22 Sermon Illustrations on Eternal Focus

A pioneer preacher was called to conduct the funeral for a man who never entered the church building while he lived. As the pallbearers neared the meetinghouse door, the old preacher stood in the doorway and beckoned saying: "Gentlemen, I have never taken an undue advantage of any living person, and I am not going to begin imposing on the dead. If this man were living he would not enter this building. Put him down right there and let us respect him enough to finish his earthly pilgrimage as he lived it." The service was conducted from the doorway, with the casket resting on the church-house lawn. Perhaps the preacher was a bit "hard," but he certainly had a point. Better think about dying and eternity while we live.

Too busy to read the Bible, too busy to wait and pray Too busy to speak out kindly to someone by the way! To busy to care and struggle, to think of the life to come Too busy building mansions, to plan for the heavenly home. Too busy to help a brother who faces the winter blast. Too busy to share his burden, when self in the balance is cast. Too busy for all that is holy on earth beneath the sky; Too busy to serve the Master, but not too busy to die.

The time to begin to do the things that are important in your life is the very moment you become a believer in Jesus Christ. Your first thought should be, "This life on earth is not forever; therefore the things that count for eternity will have priority in my life." Don't be like someone who greatly distinguished himself in worldly achievements. In his last moments, he exclaimed, "I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death; and now, alas! I am to die, although entirely unprepared." How or when one dies is not important. The important thing is to prepare for the unavoidable happening while you are alive.

Certs, Breath Savers, chewing gum are all big sellers. Americans are conscious about "bad breath," and they spend millions of dollars to hide or change it. The problem is that the remedies do not last long. There is a bizarre new breath mint on the market now which lasts for two hours. It is a time released pill that sits between your upper gum and cheek and slowly puts out a minty taste for hours. You do not have to chew it, or even suck on it. The price for a bottle of 200 mints is $30. It seems high, but the selling point is that it is really more economical. Everybody is interested in things that last. Our cars wear out, so do clothes, shoes, and everything about us. The faces on Mount Rushmore have to be continually repaired. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:19 that all earthly treasures are beset by risks and finally end in total loss. The real treasure of wealth is to be found in heaven. We can store truth, love, and faith. Our emphasis must always be on the values that last. "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my word;" says Jesus, "shall not pass away" (Mark 13:31).

A rich woman dreamed that she went to heaven and saw there a mansion being built. "Who is that for?" she asked of the guide. "For your gardener." "But he lives in the tiniest cottage on earth with barely room enough for his family. He might live better if he did not give so much to the miserable, poor folk." Farther on she saw a tiny cottage being built. "And who is that for?" she asked. "That is for you." "But I have lived in a mansion on earth. I would not know how to live in a cottage." The words she heard in reply were full of meaning: "The Master Builder is doing His best with the material that is being sent up." The Master and the Violin A wealthy Englishman had in his valuable collection a rare violin which Fritz Kreisler, the celebrated virtuoso, greatly longed to possess. When the owner persisted in refusing to part with it, Kreisler begged permission to play it just once. That was granted. With trembling hands the artist tuned the instrument and then played. He played as only genius can play. He poured his heart into his music. The Englishman stood as one transfixed until the playing had ceased, and he did not speak until Kreisler had tenderly returned the instrument to the antique box, as gently a mother puts her baby to bed. "Take the violin," he burst out. "It is yours. I have no right to keep it. It ought to belong to the man who can play it as you did." That was odd reasoning, and yet it has something compellingly illustrative of the attitude that Paul wanted to arouse in the Corinthians who were made rich in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:5). In a sense, ought not an instrument belong to the master who can draw the finest music from it? Ought not your life and mine belong to the Master who can draw the noblest harmonies from them?

"Look, as the stars, those vast globes of light, by reason of the distance between us and them, do seem but as so many spangles; so we have but a weak sight of things which are set at a great distance, and their operation on us is usually but small." Hence the need of faith, by which things are brought near to us, and made to stand out in their reality. A far-off hell is the dread of no man, and a far-off heaven is scarce desired by any one. God himself, while thought of as far away, is not feared or reverenced as he should be. If we did but use our thoughts upon the matter we should soon see that a mere span of time divides us from the eternal world, while the Lord our God is nearer to us than our souls are to our bodies. Strange that the brief time which intervenes between us and eternity should appear to the most of men to be so important, while eternity itself they regard as a trifling matter. They use the microscope

£0 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MEDITATIONS. to magnify the small concerns of time; O that they would use the telescope upon the vast matters of eternity! How differently would they order their lives with judgment felt to be at their doors! How would they seek to escape from infinite wrath, if they felt it to be nigh! Lord, arouse me, and all around me, to a due estimate of eternal matters. Enable me to project my soul into the infinite. Break me free of this narrow present, and launch my soul upon the wide and open sea of the ages to come. Thou art in eternity, and let my soul even now dwell there with thee.

"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass." Many times the flower is gone when the stalk remaineth, so man oft-times seeth all that he hath been gathering a long time soon dissipated by the breath of providence, and he, like a withered, rotten stalk, liveth scorned and neglected. Alas, for such an one! What is the daffodil without its golden crown, or the crocus without its cup of sunshine? Such is man without the object of his life. What is the thorn without its rose, or the tree without its leaves, or the wood without the birds of song?

Such is man without the comforts and joys of his being. It is ill to exist when life is dead, to eat and drink when the taste has departed, to move among men when the heart is broken: yet are there thousands in this condition: a blight is on them, their flower and glory are withered, and they are as those who go down into the pit. So have we seen a tree smitten by lightning standing still among its fellows, but no longer adding to the verdure of the forest. It has been, and this is all that we can say of it, for its continuance is but in semblance. Who has not seen men in a like condition? Alas! for those who have no hereafter when this present faileth them, for they fall indeed, and wither with a vengeance. Blessed is the man who lives in God, for no such withering shall happen to him. God is his crown and glory, the flower of his true being, and God cannot fail him. He shall be as a tree planted by the rivers of water, and not so much as his leaf shall wither. Lord, make me to live on thy word, which abideth for ever, and then when flesh, like grass, shall fade, I shall find eternal joy in thee.

Even as a man that passeth through a strong flood or stream on foot, lest he stumble and fall down, setteth his eye steadily upon the firm land which he mindeth to attain unto, and marketh not the swift course of the water, and so goeth over safely, and is nothing dismayed; so, likewise, a sound and good Christian, passing the raging waves of present troubles, turneth away his sight, his thought, and all apprehension that he might otherwise have of the misery of them, and, lifting up his eyes to heaven, beholdeth there, with a spiritual regard, the inestimable treasures of the heavenly inheritance, which he striveth unto; and by this means easily surmounteth all horror and fear of torments and griefs, which commonly make alterations in men's heads, and casteth them headlong into desperation. Cawdray.

Existence is not to be measured by mere duration. At oak lives for centuries; generation after generation of mortals the meanwhile passing away; but who would exchange for the life of a plant, though protracted for ages, a single day of the existence of a living, conscious, thinking man?

— Dr. Caird

In what does the summum bonum, the supreme good, consist? Four different opinions on this question obtained from the ancients. Plato answers, "We must find happiness by taking an interest in the things of life: we must love life, but remember, that, after death, we shall live again." Epicurus said, "Live: accept life without thinking of ever living again after death." Zeno answers, "We must take no interest in this life: in a measure, we must make ourselves independent of life, and not live at all. We must become even from the present a free power, a god. We must triumph over fate, emancipate our natures, free them from all restraints, sure as we are, that, after this life, our connection with this world is forever broken off." St. Augustine, the Christian father, says, "Be not over-interested in this life: think, with Plato, that it is only a state contrary to the original nature of man; and like Zeno, that this chain will not last very long, not reproduce itself; but instead of seeking, like Zeno, a Saviour in yourself, seek him in God alone, the wisdom which has become incarnate in Jesus Christ our Lord."

— Dr. Haven

The principles that are now implanted in thy bosom will grow, and one day reach maturity; and in that maturity thou wilt find thy heaven or thy hell. Nothing so momentous as principles. As sure as August shows the work of the farmer, so sure thy futurity will show the principles thou art cultivating now. "Buy," then, "the truth;" buy it at any cost,—for any amount of labor, sacrifice, or talent,—buy it, and, when thou hast it, sell it not! Sell it not for pleasure, for prosperity, for fame, or for life. Get holy principles, and thou shalt get the pinions of an angel, which shall bear thee above all the clouds and storms of earth, into the sunshine and the calm of eternity. Dr. Thomas.