7 Sermon Illustrations on Faith And Trials

"Plenty of blossoms do not always foretell great store of fruit." Few knit out of the many flowers which make promise of apples. It has ever been so, and he is an unwise man who dreams that his trees will be exempted from the universal law. The same rule holds good in all earthly matters. Out of many hopeful results which we look for from our plans and labours some must fail us. Because we make appointments for ourselves, and forget the appointments of God, we meet with many more disappointments than would otherwise fall to our lot. It is of no use reckoning that every egg in our basket will become a chicken, for it will not so happen, and our over anticipation will be the cause of needless sorrow to us. Every prudent merchant reckons upon a certain amount of bad debt and loss in his trading, and when it comes he writes it off as a part of his estimated charges, and is not broken-hearted; our wisdom lies in doing the same with all earthly hopes, and even with the visible results of our service for the Lord. Whether this or that will prosper we must leave with the Master; it is ours to sow with unwearied hand both at morning and at night.

Whoever takes pains to survey the circle of the sciences will perceive that there is not one to which difficulties are not attached, and against which objections may not be raised. Those who profess a natural religion are involved in similar difficulties, and must throw it away, as well as the gospel, if a full and satisfactory answer to every objection be essential to their belief; so that the deist is, in this respect more nearly on a level with the Christian than he is aware.

Col. A. J. Edgerton, while commanding a brigade in Louisiana, in which sickness and death were extremely prevalent, was requested to prohibit religious meetings, as "religion tended to depress the spirits of the men," and to injure their health. He caused a careful examination to be made, and learned, that, while two-fifths of the whole regiment had died, only one-eighth of the Christians in it had died.

Dea. Eaton, a missionary on the Erie canal, once came in contact with an infidel on a canal boat, who urged him into a dispute about the divinity of Jesus Christ. At first he proposed to argue the question on the ground of the Scriptures, but being confounded by Dea. Eaton's reading I John, chapter v., he declared that the Bible was nothing but man's invention. "I saw," says Dea. E., "that he appeared to be very angry, and left him; but during the whole afternoon, whenever he had an opportunity, he would vent some of his spite upon me. When we came to Syracuse, where we changed packets, I thought I should stop, and was bidding the passengers farewell. Among the rest I shook hands with the infidel's wife, and said to her, 'I hope you will alter your belief before I see you again.' He saw me talking to her, and coming along, struck off my hand with which I held hers, and said, 'Let the woman alone. If you wish to attack any one, try me, but don't abuse the woman."

I asked his pardon, and told him I intended no abuse to any one. I finally concluded to go in the packet, and as the boat started many of the passengers went on deck, and among the rest the infidel and his wife. I was in the cabin when a man came down in great haste, and inquired for a bottle of camphor; he said a man had fainted on deck. Without knowing who it was, it struck me immediately that it was the infidel, and that God had destroyed him. I went on deck, and sure enough the infidel was dead. A gentleman with whom he was conversing, said he was railing against me, and saying I was sponging my living, when he fell in a moment with a half-uttered curse on his lips. They were trying to bring him back to life, but I saw that there were no hopes that he would ever breathe again. He was dead the moment he reached the deck, and then presented the most awful object I had ever looked upon. His eyes were open, and his countenance indicated awful despair. It was a solemn moment, as still as the house of death. One of the boatmen said to me, "It will not do to fight against God."