33 Sermon Illustrations on Endurance in Trials

"Did you ever notice," asked an old lady, as she smiled into the troubled face before her, "that when the Lord told the discouraged fishermen to cast their nets again, it was right in that same old place where they had been working all night and had caught nothing? If we could only go off to some new place every time we get discouraged, trying again would be an easier thing. If we could be somebody else, or go somewhere else, or do something else, it might not be hard to have fresh faith and courage. But it is the same old net in the same old pond for most of us. The old temptations are to be overcome, the old faults to be conquered, and the old trials and discouragements which we failed yesterday must be faced again today. We must win success where we are if we are to win it at all. It is the Master Himself who, after all these toilsome, disheartening efforts that we call failures, bids us, 'Try again.' "

An ant was seen carrying a long piece of straw. Finally it came to a crack in the rock which was like a precipice to the tiny creature. After attempting to take its burden across in several ways, the ant went to one end of the straw and pushed it in front of him over the crack till it reached to the other side, crossed over on the straw, and then pulled it after him. There is no burden which you and I carry faithfully and patiently, but will some day become a bridge to carry us. The God of circumstances will not place a burden upon us that is heavier than we can bear. Our burdens are only heavy enough to serve as a bridge to carry us over in such a manner that others may say after we have gone, "Blessed is he who has endured."

“Our light affliction, which is but for a moment.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

He was a very illiterate man, who could only spell his way through the Bible with great effort and often failed to grasp the full import of the passages he tried to read. Rising to his feet in a testimony meeting where the leader had called upon each one to give his favorite portion of Scripture, the aged brother said, “I gets more help from them blessed words ‘And it came to pass’ than anything else in the Bible.”

Asked what he meant, he explained, “When I’m so upset with trouble and pestered with trials, I goes to the Bible and begins to read, and I never goes far before I come across them words, ‘It came to pass’ and I says, Bless the Lord. It didn’t come to stay. ‘It come to pass!’” Surely we may all learn from his simple faith.

"Sometimes God letteth his people alone till their latter days, and their season of fighting cometh not till they are ready to go out of the world, that they may die fighting and be crowned in the field. But first or last the cross cometh, and there is a time to exercise our faith and patience before we inherit the promises." It has been observed that many of those who begin their spiritual career with severe mental conflicts are afterwards filled with peace, and are left unmolested for years. Others have their battle in middle-life, and find the heat of their noontide sun to

be their severest trial; while a third class suffer, as our author tells us, at the very close of their pilgrimage. No rule can be laid down as to the varied experiences of the saints; but we suspect that few make the voyage to heaven over a perpetually glassy sea; the vast majority, at some time or other, are "tossed with tempest and not comforted." What if we also must die fighting? We shall fall amid the shouts of victory. How surprising will heaven be to us! One moment almost wrecked, and the next in "the Fair Havens." Wrestling one moment, and resting the next with the crown about our brows! "At eventide it shall be light."

Sirs, are there difficulties in your path, hindering your pursuit of knowledge, restraining your benevolent endeavor, making your spiritual life a contest and a toil? Be thankful for them. They will test your capabilities of resistance. You will be impelled to persevere from the very energy of the opposition. If there be any might in your soul, like the avalanche of snow, it will acquire additional momentum from the obstacles which threaten to impede it. Many a man has thus robed himself in the spoils of a vanquished difficulty; and his conquests have accumulated at every onward and upward step, until he has rested from his labor, the successful athlete who has thrown the world. "An unfortunate illustration," you are ready to say; "for all cannot win the Olympic crown, nor wear the Isthmian laurel. What of him who fails? How is he recompensed? What does he gain?" What? Why, strength for life. His training has insured him that. He will never forget the gymnasium and its lessons. He will always be a stalwart man, a man of muscle and of sinew. The real merit is not in the success, but in the endeavor, and, win or lose, he will be honored and crowned. W. M. Punshon.

A husbandman who had a stony and sterile piece of land went on lamenting, day after day, the labor it cost him. When, however, he saw upon it a capital crop, "Fool that I am!" said he to himself: "had I thought more of the harvest, and less of the labor, how much vexation I might have spared myself!" Morgridge.

I beheld, then, that they all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty, at the bottom of which was a spring. There were also in the same place two other ways besides that which came straight from the gate: one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right, at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going-up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the spring, and drank thereof to refresh himself: and then he began to go up the hill, saying. —

The hill, though high, I covet to ascend;

The difficulty will not me offend;

For I perceive the way to life lies here:

Come, pluck up, heart, let's neither faint nor fear.

Better, though difficult, the right way to go,

Thou wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.

— Bunyon

A mother, with her three children, was clinging to the wreck of steamer "Bohemian," when the mother said she must let go, and be drowned. Her little girl said, "Hold on a little longer, mother! don't let go now: Jesus walked on the water and saved Peter; and perhaps he will save us." The little girl's words so strengthened her mother, that she held on a few moments more; when a boat was sent to them, which took them safely to shore.

As the skilful pearl-seller and cunning lapidary doth willingly suffer the Indian diamond or adamant to be heavily smitten, because he knoweth well that the hammer and anvil will sooner be bruised than the diamond or adamant be broken; so our most wise God suffereth men of excellent virtues, of unquenchable love and charity, and invincible constancy, to fall into diverse temptations, great afflictions, and manifold miseries, because he will have their moral grace to break out and shine before men, that they, seeing the constancy of his saints, may glorify God which is in heaven. Caudray.

An officer of a Maine regiment lay sick of a fever near Savage's Station, Va. In his delirium, he fought his battles over again. He would cry to his men, "Deploy to the left!" "Keep out of that ambuscade!" "Now, go, my braves, double-quick, and strike for your flag!" "On, on, you'll win the day!" Such were his last words.

To-day it is fair, the next day there may be the thundering storm: to-day I may want for nothing; tomorrow I may be like Jacob, with nothing but a stone for my pillow and the heavens for my curtains. But what a happy thought it is! — though we know not where the road winds, we know where it ends. It is the straightest way to heaven to go round about. Israel's forty years' wanderings were, after all, the nearest path to Canaan. We may have to go through trial and affliction; the pilgrimage may be a tiresome one, but it is safe. We cannot trace the river upon which we are sailing; but we know it ends in floods of bliss at last. We cannot track the roads; but we know that they all meet in the great metropolis of heaven, in the centre of God's universe: God help us to pursue the true pilgrimage of a pious life! Spurgeon. 4.149. PILGRIMAGE. Family. When the crusades were preached in the middle ages, and all were moved to enter the holy war, some of the farmers yoked their oxen to their carts, placed their goods, wives, and children in them, and started on a pilgrimage for the Holy City. As the walls of town or castle came in view, the children would ask, "Is that the Jerusalem we are going to?"

4.150. PILGRIMAGE. Reminders of the. A father with his little son is journeying overland to California; and when, at night, he pitches his tent in some pleasant valley, the child is charmed with the spot, and begs his father to rear a house and remain there; and he begins to make a little fence about the tent, and digs up the wild-flowers, and plants them within the enclosure. But the father says, "No, my son. Our home is far distant. Let these things go; for to-morrow we must depart." Now, God is taking us his children, as pilgrims and strangers, homeward; but we desire to build here, and must be often overthrown before we can learn to seek "the city that hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God." Beecher.

4.151. PILOT. The Safe. While a tremendous storm was rising on our eastern coast, a ship was seen, for which there was no hope unless she could reach the harbor. A few resolute men put off through a raging sea for her relief, and were soon alongside. She had on board an incompetent pilot, to whose ignorance the ship was nearly sacrificed. The captain took the wheel; and the new pilot ordered the men to their posts. The ship, under all sail, was put on the port-tack, directly towards the breakers. As they neared them, the captain cried, "Shall I put her about?"—"Steady!" was the pilot's calm reply, and, in a moment more, "About ship!" The ship neared two sunken rocks, where the sea boiled threateningly; passed safely between them; then tacked again, and was soon anchored in the harbor. Then the captain sprang from the wheel, and caught the pilot in his arms. The sailors and passengers crowded round: some hung upon his neck, others embraced his knees; and tears streamed down the faces of the seamen, who had weathered many a storm, and braved untold dangers, but none greater than this. All were pressing forward, if only to grasp the hand of their deliverer in token of gratitude. Life is a sea; the soul the threatened ship; sin, Satan, and hell the dangers to be met; and Christ the great pilot who will bring the soul into the heavenly harbor.

4.152. PITY. Divine. The noblest heart on earth is but a trickling stream from a faint and shallow fountain, compared with the ineffable soul and heart of God the Everlasting Father. The pity of God is like a father's in all that is tender, strong, and full, but not in scope and power. For every one of God's feelings moves in the sphere of the infinite. Beecher.

4.153. PITY. Vastness of God's. God's pity is not as some sweet cordial poured in dainty drops from some golden phial. It is not like the musical water-drops of some slender rill, murmuring down the dark sides of Mount Sinai. It is wide as the whole scope of heaven. It is abundant as all the air. If one had art to gather up all the golden sunlight that to-day falls wide over all this continent, falling through every silent hour; and all that is dispersed over the whole ocean, flashing from every wave; and all that is poured refulgent over the northern wastes of ice, and along the whole continent of Europe, and the vast outlying Asia, and torrid Africa; if one could in any wise gather up this immense and incalculable outflow and treasure of sunlight that falls down through the bright hours, and runs in liquid ether about the mountains, and fills all the plains, and sends innumerable rays through every secret place, pouring over and filling every flower, shining down the sides of every blade of grass, resting in glorious humility upon the humblest things,—on stick and stone and pebble, on the spider's web, the sparrow's nest, the threshold of the young fox's hole, where they play and warm themselves; that rests on the prisoner's window, that strikes radiant beams through the slave's tear, that puts gold upon the widow's weeds, that plates and roofs the city with burnished gold, and goes on in its wild abundance up and down the earth, shining everywhere and always since the day of primal creation, without faltering, without stint, without waste or diminution, as full, as fresh, as overflowing, today, as if it were the first day of its outplay;—if one might gather up this boundless, endless, infinite treasure, to measure it, then might he tell the height and depth, and unending glory of the pity of God. In light,—in the sun its source,—you have God's own figure of the immensity and copiousness of his mercy and compassion.

The Olympian Games were consecrated to Jupiter, and were held in the stadium, an immense arena of about six hundred feet in length, surrounded by rising tiers of benches to accommodate ten thousand spectators. Upon the arena were the judges of the course, who proclaimed aloud the names of the competitors, and challenged any one to speak if they knew any thing against the freedom and virtue of those who were about to contend for the prize. These competitors had been long in training; they had been keeping their bodies in subjection, and exercising themselves, in order that they might, if possible, succeed on this eventful day. There is every stimulus to excite their energy. Upon the pillars of the race-course were mottoes bearing the inscriptions, "Excel," "Hasten," "Finish the course." There were the judges waiting to confer the prize on the successful competitors; there was the sacred tripod with the coveted prize upon it, which entitled the wearer of it to a triumphal reception into his native city when he returned, to be commemorated all over the world, as he supposed; there were the throngs of spectators all around. The competitor looked upward. First he was bewildered by the great cloud of witnesses whom he beheld, and then he began to recognize amongst the multitude, — here, princes and consuls with their ambassadors from foreign states, vying one with another in the splendor of their attire and the number of their retinue; there, fellow-citizens, who were looking as interested spectators anxious for the credit of their town; yonder, literary men, who would describe his deeds; and there, warriors, who, with the eye of experience, were looking down upon the events of that day, — Olympic victors, who had already trod that arena, and won that prize. As he looked upward and around, conscious that the eye of Greece and of the world was upon him, how, at the appointed signal, did he cast aside every weight and every encumbrance! He loitered not, he looked not around: his eye was upon the goal, and thither, with all eagerness, he urged his course.

Unthinking people would like a world where corn should grow spontaneously, and plenty ever lie ready to hand. They would have their path beautified by flowers fairer than those of Eden, and refreshed by zephyrs balmier than those of the sunny south. They would banish care, and make work obsolete. How would all this issue? Doubtless in the degeneracy of our race into a crowd of soft and slothful Sybarites. God is too wise for this. He knows comfort to be of far less importance than character, and acts on that knowledge. S. Coley.

Some have floated on the sea, and trouble carried them on its surface, as the sea carries cork. Some have sunk at once to the bottom, as foundering ships sink. Some have run away from their own thoughts. Some have coiled themselves up into a stoical indifference. Some have braved the trouble, and defied it. Some have carried it, as a tree does a wound, until by new wood it can overgrow and cover the old gash. A few in every age have known the divine art of carrying sorrow and trouble as wonderful food, as an invisible garment that clothed them with strength, as a mysterious joy, so that they suffered gladly, rejoicing in infirmity, and, holding up their heads with sacred presages whenever times were dark and troublous, let the light depart from their eyes, that they might by faith see nobler things than sight could reach. Beecher.

A Christian, being only a traveller through the world, must expect a traveller's fare,—bad roads sometimes, bad weather, and bad accommodation; but since his journey is short, and his city is in heaven, all his actions, sufferings, prayers, and conversation turn that way. Bogatsky.

There was a little boy who was so crippled that he could not open his Bible, which he had always before him. A gentleman asked him why he was so fond of reading it. "I like to read the Bible," said he, "because it tells me of Jesus Christ." "Do you think you have believed on Jesus Christ?" "Yes, I do." "What makes you think so?" "Because he enables me to suffer my afflictions patiently."

One of the most remarkable instances of patience on record is to be found in the case of Miss Sarah Parbeck, of Salem, Mass. A lady visiting her in 1845, thus describes her interview:

"The door was opened by a very old lady, wrinkled and bowed down with age, who invited us to enter. The room was so dark, that before my eyes were accommodated to the change, I could only see a figure dressed in white, sitting upon the bed and rocking to and fro. This motion was attended by a sound like the click of wooden machinery, which arose, as I afterwards discovered, from the bones as they worked in their loosened sockets. As we approached, she extended her hand to my companion, and said in a painful but affectionate voice, 'Eliza, I am very glad to see thee;' and then asked my name and place of residence. She had just given me her hand, when a spasm seized her, and it was twitched suddenly from my grasp. It flew some four or five times with the greatest violence against her face, and then, with a sound which I can only compare to that made by a child who has been sobbing a long time, in catching its breath, she threw up both her arms, and with a deep guttural groan was flung back upon her pillow, with a force inconceivable to one who has not witnessed it. The instant she touched the bed, she uttered that piercing shriek again, and sprung back to her former position, rocking to and fro, with those quick, heart-rending groans which I had heard while standing at the door. It was several minutes before she could speak, and then there was none to answer her. Both my companion and myself were choked with tears. Her poor mother went to the other side of the bed, and smoothed the coverlid, and rearranged the pillows, looking sadly upon her poor child, writhing in torture which she could not alleviate. I became faint, and trembled with a sudden weakness; a cold perspiration stood upon my face. The objects in the room began to swim about me, and I was obliged to take hold of the bedside for support. I have been in our largest hospitals, and have spent hours in going from room to room with the attending physician. I have witnessed there almost every form of human suffering, but I had never beheld any thing to be compared to that now before me. She afterwards told me, as if in apology for her screams, that when she was hurled back upon her pillow both shoulders were dislocated, and as they sprung back into their sockets, the pain was far beyond endurance, and extorted from her these shrieks.

"Her sentences were broken, uttered with much difficulty, and frequently interrupted by the terrible spasm I have described above. Yet this was her 'quiet' state; this the time when she suffered least. Day after day, night after night, fourteen weary years have dragged themselves along, whilst her poor body has been thus racked. No relief; no hope of relief, except that which death shall give. When I asked her if her affliction did not at times seem greater than she could bear, 'O! never,' she replied. 'I cannot thank God enough for having laid his heavy hand upon me. I was a thoughtless sinner, and had he not in his mercy afflicted me, I should probably have lost my immortal soul. I see only his kindness and love. The sweet communion I have with my Sayior more than compensates me for all! suffer. I am permitted to feel, in a measure, in my poor body, what he suffered to save me, and my soul can never grow weary in his praise. This last sentence, I must say, gave me an argument which put doubts of the verity and power of religion to flight more effectually than all the evidences which the wisdom of man has arrayed against the skeptic; and I could not but exclaim, 'If this be delusion, let me be deluded!'

"She spoke in the most tender terms of her Savior's love. Her conversation was in heaven, from whence also she looked for her Savior, knowing that he should change her body of humiliation, and fashion it like unto his glorious body. I shall never forget the tones and language in which she entreated my sobbing companion to give that Savior her heart. As she recovered from a spasm, I said to her, 'Do you not often desire to depart, and be with the Savior you love so fervently?' She had hardly recovered her exhausted breath, but replied with great decision, 'By the grace of God I have never had that wish. Though death will be a welcome gift when my Father sees fit to bestow it upon me, yet, thanks to his supporting grace, I can wait his time without impatience. He sees that there is much dross to refine away, and why should I wish against his will?'

"I remained by her side for more than an hour; such, however, were the attractions of her discourse, that I was unconscious of the time. I know not when I have been so drawn towards a fellow Christian, and never had I been led to such delightful contemplations of our Savior's character; his faithfulness and love. I remarked to her, as I turned to go away, 'God has made you a powerful preacher, here upon your bed of pain.' 'O,' she replied, 'if he will make me the instrument of saving but a single soul, I am willing to live and suffer here until my hair is gray with age.' I noticed some bottles standing upon a small table, and asked her if she found any relief from opiates. 'Through God's kindness,' she answered, 'I probably owe the preservation of my life thus far to an extract made from blackdrop.' 'Does it enable you to sleep?' 'O no,' she replied, 'I have not known sleep for a very long time.' 'What!' I cried, 'do you never rest?' A severe spasm here seized her, and it was some time before she could answer me; she had been attacked in this way some twelve or fifteen times whilst conversing with us, and frequently in the midst of a reply. When she recovered, she said the physicians thought she obtained rest in her 'long spasm,' which lasted for more than an hour. 'During that time,' she continued, 'I am dead to every thing but a sense of the most extreme anguish. I see and hear nothing; I only feel as though I was being crushed in pieces by some immense weight.' This was her rest! The rack! Yet, through all this suffering, the smiles of God penetrate to her heart. She sees him just, and acknowledges his love."