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104 Sermon Illustrations on Prayer

104 illustrations Page 3 of 3

Prayer in Christian preaching is depicted as a vital, faith-filled communication with God that fosters trust, revival, and spiritual breakthrough (Philippians 4:6-7). Illustrations often use images of persistent, humble petitioning, the power of agreement in 'amen,' and the transformative effects of prayer on individuals and communities (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

"Sir, Who Have You Been Talking With?"

A child's innocent curiosity reveals the mystery of prayer to unbelievers.

There lived in the town of — in Vt. (says a correspondent of the Christian Mirror,) a man who had a large family of children. He was poor; and unable to keep them at home, he put some of them away from home to live. It was the favored lot of a little girl, I think, about eight years of age, to fall into a family, where daily prayers were offered up to Almighty God. Prayer she was unacquainted with. The subject was new to her. At home she never heard a prayer. An astonishment seized her, when she saw her master, night and morning, standing in one corner of the room, talking, as she termed it, with something that she could not see. An anxiety swelled in her little bosom to know who it could be. Unwilling to ask any one of the family with whom she lived, yet solicitous to know, she obtained leave to go home. She had hardly reached the lonely cottage, before she asked her mother who it was that her master talked with, when standing in the corner of the room night and morning. She told her that she did not know, being herself a heathen though in a Christian land. Not satisfied, she asked her father, who answered in a thoughtless and inhuman manner, "The devil I suppose." The little inquisitive child returned uninformed to her master, where she witnessed the same promptitude and holy ardor as before. Not many days had elapsed, before she summoned fortitude enough to put the question.

One morning, after her master had been talking with the unknown being, she stepped up before him, and said, "Sir, who have you been talking with this morning?" The question was so unexpected, and from such a source, that at first he felt unable to answer her; and was unusually impressed with the importance of the duty of prayer, and the weight of obligation resting upon him to approach God aright. But after recollecting himself a little, he said, and that with reverence, "I have been trying to talk with God." "God!" said she with astonishment, "where is he? where does he live?" &c. Many questions of a similar nature she put with much interest and feeling to which her master gave her such answers as were calculated to awaken the liveliest feelings of her mind, in regard to Jehovah. After she had learned all her little mind could contain of divine things, she desired to go home and see her parents, with an earnestness that could not be resisted. Go she must; leave was granted; she went home to her father's cottage, a place where prayer was not wont to be made, with her little bosom beating with a high tone of pious feeling in view of the importance of prayer. She went to her father, and said, "Father, pray." She urged with warmth a compliance; but he utterly refused. She then went to her mother and asked her to pray; but with no better success. She could not endure it any longer; her feelings must vent themselves in words. She said, let us pray. She knelt down and prayed, and it appears to me, that scripture was fulfilled. "The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much." In answer to her prayer, both of her parents were brought under conviction, which terminated in hopeful conversion to God. And this was the beginning of an extensive revival of religion.

from Cyclopaedia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes · Kazlitt Arvine

An Infidel Converted

A blasphemer's attendance at a prayer meeting led to his eventual conversion.

A writer in the Christian Witness, speaking of the conversion of some of Abner Kneeland's followers, says: One is so remarkable that we cannot forbear relating it to our readers. The subject of it is a young man, engaged in a public establishment, and in the employ of a pious individual. His former efforts to introduce his baneful doctrines into the establishment, were a source of great annoyance to his employer. He embraced every opportunity to expose to visitors his utter contempt of all the sacred things of the gospel.—His bold blasphemies, and his scornful sneers, were alike shocking to decency and religion. The vile print which weekly disseminates its moral poison through our community, he contrived as frequently as possible to bring under the notice of the visitors of the establishment, though his employer as vigilantly sought to destroy it, whenever introduced there.—Withal, he was given to occasional fits of intemperance, in which his treatment to his family rendered him a terror, where he ought to have been a comfort and support. His great usefulness in the establishment, alone reconciled his employer to the utterance of his wicked principles, and his vicious conduct. To manifest his contempt for the ordinances of religion, and his open defiance of the God of the Bible, he laid a wager with his profane companions, that he would attend a Methodist prayer meeting in his neighborhood, and go forward to be prayed for. And now mark how God brings good out of evil. He went—and his hardhead carried him through the accomplishment of his wicked purpose. But perhaps his conscience was not so much at ease as his demeanor indicated; perhaps the rude impertinence of his blasphemy startled even his own proud heart, and awakened his attention to the things he was endeavoring to ridicule; perhaps his character and purposes were known to "the sons of God," so that they adapted their supplications to the dreadful enormity of his sins. Whatever may have been the immediate influence by which he was moved, certain it is that the Spirit of God strove with him, and subdued the stubborn rebellion of his heart. Conscience arose in its intended and outraged majesty; and like Esau, when he had lost his birthright, he "lifted up a great and bitter cry." He went forth from the house of prayer, his spirit bowed within him, and his very frame sympathizing in its strong commotion. He has found peace in believing. The influence of his change wrought upon her with whose happiness his principles had hardly less to do than with his own; and they both entered on probation as candidates for full communion in the denomination by whose pious instrumentality the husband was first called to the knowledge of the truth.

from Cyclopaedia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes · Kazlitt Arvine conversion

Dr. Mason And The Dying Unitarian

A dying infidel woman was convicted and converted after a minister's prayer by her bedside.

The Rev. Dr. Mason, of New-York, was once requested to visit a lady in dying circumstances, who, together with her husband, openly avowed infidel principles, though they attended on his ministry. On approaching her bedside, he asked her if she felt herself a sinner, and perceived the need of a Savior. She frankly told him, she did not; and that she wholly disbelieved the doctrine of a Mediator. "Then," said the doctor, "I have no consolation for you; not one word of comfort. There is not a single passage in the Bible that warrants me to speak peace to any one who rejects the Mediator provided for lost sinners. You must abide the consequences of your infidelity." Saying that, he was on the point of leaving the room, when some one said, "Well, but doctor, if you cannot speak consolation to her, you can pray for her." To this he assented, and kneeling down by the bedside, prayed for her as a guilty sinner, just sinking into hell; and then arising from his knees, he left the house. A day or two after, he received a letter from the lady herself, earnestly desiring that he would come and see her without delay. He immediately obeyed the summons; but what was his amazement, when, on entering the room, she held out her hand to him, and said, with a benignant smile, "It is all true; all that you said on Sunday is true. I have seen myself the wretched sinner which you described me to be in prayer. I have seen Christ that all-sufficient Savior you said he was; and God has mercifully snatched me from the abyss of infidelity in which I was sunk, and placed me on the Rock of ages. There I am secure; there I shall remain. I know in whom I have believed!" All this was like a dream to him; but she proceeded, and displayed as accurate a knowledge of the way of salvation revealed in the gospel, and as firm a reliance on it, as if she had been a disciple of Christ for many years. Yet there was nothing like boasting or presumption—all was humility, resignation and confidence. She charged her husband to educate their daughter in the fear of God; and, above all, to keep from her those novels and books of infidel sentimentality, by which she had been nearly brought to ruin. On the evening of the same day, she expired in fullness of joy and peace in believing.

Schoolmaster Preparing To Pray

An infidel schoolmaster praying reluctantly in woods was convicted of God's existence and converted.

A minister relates a very extraordinary fact, which he had from a gentleman of respectability. In one of the Southern cities, an instructor was wanted to take the charge of a school. A gentleman well qualified by talents, made application for the situation, and was appointed. On becoming acquainted with the duties which he must perform, he found, to his surprise, that one of the requisitions which were made on the instructor was, that he must daily open the school by prayer. As he was an infidel in his opinions, this was to him an appalling condition. How could he, with his peculiar views, attempt to pray to a God, in whose existence and attributes he did not believe? Here was a mortal struggle. As, however, he greatly coveted the situation, to which at his own request he had been appointed, he came to the conclusion he would endeavor to surmount the difficulty, by learning in some way a form of prayer. The time drawing near when he must open the school, he retired to a forest of woods in the vicinity, where he might be perfectly free in expressing himself audibly and without interruption, resolving to do so as if it were the first day of opening the school. He commenced, but before leaving the woods, light darted on his mind, and conviction arrested his conscience. He became deeply sensible of the being and perfections of Almighty God, against whom he had transgressed in denying his existence; and when the season arrived for commencing his duties as a teacher, he had become a true Christian, and he prayed with the auction and penitence of the publican. He became the instrument of the conversion of a number of his pupils, and was afterwards an acceptable and highly popular preacher of the gospel.

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