32 Sermon Illustrations on Abiding in Christ

When the first missionaries went to St. Thomas, they could not get near the suffering and degraded slaves until they took part in their bondage and asked the masters to make them slaves also. Then they were received with perfect confidence and were able to bring multitudes of the poor suffering ones to Christ. They trusted them when they saw that they had become identified with their very own lives and lot. "Praise be to the Lord the God of Israel, because He has come and has redeemed His people" (Luke 1:68). But He comes closer. These missionaries could work by the side of the slave, but they could not come into their hearts.

When Lawrence of Arabia was in Paris after World War I with some of his Arab friends, he showed them the sights of the city: the Arch of Triumph, the Louvre, Napoleon's tomb, the Champs Elysees, but none of these things impressed them. The thing that really interested them the most was the faucet in the bathtub of the hotel room. They spent much time in turning it on and off. They found it amazing that one could turn a handle and get all the water he wanted. Later, when they were ready to leave Paris and return to the East, Lawrence found them in the bathroom with wrenches trying to disconnect the faucet. "You see," they said, "it is very dry in Arabia. What we need are faucets. If we have them, we will have all the water we want." Lawrence had to explain that the effectiveness of the faucets did not lie in themselves but in the immense reservoirs of water to which they were attached, and he had to point out that behind this lay the rain and snowfalls of the Alps. What a tremendous application to our Christian lives. Like the faucet by itself, so as individual Christians by ourselves, without Christ we are useless (John 15:5), "...apart from me you can do nothing." The lives of many Christians are as dry as the Arabian desert. They have their faucets, but there is no connection to the Living Water. May we trust God by faith so that our lives may be abundantly fruitful. Don't be a fruitless faucet.

In his observations on 1 Corinthians 2:1, J. Stuart Holden gives a beautiful illustration. He says, "I have around my home a garden. In that garden and its possibilities I have the mind of nature. For instance, I know what soil and what seed should produce this, that, and all the other kinds of flowers and fruit; I see set forth in the seedsmen's catalogues the wonderful things that the garden should bring forth.... But mark you, the flowers and the fruit are only produced by labor, by obedience to the laws of nature. When the garden has been made beautiful and fruitful, it has been made so only by intelligent cooperation with nature. Similarly, we Christians have the mind of Christ. We know full well what a Christian life should be." The fruits of the Spirit are only made evident in our lives as we wholeheartedly cooperate with the Lord in full submission and obedience to Him by letting His Spirit have full control of us-body, soul and spirit.

"The needle that hath been touched with the loadstone may be shaken and agitated, but it never rests until it turns towards the pole." Thus our heart's affections when once magnetized by the love of Christ find no rest except they turn to him. The cares and labours of the day may carry the thoughts to other objects, even as a finger may turn the needle to the east or west, but no sooner is the pressure removed than the thoughts fly to the Well-beloved just as the needle moves to its place. We are unable to rest anywhere but in Jesus. The new birth has disqualified us for contentment with the world, and hence we have no choice but to find our all in Christ. Blessed necessity! Driven to Jesus by an unrest which finds no remedy elsewhere! Drawn to Jesus by an impulse which we have no desire to resist! It is our life's business and our heart's delight to point to him so plainly that if any would see Jesus they have only to look in the direction in which our whole being is always pointing. We are subject to many deflections and disturbances, but thou knowest, O Lord, that our inmost soul seeks after thyself.

" As the flower of the sun doth follow the sun, and openeth and shutleth according to the absence of that luminary, so doth the heart of a Christian move after God. The divine nature within us followeth hard after the divine nature, and longeth to drink in its warmth and light. Everything acteth according to its nature. "We say, 'Aqua in tantum ascendit'; and it is true that neither water nor nature riseth higher than its spring-head and centre." So when self is our principle and end, we rise no higher than ourselves; but when God becometh the life of our soul we follow after him, and rise far above the highest point to which nature could conduct us. His grace in us strives to rise to the point from which it came, and it will never rest till it does so. This argues a high destiny for the believer, and is the foretaste of it. Hence the need to have a good and true beginning, and to draw our life from the eternal fountains above; for, apart from this, there will be no rising up to heaven. How sweet it is to find our mind and heart turning Godward, as the heliotrope seeks the sun! To find our joys begin and end with manifestations of Jesus' love! It is well to pine till the Lord's face be revealed, and only to flourish when he imparts his gracious influences. It is wise to turn away from all things in which God is not evidently present, but carefully to follow each movement of his shining face that we may always front his love, and bask in the beams of his favour. Whatever partakes largely of the light of Jesus should be prized by us, whether it be fashioned after our own favourite model or no: the sun is there, and we must turn to it. "Anything of Jesus" should be a sufficient attraction to us. A gleam of his sunlight should be prized, for it is far more than we deserve; and we should joyously receive it as the crocus drinks in the rich gold of the spring sun, and brims its cup therewith. What will it be to dwell above where the light no more goeth down, and the flowers feel no cold drops of the night?

"Fruit that hath but little sun can never be rife." We have had practical proof of this, for during the year 1879, there being a scant measure of sunshine, the fruit was never properly ripened, and was therefore destitute of flavour and sweetness. Whatever might be its outward appearance, the berry was insipid and altogether unlike what the sun would have made it had he smiled upon the swelling fruit. Thus, without communion with God, no soul can develop its graces, neither can those graces become what they should be. No measure of care or effort can make up for the light of the Father's face; neither can attendance upon means of grace nor the use of religious exercises supply the lack. Fellowship with God we must have, or the essential honey of love will be deficient, the bloom of joy will be wanting, the aroma of zeal and earnestness will be missed. We may have the virtues by name, and we may exhibit some feeble, insipid imitation of them, but the secret savour and mystic richness of grace will not be in us unless we abide in the full light of divine love. Lord, evermore be as the sun unto our souls, that we may be as fruit fully ripe, attaining to all the perfection and maturity of which our nature is capable.

FIRE! FIRE! "When a fire is kindled in a city we do not say coldly, 'Yonder is a great fire, I pray God it do no harm.' In times of public defection we are not to read tame lectures of contemplative divinity, or fight with ghosts and antiquated errors, but to oppose with all earnestness the growing evils of the world, whatever it may cost us." If men valued truth as they do their goods and their houses they would not regard error with such cool contentment. The cant of the present day cries, "Charity, Charity." As if it were not the truest charity to grow indignant with that which ruins souls. It is not uncharitable to warn men against poisonous adulterations of their food, or invasions of their rights; and surely it cannot be more uncharitable to put them upon their guard against that which will poison or rob their souls. Lukewarmness of love to truth is the real evil to be deprecated in these times. We have new doctrines among us, full of practical mischief, and against these there is need to raise an earnest outcry lest they gain so great a head that both church and state should be set on fire. Lord, arouse thy watchmen, and bid them arouse all thy saints, for the times are full of danger.

"After the worship of the Lord's Day, and especially after the Lord's Supper, we should continue in devotion, and make the whole day a post-communion. As civet boxes retain their scent when the civet is taken out, so, when the act of visible communion is over, our thoughts and discourse and actions should still savour of the solemnity. Certainly it is an argument of much weakness to be all for flashes and sudden starts." This retaining of their perfume by boxes and drawers in which sweet scents have been placed is a fragrant figure of the abiding nature of grace in a heart wherein it has once been stored up. If ordinances yield the influence designed by them, their savour

will remain in our lives, and if our conversion be indeed a passing from death unto life, the effect of it will be seen as long as we dwell among men. We cannot come away from real communion with Christ without carrying some of the delightful odour of his good ointments. Grace will reveal itself by its fragrance if it be genuine, and that fragrance will be a perfume of everlasting continuance, a sweetness indestructible. It should be said of every believer, in his measure, even as it is written of his Lord, "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad." The hypocrite has a temporary perfume, with which he takes care to odorize himself when he goes into the outward sanctuary; but the true believer is, by grace, made inherently fragrant, and the heavenly spices have so thoroughly saturated his garments, that they shed their savour abroad even when he is engaged in his worldly calling, yea, as long as he lives, and wherever he goes. Sweet Lord Jesus, do thou so anoint me that I may always bear about with me the fragrance of thine infinite perfections, and be a savour of life unto life among my neighbours."

"We are now imperfect, and straitened, like a fish in a pail, or small vessel of water, which cannot keep it alive: it would fain be in the ocean, or swimming in the broad and large rivers. So we are pent up, and cannot do what we would, but we long for a larger estate, namely, to be filled with all the fulness of God. That holiness which we have now, maketh us look and long for more, and, surely, this desire after holiness was never designed for our torment; there must be something to answer to the desire excited." It is even so; we are now cribbed, cabined, and confined, and our renewed spirit feels itself in bondage. The fish cannot half so much desire the river as we desire a nobler sphere wherein the better life may have due scope and range. As a lion goeth to and fro in his den, impatient of restraint, so doth our spirit move restlessly after better things. We are not content with the measure of our liberty, the tether of our range. We are like the young chick which is pecking at the shell which shuts it in; we perceive that there is very much outside of our prison-wall, and we are anxious to break forth. Is not this the testimony of all saintly men? Are not the bonds felt? Are we not groaning under them? The argument of our author is well drawn, and incontrovertible. God does not create desires without also providing corresponding objects: for thirst there is drink, for hunger there is food, for the eye there is light. So also for the soul which hungers and thirsts after righteousness there is a filling. The renewed heart shall yet see the perfection for which it pines, and the holy mind shall enjoy the communion with God for which it pants. Be glad, O my heart, because of thine own pangs! If thou wert now content, there would be in thee no ensigns and evidences of better things yet to be revealed. Thy groanings and yearnings are prophecies of guaranteed perfection. If thou wert of the earth, thou wouldst be satisfied with earth; but because thou hast a higher nature, thou art not at home amid these lower things. 'There remaineth therefore a rest for thee, a home for thee, a heaven for thee.'"

You have stood by the seashore, and have noticed in some parts the deep holes in the sand and rock; but, when the tide has come up, it has filled up all those crevices and holes. There are wants in our hearts,—unsatisfied longings; look to Christ, in him there is a tide of grace to fill up every hollow and crevice in your nature. Rec. Thomas Jones.

The little River Restonica in Corsica has the wonderful property of whitening every thing thrown into it. Its waters are clear as crystal, and the small stones which are seen in its bed are as white as chalk. Any kind of metal, but particularly iron, when dipped into it, has the appearance of being plated with silver. The quality of its waters, also, is esteemed highly salubrious.

I have fancied myself sitting in a carriage drawn by wild, furious horses; myself holding the reins. The steeds are young and full of mettle; and, taking the bits in their teeth, they bear me on, and I have not power to control them. But just as I am in my extremity, and about to be run away with, I feel a sensation as though a strong man had come into the chariot behind me, and, encircling me in his strong arms, had stretched out his hands, and taken the lines, and was controlling my impetuous steeds. He does not take the fire out of them, but guides them, and makes them go; and I am safe, though flying like the wind, while this mighty charioteer is with me. Lp. Simpson.

Ordinarily, rivers run small at the beginning, grow broader and broader as they proceed, and become widest and deepest at the point where they enter the sea. It is such rivers that the Christian's life is like. But the life of the mere worldly man is like those rivers in Southern Africa, which, proceeding from mountain freshets, are broad and deep at the beginning, and grow narrower and more shallow as they advance. They waste themselves by soaking into the sands; and at last they die out entirely. The farther they run, the less there is of them.

— Beecher

The religion of some people is constrained: they are like people who use the cold bath, not for pleasure, but necessity and their health; they go in with reluctance, and are glad when they get out. But religion to a true believer is like water to a fish: it is his element, he lives in it, and he could not live out of it. J. Newton.

He that has joined himself to the mountain-spring has its voice continually in his dwelling, night and day, summer and winter, without work or stroke of laboring pump, clear, sweet, and cheerful; running of its own accord, and singing at its work; more musical than any lute, and bringing in its song suggestions of its home, — the dark recess, the rock which was its father, the cloud which was its mother, and the teeming heaven bright and broad above both rock and cloud. Beecher.

We have known men, upon whose grounds were old, magnificent trees of centuries' growth, lifted up into the air with vast breadth, and full of twilight at mid-day, who cut down all these mighty monarchs, and cleared the ground bare; and then, when the desolation was completed, and the fierce summer gazed full into their faces with its fire, they bethought themselves of shade, and forthwith set out a generation of thin, shadowless sticks, and pined and waited till they should stretch out their boughs with protection, and darken the ground with grateful shadow. Such folly is theirs who refuse the tree of life, the shadow of the Almighty, and sit, instead, under feeble trees of their own planting, whose tops will never be broad enough to shield them, and whose boughs will never discourse to them the music of the air. Beecher.

In a Sunday-school class, the other day, a teacher was trying to show the dependence of the branches upon the vine, — for, if the vine dies, the branch dies also, — and said earnestly, “Jesus is the vine; we are the branches of the vine, and derive all our comfort and happiness from him.” — “Yes,” said a bright little fellow of eight years, “Jesus is the vine, the grown-up people are the branches, and we (the children) are the little buds;” showing that he clearly understood the parable, and giving to the great truth a simplicity which the minds of the smaller children could hardly fail to comprehend.