17 Sermon Illustrations on Divine Grace

A little girl and her mother were reading the New Testament one morning when they came to John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Stopping for a moment in the reading the mother asked, "Don't you think it is wonderful?" The child, looking surprised, replied in the negative. The mother, somewhat astonished, repeated the question, to which the little daughter replied, "Why, no, Mommy, it would be wonderful if it were anybody else, but it is just like God." The little girl was absolutely right. It is God's nature to give freely of His grace and of His mercy.

"A drop of honey is not enough to sweeten a hogshead of vinegar." Under great troubles we need great grace to console us. We must seek the special aid of the Holy Spirit, and be more diligent and fervent in prayer, for the eternal consolation of the Covenant. A proportion must be maintained: as he who sets out upon a long journey takes all the more money with him, so, in prospect of a great trial, we should seek extraordinary grace. The heavier the waggon, the more horses the farmer puts into the team; and so, the more difficult our service, the more grace must we bring to bear upon it. Lord, when we have much sorrow, let us taste more of thy love, and the vinegar will become sweet wine. If now thou dost try us severely, be pleased also to comfort us richly.

Mr. Newton had a very happy talent of administering reproof. Hearing that a person, in whose welfare he was greatly interested, had met with peculiar success in business, and was deeply immersed in worldly engagements, the first time he called on him, which was usually once a month, he took him by the hand, and drawing him on one side, into the counting-house, told him his apprehensions of his spiritual welfare. His friend, without making any reply, called down his partner in life, who came with her eyes suffused with tears, and unable to speak. Inquiring the cause, he was told she had just been sent for to one of her children, that was out at nurse, and supposed to be in dying circumstances. Clasping her hands immediately in his, Mr. N. cried, "God be thanked, he has not forsaken you! I do not wish your babe to suffer, but I am happy to find he gives you this token of his favor."

The holiest and best men have been usually the most ready to acknowledge the natural depravity of their hearts, and the greatness of their obligations to the free and sovereign grace of God, in preserving or delivering them from the consequences of that depravity.—During the ministry of the Rev. Ralph Erskine, at Dunfermline, a man was executed for robbery, whom he repeatedly visited in prison, and whom he attended on the scaffold. Mr. Erskine addressed both the spectators and the criminal; and, after concluding his speech, he laid his hands on his breast, uttering these words—"But for restraining grace, I had been brought, by this corrupt heart, to the same condition with this unhappy man."

Israel first helped by miracles—but in ch. 11, left to make own efforts. So war carried on against Satan's kingdom in this age was first advanced by miracles, but being sufficiently proved by them to be of God we are now left to ordinary help of divine grace in Christ and need not look for standing still of the sun, hailstones, etc Consistent life. Sweetness of Naomi's home life the means of drawing Ruth to her and to her God. Ruth 1:16-19. If there were more older women like Naomi, would be more younger women like Ruth.

May not God find ways to gather up the fragments of wasted lives and reconstitute them in His own image, as this great artist reconstructed the window:

In a certain old town was a great cathedral in which was a wondrous stained-glass window. Its fame had gone abroad over the land. From miles around people pilgrimaged to gaze upon the splendor of this masterpiece of art. One day there came a great storm. The violence of the tempest forced in the window, and it crashed to the marble floor, shattered into a hundred pieces. Great was the grief of the people at the catastrophe which had suddenly bereft the town of its proudest work of art. They gathered up the fragments, huddled them in a box, and carried them to the cellar of the church. One day there came along a stranger, and craved permission to see the beautiful window. They told him of its fate. He asked what they had done with the fragments. And they took him to the vault and showed him the broken morsels of glass. “Would you mind giving these to me?” said the stranger. “Take them along,” was the reply; “they are no longer of any use to us.” And the visitor carefully lifted the box and carried it away in his arms. Weeks passed by; then one day there came an invitation to the custodians of the cathedral. It was from a famous artist, noted for his master-skill in glass-craft. It summoned them to his study to inspect a stained-glass window, the work of his genius. Ushering them into his studio, he stood them before a great veil of canvas. At the touch of his hand upon a cord the canvas dropt. And there before their astonished gaze shone a stained-glass window surpassing in beauty all their eyes had ever beheld. As they gazed entranced upon its rich tints, wondrous pattern, and cunning workmanship, the artist turned and said: “This window I have wrought from the fragments of your shattered one, and it is now ready to be replaced.” Once more a great window shed its beauteous light into the dim aisles of the old cathedral. But the splendor of the new far surpassed the glory of the old, and the fame of its strange fashioning filled the land.--_Grace and Truth._

The Rev. Thomas G. Selby says:

Copious and unfailing rivers run just beneath the burning desolations of the Sahara. Twenty or thirty feet under the sand-drifts there is an impervious sheet of rock which prevents the escape of the collected rain-waters. It is easy to see the oasis, but not so easy to track the windings of the hidden river. The skilled engineer can get at the river, bring it up through his wells, and change the desert into an earthly paradise.

Society at large is not the dreary, all-devouring, illimitable ethical waste we often imagine. The rivers of God flow under natures we call reprobate, and create penitential moods which are the earnest of a coming righteousness. It is easy to map out the strips of moral fruitfulness which appear here and there in the world, but not so easy to find the deep secret contrition of those who are often classed as abandoned outcasts. The Savior of the world has an insight into character which enables him to see promise where men less sympathetic and discerning see the black marks of reprobation; and the angels share the visions of the Lord on whom they wait. It is by His art, as the Prophet of coming good, that the desert is made to bloom.--“The Divine Craftsman.”

Mr. Nathan Davies, the eldest son of a respectable Christian minister in Wales, was a youth of wild and dissolute conduct, and thereby occasioned much grief to his pious parents. Neither the mild nor the severe methods used to reclaim him had the desired effect. At length, a period arrived when the aged and venerable father must die; and, like Jacob, he desired that his children should be called to his bedside, to receive his dying admonitions. Having addressed them all, one by one, except the profligate son, in a very affectionate and solemn manner, he concluded by warning them to shun the bad example and wicked ways of their eldest brother, and advised them to act towards him with caution and forbearance, adding, that he feared they would experience from him nothing but sorrow and trouble. He then dismissed them, and soon after died.

The circumstance of the father's silence made a deeper impression on the mind of Nathan than all the reproofs and exhortations he had before received; and, to use his own expression, he thought at the time that his heart would have burst. He was then about twenty-seven years of age; and, through the Divine blessing, a great change became visible in him; he abandoned his former ways and companions, became a serious hearer of the word, and, in a short time, a member of the church over which his late father had been pastor. A few years afterwards he was called to the ministry, succeeded his father in the pastoral office, and was blessed in it with eminent success until the day of his death, which took place in the year 1726.

Kerman, in Persia, has been sacked at least six times. In 1794 the city was almost entirely destroyed by Agha Mohammed Khan, who later demanded twenty thousand pairs of human eyes before he would withdraw his troops. Kerman never recovered from this terrible blow, and to-day is a byword for its poverty and beggars. There is a quaint saying among its beggars:

“Khuda guft, ‘Beddeh’; Shaitan guft, ‘Neddeh.’”

This means, “God says, ‘Give’; Satan says, ‘Don’t give.’”

The generous impulse is a divine motion: the selfish, is satanic. Many are poor because they are first blind and do not possess the enlightenment of good sense and God’s grace.