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5 Sermon Illustrations on Early Conversion

5 illustrations

Early conversion in Christian preaching highlights the significance and possibility of genuine faith arising in childhood or youth, emphasizing the formative impact of early spiritual experiences. Illustrations often use the imagery of seed-sowing or youthful beginnings to depict how early piety shapes lifelong faith (2 Timothy 3:15). This theme underscores the rarity yet profound importance of early spiritual awakening (Psalm 119:9).

Early Conversions, Possible

Early seed-sowing in children can lead to genuine conversion later in life.

A girl thirteen years of age found her Saviour. When she acquainted her mother with the fact, the tearful reply was, "God has heard my prayers. I expected that you would be converted when you was thirteen."—"But, mother, I often felt like submitting to Christ when I was only four or five."—Did you, dear child?" said her mother; "but I did not expect it then. I was only sowing the seed. I did not expect you would be a Christian until you were thirteen."

Early Piety, Importance of

Most genuine conversions occur before age twenty; late conversions are rare.

The most important ten years of human life are from five to fifteen years of age. The vast majority of those who pass twenty irreligious are never converted at all. Dr. Spencer tells us, that, out of two hundred and thirty-five hopeful converts in his church, one hundred and thirty-eight were under twenty years, and only four had passed their fiftieth year. I have been permitted, during my ministry, to receive nearly one thousand persons into the church on confession of their faith; and not one dozen of these had outgrown their fiftieth year. I did, indeed, once baptize a veteran of eighty-five; but the case was so remarkable, that it excited the talk and wonder of the town. Such late repentances are too much like what the blunt dying soldier called "flinging the fag-end of one's life into the face of the Almighty." Rec. T. L. Cuyler.

Early Piety, Possibility of

A child's early spiritual experience can profoundly influence others' faith journeys.

President Edwards gives a narrative of Phoebe Bartlett, a child only five years old. Her religious experience was wonderful. For seventy years, she testified to the gracious love of God in revealing himself to her when she was yet a child. In the memoirs of Dr. Justin Edwards, it is stated, that the heavenly conversation and Christian spirit manifested in her last sickness were the means of bringing him to the enjoyment of spiritual life. So that, although she was not permitted to preach the gospel in public, she was made instrumental in leading another person to do so with eminent success.

Early Promise

Like rivers that dry up, early promise can fade without sustained spiritual fruitfulness.

Two of the most celebrated historic rivers are the Abana and Pharpar. These streams begin their course under the most promising auspices. Their source is in Lebanon. The Abana, now called the Barada, is the pride and joy of the plain below. It forces its way from the declivity where it has its cradle through a rocky barrier and spreads out fan-like in seven streams over the plain. “Everything lives whither the river cometh.” A meadow, in which the whole Oriental world exults, holds in its lap Damascus, the most beautiful garden city in the world. Its many minarets and domes tower up above the countless bowers in the courts of the old houses. Abana still as ever sustains this fruitfulness and splendor. But only a few miles from its source its waters are exhausted, for the desert swallows it, and the Pharpar also. Both die, forming great swamps and evaporating.

So it is with many human beings whose lives are for a few years efficient and full of promise and even performance, only very soon to flag and fade and to fall into utter desuetude. (Text.)

Early Promise

A boy’s early faith and encouragement foreshadow a lifelong calling to ministry.

See GREAT MEN’S BEGINNINGS.

EARLY RELIGION

The Bible was once compared to a great tree, with its books as branches, its chapters as twigs, and the verses as leaves. A minister, addressing a Sunday-school gathering, announced his text as “on the 39th branch, the 3d twig, and the 17th leaf.” He said to his great audience, “Try to find my text.” A little lad who was in the pulpit, owing to the crowded state of the church, answered “Malachi, third chapter, and seventeenth verse.” The minister said, “Right, my boy; take my place and read it out.” It so happened the boy’s brother had died recently, and the sight of the little curly-headed lad, only eleven years old, with his little black gloves reading in silvery tones, “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels,” brought tears to many eyes. The minister laid his hand on the boy and said, “Well done; I hope one day you will be a minister.” The lad was Henry Drummond, afterward the loved teacher of thousands in America and Great Britain. (Text.)

from Cyclopedia of Illustrations for Public Speakers · Robert Scott and William C. Stiles callingencouragement

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