8 Sermon Illustrations on Sin and Redemption

Have you heard about the little fellow in their group who was working diligently on his ABC Memory Book? He always looked like a little professor. His mother took him to the eye specialist, who had the young chap sit on the chair for examination. He placed the card with the letters on the wall in front of him and said, "Will you read it for me, please?" Sure enough, the boy did not hesitate for a moment and said distinctly, "A-All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way."

The rabbins note a principle of nature,—that putrefaction is more dangerous before maturity than after; and another noteth a position in moral philosophy,—that men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners as those that are half good and half evil. Lord Bacon.

A sinner more than eighty years old said that he was powerfully convicted when twenty-one, but put off the impressions by promise of future amendment. The time for action came, but no feeling. Then he said, "I believe that I sinned against the Holy Ghost when I was twenty-one, and that I have lived sixty years since my day of grace was past. I know that I shall not be forgiven." When asked if I should pray for him, he replied, "Yes; but it will do no good." So fearfully certain was he of destruction! He continued in this state for weeks and months. All attempts to urge him to accept of salvation were in vain; this blighting sentiment was ever first in his thoughts: "It will do no good." His feelings were not contrition or repentance for sin, but the anticipation of wrath to come. And in this state he died. Rev. H. Norton.

An old couple living in the west of England had come up to a happy old age without ever a jarring word. The Devil looked upon them, and thought they were injuring his cause, and tried for over twenty years to create a quarrel between them. At length he became discouraged, and was about to give up the case, when he met a neighbor, who volunteered to do what he could not; for which she was to receive a pair of shoes. The old woman at once went to work. She told Mrs. Blumford, that a change was coming over her happy husband; but, to cure him, she must shave off the lock growing under his chin. She next met Mr. Blumford, and talked to him much in the same way. When he was asleep, Mrs. Blumford thought she would do as advised; but, as she held the razor in her hand, her husband awoke. From that time, there was constant wrangling between the old couple. The Devil hastened to meet his faithful emissary, and reward her for her success. He handed the shoes to her over a fence, on the end of a long pole. She asked him why he had handed them to her in that way. "Because," replied he, "any one who has the cunning and meanness to do as you have done don't get nearer than twenty feet of me." After a while, the old woman died; and, when she applied for admission to the lower regions, the Devil would not let her in for fear she might dethrone him, as she was so much his superior. So the old woman is yet condemned to wander over the world, creating quarrels and strife in peaceful families and neighborhoods. Her name is Madame Scandal. When she died, the young Scandals were left orphans; but the Devil, in consideration of the services done by the mother, adopted them; and so he is father to the respectable class called scandal-mongers.