7 Sermon Illustrations on Spiritual Empowerment

"Tittle sticks set the great ones on fire, and a little wisp is often used to enkindle a great block of wood." Thus have we known persons of small talent and position influence their superiors by their zeal. Though themselves able to do but little, they have been full of fervour, and so have ventured further than the more solid and prudent felt at first inclined to do. Some of us have had to thank God for our weaker brethren who have been more eager and venturesome than we were: these wisps and bunches of firewood, though they could not keep up the fire, came in very opportunely to give the flames a start. Even rash suggestions have their value. Fools who are all alive may do good service to wise men, when they are sluggish and slow. It is right to get good out of all good men. When we meet with persons of little substance but of considerable kindling power, let us put them together like matches and splinters of wood, for the commencement of an enterprise, and when we find others to be like heavy old logs, let us put them to use when the flame has taken good hold, for if they once get thoroughly alight they will sustain the fire long after the straw and the shavings have passed away. Reader, which are you, a wisp or a log? In either case there is a place for you, and be it your ambition, in some way or other, to be consumed for your Lord's service.

All the vessels on the oceans can be divided into two classes: steamships and sailing vessels. The sailing vessels, as you know, set their broad white sails like wings to catch the favouring winds, and then they go scudding across the seas like birds to their distant harbours. But when there is no wind these vessels must sometimes lie becalmed, and do not move for days or sometimes weeks. The steamships, on the other hand, do not depend upon the wind to drive them ahead. Their power comes from great engines away down in the heart of the vessel. Even if the wind blows right in the face of the ship, it only makes the boiler-fires burn faster and brighter, and she plunges ahead in spite of wind or tide. Boys and girls also can be divided into two classes, like ships. Some depend upon other boys and girls to make them go; others have the "go" in themselves. These people with the "go" in themselves we call "go-ahead" sort of people. They are the boys and girls who become leaders. The others are followers. What the world most needs is these "go-ahead" people. There are plenty of people who go like a sailing vessel when there is something from the outside to send them along. I heard a man say the other day that another man was like "a chip in a pan of milk;" that is, he went only where he was pushed. If you want to have "go" in yourselves, try to think things out for yourselves. Don't do things just because somebody else does them. Don't wear things just because somebody else wears them. Don't say things just because somebody else says them. Paul says that people who are blown about by every wind do not amount to much. I am sure of this, at least, that I should rather be a steamship than a sailing vessel, that only goes when a wind blows.

It was the first engine on the new railroad running through the wilderness. At night, the puffing, snorting monster, belching forth fire and smoke, came dashing out of a dark forest with its one shining eye in front. As it fairly leapt along the track like a thing of life, green reptiles wriggled out of sight, vultures fled to the tree-tops, and wild beasts ran snarling into the jungle. The fire inside of the engine was what did it.

When the fire of inspiration gets inside of a man, how much he is like a steam-engine. He moves straight ahead, keeps on the right track, has his eye single to the forward line and his whole soul is full of light and heat. The creatures of darkness flee before him as he emerges into the light that shall never fade. (Text.)

A young Italian knocked one day at the door of an artist’s studio in Rome, and, when it was opened, exclaimed: “Please, madam, will you give me the master’s brush?” The painter was dead, and the boy, filled with a longing to be an artist, wished for the great master’s brush. The lady placed the brush in the boy’s hand, saying: “This is his brush; try it, my boy.” With a flush of earnestness on his face he tried, but found he could paint no better than with his own. The lady then said to him: “You can not paint like the great master unless you have his spirit.”

The same great lesson was taught once in a museum of old-time armor. When a visitor was shown the sword of Wallace, he said: “I do not see how it could win such victories.” “Ah, sir,” said the guide, “you don’t see the arm that wielded it.”

We need all the grace and tact we can acquire through studying the best models and imitating their example; but if we are mere imitators, our lives will be void of real power. (Text.)