16 Sermon Illustrations on Christianity

The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is a religion of light. One of the most splendid descriptions of our Heavenly Father is in the words of John: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). James says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17). Note James' descriptive name for God, "The Father of light." And the Lord Jesus declares that those who seek to do the will of God are the "children of light" (John 12:36). Our Savior never said a more splendid thing about Himself than when He uttered that sublime declaration, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12; John 9:5). Everywhere in the Scriptures, light is used as an emblem of the righteous character of those who are the true children of God. Yes, the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is a religion of light.

When you behold a majestic tree standing in the field, which has darted its roots far and deep into the earth, and spreads its branches wide around it, and produces, year after year, its store of leaves and flowers and fruits, you might as well imagine it to be the fashioning of man’s hands, an ingenious device and artifice of his, which he feeds and nourishes, as to suppose the same of the system I have described; which, as you have seen, intwines its roots through all the shadowy institutions of the elder dispensation, and, standing tall and erect in the midst of the new, defies the whirlwind and the lightning, the drought and scorching sun, bourgeoning widely, and, like the prophet’s vine, spreading its branches to the uttermost parts of the earth, and gathering all mankind underneath its shade, and feeding them with the sweetest fruits of holiness.

— Cardinal Wiceman

Pascal says, that wearied with the investigation of the external evidences of Christianity, which, though they made the truth of revealed religion in the highest degree probable, still did not amount to mathematical certainty, he submitted the teachings of Christianity to his own inward nature, and found there a prompt response, whose verdict he could no more doubt than he could doubt his own existence. A religion so infinitely superior to every other in its adaptation to the wants of the soul, to the tempted, the heart-broken, the dying, to universal humanity in all its conflicts, sins, and woes, carried its own evidence of its divine origin.

— J. Chapman

The following tabular statement, a conjectural but probable representation of the progressive increase of Christians in the world, is attributed to Sharon Turner: 1st century, 500,000; 2d, 2,000,000; 3d, 5,000,000; 4th, 10,000,000; 5th, 15,000,000; 6th, 20,000,000; 7th, 24,000,000; 8th, 30,000,000; 9th, 40,000,000; 10th, 50,000,000; 11th, 70,000,000; 12th, 80,000,000; 13th, 75,000,000; 14th, 80,000,000; 15th, 100,000,000; 16th, 125,000,000; 17th, 155,000,000; 18th, 200,000,000. Although this is only a mere approximation, and a very loose one, to the actual facts, yet it is interesting and instructive. With the exception of the thirteenth century (tenebrosum, as the late Dr. Miller called it), the progress of the truth has been ever onward. From every defeat, it has arisen afresh, and what has never been the case in any other system, religious, social, or intellectual, has revived anew from the ashes of its own inward corruptions. In this nineteenth century, the Christian population of the world cannot be far from three hundred millions; and its progress now is more rapid than in any period since the apostolic age. What imagination can forecast the conquests of the next fifty years! The leaven is working in every land. The old empires of idolatry and superstition are effete, and ready to vanish; while new Christian empires are born almost in a day. Every new discovery in nature, or invention in art, helps to speed the gospel. Trade, commerce, revolution, exploration, all prepare the way and herald the approach of the heralds of the cross. This work of preparation has been long going on. Soon it will be complete; the initiatory steps will have all been taken: then a universal Pentecostal season may be expected. Simultaneously the Holy Spirit will descend upon every land, and "the ploughman overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." In that blessed day, (the Lord hasten it in his time!) "who shall count the dust of Jacob, or the number of the fourth part of Israel?" Dr. Haven.

I have somewhere read of a seed that is borne by the wind on its downy wings from spot to spot, and never shoots out its roots until, it reaches a congenial soil. When it alights on the soil which suits it not, it shuts itself up, and sometimes sleeps for centuries, — sleeps until some propitious gale will bear it to a congenial resting-place; and there, after a number of ages, it will grow, and multiply its kind indefinitely. It is somewhat thus with Christianity. During the long middle ages, the heavenly seed borne to the western world remained dead upon the papal soil. A breeze sprung up, and wafted it to a soil where it took root and grew, and has been growing ever since. It has been borne into every heart in Christendom; but, in the majority of cases, the soil is unpropitious, and the seed remains dead. We invoke no wind to bear it elsewhere; but we pray for an alteration in the soil. Dr. Thomas.

Not parties, but principles. Let us be of no party but God's party, and use all other agencies as we use railroad cars, travelling upon one train as far as it will take us in the right direction, and then leaving it for another. Beecher.

Let us not conceive of all genuine religion as moving in one groove of feeling and practice, and refuse to acknowledge any man as a Christian because he does not run upon our particular groove. There are several points of view from which Christianity may be surveyed; and although it be one and the same object from whatever point we look, yet eyes placed on different levels will see it grouped in different perspectives. Dr. Goulburn.

Lord Bolingbroke, a man of giant intellect, of great political influence during his life, but an avowed infidel, declares that "The doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state, has so great a tendency to enforce the civil laws and restrain the vices of men, that though reason would decide against it on the principles of theology, she will not decide against it on the principles of good policy." Again he says; "No religion ever appeared in the world, whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind, as the Christian. The Gospel of Christ is one continual lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, benevolence, and universal charity. Supposing Christianity to be a human invention, it is the most amiable, and successful invention, that ever was imposed on mankind for their good."

# 218. Shown by their Confessions in favor of the Moral Character of Christ.