5 Sermon Illustrations on Parables

At a marriage, the procession of which I saw some years ago, the bridegroom came from a distance; and the bride lived at Scrampore, to which place the bridegroom was to come by water. After waiting for two or three hours, at length, near midnight it was announced, as if in the very words of Scripture, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh! go ye out to meet him." All the persons employed now lighted their lamps, and ran with them in their hands to fill up their stations in the procession. Some of them had lost their lights, and were unprepared; but it was then too late to seek them: and the cavalcade moved on to the house of the bride, at which place the company entered a large and splendidly-illuminated area before the house, covered with an awning, where a great multitude of friends, dressed in their best apparel, were seated upon mats. The bridegroom was carried in the arms of a friend, and placed in a superb seat in the midst of the company, where he sat a short time, and then went into the house, the door of which was immediately closed, and guarded by Sepoys. I and others expostulated with the doorkeepers, but in vain. Never was I so struck with our Lord's beautiful parable as at this moment. "And the door was shut." Ward.

A parable is not, like a looking-glass, to represent all forms and faces, but a well-drawn picture, to remonstrate that person whereof it is a counterfeit. It is like a knife: with the haft it cuts not; with the back it cuts not; it cuts with the edge. A candle is made to light us, not to heat us: a stove is made to heat us, not to light us.

— T. Adams

The seeds of plants are often covered with a flinty case, or wrapped in a bathing-coat, and may lie dormant for years. They contain in themselves all the nourishment required for germination, and, as soon as favorable conditions are reached, awaken to active life. Many seeds have feathery appendages, so that the wind takes them up, and wafts them far from the place of growth, perhaps to the isles of the sea. Some seeds have wings, as the maple and birch, and fly with the wind. Streams, rivers, floods, and tides carry the seeds from land to land. The beasts of the earth, and birds of the air, as well as whirlwinds and floods, scatter the seed. O sower of the good seed, rejoice!