10 Sermon Illustrations on Christian Apologetics

Meander, who lived three hundred years before St. Paul, said, "Evil words corrupt good manners; Aratus said, "We are the workmanship of God;" Epimenides said, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies," — all three of them heathen men famous in their time; yet the great Doctor of the Gentiles scorns not their sayings, but plants them as so many flowers in the garden of God. Christ himself owns Socrates and Plato, — the one for the golden rule, "Whatsoever ye would," &c.; and the other for the excellent caution, "Physician, heal thyself." Spencer.

When the late Rev. Joseph Hughes, A. M., was once travelling in the service of the Bible Society, he found by his side, upon the coach, a grave and respectable looking person. In conversing on topics of general attention, they soon came to the Bible Society. His companion launched forth, in vituperative terms, on its utopian charhe said, "I am going to fetch the rug from my grandfather's bed, that he may wrap it round him and go a-begging!" Tommy went for the rug, and brought it to his father, and said to him, "Pray, father, cut it in two, the half of it will be large enough for grandfather, and perhaps you may want the other half when I grow a man and turn you out of doors." The words of the child struck him so forcibly, that he immediately ran to his father, and asked forgiveness, and was very kind to him till he died.

Dr. Nelson, of Illinois, in his work on Infidelity, says, that for many years he had endeavored to persuade every infidel to read some work on the evidences of Christianity, and he never knew but two instances fail of conviction, and in these he did not know the result for want of opportunity.

Perhaps few events tend more powerfully to impress the mind, as to the overwhelming power of the evidence attending true Christianity, than the fact, that many who have sat down to read the sacred volume with the view of opposing it, have been compelled, by the force of conviction, cordially to embrace its truths. From many instances of this kind we select the following, as related by the Rev. T. T. Biddulph: The effect which was wrought on the mind of the celebrated Gilbert West, by that particular evidence of our Lord's resurrection which was afforded to his apostles, was very remarkable. He and his friend Lord Littleton, both men of acknowledged talents, had imbibed the principles of infidelity from a superficial view of the Scriptures. Fully persuaded that the Bible was an imposture, they were determined to expose the cheat. Mr. West chose the resurrection of Christ, and Lord Littleton the conversion of St. Paul, for the subject of hostile criticism. Both sat down to their respective tasks, full of prejudice, and a contempt for Christianity. The result of their separate attempts was truly extraordinary. They were both converted by their endeavors to overthrow the truth of Christianity. They came together, not, as they expected, to exult over an imposture exposed to ridicule, but to lament their own folly, and to congratulate each other on their joint conviction, that the Bible was the word of God. Their able inquiries have furnished two most valuable treatises in favor of revelation; one entitled, "Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul," and the other, "Observations on the Resurrection of Christ."

“I once heard,” says Chrysostom, “a Christian disputing in a ridiculous manner with a Greek, and both parties in their dispute refuting themselves. For what the Christian ought to have said, this the Greek asserted; and what one would naturally suppose the Greek would say, this the Christian maintained. The point of controversy was the superiority of Paul or Plato; the Greek endeavoring to show that Paul was unlearned and ignorant; and the Christian in his simplicity being anxious to prove that Paul was more eloquent than Plato. The victory was on the side of the Greek as 326.227

INSTRUMENTALITIES, FEEBLE.

head, The Ungrateful Guest; a character infamous in every age and among all nations, but particularly among the Greeks, who from the earliest times were most scrupulously observant of the laws of hospitality.