46 Sermon Illustrations on Perseverance in Faith

The snow covered the ground, and three young boys were playing in it. A man said to them, "Would you like to try to race, with the promise of a prize for the winner?" The boys agreed, and the man told them that his race was to be different. "I will go to the other side of the field," he said, "and when I give you the signal, you will start to run. The one whose footsteps are the straightest in the snow will be the winner." As the race commenced, the first boy began looking at his feet to see if his steps were straight. The second lad kept looking at his companions to see what they were doing; but the third boy just ran on with his eyes fixed on the man on the other side of the field. The third boy was the winner, for his footsteps were straight in the snow. He had kept his eyes on the goal ahead of him. A long time ago, another man using similar words taught the same principle. It was Paul who said, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

Dag Hammarskjold once wrote: "When the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles quiver under the strain, the climb seems endless, and suddenly nothing will go quite as you wish-it is then that you must not hesitate." He was unwilling to give up; he refused to quit! The successful life prescribed by Christ requires faithfulness until death: a hand on the plow with no looking back, steadfast perseverance; racing hard for the tape, fighting the good fight of faith. The devil loves it when we simply relax our efforts. He has a good day if we become discouraged. There are temptations to overcome, disappointments to handle, personal sins that beset us, burdens that depress us. And Satan is standing by urging that we quit trying. But wait; Christ is present. "Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart" (Hebrews 12:3). Someone once asked James J. Corbett, at that time heavyweight champion of the world, what was the most important thing a man must do to become a champion. He replied, "Fight one more round." The Duke of Wellington said that the British soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo were not any braver than Napoleon's soldiers-but they were brave for five minutes longer. That is about it for the Christian. A secret for success is: "fight just one more round. Be brave for five more minutes." It is the difference between defeat and victory.

* Some beginners are discouraged in their first attempts at a godly life, and so give over through despondency. They should remember that the bullock is most unruly at the first yoking, and that the fire at first kindling casts forth most smoke. They forget this, and therefore are tempted to give over religion and its graces as hopeless. When a man is new to the ways of God those duties are difficult which afterwards become easy. Use, in common life, is called second nature, and in gracious matters it helps our second nature. Gracious habit gives impetus to gracious action. Self-denials, which seem hard at first, become delights in due season, so that we even wonder that we thought them denials. Some things there are which are most easy in our first days of grace, but other things will be found to improve as we proceed upon the way: let not the young beginner be discouraged, but fully believe that "it is better on before." We have heard persons talk of the days of childhood as the happiest in mortal life, but we do not agree with them: the sorrows of childhood take a very intense possession of the little ones, and in their grief everything seems lost, whereas the full-grown mind is divided in sorrow, and other considerations come in to temper the wind of trouble. Even so, childhood in grace is by no means our best time; for its trials, though less in themselves, are greater to our weakness and rawness of mind. The yoke will be easier soon, and the fire will yet burn with a clearer blaze. Lord, help thy babe. Nurse me into vigour by thy good Spirit.

LEAD.

"Lead is lead still, whatever stamp it beareth." A change of form is a very different thing from a change of substance. You may cast lead into the shape of a shilling, but you cannot make silver of it. Now, the only change which can save us is a thorough transformation of nature, and this is as clearly beyond human power as the turning of lead into silver. When we see a great moral improvement in any man we ought to be glad, and to admire the power of conscience; but if the man's heart remains the same, the alteration is only casting a lump of lead into a pretty form. When the man's nature and disposition are radically altered, we may then exclaim, "This is the finger of God"—this is transmuting lead into silver. "Ye must be born again": nothing less will suffice. Lord, grant that I may truly know this change. If I am mistaken and have never been regenerated, be pleased to exercise thy gracious power upon me now, for Jesus' sake.

"A man will venture a knock that is in reach of a crown." The ambitious will run all risks of cruel wounds, and death itself, to reach a throne; the prize hardens them against all hazards. Even so will every wise man encounter all difficulties for the crown of life; and when, by faith, he sees it within reach, he will count all afflictions light through which he wades to glory. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him."

We read of a Christian youth on whom his persecutors put in practice a more than common share of their ingenuity, that, by his torments, they might compel him to deny his Lord and Saviour.

After a long endurance of those pains, they released him, in wonder at his obstinacy. His Christian brethren are said to have wondered too, and to have asked him by what mighty faith he could so strangely subdue the violence of the fire as that neither a cry nor a groan escaped him.

"It was indeed most painful," was the noble youth's reply; "but an angel stood by me when my anguish was at the worst, and, with his finger, pointed to heaven."

When Constantine was chosen emperor, he found several Christians in office; and he issued an edict, requiring them to renounce their faith, or quit their places. Most of them gave up their offices to preserve their consciences; but some cringed, and renounced Christianity. When the emperor had thus made full proof of their dispositions of character, he removed all who thus basely complied with his supposed wishes, and retained the others; saying, that those who would desert or deny their divine Master would desert him, and were not worthy of his confidence.

A mother and her seven sons were brought before the tyrant Antiochus in the persecution of the Jews, and offered a discharge if they would but taste swine's flesh. They unanimously refused, were "tormented with scourges and whips," but still refused. "What wouldst thou ask of us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers," they said. The enraged king ordered the speaker to be slain in the most excruciating manner. His mother and six brothers were compelled to witness his awful agony, yet, with unshaken constancy, exhorted one another to die manfully. The second son follows the first to martyrdom. The third stretched out his hands to the executioner to be cut off, saying, "These I had from Heaven, and for his laws I despise them." The fourth, fifth, and sixth sons endured torture and death with the same dauntless fidelity. The mother and her youngest son remain. The mangled members of her six sons strew the ground. Antiochus now lays bribes before the youth. Wealth and station are proffered him, if he will but taste. The nobler than Spartan mother addresses him, "I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise. Fear not this tormentor, but, being worthy of thy brethren, take thy death, that I may receive thee in mercy again with thy brethren." O wonderful woman! The record runs, "Last of all, after the sons, the mother died." These Jewish martyrs inherited the promise, being "faithful unto death."

It is not enough to begin in the spirit, and end in the flesh; it is not for him that runneth, but for him that runneth to the end, that persevereth, that the crown is reserved: it is he that shall eat of the hidden manna, — he that shall have the white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. Spencer.

William Reid, an old man-of-war's man, on board "The Owasco," during the battle of Galveston had two fingers shot away, and was ordered below, but, tying his handkerchief around his fingers, continued to do execution with his rifle. Half an hour later, he was shot through the shoulder, and was again ordered below, but replied, "No, sir: as long as there is any fighting to be done, I stay on deck." At the roll-call after the battle, he stood at his post, ready for duty, and was displeased when told that his place was in the hospital.

A little before the fall of Richmond, a telegram was received from Gen. Sheridan, announcing the capture of Ewell and other general officers, artillery, wagons, &c. He winds up his despatch in these words: "If the thing is pressed, I think Leo will surrender." Mr. Lincoln replied, "Let it be pressed." It was pressed, Leo surrendered, and the Confederacy disappeared from the map of the world.

The philosopher, being asked in his old age why he did not give over his practice, and take his case, answered, “When a man is to run a race of forty furlongs, would you have him sit down at the nine and thirtieth, and so lose the prize? We do not keep a good fire all day, and let it go out in the evening, when it is coldest; but then rather lay on more fuel, that we may go warm to bed.” He that slakes the heat of his zeal in old age will go cold to bed, and in a worse case to his grave. Though the beginning be more than half, yet the end is more than all. Spencer.

Sir Charles Napier, when in India, encountered an army of thirty-five thousand Belooches with two thousand men, of whom only four hundred were Europeans. He charged them in the centre up a high bank; and for three hours the battle was undecided. At last, they turned and fled. It is this sort of pluck, tenacity, and determined perseverance, which wins soldiers' battles, and, indeed, every battle. It is the one neck nearer that wins the race, and shows the blood; the one pull more of the oar that proves the "beefiness of the fellow," as Oxford men say; it is the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes' more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force be less than another's, you equal and outmaster your opponent if you continue it longer, and concentrate it more. The reply of the Spartan father who said to his son, when complaining that his sword was too short, "Add a step to it," is applicable to every thing in life. Smiles.

No grace, no, not the most sparkling and shining grace, can bring a man to heaven of itself without perseverance; not faith (which is the champion of grace), if it be faint, and fail; nor love (which is the nurse of grace), if it decline and wax cold; nor humility (which is the adorner and beautifier of grace), if it continue not to the end; not obedience, not repentance, not patience, no, nor any other grace, except they have their perfect work. It is not enough to begin well, except we end well. Manasseh and Paul began ill, but ended well; Judas and Demas began well, but ended ill. Brooks.

At the battle of Meeance, an officer who had been doing good service came up to Gen. Sir Charles Napier, and said, "Sir Charles, we have taken a standard!" The general looked at him, but made no reply, and, turning round, began to speak to some one else; upon which the officer repeated, "Sir Charles, we have taken a standard!" The general turned sharp round upon him, and said, "Then take another."

All the voyage is lost through the perilous sea of this world if we suffer shipwreck in the haven, and lose our reward there, where we should have received it. What get we if we keep Satan short of ruling us with his force many hours, when at our last hour he shall snatch our bliss from us? The runner speeds all the way: but he comes at the race's end to the goal; he stretcheth forth his hand to catch the prize. Be sure of thy last step, — to put forth the hand of faith then most strongly, lest the reward be lost which thou, with much labor, hast aimed at. T. Adams.

Two Christian ladies, whose husbands were unconverted, feeling their great danger, agreed to spend one hour each day in united prayer for their salvation. This was continued for seven years; when they debated whether they should pray longer, so useless did their prayers appear, and decided to persevere till death, and, if their husbands went to destruction, it should be loaded with prayers. In renewed strength, they prayed three years longer; when one of them was awakened in the night by her husband, who was in great distress for sin. As soon as the day dawned, she hastened, with joy, to tell her praying companion that God was about to answer their prayers. What was her surprise to meet her friend coming to her on the same errand! Thus ten years of united and persevering prayer was crowned with the conversion of both husbands on the same day.

A young slave was converted in the West Indies, whose master flogged him, and finally resolved to whip him to death if he did not renounce his religion. While the lash was being cruelly applied, his master tauntingly asked, "What does your Jesus do for you now?" The slave replied, "He helps me to bear dese strokes, massa, with patience. In the very agony of death, the question was repeated. The slave-boy answered feebly, "Even dis, massa, — dat me can pray for you, and forgive you."

St. Thomas Aquinas was called the "Dumb Ox" by his fellow-pupils at Cologne on account of his silence and apparent stupidity. His teacher detected the genius that was wrapped up under his taciturnity, and remarked, that, if that ox should once begin to bellow, the world would be filled with its noise. He was afterwards known as the "Angel of the Schools" and the "Angelic Doctor." Wheeler.

It is a lovely spectacle to behold the timid and feeble defending the citadel of truth; not with hard blows of logic, or sounding cannonade of rhetoric, but with that tearful earnestness and implicit confidence against which the attacks of revilers are utterly powerless. Overthrown in argument, they overcome by faith; covered with contempt, they think it all joy if they may but avert a solitary stain from the escutcheon of their Lord. "Call me what thou wilt," says the believer, "but speak not ill of my Beloved. Here, plough these shoulders with your lashes, but spare yourselves the sin of cursing him! Ay, let me die: I am all too happy to be slain if my Lord's most glorious cause shall live." Spurgeon.

We do not value an intermitting spring so much as the clear brooklet which our childhood knew, and which has laughed on its course unheeding, and which could never be persuaded to dry up, though it has had to battle against the scorchings of a jubilee of summers' suus. We do not guide ourselves by the glow-worm's bead of light, or with the marsh-lamp's fitful flame. No: we look to the ancient sun, which in our infancy struggled through the window, and danced upon the wall of the nursery, as if he knew how much we delighted to see him light up the flower-cup, and peep through the shivering leaf. And, for ourselves, we do not value the affection of a stranger awakened by some casual congeniality, and displayed in kindly greeting or in occasional courtesy. Our wealth is in the patient bearing, and the unnoticed deed, and the anticipated wish, and the ready sympathies, which make a summer and a paradise wherever there is a home. And not only in the natural and the social relations, but in the enterprise of the world, in the busy activities of men, the necessity for uniformity in earnestness is readily acknowledged. Society very soon brands a man if he has not got a perseverance as well as an earnestness about him. Society very soon puts its mark upon the man who lodges in a succession of Utopias; the unwearied but the objectless builder who never roofs his house, either because he was unable to finish, or because some more brilliant speculation dazzled the builder's brain. The world has got so matter-of-fact now, that it jostles the genius off the footpath; while the plodder, whose eye sparkles less brilliantly, but more evenly and longer, steadily proceeds on his way to success.

— W. M. Punshon

A little boy in destitute circumstances was put out as an apprentice to a mechanic. For some time he was the youngest apprentice, and of course had to go upon errands for the apprentices, and not unfrequently to procure for them ardent spirits, of which all, except himself, partook, because, as they said, it did them good. He however used none; and, in consequence of it, was often the object of severe ridicule from the older apprentices, because, as they said, he had not sufficient manhood to drink rum. And as they were reveling over their poison, he, under their insults and cruelty, often retired and vented his grief in tears. But now every one of the older apprentices, we are informed, is a drunkard, or in the drunkard's grave; and this youngest apprentice, at whom they used to scoff, is sober and respectable, and worth a hundred thousand dollars. In his employment are about one hundred men, who do not use ardent spirits; and he is exerting upon many thousands an influence in the highest degree salutary, which may be transmitted by them to future generations, and be the means, through grace, of preparing multitudes not only for usefulness and respectability on earth, but for an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

In 1828 or 9, a lad in Kentucky was hopefully converted, whose father was a decided enemy of the gospel of Christ; and while his affectionate son entreated him with tears to seek the favor of his Maker, he turned away with scoffing and profaneness.

It is true that the Christian character shines most beautiful in adversity. It gathers fragrance from affliction. So it was in the instance before us. This lad had learned in the school of Christ; and though he received in return the unkindest treatment, he continued his entreaties to his ungrateful parent.

The father at length became enraged, and in a fit of passion told his son to quit his religion, or he should quit his father's house. He gave him until the next morning to decide the question.

The night, as we may well suppose, was spent by this young disciple in laying his complaints before God; and He whose ear is never closed to the supplications of humble and contrite hearts, was graciously pleased to afford him relief.

The morning came. The father, firm to his purpose, demanded of the son if he had made his decision. "Yes, father," said the faithful boy, "I am decided to serve God—to serve him as long as I live—and I feel assured, that 'when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.'— The inflexible father directed him to the door—to leave his house forever. The son begged permission to pray with his parents once more, before he bade them a final adieu. So reasonable a request could not be refused. He kneeled down and prayed. The fullness of his soul was poured out, and his ardent cries went up to the throne of God. The Holy Spirit descended, and both father and mother fell upon the floor, under the oppressive weight of their sins.

When the lad rose from his knees, the hearts of his parents relented; they besought him to tell them what they should do to be saved. In the spirit of the gospel he directed them to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. There was no need of his entreaties now. God had opened their eyes to see the enormity of their guilt, and they could never have peace till they found it in the hopes of the gospel. These hopes they were soon led to cherish, and at the time this account was related, they were adorning the church of Christ.

311. Prayer Answered by the agency of the Holy Spirit, in Various Interesting Revivals.

In the summer of 1825 (says a gentleman) I left the tract entitled "The Swearer's Prayer," in a place where it would be found by a companion who was notoriously wicked and profane. A few weeks afterwards, I went to the place where I had left it, and found it with a few lines written on the margin with a pencil, of which I do not recollect the precise words; but the amount was as follows: "The writer has erred in thinking that a pack of lies is a proper means of breaking a bad habit; and it would be better for him who has left this here not to repeat such an insult." I wrote at the bottom, "Reprove a wise man, and he will love thee;" and left the tract in the same place. At my next visit I found it torn into a number of small pieces. I was immediately reminded of a fact recorded in ancient history, of a certain king, who, on receiving a petition from a poor person, hastily glanced at it, and returned it unanswered. The petition was presented the next day, and treated in the same manner. The petitioner repeatedly presented it with the same ill success, until, at last, the king being exasperated with her importunity, tore it to atoms. These were carefully gathered up, stitched together, and again presented. The king, struck with her perseverance, read the petition, and immediately returned a favorable answer. This circumstance being brought to my mind, I determined to try a similar experiment. The fragments were put together in their proper order, and replaced in the drawer in which the tract had before been laid. Soon after, the tract disappeared, and I heard nothing more of it until eight months afterwards, when I had a conversation with the person for whom it was intended, and he said, that he had determined, by the grace of God, to leave off the practice of swearing. He had treated "The Swearer's Prayer" with contempt when he first saw it; but, when he found the fragments re-united, he believed that I was in earnest. He took the tract home, read it carefully, and resolved to swear no more. He had determined not to part with the tract as long as he lived. A great reformation in his conduct has taken place, and I cannot but hope that a work of Divine grace has been begun in his heart.