365 Sermon Illustrations on Love

Then there's the man who said, "Lord, maybe Charlie Brown is right when he says he loves mankind, but it is people he cannot stand. You see, I love people in general more than I do individually. "Lord, it is like the joke about the father who yelled at his kids when they walked in the wet cement of his sidewalk; he can love them in the abstract, but never in the concrete. "Maybe I need to see a little more of You in them. And maybe I need to see a little more of You in me."

Some years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger, noted doctor and psychologist, was seeking the cause of many of his patients' ills. One day he called in his clinical staff and proceeded to unfold a plan for developing, in his clinic, an atmosphere of creative love. All patients were to be given large quantities of love; no unloving attitudes were to be displayed in the presence of the patients, and all nurses and doctors were to go about their work in and out of the various rooms with a loving attitude. At the end of six months, the time spent by patients in the institution was cut in half.

A young man who had committed a crime was sent to prison without his parents knowing about it. When he finally wrote and told them where he was, they hastened to the distant city to see him. Sullen and stony-faced, he greeted them in the visiting room. Braced for their recriminations and anger, he was completely unprepared for their loving concern. "I thought you would never forgive me-that you would disown me!" he cried. "Why should we do that?" asked his father. "You're our son, and we only want to help you." The fact that their love toward him had not changed was the beginning of that young man's redemption.

I vividly remember an incident that took place at our Greek Keswick in Macedonia one year. The Lord had just opened the door for a special ministry among the Turks. After I announced it, a devout Christian woman came up to me, placed some Greek currency in my hand, and said, "I want this used to win Turks to Christ. They killed my brother, but I want to be the first to contribute to their cause." There will be a special reward for that woman at the day of judgment for believers.

When Marie Antoinette came to Paris as a bride, not a single ragged or starving person appeared on the streets along which the splendid procession passed. France was seething with discontent at the time, born of dire poverty-a discontent that was later to break out in the horrors of the Revolution-but Marie Antoinette was not to know anything about that. So the poor starving populace were swept into the side streets where they could not be seen and kept penned up there so that Marie Antoinette might think all was happy and prosperous in Paris. But an optimism based on ignorance is not optimism at all. An optimism gained by a refusal to face the facts is deliberate self-deception. Fear to face reality stems from fear of the sacrifice and labor of love that may be involved. Selfishness turns away its face from the sorrows, shames, and failures of others. But love dares to look at the head bowed with grief and the face paled with suffering.

Love is like the spirit in Ezekiel's wheels, that made them move so swiftly; so that dulness, sluggishness, and wearisomeness are quickly dispelled by heavenly love, as the ice is presently dissolved by the sunbeams. Burgess.

That you may be beloved, be amiable. — Ovid. — Love will often make a wise man act like a fool. — Greville. — No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with only a single thread. — Burton. — Love sees what no eye sees; love hears what no ear hears; and what never rose in the heart of man, love prepares for its object. — Lavater. — The pleasure of love is in loving. — La Rochefoucauld. — They do not love that do not show their love. — Shakspeare. — Love is an alchemist, that can transmute poison into food. — Bolton. — The classic poets represent love as blind.

Thomas Samson was a working miner, and working hard for his bread. The captain of the mine said to him on one occasion, "Thomas, I've got an easier berth for you, where there is comparatively little to do, and where you can earn more money: will you accept it?" What do you think he said? "Captain, there's our poor brother Tregony. He has a sick body, and he is not able to work as hard as I am. I fear his toil will shorten his useful life. Will you let him have the berth?" The captain, pleased with his generosity, sent for Tregony, and gave him the berth, which he is now enjoying. Thomas was gratified, and added, "I can work a little longer yet."

— Sunday Magazine

LOVE, Generosity of A man may be a miser of his wealth; he may tie up his talent in a napkin; he may hug himself in his reputation: but he is always generous in his love. Love cannot stay at home: a man cannot keep it to himself. Like light, it is constantly travelling. A man must spend it, must give it away. Dr. Macleod.

When there is love in the heart, there are rainbows in the eyes, which cover every black cloud with gorgeous hues. Beecher.

Patriotism, or the love of country, is so general, that even a desert is remembered with pleasure, provided it is our own. The Cretans called it by a name which indicated a mother's love for her children. The Ethiopian imagines that God made his sands and deserts, while angels only were employed in forming the rest of the globe. The Arabian tribe of Ouadelin conceive that the sun, moon, and stars rise only for them. The Maltese, insulated on a rock, distinguish their island by the appellation of "The Flower of the World;" and the Caribbees esteem their country a paradise, and themselves alone entitled to the name of men. Percy.

A poor Arab travelling in the desert met with a spring of sweet water. Accustomed as he was to brackish wells, to his simple mind it appeared that such water as this was worthy of a monarch; and, filling his leathern bottle from the spring, he determined to go and present it to the caliph himself. He travelled a considerable distance before he reached the presence of his sovereign, and laid his humble offering at his feet. The caliph did not despise the little gift brought to him with so much trouble. He ordered some of the water to be poured into a cup, drank it, and, thanking the Arab with a smile, ordered him to be presented with a reward. The courtiers around pressed forward, eager to taste of the wonderful water; but, to the surprise of all, the caliph forbade them to touch a single drop. After the poor Arab had departed, the caliph thus explained the motives of his conduct: "During the travels of the Arab, the water in this leathern bottle had become impure and distasteful; but it was an offering of love, and, as such, I have received it with pleasure. But I well knew, that, had I suffered another to partake of it, he would not have concealed his disgust; and therefore I forbade you to touch the draught, lest the heart of the poor man should have been wounded."

The closest tie on earth is a mother’s love for her child. There are a good many things that will separate a man from his wife, but there isn’t a thing in the wide, wide world that will separate a true mother from her own child. I will admit that there are unnatural mothers, that there are mothers that have gone out of their heads, mothers that are so steeped in sin and iniquity that they will turn against their own children, but a true mother will never, never turn against her own child. I have talked with mothers when my blood boiled with indignation against the sons for their treatment of their mothers, and I have said:

“Why don’t you cast him off?”

They have said: “Why, Mr. Moody, I love him still. He is my son.”

I was once preaching for Dr. G. in St. Louis, and when I got through he said that he wanted to tell me a story. There was a boy who was very bad. He had a very bad father, who seemed to take delight in teaching his son everything that was bad. The father died, and the boy went on from bad to worse until he was arrested for murder.

When he was on trial, it came out that he had murdered five other people, and from one end of the city to the other there was a universal cry going up against him. During his trial they had to guard the courthouse, the indignation was so intense.

The white-haired mother got just as near her son as she could, and every witness that went into the court and said anything against him seemed to hurt her more than her son. When the jury brought in a verdict of guilty a great shout went up, but the old mother nearly fainted away; and when the judge pronounced the sentence of death they thought she would faint away.

After it was over she threw her arms around him and kissed him, and there in the court they had to tear him from her embrace. She then went the length and breadth of the city trying to get men to sign a petition for his pardon. And when he was hanged, she begged the governor to let her have the body of her son, that she might bury it. They say that death has torn down everything in this world, everything but a mother’s love. That is stronger than death itself. The governor refused to let her have the body, but she cherished the memory of that boy as long as she lived.

A few months later she followed her boy, and when she was dying she sent word to the governor, and begged that her body might be laid close to her son. That is a mother’s love! She wasn’t ashamed to have her grave pointed out for all time as the grave of the mother of the most noted criminal the State of Vermont ever had.

The prophet takes hold of that very idea. He says: “Can a mother forget her child?” But a mother’s love is not to be compared to the love of God.

* * * * *

The old fable of the bar of iron as an illustration of the superior power of love will never be superseded.

The bar of iron lay across a log to be broken. “I can make it yield,” boasted the hammer, but at the first blow the hammer flew from its handle helpless to the ground. The ax followed proudly, “I can succeed.” But after two or three strokes its edge was dulled without leaving any impression on the iron bar. “I, with my sharp teeth, will soon sever it,” said the saw, with a confident air; only to have all its teeth broken in the task. At length a quiet, warm flame said, “Let me try, it may yield to me.” And the little flame twined itself about the iron in a gentle, loving way, imparting an influence that finally made the strong bar yield and fall apart.

* * * * *

Upon the foundation of love a great work was done in Paris, France:

When Mr. McAll began his work he could utter but two sentences in the tongue of those workingmen. One was “God loves you,” and the other, “I love you”; and upon those two, as pillars, the whole arch rests.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”

Life’s harmony must have its discords; but, as in music, pathos is tempered into pleasure by the pervading spirit of beauty, so are all life’s sounds tempered by love.

— GEORGE HENRY LEWES

As to which was the first and greatest command, the rabbis were in grave doubt. Most agreed that the smallest and least command was the one concerning the bird’s nest, recorded in Deut. 22:6, 7; but when it came to the first and greatest, they were in doubt, whether it was the one respecting the observance of the Sabbath, or the law concerning circumcision, or the one concerning fringes and phylacteries, while still others contended that the omission of ceremonial ablutions was as bad as homicide. With these distinctions and differences and absurd hair-splittings in mind the young lawyer addrest the master with the question, “Which is the first commandment of all?” What a majestic answer was that which he received! Nothing in it about fringes and phylacteries, nothing about ceremonial washings, nothing about attitudes and genuflections; but the grand answer which will abide for all time to come: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, this is the first commandment.” This answer goes to the heart of the matter. Eighteen hundred years have not suggested any improvement or addition to the great answer, nor will eighteen hundred years to come, because it embraces all other answers and is the sum total of morality.--_The Golden Rule._

With our differing hereditary traits, educations, experience, and ways of living and thinking, it is quite impossible that there should not be collisions with those with whom we are living or working. We are like a number of trains trying to go in different directions on the same track. Congestions are certain to come, but a congestion need not degenerate into a collision and a wreck if we will remember that there are plenty of sidings. Now a “siding” is a sort of abbreviated second track whereby trains going in opposite directions may pass each other in safety. In material railways they bear various names; on the invisible pathway of life they are all called love. Sometimes they are nicknamed forbearance, tolerance, patience, or common sense; but these are all translations of the same thing. So in case of danger, remember the sidings.--JAMES M. STIFLER, “The Fighting Saint.”

Mr. Robert E. Speer stopt from a British India steamer at Muscat to visit Rev. Peter Zwemer, who was working there alone. Mr. Zwemer took his visitor up to his house, where, he said, his family were staying. There, sitting on benches about the room, were eighteen little black boys. They had been rescued from a slave-ship that had been coming up the eastern coast of Arabia with those little fellows, to be sold on the date plantations along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The British consul had seized them from the traders, and Mr. Zwemer had undertaken to keep them until they were eighteen years old, when they would be given their manumission papers.

“When I got them,” said Mr. Zwemer, “the whole eighteen huddled together in the middle of the floor, like jack-rabbits, and every time I came close, they huddled a little nearer. They mistrusted every one. On each little cheek-bone was the brand of the slave’s iron, and for months and months they had known nothing but hatred and beatings, and had been shut down in the hold of the slave-ship, in order that they might make no noise and betray their presence.”

As Mr. Speer saw them they looked happy and confident, and they sang for him, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” looking as if the realization that all their blessings had come from that divine Source had already sunk deep into their hearts. (Text.)

James Hargreaves, sitting alone there in his little house in Yorkshire, finding that he could not get enough from the spinners of cotton to supply his wants as a weaver, cast about for a way to spin faster. After many weary days, and weeks, and months, he found out a method by which he could spin eight threads in the same time that one had previously been spun; and being asked for a name for the instrument, he looked lovingly upon his wife, and said: “We’ll call it Jenny”; and the modest Jenny has come down to posterity, and will go to remotest generations with the name of the “Spinning Jenny.”

— GEORGE DAWSON

Asbestos is the most extraordinary of all minerals. It is of the nature of alabaster, but it may be drawn out into fine silken threads. It is indissoluble in water and unconsumed in fire. An asbestos handkerchief was presented to the Royal Society of England. It was thrown into an intensely hot fire and lost but two drams of its weight, and when thus heated was laid on white paper and did not burn it. Love is like asbestos. The waves of sorrow will not wash it away. The flames of tribulation will not burn it up. It is eternal and immortal. (Text.)

“Papa,” said the son of Bishop Berkeley, “what is the meaning of the words ‘cherubim’ and ‘seraphim’ in the Bible?” “Cherubim,” replied his father, “is a Hebrew word signifying knowledge; seraphim is another word of the same language, and signifies flame; whence it is supposed that the cherubim are angels who excel in knowledge, and that the seraphim are angels who excel in loving God.” “I hope, then,” said the little boy, “when I die I shall be a seraph; for I would rather love God than know all things.”

The child had the right sentiment, if not the right theology.

When William Duncan went among the Alaskan Indians to convert them to Christianity, he won them first by his kindness. He visited them, helped them with simple advice, and administered to their ailments from his medicine-chest. Long before he could make himself understood in words he spoke intelligibly in his works. They understood the language of his love and sympathy and kindness. By relieving their suffering he found a way at length to relieve their sins, in the gospel that he learned to utter in his message to them from the Word of God.

There is a gospel without words, as there is music without words; and he is the real linguist that can talk from the heart to the heart by a vibrant love.

Jacob Riis, in “The Making of an American,” brings from his Danish homeland a most beautiful and significant phrase. There is scant sunlight over there in the long, cold winters, and it is not easy to make plants grow. Yet the poor have their window-boxes and winter blossoms, nevertheless, and their tender winter lesson. For when they speak of their flowers they do not say that they have been grown; instead, with finest insight, they say that they have been “loved up.”

Almost any man can be “loved up.” So it is with the child, the waif of society.

If I knew that a word of mine, A word not kind and true, Might leave its trace On a loved one’s face, I’d never speak harshly, would you?

If I knew the light of a smile Might linger the whole day through And brighten some heart With a heavier part, I wouldn’t withhold it, would you?

— UNIDENTIFIED