12 Sermon Illustrations on The Love of Christ

The chief element in the gospel is love. The atmosphere is sometimes terrible with thunder, and riven with lightning, impregnated with pestilence, and charged with destruction; but it is generally and chiefly a means of health, filled with beautiful sounds, fragrant with sweetest odors, hung with golden drapery, the pathway of sunbrows, the womb of refreshing showers, the source of sparkling dew, the parent of harvests and fountain of earthly life: so is the gospel of the blessed God. Dr. Guthrie.

”Mamma,” said a child to her mother when she was being put to bed, “what makes your hand so scarred and twisted, and unlike other people’s hands?” “Well,” said the mother, “when you were younger than you are now, years ago, one night, after I had put you to bed, I heard a cry upstairs. I came up, and found the bed was on fire, and you were on fire; and I took hold of you, and I tore off the burning garments, and while I was tearing them off and trying to get you away I burned my hand, and it has been scarred and twisted ever since, and hardly looks any more like a hand; but I got that, my child, trying to save you.”

James Freeman Clarke, on his seventy-eighth birthday, wrote this significant bit of verse:

Be happy now and ever That from the love divine no power the soul shall sever: For not our feeble nor our stormy past, Nor shadows from the future backward cast; Not all the gulfs of evil far below, Nor mountain-peaks of good which soar on high Into the unstained sky, Nor any power the universe can know; Not the vast laws to whose control are given The blades of grass just springing from the sod, And stars within the unsounded depths of heaven-- Can touch the spirit hid with Christ in God. For nought that He has made, below, above, Can part us from His love.

Why does this beautiful girl, that once was the center of attraction, in every reception, now hang over the cradle, refuse honors and give herself by day and by night to this little babe that puts helpless arms around the neck, that once flashed with jewels? We can only say that the mother is built that way. Why do robins sing? Why does the sunbeam warm? Why does summer ripen purple clusters? Why is a rose red? And a rainbow beautiful? When we can answer, we may be able to say why God loves His weak and sinful children. He loves them because it is His nature to love them.

— N. D. HILLIS

Ellen sat at the piano practising. The big clock in the corner was slowly ticking away the seconds, and the hands pointed to half-past ten.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Ellen. “A whole half hour more; and the clock seems to move more slowly than usual. How I hate this everlasting practising! I wish there were no such things as pianos in the world!”

“Why, Ellen!” said mama, who had entered the room in time to hear the last sentence. “A year ago you were coaxing father to buy you a piano. Are you growing tired of it so soon?”

The little girl’s face flushed. “I did not know it was such hard work, mama; and I can’t bear to stay in the house a whole hour this bright morning, just drumming at exercises. I would like to play pretty pieces.”

“You must be patient, dear,” answered her mother. “The pretty pieces will come in time. Think how delightful it will be, by and by, to entertain father when he comes home tired from the office! You know how he loves music. So keep up your courage, little daughter, for father’s sake.”

The words lingered in the child’s memory. “For father’s sake,” she would say to herself when the hours seemed long. And love gave her patience.

Love always brings patience. Life’s exercises are often hard and unmusical. But, little by little, they are preparing us for the heavenly harmonies above.

We can not go so far That home is out of sight; The morn, the evening star, Will say, “Good-day!” “Good-night!” The heart that loves will never be alone; All earth, all heaven it reckons as its own.