9 Sermon Illustrations on Gospel Preaching

"The lazy world would fain lie upon the bed of ease, draw the curtains and rest, and therefore light is troublesome to it. In these days men begin to tire of gospel music, and thirst and pant for the old unsavoury moral strains, which deal with sin in general, and do not irritate men by close personal applications. Faithful preachers are like those men whose business it is to arouse slumbering workmen and call them to their labours. The sound is not welcome to those who desire a little more slumber; they wish no blessings upon the head of the noisy watchman. Yet if they be aroused and reach their work betimes they have a good word in the end for him who caused them to be up and doing. The watchman should not take notice of a hasty word from one half awake; he may rest content that he will have their good word by-and-by. Manton was right in his suspicion that mere moral preaching would continue to have its admirers. Many nowadays reckon it a crime for the preacher to be rousing and personal; they prefer a good sound moralist who will tell servants their duty, and let their masters and mistresses sleep. O that men were wise, for then they would count him to be the best preacher who the most earnestly calls them out of their beds of sinful ease to seek and find salvation. None do this but spiritual, gospel preachers. Your "moral" teacher pretends to be very practical, and yet if you watch for the results of his efforts what will you see? When you have looked through a microscope you will only say, "there is nothing," for truly there are no results worth mentioning. Sin is a serpent which these moralists cannot tame, charm they never so wisely. Lord, help us to cry aloud, and spare not till the slumberers arise; and let us use thy truth as the best awakener. Let thy light shine on sluggards and awaken them. If these things suffice not, O Lord, thunder at them, and by some means break their death-sleep."

It is related that near the North Pole, the night lasting for months, when the people expect the day is about to dawn, some messengers go up to the highest point to watch; and when they see the first streak of day, they put on their brightest possible apparel, and embrace each other and say, “Behold the sun.” The cry goes all around the land, “Behold the sun.” We see signs and wonders being done through Jesus. And as we see the dawning of the light in almost every nation under heaven, let us cry out to every human soul, “Behold the sun.” (Text.)

If William Booth's church could handle sticks and stones in the 1880s, it should withstand the recent barrage of hateful words.

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According to a memo leaked to The Washington Post last week, the Salvation Army was hoping to swing a deal with the Bush administration: the Army would support his faith-based initiative if he protected them from local laws requiring employers to provide benefits for employees' same-sex partners. As extensively documented in CT Weblog (appearing daily at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct), the media went bananas, accusing the Salvation Army of everything from "injecting religious views into secular activities" to issuing a "call to hate." According to the rabid newspaper columnists, letting city councils adjudicate doctrine is more appropriate than letting a church (for the Salvation Army is first and foremost a Christian church) manage its own affairs.

Aggravating as this assault must be to the Salvationists, they've weathered worse.

William Booth (1829-1912), who founded the Army along with his wife, Catherine, started his ministry in England's Wesleyan Methodist church. Soon after his conversion, teenage Booth invited a group of street people to his chapel. The elders resented the intrusion and told him not to bring them again. Booth eventually became a minister with the denomination, but in 1850, due to a misunderstanding, the church kicked him out. He tried the Reform Methodists and the Methodist New Connexion but decided by 1861 that he was done with "settled ministry." A few years later he organized the East London Christian Mission, which, in 1878, became the Salvation Army.

Booth's organization focused on evangelism, announcing, "The Christian Mission has met in Congress to make War. It has organized a Salvation Army to carry the blood of Christ and the fire of the Holy Ghost into every corner of the world." At first, though, Booth's "world" included almost exclusively England's urban working-class and poor, from which he and 94 percent of the Army's officers hailed. Preaching the gospel in that environment naturally led to other sorts of ministry, like serving breakfast to homeless children and saving women from prostitution. Even Booth's theology of redemption grew to encompass both soul and body. He wrote in the article "Salvation for Both Worlds," "As Christ came to call not saints but sinners to repentance, so the New Message of Temporal Salvation, or salvation from pinching poverty, from rags and misery, must be offered to all."

Soon after its founding, the Army came under fire from a variety of sources. Some Christians didn't like Booth's interpretation of the Gospel. Passers-by resented street preachers' calls for repentance and the noise of Army bands. Bar owners bristled when formerly faithful customers got saved and stopped drinking. While concerned Christians usually attacked the new movement in print, other antagonists used fists, clubs, and knives. In 1882 alone, some 700 Army personnel in England were assaulted.

That's not all. According to Cyril Barnes, in God's Army (1978), "Some of the persecution suffered by Salvationists had much more serious effects. In Guildford, England, a woman died after being kicked and knocked insensible. ... In the U.S., a soldier of the corps at St. Louis was clubbed, stoned, and jumped upon until he died. A woman soldier was murdered at Pontiac, Michigan. A doorkeeper died from stabbing in San Francisco. A woman captain was shot and killed in Spokane, Washington."

In the midst of this persecution, the Army's ministry exploded. The number of officers grew to 190 by the end of 1879, then 233 eight months later. Work spread to the United States in 1879, Australia in 1880, and Canada, India, Switzerland, and Sweden in 1881. By 1883 the church had founded well over 500 centers of worship, each with at least one presiding officer.

Once, in 1882, an Army band in Sheffield was attacked by a gang called the Blades, who beat the Salvationists, pelted them with eggs, and ruined their instruments. When the troops mustered for inspection by Booth, he told them, "Now is the time to have your photographs taken!" Today's media snapshot of the church is equally unflattering, but if the ministry holds its ground, Booth would be equally proud.

* The story of the Salvation Army can be read in CH issue 26: William and Catherine Booth

* Historian Diane Winston chronicles the Army's shift in emphasis from evangelism to social services in Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army (Harvard, 2000)

* For links to related news stories, see http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct

A Unitarian minister who preached that wild doctrine of universal salvation, which is so popular just now, once met an old-fashioned Baptist brother, who was not a well educated man, but who had a crowded congregation, while his brother had only a dozen or two to hear him eloquently discourse. The Unitarian said, "I cannot make out how it is that there is such a difference in our congregations, you get so many to hear you, and I so few. I preach a very pleasing doctrine. I tell the people that all will be right with them at last. I do not worry them with any doctrines of repentance and faith and atonement, and yet they will not come to hear me. You preach a very dreary doctrine, and you tell the people that except they repent they shall perish and be cast into hell, and yet they crowd your place to hear you. How is that?" "Well," said the old man, "I think it is, my friend, because they have a shrewd suspicion that what I say is true, and that what you say is not true." There he hit the nail on the head. It is so. The conscience of men bids them distrust the word which tells them there will be no difference between the righteous and the wicked.