Showing 101 to 125 of 538 results
101. Cure of Cirrhosis of the Giver
Humor Illustration
Michael P. Green
The disease cirrhosis of the giver was discovered in a.d. 34 by the husband-wife team of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11). It is an acute condition that renders the patient’s hands immobile when he is called on to move them in the direction of his wallet or her purse, and from thence to the offering plate. This strange malady is clinically unobservable in such surroundings as the golf club, supe...
102. Daily Manna
Illustration
Michael P. Green
One of Rabbi Ben Jochai’s pupils once asked him, “Why did not the Lord furnish enough manna to Israel for a year, all at one time?” The teacher said, “I will answer you with a parable. Once there was a king who had a son to whom he gave a yearly allowance, paying him the entire sum on the fixed date. It soon happened that the day on which the allowance was due was the only day of the year when th...
103. Death Is Unnatural
Illustration
Michael P. Green
It has become fashionable in our culture to hold the view that death is a perfectly natural occurrence. The Bible teaches that it is not, and even those who deny the afterlife witness that God “has set eternity in the hearts of men.” The following extract from Charlotte and Howard Clinebell’s The Intimate Marriage (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 188, serves as a good illustration of this truth: On...
104. Defining Sin
Illustration
Michael P. Green
How would you describe sin? Man calls it an accident; God calls it an abomination. Man calls it a blunder; God calls it blindness. Man calls it a defect; God calls it a disease. Man calls it a chance; God calls it a choice. Man calls it an error; God calls it an enmity. Man calls it a fascination; God calls it a fatality. Man calls it an infirmity; God calls it an iniquity. Man calls it a luxury;...
105. Definition of Christian
Illustration
Michael P. Green
The Bible uses many terms to describe Christians. They are called Christians, children, children of God, children of light, children of the day, children of obedience, believers, friends, brothers, sheep, saints, soldiers, witnesses, stewards, fellow citizens, lights in the world, elect of God, ambassadors, ministers, servants, disciples, heirs, joint-heirs, branches, members of the body, living s...
106. Deliverance from Carnality
Illustration
Michael P. Green
The story is told of Handley Page, a pioneer in aviation, who once landed in an isolated area during his travels. Unknown to him, a rat got aboard the plane there. On the next leg of the flight, Page heard the sickening sound of gnawing. Suspecting it was a rodent, his heart began to pound as he visualized the serious damage that could be done to the fragile mechanisms that controlled his plane an...
107. Depart This Life Unwailed
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Chrysostom, early church father and orator, deplored the ostentatious public lamentations that were made at Christian funerals in his day: “When I behold the wailings in public places, the groanings over those who have departed this life, the howlings and all the other unseemly behavior, I am ashamed before the heathen and the Jews and heretics who see it, and indeed before all who for this reason...
108. Devil Will Build A Road
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Suppose you had a thousand-acre ranch and someone offered to buy it. You agree to sell the land except for one acre right in the center that you want to keep for yourself. In most parts of the country, the law would allow you to have access to that one lone spot by building a road across the surrounding property. So it is with us as Christians if we make less than a full surrender to God. We can ...
109. Devil's Fall
Illustration
Michael P. Green
In his classic work Paradise Lost, John Milton describes the fall of Satan from heaven with his host of rebel angels. He depicts this as a great war lasting three days. The first two days of the cataclysm are waged solely between Satan and his demons and the unfallen angels under the Archangel Michael. On the third day, the Father sends the Son in glorious power to do singlehanded combat with all ...
110. Did Your God Will This?
Illustration
Michael P. Green
In the midst of the movie The Hiding Place, there is a scene set in the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany. Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, are there, along with ten thousand other women, in horrible, degrading, hideous conditions. They are gathered with some of the women in the barracks in the midst of the beds, cold and hungry and lice-ridden, and Betsy is leading a Bible class. On...
111. Died In the Harness
Humor Illustration
Michael P. Green
The story has been told of a woman who had acquired wealth and social prominence and decided to have a book written about her genealogy. The well-known author she engaged for the assignment discovered that one of her grandfathers was a murderer who had been electrocuted in Sing Sing. When he said this would have to be included in the book, the woman pleaded that he find a way of saying it that wou...
112. Disarming Love
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Carl Sandburg’s daughter Helga wrote of her parents: “There were never loud arguments back and forth in our house. My father raged and roared, and often. But it was one-way. Mother coaxed him out of it. Once when he was very old, I saw him pull at a door that was stuck. He rattled the handle and shouted. My mother, a small woman, looked up at him and patted his chest, ‘What a fine strong voice!’ s...
113. Distinguishing Bones
Illustration
Michael P. Green
The story is told of a time when the famed philosopher Diogenes looked intently at a large collection of human bones piled one on another. Alexander the Great stood nearby and became curious about what Diogenes was doing. When he asked the old man, the reply was, “I am searching for the bones of your father, but I cannot seem to distinguish them from those of the slaves.” Alexander got the point: ...
114. Doctrine vs. Doing
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Doctrine and doing are like the two chemical ingredients of salt, which is composed of two poisons: sodium and chlorine. If we ingested either of the two poisons, we would die. But if we combine them properly, we have sodium chloride, which is the common table salt that gives flavor to our food and indeed life and health to our bodies. So, too, are faith and works inseparable.
115. Don't Be A Fat Goose
Illustration
Michael P. Green
A flock of wild geese was flying south for the winter, when one of the geese looked down and noticed a group of domestic geese by a pond on a farm. He saw that they had plenty of grain to eat, so he went down to join them. The food was so good, he decided to stay with the domestic geese until spring, when his own flock would fly north again. When spring came, he heard his old flock going by and fl...
116. Don't Let Fog Obscure the Goal
Illustration
Michael P. Green
On the California coast on the morning of July 4, 1952 a fog was rolling in. Twenty-one miles to the west, on Catalina Island, a thirty-four-year-old woman waded into the water and began swimming toward California, determined to be the first woman to ever swim the twenty-one-mile strait. Her name was Florence Chadwick, and she had already been the first woman to swim the English Channel in both di...
117. Don't Rush Me
Luke 12:13-21
Humor Illustration
Michael P. Green
An old Jack Benny skit illustrates how money can become more important to us than anything else. Jack was walking along, when suddenly an armed robber approached him and ordered, “Your money or your life!” There was a long pause, and Jack did nothing. The robber impatiently queried, “Well?” Jack replied, “Don’t rush me, I’m thinking about it.” (Incidentally, in real life, Jack Benny was known as a...
118. Don't Want To Work
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Humorist Ogden Nash captured the bitter truth about laziness: If you don’t want to work You have to work To earn enough money So that you won’t have to work.
119. Doomed To Repeat
1 Cor 10:6-11
Illustration
Michael P. Green
At the site of Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany, is a museum containing relics from the camp, as well as grim photos depicting conditions there during the war years. There is a sign next to the exit that reads: “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.” The same idea was in Paul’s mind in this passage. The mistakes the Israelites made were cited by t...
120. Drawing Not Hitting The Mark
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Legend has it that the FBI went into one town to investigate the work of what appeared to be a sharpshooter. They were amazed to find many bull’s-eyes drawn around town, with bullets that had penetrated the exact center of the targets. When they finally found the man who had been doing the shooting, they asked him about the technique he used to attain such accuracy. The answer was simple. He shot ...
121. Dry Cows
Illustration
Michael P. Green
Dwight L. Moody understood the place of money in the kingdom of God, and he wasn’t timid about expressing it, either. He had gone to a certain Mr. Farwell time and time again and was finally back for another ten-thousand-dollar contribution. Mr. Farwell said, “Mr. Moody, must you always be coming to me for money?” Moody replied, “Mr. Farwell, you grew up on a farm, just as I did. Did you ever tak...
122. Dynamite The Church
Illustration
Michael P. Green
The hero of Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was wise enough to install dynamite under the foundation of all the munitions plants and factories he had built. He realized that should there be an uprising against his “new” nineteenth-century ideas, these factories (once so helpful) might be taken over and used against him. There is wisdom to this approach for the church. Every...
123. Earth’s Crammed With Heaven
Illustration
Michael P. Green
The argument for Creationism from design and order is clear in the following lines, written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Aurora Leigh: Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
124. Easier To Stand and Holler
Humor Illustration
Michael P. Green
“I think I’ll be a preacher when I grow up,” the small boy confided to his mother. “It’s a wonderful calling,” the mother agreed, “but why do you want to be a preacher?” “Well,” resolved the youngster, “I figure I’ll have to go to church all my life, anyway, and it’s harder to sit than to stand up and holler.”
125. Easy or Impossible
Illustration
Michael P. Green
“Is it hard to paint a picture?” a woman asked Salvador Dali. “No,” replied the artist. “It’s either easy or impossible.” The same answer holds for the creation of the universe. For God, it was “easy.” For any other person, it is “impossible!”
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