39 Sermon Illustrations on Presence of God

The world is a great theatre, and the spectators are God and angels. I confess we little think of it; there is a foolish levity in our minds. As to us, the world is like a hill of ants; you stand by, and they run up and down, and do not think of your being there; so the Lord stands by and observes all our motions, and we run up and down like busy ants, and do not think of God's presence among us. We live in a great hurry and clatter of business, and have but few thoughts of God. The Psalmist gives a description of carnal men in these words (Ps. lxxxvi. 14), "They have not set thee before them!" Lord, let me not be a mere ant on the world's hill; but as thou hast given me an understanding, help me to use it upon thyself, that so I may rise to the true level of an intelligent and immortal being.

How can I disregard my God, my Father, my all? How can I be taken up with these trifles whilst thou art so near me, asking my love, and proving thy right to it by daily loading me with benefits? What a mere insect I am! Why am I thus? Why should I live like an emmet when thou hast made me a little lower than an angel? I shall never rise to what I ought to be unless thou reveal thyself in me and to me by thy good Spirit. Deliver me from that foolish levity of which thy servant speaks, which makes me fill my mind with contemptible vanities, and let me seriously remember thee, and the day when I shall stand before thy judgment-seat.

If you were cast out of your country a thousand miles off, you are not out of God's precinct: his arm is there to cherish the good, as well as to drag out the wicked. It is the same God, the same presence. in every country, as well as the same sun, moon, and stars; and were not God everywhere, yet he would not be meaner than his creature, the sun in the firmament, which visits every part of the habitable world in twenty-four hours. Charnock.

A company of poor Christians were banished into some remote parts; and one standing by, seeing them pass along, said, "That it was a very sad condition those poor people were in, to be thus hurried from the society of men, and to be made companions with the beasts of the field."—"True," said another. "It were a sad condition indeed, if they were carried to a place where they should not find their God; but let them be of good cheer; God goes along with them, and will exhibit the comforts of his presence wheresoever they go. He is an infinite God and filleth all places." Spencer.

A mother one morning gave her two little ones books and toys to amuse them, while she went to attend to some work in an upper room. A half hour passed quietly; and then a timid voice at the foot of the stairs called out, "Mamma, are you there?"—"Yes, darling."—"All right, then;" and the child went back to its play. By and by the question was repeated, "Mamma, are you there?"—"Yes."—"All right, then;" and the little ones, reassured of their mother's presence, again returned to their toys. Thus we, God's little ones, in doubt and loneliness, look up and ask, "My Father, art thou there?" and when there comes, in answer, the assurance of his presence, our hearts are quieted.

I have read, says Brooks, of a company of poor Christians who were banished into some remote part; and one standing by seeing them pass along, said, that it was a very sad condition those poor people were in, to be thus hurried from the society of men and made companions with the beasts of the field. True, said another, it were a sad condition indeed if they were carried to a place where they should not find their God; but let them be of good cheer God goes along with them, and will exhibit the comforts of his presence whithersoever they go. God's presence with his people is a spring that never fails.

# F THE GOSPEL.

the use of dishonest weights and measures was exposed. With this discourse she was much affected. The next day when the minister, according to his custom, went among his hearers, and called upon the woman, he took occasion to ask her what she remembered of his sermon. The poor woman complained much of her bad memory, and said she had forgotten almost all that he delivered. "But one thing," said she, "I remembered; I remembered to burn my bushel." A doer of the word cannot be a forgetful hearer.

Can I see the dew of heaven as it falls on a summer evening? I cannot. It comes down softly, gently, noiselessly and imperceptibly. But when I go forth in the morning after a cloudless night, and see every leaf sparkling with moisture, and feel every blade of grass damp and wet, I say at once, “There has been a dew.” Just so it is, with the presence and result of the Spirit in the soul of man.

In a sermon which Dean Stanley, an English minister, preached to children in Westminster Abbey, he told the following story: "There was a little girl living with her grandfather. She was a good child, but he was not a very good man; and one day, when she came back from school, he had put in writing over her bed, 'God is nowhere,' for he did not believe in the good God, and he tried to make the little girl believe the same as he. "What did the little girl do? She had no eyes to see, no ears to hear what her grandfather tried to teach her. She was very small. She could only read words of one syllable at a time; she rose above the bad meaning which he had tried to put into her mind, because her little mind could not do otherwise, and she read the words not 'God is nowhere,' but 'God is now here.'" And she was right. She was wiser than her gray-haired grandfather. For God is now here. He is everywhere. And whenever even the smallest child speaks to Him in the simplest prayer He hears the child's voice. God is now here. That is a good motto for us to take with us to school, to keep us honest; to play, to keep us sweet; to our homes, to keep us unselfish.

Dr. George A. Gordon, the Boston preacher, tells of a dream that transformed his ministry:

I was in the pulpit before a great congregation, just ready to begin my sermon, when a stranger entered and passed slowly up the left aisle of the church, looking first to one side and then to the other, as tho silently asking with his eyes that some one would give him a seat. He had proceeded nearly half-way up the aisle when a gentleman stept out and offered him a place in his pew, which was quietly accepted. I remembered his face wore a peculiarly serious look, as of one who had known some great sorrow. His bearing, too, was exceedingly humble, his dress poor and plain, and from the beginning to the end of the service he gave the most respectful attention to the preacher. To myself I constantly asked, “Who can that stranger be?” And then I mentally resolved to find out by going up to him directly the service was over. But before I could reach him he had left the house. The gentleman with whom he sat, however, remained behind, and approaching him I asked, “Can you tell me who that stranger was who sat in your pew this morning?” He replied: “Why, do you not know that man? It was Jesus of Nazareth.”

One had been present in the church for an hour who could tell me all that I so longed to know; who could point out to me the imperfections of my service; who could reveal to me my real self, to whom, perhaps, I am most a stranger; who could correct the errors in our worship, to which long usage and accepted traditions may have rendered us insensible. While I had been preaching for half an hour He had been there and listening, who could have told me all this, and infinitely more, and my eyes had been holden and I knew Him not, and now He was gone. And then I awoke, for behold, it was a dream. No, it was not a dream. It was a vision of the deepest reality, a miniature of an actual ministry. (Text.)

Mrs. Burnett has written a sweet and powerful story that turns around an old woman in a London slum. She had not lived a good life, and, in her wicked old age, lying on a hospital cot, some visitor had told her the gospel story. She simply believed it; no more than that. One who saw her afterward, at a time of dire need, says: “Her poor little misspent life has changed itself into a shining thing, tho it shines and glows only in this hideous place. She believes that her Deity is in Apple Blossom Court--in the dire holes its people live in, on the broken stairway, in every nook and cranny of it--a great glory we would not see--only waiting to be called and to answer.” --JAMES M. STIFLER, “The Fighting Saint.”

Robert E. Speer writes the following:

I was awakened the other morning about four o’clock in my room by a little voice just beside my bed in the dark asking for a drink. I got the little lad a drink, and he lay quiet for a moment, and then asked, “Father, may I sing myself asleep?” And I said, “Yes, dear, go ahead.” But soon he got up so much enthusiasm that I told him he would better stop, or none of the rest of us could sleep. Then he was quiet awhile, but soon I heard his little voice again in the perfect stillness of the night, “Father, have you got your face turned toward me?” And I said, “Yes, little boy,” and the darkness was as the light of day to him.

One day a poor leper came to Dr. Pauline Root’s dispensary, in Madura, India, with a small, dirty cloth about his waist. He begged a new garment. It was given and was the cause of great delight. Two weeks later he appeared again, making the same request. Dr. Root asked him, “Where is the cloth I gave you?” “I have it,” the old man replied, “but I am old, and will not live long, and some morning it is probable that the people in passing by my little mud hut to the river will look in and see me lying there dead. When I go into God’s presence I want to be nice. All day long I go about for my food and I am very dirty and very tired, but when I go home I wash myself and I have kept that beautiful long piece of cloth to wrap myself in when I lie down. I commit myself to God thinking that perhaps the next morning I shall have gone into His presence.” (Text.)

* * * * *

This metrical prayer is from the New York _Christian Advocate_:

Stay with me, Lord; the evening sun declineth, And I am weary of this rugged way. To find repose my fainting spirit pineth-- O Lord, be Thou my comfort and my stay! Tremble my steps with age, my hair is gray, And earth-born hopes allure me now no more. But Thou, my Savior, cast me not away. O lead me gently till, my journey o’er, I reach my Father’s house, safe sheltered evermore.

Stay with me, Lord; even now to the dark valley My step descendeth, and the chilling gloom Is gathering o’er my pathway deep and dreary-- Dread shadows of the ay mysterious tomb. Now may Thy lamp this fearful vale illume; Its light alone these terrors can dispel. Where Thou, my Lord, art guide, no ill can come. Thou mighty Conqueror of death and hell, To Thee I trust my soul and know that all is well.

See PERSEVERANCE.

PRESENCE OF MIND

On New-year’s eve at one of the largest restaurants in New York, a woman’s dress caught fire, and, altho surrounded by other diners, the flame was not extinguished until she had received burns from which she subsequently died.

It seems incredible, yet it is a fact. And while the woman blazed, and shrieked in her agony, the men sought to extinguish the flame with napkins and their hands!

As I journey through life in town or in the wilderness, the quality I find most lacking in the human animal is presence of mind; and that is one of the good reasons why I am so persistent and outspoken an advocate of games for boys, especially games where the action is quick and where the boy must needs think, and quickly, under stress of combat, so to say.

Had there been any football players within reach of that poor woman, one of them would probably have had the sense to take off his coat and smother the flame.--CASPAR WHITNEY, _Collier’s Weekly_.

We are made sure that the sun shines not necessarily by seeing it, but often by noting the shadows it casts.

So the presence of God in our lives may often be indicated by the shadows of sorrow and trial.

Brother Lawrence on discovering the presence of God in your life. He lived 1611 to 1691 and became a Carmelite in 1666 after being a soldier. We know little of his career, except that he worked cheerfully for many years in the kitchen of his monastery, talking to God while he washed the pots and pans.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected President he gave a short farewell to the people of Springfield, Illinois, before leaving for Washington. He said:

“My friends: No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good - let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”

-----------------

According to a stenographer whose version appeared in the press the next morning, Lincoln began a good deal more awkwardly:

“No one who has never been placed in a like position, can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century, I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man.... To Him I commend you all - permit me to ask that with equal security and faith, you will all invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you - for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell.”

(“I Should Not Say Foolish Things, by Harold Holzer, Civil War Times, Nov/Dec 1995, p. 109.)

"For the fulhede of joy is to beholden God in al." - Julian, XXXV

(the fullness of joy is to see God in all things)

The Jesuit priest, Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-89), knew how to see the fingerprints of His Creator: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God. / It will flame out, like shining from shook foil …" Every where he looked he saw reminders of his God: "Glory be to God for dappled things - / For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; / For rose-moles in all stipple upon trout that swim; / …. / All things counter, original, spare, strange; / Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) / With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; / He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:/ Praise Him." The truth is reflected also in the faces of humanity: "I say more: the just man justices; / Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is – / Christ – for Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men’s faces."

"Thee God, I come from, to thee go, / All day long I like a fountain flow / From thy hand out, swayed about / Mote-like in thy mighty glow."

Even in the tragic, Hopkins could see God at work. He prefaces his "Wreck of the Deutschland" with "To the happy memory of five Franciscan nuns … drowned between midnight and morning …". In the poem he writes of the tension we have in this seeing of God: "Thou art lightning and love, I found it, winter and warm; / Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung." Like Julian, Hopkins does not pretend that seeing God in all things will always be easy, in "Justus quidem tu es …" he asks: "Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must / Disappointment all I endeavour end? / Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend / How wouldst thou worst, I wonder, than thou dost / … Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain." In "Carrion Comfort" he cries out like David in Psalm 22: "But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me / Thy wring-world right foot rock lay a lionlimb against me?"

And yet, while struggling for a meaning he still sees the Hand, as he says in the "… Deutschland": "is the shipwreck then a harvest, / does tempest carry the grain for thee? …. Death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides." The poem ends with a sense of triumph – even in the tragedy the King is "Kind, but royally reclaiming his own."

In Chapter 35 Julian speaks of the way in which evil, though never "worthwhile" or encouraged by God, nevertheless has the advantage of showing us our need for God’s mercy and love. She looks forward to a day when "all will have been brought to righteousness." But in the meantime sees God at work not just in the joyous moments (though there are "many, many" of these), but also in those times when we need to cry out for mercy and grace. "The soul that by grace wisely considers both [times of joy and the need for mercy] is well satisfied, and delights in them forever."

Jude and Doc Martin (JaM) de Graaf <>

[see also HolwickID #17061]

*

“What then shall we say to these things? If God [is] for us, who [can be] against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32 NKJV)

God Is With Us

• what…say — Gen 15:1, Ps 27:1, 118:6, Num 14:9, 2 Chr 32:7-8, 1 Jn 4:4 — what, either of wonder, or refutation?

• these things? — which I have rehearsed; and this that I am about to say?

• if…us — “since God is for us who can be against us?”

• who…us? — who is against us, is against God. Who has fought against God and prospered?

• He…things? — Jam 3:16, Matt 3:17, Ro 4:25, 2 Cor 5:15, 1 COr 3:21-23 –the free bestowment of the unspeakable gift, a pledge that other needful things will be freely given

God’s great gift — Dr South

I. The doctrine:

1. The person who gave up His only son — God;

2. The greatness of His love;

3. Its objects — worthless sinners.

II. The inference:

1. The mode of reasoning adopted;

2. What is included in these words

The great partisan — R. A. Griffing

I. The great verity — “God is for us”

1. See Jesus how He treats that fallen woman, John 8:11;

2. See Him in Gethsemane;

3. See Him on the cross.

II. The bold challenge. The enemy is –

1. Strong;

2. Deceitful;

3. Assiduous;

4. Experienced.

III. The pertinent question — “what shall we say then to these.”

The certainty of obtaining God’s favours inferred from the gift of His Son — Anon.

I. An interesting fact assumed. That –

1. Christ is God’s Son;

2. He was not spared;

3. He was delivered up for us all.

II. A most encouraging deduction from this fact:

1. The characters thus encouraged;

2. What we may expect from God;

3. These blessings are certainly attainable for us.

Application:- Let us consider our subject as –

1. Administering reproof;

2. Affording encouragement;

3. Conveying instruction.

The right persuasion — In terrible agony, a soldier lay dying in the hospital. A visitor asked him, “What Church are you of?” “Of the Church of Christ,” he replied. “I mean of what persuasion are you?” then inquired the visitor. “Persuasion!” said the dying man, as his eyes looked heavenward, beaming with love to the Saviour; “I am PERSUADED that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.”

“This declares the regular event, or, at least, the order of things, and the design of God; but not the actual verification of it to all persons.” — Bp J. Taylor

“A man in the right, with God on his side, is in the majority, though he be alone; for God is multitudinous above all populations of the earth.” — H. W. Beecher

On Mount Sinai, in a noted convent, is the chapel of the Burning Bush. A feature of this chapel is a window so situated that the sun shines through it only on one day in every year.

But the church that would really light human life must have sunshine in all its windows every day in the year.

As there are no darkened rooms for the child when mother is near, so there can be no darkened worlds for the spirit as long as God is in them.

— F. F. SHANNON