3 Sermon Illustrations on Preaching Ministry

A preacher was suddenly called out of town and he asked the new youth minister to conduct services on Sunday. When he returned, he asked his wife how the young man had done. "Not so well," she reported. "It was the poorest sermon I had ever heard-nothing to it at all." Meeting the youth minister later, the preacher asked him how he had managed. "Pretty good, I guess," replied the young man. "As I did not have time to prepare anything myself, I just used one of your sermons."

Complaints against long religious ser vices are very frequent. Few things appear so bad to some persons as to be kept in the house of God more than one or two hours. Let us see how it was in the seventeenth century. Mr. Howe was then minister of Great Torrington, in Devonshire. His labors here were characteristic of the times. On the public fasts, it was his common method to begin about nine in the morning, with a prayer for about a quarter of an hour, in which he begged a blessing on the work of the day; and afterwards read and expounded a chapter or psalm, in which he spent about three-quarters of an hour; then prayed an hour; preached another hour; and prayed again for half an hour. After this, he retired, and took a little refreshment for a quarter of an hour or more, the people singing all the while. He then returned to the pulpit, prayed for another hour, gave them another sermon of about an hour's length; and so concluded the service of the day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, with half an hour or more of prayer.