14 Sermon Illustrations on Spiritual Gifts

Earthly t hrones are generally built with steps up to them; the remarkable thing about the thrones of the eternal kingdom is that the steps are all down to them. We must descend if we would reign, stoop if we would rise. Some think that God put His best gifts on a high shelf for them to reach up to them. It does not take long, however, for a Christian to realize that the best gifts are in the lower shelves, that the babes may get them also. A Lesson from the Gulls Some time ago in Reader's Digest there was a short article about a group of sea gulls that was starving to death in St. Augustine. They were not starving because of a food shortage but because they had forgotten how to fish. For years they had depended on the shrimp fleet operating out of the harbor to toss them scraps from the nets. When the shrimp fleet moved to Key West, they began to starve. They had lost their natural ability to fish because they had not been using it. This is a rule of nature. If you do not use what you have, it will be taken from you. This is the lesson in the parable of the talents. The servant who did not use the one talent had it taken from him.

God's gift is always enough for any individual to accomplish something. If we compare it with what others have, we will find that there are two kinds of people-those who have never done anything with their gifts and those who have fully utilized theirs. You and I must say, "I may not accomplish as much as they have, but I'm going to give it all I've got!" We're never going to get anywhere unless we use the gifts God has given us. The One Talent Hide not thy talent in the earth, However small it be; Its faithful use, its utmost worth, God will require of thee. His own, which He hath lent on trust, He asks of thee again; Little or much, the claim is just, And thine excuses vain. Go, then, and strive to do thy part, Though humble it may be; The ready hand, the willing heart, Are all heaven asks of thee. - William Cutler

Paul compares the possessors of spiritual gifts to members of the human body because as the members of our body are none of our doing or deserving, neither are the spiritual gifts we possess. They are God's gifts entrusted to us for a purpose. If that purpose isn't fulfilled, His gifts are wasted. What's the use of having an eye or a hand that doesn't serve the entire body? A test of the genuineness of any gift is whether it benefits the body of Christ as a whole, or only the possessor. Does it tend to unite the body or to divide it? Does it make members who are different from us feel estranged or fellow members with us of one and the same body? A "Call" to Preach An elder of the church was talking to a young mechanic who thought he had a call to give up his shop and go into the ministry. "I feel," said the young enthusiast, "that I have had a call to preach." The elder, knowing his deficiencies as a speaker, shrewdly asked, "Have you noticed whether people seem to have a call to hear you?" Before you subject others to the sound of your voice, make sure that preaching comes naturally to you and that you have a call from God to exercise this ability. Paul knew he was "sent" to preach.

We know that the gifts which men have do not come from the schools. If a man is a plain, literal, factual man, you can make a great deal more of him in his own line by education than without education; just as you can make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it than if you do not: but no cultivation in this world will ever make an apple out of a potato. It can be developed; but it must be developed according to the laws of its own nature. Education will make it more, but will not change its nature. If a man was not born eloquent, he cannot be bred to eloquence; if a man was not born to a sense of color, he cannot be educated to a sense of color; if a man was not born to a sense of form, he cannot be educated to a sense of form; if a man was not born to a quick creative genius, he cannot be trained to it. Where these things exist, they are gifts in the beginning. Education makes them better, and more usable; but it cannot create in men what God did not create in them when he started them in life. Beecher.

He has gifted us with the innocent pleasures of sense. He has annexed enjoyment to every action of the life; so that, when body and mind are alike in health, we can neither eat, drink, walk, talk, or sleep, without sensations of pleasure. He has gifted us with powers of imagination, — made us susceptible of the rich poetry with which He has filled creation. He has given us the capacity for high thoughts and feelings. He has endowed us to expand, to analyze, to illustrate, to compare, to combine. He has gifted us with the principle of friendship. He has implanted in us the social nature. He has gifted us with the pleasures of hope, drawing comfort from every element of sorrow, and soothing each Marah of the heart's bitterness. He has gifted us with the pleasures of memory, emblaining the recollection of the past in an amber that never fades away, and that is proof against the corrupting influences of time, thrilling again the spirit with the pleasures that once thrilled the heart of youth. He has gifted us, above all, with the pleasures of holiness, the blessed feeling of conscious pardon, the calm satisfaction of assured faith, the enriching comfort of the Holy Ghost, — heaven around us, heaven within us, heaven beyond us, heaven above us, and the bright and cheering prospect of the enjoyment of that heaven ever. W. M. Punshon.

Cædmon knew nothing of literature, nor of verse, nor of song; so that when he was at table, and the harp came to him in his turn, he rose up and left the guests, and went his way. And it happened, on a certain occasion, that he had done so, and had gone into the stable, where it was his business to care for the horses; and he laid himself down to sleep. And in his sleep an angel appeared to him, and said, "Cædmon, sing to me a song." And he answered, "I cannot sing, and therefore I left the entertainment, and came hither, because I could not sing." And the other, answering him, said, "You shall sing, notwithstanding." He asked, "What shall I sing?" And the angel replied, "Sing the beginning of created beings." Thereupon Cædmon presently began to sing verses in praise of God, the Father and Creator of all things; and, awakening from his sleep, he remembered all he had sung in his dream, and added much more to the same effect in most melodious verse. Mrs. Jameson.

Johnson, it is said, never forgot any thing that he had seen, heard, or read. Burke, Clarendon, Gibbon, Locke, Tillotson, were all distinguished for strength of memory. Sir William Hamilton observes, "For intellectual power of the highest order, none were distinguished above Grotius and Pascal; and Grotius and Pascal forgot nothing they had ever read or thought. Leibnitz and Euler were not less celebrated for their intelligence than for their memory; and both could repeat the whole of the 'Encid.'" Ben Jonson tells us, that he could repeat all that he had ever written, and whole books that he had read. Themistocles could call by their names the twenty thousand citizens of Athens. Cyrus is reported to have known the name of every soldier in his army. Hortensius (after Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome), after sitting a whole day at a public sale, correctly enunciated, from memory, all the things sold, their prices, and the names of their purchasers. Niebuhr, the historian, was not less distinguished for his memory than for his acuteness. In his youth, he was employed in one of the public offices of Denmark. Part of a book of accounts having been destroyed, he restored it by an effort of memory. Dr. Winslow: