176 Sermon Illustrations on Truth

In a trial for murder in Hertfordshire, in the reign of Charles the First, among other evidence that the person had not committed suicide, but was murdered, a witness stated that there was the print of a thumb and four fingers of a left hand, in blood, upon the body. Chief Justice.—How can you know the print of a left hand from the print of the right in such a case? Witness.—My lord, it is hard to describe; but, if it please that honorable judge to put his left hand upon your left hand, you cannot possibly place your right hand in the same posture. The judges did so accordingly; and the fact was found to be as stated by the witness. Three of the persons indicted for the murder were found guilty, and executed.

— Percy

A great lie is like a great fish on dry land: it may fret and fling, and make a frightful bother; but it cannot hurt you. You have only to keep still, and it will die of itself. Crable.

Opinion is a medium between knowledge and ignorance.—Plato.—To maintain an opinion because it is thine, and not because it is true, is to prefer thyself above the truth. Venning.

The art of causing the eyes of a portrait to be looking at a spectator, no matter how he may change his position (and, if there were twenty persons in the room, each would receive a similar impression), is not confined to the limner alone, as the Spirit of God, aided by conscience, exhibits a similar phenomenon frequently in a living preacher, when preaching "the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." A truth which might seem and was intended for general application, I have known to bend in a particular direction, and strike a sinner as it directly aimed at him, like as a shaft of lightning, direct from the bosom of the thunder cloud, curves from the straight line in which it was launched, without any visible cause, and strikes and fires a building quite on an angle. Some sinners, like certain bulky substances in a thunder-storm, are peculiarly adapted to attract the lightnings of truth. Caughey

Common-place truth is of no use, as it makes no impression: it is no more instruction than wind is music. The truth must take a particular bearing, as the wind must pass through tubes, to be any thing worth. J. Foster.

If a man be sincerely wedded to truth, he must make up his mind to find her a portionless virgin, and he must take her for herself alone. The contract, too, must be to love, cherish, and obey her, not only until death, but beyond it, for this is a union that must survive not only death, but time, the conqueror of death. Colton.

Truth, the mother of Virtue, is painted in garments as white as snow. Her looks are serene, pleasant, courteous, cheerful, and yet modest: she is the pledge of all honesty, the bulwark of honor, the light and joy of human society. She is commonly accounted the daughter of Time or Saturn, because Truth is discovered in the course of time; but Democritus feigns that she lies hid in the bottom of a well.

— Andrew Tooke

Concave mirrors magnify the features nearest to them into undue and monstrous proportions; and in common mirrors that are ill cast, and of uneven surface, the most beautiful face is distorted into deformity. So there are many minds of this description: they distort and magnify, diminish or discolor, almost every gospel truth which they reflect. Dr. Guthrie.

The truth may change its form, it may be hid for years and generations; but as the old wheat-seeds, wrapped in the mummies of Egypt, now, after ages, sought out by prying travellers, and planted, are found not to have lost their germ, but to have kept it through the sleep of three thousand years, so God's truths, hid in dead forms and institutions, slumbering in the grave of old books and libraries, or banished from polite society to live in the rags of the vulgar, do at length come forth with unimpaired germ, losing no more by their burial than did Christ their Master. Like him, they carry an unquenched heart through the grave. They bring forth light from its darkness; and, in spite of brute force and watchful authority, they stand again upon the earth, and look abroad with eyes of immortality. Beecher.

For all the practical purposes of life, Truth might as well be in prison as in the folio of a schoolman; and those who release her from the cob-webbed shelf, and teach her to live with men, have the merit of liberating, if not of discovering her.

— Colon

The poet Tennyson has the following motto in incrusted tiles on the pavement of his entrance-hall: "I Gwyr yn Erbyn y byd," — the truth against the world.

Men never make truths: they only recognize the value of this currency of God. They find truths as men sometimes find bills, in the street, and only recognize the value of that which other parties have drawn. Beecher.

A Roman gentleman, it is said, kept off a whole band of soldiers who were sent to murder him, by his eloquence, which was stronger than their anger or design. Such is truth in her influence upon those who seek to murder her, when they listen to her charming voice.

Truth is mighty, and shall prevail.—Latin.—It takes a good many shovelfals of earth to bury the truth.—Swiss.—Truth seldom goes without a scratched face. Truth is God's daughter.

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on; but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon, with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming: he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

— Milton

"It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea, a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth, a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene, and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below." Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's | TRUTH. | | --- | | mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. Lord Bacon. | | 5850. TRUTH, Weapons of Truth is not defended by physical weapons. Peter in defending Christ was defending truth; and yet Christ forbade the use of the sword. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, to the pulling-down of the stronghold of Satan." Truth shoulders in her palace of light as she beholds men attempting to promote her interests by the employment of material forces; truth sits not on a throne that is bristling with bayonets: her's is a throne established on the immovable basis of eternal right and infinite love. Dr. J. Parker. | | 5851. TRUTH AND ERROR, Forms of Truth, like life, will make its own form: error only lives as it is wrapped in fine clothes. Christianity was a principle of living truth, "a seed;" and, though small, only give it soil, and it will build up structures for itself. The little acorn will build in oaken forests for itself a home, before which the most magnificent palace of kings shall appear mean, and that shall flourish in strength and beauty when those palaces are dust. Truth never studies appearances, error does; truth is content with the form of a mustard-seed, error seeks all the pageantry that art can invent and wealth procure. Dr. Thomas. | | 5852. TYRANTS, Family. For his rule over his family, and for his conduct to wife and children, subjects over whom his power is monarchial, any one who watches the world must think with trembling of the account which many a man will have to render. For in our society there is no law to control the king of the fireside. He is master of property, happiness, life almost. He is free to punish, to make happy or unhappy, to ruin or to torture. He may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the grand seignor who drows a slave at midnight. He may make slaves and hypocrites of his children, or friends and freemen, or drive them into revolt and enmity against the natural laws of love. I have heard politicians and coffee-house wise-acres talking over the newspaper, and railing at the tyranny of the emperor, and wondered how these, who are monarchs too in their way, govern their own dominions at home, where each man rules absolute. When the annals of each little reign are shown the Supreme Master under whom we hold sovereignty, histories will be laid bare of household tyrants cruel as Amurath, savage as Nero, and reckless and dissolute as Charles. Thackeray. | | 5853. UNBELIEF, Analogy of As a child brought up in a dungeon cannot believe when told of the beauties of the sun and the outside world, no more can the natural man the doctrines of religion. | | 5854. UNBELIEF, Deadly. Unbelief of divine truth is a destitution of the only efficient principles by which the moral and spiritual life can be sustained. The experimentalist may display a vessel from which air has been more or less exhausted, and may tell | us there is nothing pernicious in it; but, if we discover a deficiency of support for animal and vegetable life, we shall charge him with a poor equivocation. An exclusion of those truths which are supereminently moral, such as the perfect holiness or rectitude of God, and the destination of man to glorify and enjoy him (truths which revelation alone demonstrates), is an exclusion of the only sufficient aliment of true virtue. We may as well expect a singing-bird to be vocal in a receiver where he has little or no air to respire, as expect the genuine exercise of real goodness from him who has no faith in God. Shepherd.

58.53. UNBELIEF, Deeply-Rooted. How deeply rooted must unbelief be in our hearts, when we are surprised to find our prayers answered, instead of feeling sure that they will be so, if they are only offered up in faith, and accord with the will of God! Hare.

58.56. UNBELIEF, and Faith. See these electric wires that are shooting their mysterious threads throughout our land, communicating between city and city, between man and man, however distant; dead, yet instinct with life; silent, yet vocal with hidden sound; carrying, as with a lightning-burst, the tidings of good or evil from shore to shore. Separate their terminating points by one hair's breadth from the index, or interpose some non-conducting substance, and in a moment intercourse is broken. No tidings come and go. The stoppage is as entire as if you had cut every wire in pieces, and cast these pieces to the winds. But refasten the several points, or link them to the index with some conducting material, and instantaneously the intercourse is renewed. Joy and sorrow flow again along the line. Men's thoughts, men's feelings, men's deeds, rumors of war or assurance of peace, news of victory or defeat, the sounds of falling thrones, the shouts of frantic nations, all hurrying on after each other to convey to ten thousand throbbing hearts the evil or the good which they contain. The non-conductor is unbelief. It interposes between the soul and all heavenly blessings, all divine intercourse. It may seem a thing too slight to effect so great a result, yet it does so inevitably. It shuts off the communication with the source of all glad tidings. It isolates the man, and forbids the approach of blessing. That conductor is faith. In itself it is nothing, but in its connection every thing. It restores in a moment the broken communication; and this is not from any virtue in itself, but simply as the conducting link between the soul and the fountain of all blessings above. H. Bonar.

58.57. UNBELIEF, Forms of. There are the various ramifications of the subtle spirit of unbelief. Afeism, discarding its former audacity of blasphemy, assuming now a modest garb and mendicant whine, asking our pity for its idiosyncrasy, bewailing its misfortune in not being able to believe there is a God; rationalism, whether in the transcendentalism of Hegel, or in the allegorizing impiety of Strauss, or in the pantheistic philosophy of

THE OF THE Eichte, eating out the heart of the gospel, into which its vampire-fangs have fastened; latitudinarianism on a sentimental journey in search of the religious instinct, doling out its equal and niggard praise to it wherever it is found, in Feticism, Thuggism, Mohammedism, or Christianity; that species of active and high-sounding scepticism, which, for want of a better name, we may call a Credophobia, which selects the confessions and catechisms as the objects of its especial hostility, and which, knowing right well, that, if the banner is down, the courage fails, and the army will be routed or slain, "furious as a wounded bull, runs tearing at the creeds," — these, with all their offshoots and dependencies (for their name is Legion) grouped under the generic style of infidelity, have girt themselves for the combat, and are asserting and endeavoring to establish their empire over the intellects and consciences of men. And as this spirit of unbelief has many sympathies with the spirit of superstition, they have entered into unholy alliance, — "Herod and Pilate have been made friends together," — and, joined hand in hand, they are arrayed against the truth of God. O rare John Bunyan! Was he not among the prophets? Listen to his description of the last army of Diabolus before the final triumph of Immanuel. "Ten thousand doubters, and fifteen thousand bloodmen; and old Incredulity was again made general of the army."

— W. M. Punshon

In certain ancient Italian frescoes Mary Magdalene is drawn as a woman completely enveloped in her own hair, which reaches to her feet and entirely wraps up her body as in a seamless garment. These queer draughtsmen must needs exaggerate; granted that the woman had long hair, they must enfold her in it like a silkworm in its own silk. The practice survives among the tribe of talkers, everything with them is on the enlarged scale; a man with ordinary abilities is a prodigy, another with very pardonable faults is a monster, a third with a few failings is a disgrace to humanity. Truth is as comely and beautiful as a woman with flowing hair, but exaggeration is as grotesque and ugly as the Magdalene, all hair from head to foot.

The primary idea of taking an oath is that we call upon the Deity to bear witness to the sincerity or truth of what we assert, and so, as it were, register our oath in heaven. When Abraham, for example, raised his hands to heaven while swearing an oath to the King of Sodom, he pointed to the supposed residence of the Creator. Afterward, when men set up inferior deities of their own, they appealed to the material images of symbols that represented them, whenever an oath was administered. The most usual form of swearing among the ancients was, however, by touching the altar of the gods. Other rites, such as libations, the burning of incense and sacrifices accompanied the touching of the altar. Demosthenes swore by the souls of those who fell at Marathon. Anciently, too, mariners swore by their ships, fishermen by their nets, soldiers by their spears, and kings by their scepters. The ancient Persians swore by the sun, which was the common object of their adoration, while the Scythians pledged themselves by the air they breathed and by their simitars. Descending to more modern times, the Saxons pledged themselves to support their homes and privileges by their arms; and the punishment for perjury or non-fulfilment of an oath was the loss of the hand that had held the weapon at the compact. The Spartans were wont to assemble around a brazier of fire, and, pointing their short swords to the sky, call upon the gods to bear witness to the compact. Swearing by the sword, in fact, retained its significance down to comparatively modern times, tho in a slightly modified form. Thus, while the pagans extended the point of the weapon toward the supposed residence of the gods, the warriors of Christianity after kissing it, directed the hilt--the true emblem of their faith--to heaven. A later form of oath was the pressing of the thumb upon the blade. Gradually, however, the practise became obsolete; and the kissing of the hilt, accompanying the words, “By this good sword!” was handed down almost to the time when the wearing of a sword by gentlemen was abolished, as one of the strictest codes of civil honor.--London _Standard_.

The art of painting pictures so near to life as to deceive the naked eye is very old. Pliny relates that Zeuxis once painted some grapes so naturally that birds used to come and peck at them, and that Parrhasius once painted a curtain so artfully that Zeuxis desired to draw it aside so that he could see the picture it hid. Discovering his error, he confest himself outdone, as he had only imposed on birds, whereas Parrhasius had deceived the human intellect. Another time Zeuxis painted a boy with some grapes, and when the birds again flew at the grapes he was very angry, saying that he was certainly at fault with the picture. He reasoned that had it been perfect the birds would have been frightened away by the boy.

Caius Valerius Flaccus says that Zeuxis’ death was occasioned by an immoderate fit of laughter on looking at the comic picture he had drawn of an old woman.--Philadelphia _Ledger_.

Once Mr. Beecher, preaching on war, and the tax burden, spoke of Russia as having a standing army of fifteen hundred billions. One hearer laughed, Mr. Beecher grew red, stamped on the floor, and exclaimed, “I say Russia has fifteen hundred billions of men in her standing army”--that settled it! Well, but Mr. Beecher’s error in mathematics did not invalidate his arguments for patriotism, or duty, or home, or the love of God; nor need you be disturbed by the geology or astronomy or history of the Old Testament.

— N. D. HILLIS

It is the universal custom among the Parsees of the Far East to wear a girdle around their waists, which is twisted into three knots in a most complicated fashion. In performing their daily ablutions this girdle must be removed, and in replacing it certain prayers are repeated for each knot. The three knots represent good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, all constituting a threefold cord that is to be not easily broken.

A good companion to the “girdle of truth” which the Christian may wear. (Text.)

It was 416 years before Christ was born. The philosopher Diogenes was making himself very unwelcome in Athens. He trudged around the city carrying a lantern while it was still daylight. His reason? He would thrust the lantern in the face of people and say, "I am looking for an honest man." He never found him.

Many leaders feel the government has a right to lie. One of them has made an interesting argument. His name is Arthur Sylvester and he was the assistant Secretary of Defense. He writes:

"If I had been living in the early 19th century in what was then our country's West, and had been a religious man, ... I am sure I would have taken my stand with the Lying Baptists instead of the Truthful Baptists."

He is referring to an incident in 1804 in Kentucky. Some Baptists were disputing whether they should tell the truth and possibly sacrifice the life of a child as a result. The Lying Baptists thought they should lie to the Indians and possibly save the child.

God expects honesty of us.

Dramatic story of Ananias and Sapphira. Early church was very committed. Ananias and Sapphira among those selling property, giving proceeds. Difference: they lied about the amount. They didn't have to give a thing. But since they chose to, and lied, God struck them dead.

If God did this today, where would I be? Right here, preaching to an empty church!

________

[Original in Tan is somewhat different.]

Liberal Baptist gives her interpretation of theological conflict being waged in Southern Baptist denomination. Talks about Baptist ideals of soul freedom. Early fundamentalist upbringing and habits contrasted with her current liberal view of Scripture (creation, flood, Babel are myths; Barth, Bultmann, and Tillich are her heroes.) Values-searching is stressed over possessing truth.