lovers. His feet tread the lowest places of the earth; but his head is above all glory; and everywhere he is supreme. Beecher.

Though numberless drops he in the sea, yet, if one be taken out of it, it hath so much the less, though insensibly; but God, because he is infinite, can admit of no diminution. Therefore are men because, the more they give, the less they have; but thou, Lord, mayst give what thou wilt without abatement of thy store. Good prayers never come weeping home: I am sure I shall receive either what I ask or what I should ask. Bp. Hall.

If philosophy is to be believed, our world is but an outlying corner of creation; bearing, perhaps, as small a proportion to the great universe as a single grain bears to all the sands of the seashore, or one small quivering leaf to the foliage of a boundless forest. Yet even within this earth's narrow limits, how vast the work of Providence I how soon is the mind lost in contemplating it! How great that Being whose hand paints every flower, and shapes every leaf; who forms every bud on every tree, and every infant in the darkness of the womb; who feeds each crawling worm with a parent's care, and watches like a mother over the insect that sleeps away the night in the bosom of a flower; who throws open the golden gates of day, and draws around a sleeping world the dusky curtains of the night; who measures out the drops of every shower, the whirling snowflakes, and the sands of man's eventful life; who determines alike the fall of a sparrow and the fate of a kingdom, and so overrules the tide of human fortunes, that whatever befall him, come joy or sorrow, the believer says, "It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good"!

— Dr. Guthrie

Simonides, a heathen poet, being asked by Hiero, King of Syracuse, What is God? desired a day to think upon it. At its end, he desired two. Thus he continued to double the number of days before he could give an answer. The king asked what he meant by this conduct. The poet replied, "The more I think of God, he is still the more unknown to me."

Krummacher says, that an idolatrous tribe chose a Jew named Abiah to rule over them, who was greatly grieved at the idolatry of his subjects, and angry because they would not reform. The Lord said to him, "Thinkest thou I cannot destroy their idols? and yet I suffer the sun to shine upon them. Go thou, and do likewise." Abiah suffered them, and had a successful reign. When he came to die, he told the people that his son would be their king; that they had never seen his face, but should know his government by the fruits thereof. The people promised obedience, kept the promise, and prospered greatly, though they had never seen their king. Wise commands came from the palace. Like the beams of the sun, the kind influence of the invisible monarch spread over the nation, reaching every child of want. Then they all marvelled, and said, "We see him not: how can he see us?" Then the people longed to see and bless him, as they did their idols. They made images of him. At last, they came together before the palacogates, and implored, "Oh! let our lord the king suffer us to see his face." Then the king came forth in simple raiment; and the people rejoiced and wondered, and said, "We know thy face;" for he had often walked among them unknown. Then the king said, "Now you see that I am a man like you. Think ye that this mortal flesh has reigned over you? Not so: that which has guided you ye cannot see; neither can I. Can ye see wisdom, kindness, and justice? Now ye see me, but ye do not see them. Judge ye what is my earthly form. Can the visible create the invisible? That which is in me, also, is not mine, but His who made me your king." After this, the people returned to their homes, blessing their king. They broke in pieces their pictures, images, and idols, and believed in Him who is invisible.

See we not that heaven is all for earth? Doth it cause one sprig of an herb to grow in itself? It giveth all it hath, and is perpetually content with what it is. So God is all for us, as if man were his God, saith St. Thomas. If we be miserable, he is not therefore disdainful; if he be high, he is not therefore far distant from our inferior condition. He is all, in all things; ever present; continually doing somewhat for our well-being. N. Caussin.

Every part of Nature seems to pay its tribute to man, in the great variety of tribes, as well the prodigious number of individuals of each various tribe, of all creatures. There are so many beasts, so many birds, so many insects, so many reptiles, so many trees, so many plants, upon the land; so many fishes, sea-plants, and other creatures in the waters; so many minerals, metals, and fossils in the subterraneous regious, — that there is nothing wanting to the use of man, or any other creature of this lower world. The munificence of the Creator is such, that there is enough to supply the wants and conveniences of all creatures in all places, all ages, and upon all occasions. Derham.

GOD, No Images of At Buhapurum, a child about eight years old, who had been educated in Christianity, was ridiculed on that account by some heathens older than himself. In reply, he repeated what he had been taught respecting God. "Show us your God," said the heathen. "I cannot do that," answered the child; "but I can soon show you yours." Taking a stone, and daubing it with some resemblance of a human face, he placed it upon the ground, and pushing it towards them with his foot, "There," said he, "is such a god as you worship."

GOD, Omnipotence of A certain man went to a dervis, and proposed three questions: "First, Why do they say that God is omnipresent? I do not see him in any place: show me where he is. Secondly, Why is man punished for his crimes, since whatever he does proceeds from God? Man has no free will, for he cannot do any thing contrary to the will of God; and, if he had power, he would do every thing for his own good. Thirdly, How can God punish Satan in hell-fire, since he is formed of that element? and what impression can fire make on itself?" The dervis took up a large clod of earth, and struck him on the head with it. The man went to the cadi, and said, "I proposed three questions to a dervis, who flung such a clod of earth at me as has made my head ache." The cadi, having sent for the dervis, asked, "Why did you throw a clod of earth at his head, instead of answering his questions?" The dervis replied, "The clod of earth was an answer to his speech. He says he has a pain in his head: let him show me the pain, and I will make God visible to him. And why does he exhibit a complaint to you against me? Whatever I did was the act of God. I did not strike him without the will of God, and what power do I possess? And, as he is compounded of earth, how can he suffer pain from that element?" The man was confounded, and the cadi highly pleased, with the dervis's answer. J. H. Vincent.

Julius Drusus, a Roman tribune, had a house that in many places lay exposed to the view of the neighborhood. A person came and offered, that, for five talents he would so alter it, that it should not be liable to that inconvenience. "I will give thee ten talents," said Drusus, "if thou canst make my house conspicuous in every room of it, that so all the city may behold in what manner I lead my life." It would be well for us to recollect, that we are all thus continually exposed to the eye of God.

— Whitecross

The omniscience of God is a great check to sin, and motive to virtue. A heathen philosopher advised his pupils to imagine that some distinguished character was always looking at them, as the best aid to excellence of life.

A heathen philosopher once asked a Christian, "Where is God?" The Christian answered, "Let me first ask you, Where is he not?" Arrowsmith.

The character of God is but little seen but from revelation. Redemption — that is the glass which reflects its true beauty. Look at the light of day: it presents one uniform and undistinguished and unbroken mass of light; the many beautiful rays and colors which united together to form that light are lost and hid from our eyes. It is science only that has discovered to us this fact. But when we take the prism, and cause this apparently simple and uncompounded light to pass through its sides, we are charmed with the beauty of its rays, the richness and variety of its colors: so, when we turn away from the glass which redemption fields up, how many of the attributes of God are hid from us! That it is which (as the prism separates and untwists the rays of light) brings to light the hidden glories of the Godhead. There it is: his justice and mercy, his holiness and purity and love, beam, and, like rays of light, pour their effulgence on our astonished sight; and the Almighty shines forth in all the glory and beauty of these attributes now manifested and revealed to his creation. Salter.

Be not curious to search into the secrets of God; pick not the lock where he hath allowed no key. He that will be sifting every cloud may be smitten with a thunderbolt; and he that will be too familiar with God's secrets may be overwhelmed in his judgments. Adam would curiously increase his knowledge; therefore Adam shamefully lost his goodness: the Bethlehemites would needs pry into the ark of God; therefore the hand of God slew about fifty thousand of them. Therefore hover not about this flame, lest we scorch our wings. For my part, seeing God hath made me his secretary, I will carefully improve myself by what he has revealed, and not curiously inquire into or after what he hath reserved. Adams.