14 Sermon Illustrations on Deliverance

When this man found himself delivered he wanted to go with the Saviour. That was gratitude; Christ had saved him, had redeemed him. He had delivered him from the hand of the enemy. And this man cried: "Let me follow You around the world; where You go I will go." But the Lord said, "You go home and tell your friends what good things the Lord has done for you." And he started home. I would like to have been in that house when he came there. I can imagine how the children would look when they saw him, and say, "Father is coming." "Shut the door," the mother would cry; "look out! fasten the window; bolt every door in the house." Many times he very likely had come and abused his family and broken the chairs and tables and turned the mother into the street and alarmed all the neighbors. They see him now coming down the street. Down he comes till he gets to the door, and then gently knocks. You don't hear a sound as he stands there. At last he sees his wife at the window and he says, "Mary!" "Why," she says, "why he speaks as he did when I first married him; I wonder if he has got well?" So she looks out and asks: "John, is that you?" "Yes, Mary," he replies, "it's me, don't be afraid any mare, I'm well now." I see that mother, how she pulls back the bolts of that door, and looks at him. The first look is sufficient, and she springs into his arms and clings about his neck. She takes him in and asks him a hundred questions--how it all happened--all about it. "Well, just take a chair and I'll tell you how I got cured." The children hang back and look amazed. He says: "I was there in the tombs, you know, cutting myself with stones, and running about in my nakedness, when Jesus of Nazareth came that way. Mary, did you ever hear of Him? He is the most wonderful man; I've never seen a man like Him. He just ran in and told those devils to leave me, and they left me. When He had cured me I wanted to follow Him, but He told me to come home and tell you all about it." The children by and by gather about his knee, and the elder ones run to tell their playmates what wonderful things Jesus has done for their father. Ah, my friends, we have got a mighty deliverer, I don't care what affliction you have, He will deliver you from it. The Son of God who cast out those devils can deliver you from your besetting sin.

It was my privilege to go to Richmond with Gen. Grant's army. Now just let us picture a scene. There are a thousand poor captives, and they are lawful captives, prisoners in Libby Prison. Talk to some of them that have been there for months and hear them tell their story. I have wept for hours to hear them tell how they suffered, how they could not hear from their homes and their loved ones for long intervals, and how sometimes they would get messages that their loved ones were dying and they could not get home to be with them in their dying hours. Let us, for illustration, picture a scene. One beautiful day in the Spring they are there in the prison. All news has been kept from them. They have not heard what has been going on around Richmond, and I can imagine one says one day, "Ah, boys, listen! I hear a band of music, and it sounds as if they were playing the old battle cry of the Republic. It sounds as if they were playing "The star spangled banner! long may it wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" And the hearts of the poor fellows begin to leap for joy. "I believe Richmond is taken. I believe they are coming to deliver us," and every man in that prison, is full of joy, and by and by the sound comes nearer and they see it is so. It is the Union army! Next the doors of the prison are unlocked; they fly wide open, and those thousand men are set free. Wasn't that good news to them? Could there have been any better news? They are out of prison, out of bondage, delivered. Christ came to proclaim liberty to the captive.

Theodosius being told of the wonderful overthrow of the usurper John his adversary, he and all his followers resorted to the temple, where they passed over the day with praise and thanksgiving, acknowledging that God by his arm had cast down that tyrant. And Heraclius being delivered from Chesroes, the King of the Persians, in the height of his triumph at Byzantium, openly praised God for his delivery; and, the more to show his thankfulness, did cause to be stamped upon his coin with his own image, these words, "Glory be to God in heaven! because he hath broken the iron doors, and hath delivered the holy kingdom of Heraclius." Spencer.

So mighty is the ever rushing-torrent of sin, that no arm but that which is as strong as Deity can ever stop the sinner from being hurried down to the gulf of black despair; and, when nearing that gulf, so impetuous is the torrent of divine wrath, that nothing can snatch the soul from perdition but an atonement which is as divine as God himself. Yet faith is the instrument of accomplishing the whole work. It delivers the sinner from the stream of sin; and so, laying held upon the omnipotence of the Spirit, it rescues him from that great whirlpool of destruction into which his soul was being hurried. Spurgeon.

A poor victim of intemperance, of cultivated intellect, had lost all hope of escape from the tyranny of his evil habit, and really despaired of any thing but a drunkard's grave and a miserable eternity. President Davies of the College of New Jersey, one day met this miserable man, fell into a conversation with him, and patiently heard his doleful story. The president said to him, "Sir, be of good cheer: you can be saved. Sign the pledge."—"Oh!" said the despairing victim, "I have often signed the pledge; but I have always broken my pledge."—"But," said the president, "I will be your strength to keep the pledge. I will be your friend, and, with a loving arm around you, will hold you up. When your appetite burns, and you feel as if you must gratify it, come to my house, sit down with me in the study, or with the family in the parlor, and I will be a shield to you. All that I can do for you with my books, my sympathy, my experience, my society, my love, my money, I will do. You shall forget your appetite, and master it." The tear of hope and joy gathered in that despairing eye; and the astonished man replied, "Sir, will you do all that?"—"Surely I will."—"Then I will overcome." He signed the pledge, and, as long as the president lived, he kept it.

About the year 1830, while a young man of the town of Wells, Maine, was at work in the woods alone, he fell'd a tree which struck a large log, lying up some distance from the ground. When the tree struck the log, the butt bounded, struck the man, carried him some distance, plunged him into a deep snow, and fell across his stomach, confining him there. The log across which the tree fell, served as a fulcrum, being so near the middle of the tree as to prevent it from lying so heavily upon him as to give much immediate distress. His feet were so completely confined that he had no power to move them; his hands being the only means with which he could do the least towards extricating himself, which he used in the best possible manner he was capable of; but he was utterly unsuccessful in his efforts to raise the body of the tree, or beating away the snow. Now feeling in some degree that all hopes of being delivered from that state of confinement also were vain, he cast his eyes toward heaven, when he saw a large limb, which had broken from the tree while falling, suspended in the air by the branch of another tree, and at the distance of thirty or forty feet above him, apparently directly over his head. What must have been his feelings while thus confined, and viewing that threatening death hanging directly over him, and expecting every moment it would fall and terminate his existence?

While he thus lay, with his eyes fastened upon the limb, waiting for the result he thought must soon take place, the twig by which it was suspended gave way—the limb fell and struck the snow about one foot from his head. He immediately thought to use that as a lever, by which to raise the tree

66c the effort proved successful, and he made his escape without any material injury.

"In the war called Braddock's war," says a writer in the Christian's Advocate, "my father was an officer in the British Navy. One night as they were running close to the coast of Barbary, the officers on deck heard some person singing. A moment convinced them that he was singing the Old Hundred psalm tune. They immediately conjectured that the singer was a Christian captive, and determined to attempt his rescue. Twenty stout sailors, armed with pistols and cutlasses, manned the ship's boats and approached the shore. Directed by the voice of singing and prayer, they soon reached the abode of the Christian captive. It was a little hut at the bottom of his master's garden on a small river. They burst open the door, and took him from his knees, and in a few moments he was on the ship's deck frantic with joy. The account he gave of himself was, that his name was McDonald; that he was a native of Scotland; and had been a captive eighteen years, he had obtained the confidence of his master, was his chief gardener, and had the privilege of living by himself. He said he was not at all surprised when they burst open his door, for the Turks had often done so, and whipped him when on his knees."