Episode 55: Sermon Illustrations

To the Ruled Church podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy.

Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Coming to you live from the North Pole.

Don't you feel like that's the...

Hey, we sang a Christmas song this last Sunday in our service.

Yeah.

Yeah, we sang Prepare Him Room. It's one of my favorites.

Are you the cause of this colder weather this week?

I'm telling you, look, I have got my wild rag on.

Wild kicks, but not everybody knows that that is.

Yeah, yeah, so people kind of in the Western culture, cowboy culture, they're basically a big scarf. You double it over, you put it around your neck and tie it up and you can't wear them hardly in the summer, not the way I'm wearing it.

I'm wearing it like you'd wear it in the winter to keep you warm.

It got down, and we're recording this on August 16th. This morning, I think here in Perryville, it got down to 61 degrees.

Yeah, it was really nice.

How was it there?

It was really great.

You heard the mountains.

Yeah, and even like yesterday afternoon and evening, I mean, it was just beautiful. It was the most beautiful August day I think I've ever experienced. It was just, it was amazing.

I'm Alan Nelson, co-host of the Rural Church Podcast 2 .0, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

One of the pastors.

One of the pastors, that's right. Good, that's good.

Praise the Lord.

One of the pastors, yeah. I've got to watch myself on that. So we added another elder in April, and here I am trying to usurp his authority. But also with me, my brother in the faith and partner in ministry, good friend, Eddie Ragsdale.

Hello, Eddie.

Hello, brother.

I got a quote.

And hello, everyone out there listening.

I got a quote. Hey, mom, I got a quote. I got a quote. No, I don't even think my mom listened. I got a quote for you to start us off.

All right.

This is from Voltaire, the French philosopher. If you would destroy Christianity, you must first kill Sunday. What do you think about that?

I think this, I think, you know, we talked about this a little bit last week, and I don't know exactly how all of the podcasts we've recorded will, what order they'll come out in, but we talked a little bit about the law and the importance of, you know, the Sabbath commandment.

And regardless of how a person takes their view of bringing it from the old covenant, new covenant, those things, as far as Sabbath goes, if you get away from the importance of the Lord's day, the Lord's day is the central day, not only of the Christian week, but of the Christian life.

We're living out our lives around the Lord and His day, eating the Lord's meal, meeting with the Lord's people for the Lord's glory on the Lord's day. I mean, it's so central to everything we do.

The Lord's Day, the Sabbath, and the Health of the Church

Yeah, and it's really been, again, I'm with you. We confess the 1689, so we lean, you know, more towards a Christian Sabbath idea, understanding, but even if someone's on the other side, that kind of Lord's day, like

And that's more my position, would be more a Lord's day than a Christian Sabbath.

But can't we all understand, can we not see the downgrade of Christianity and its connection with a desecration of Sunday? It's just Sunday, just another day, doesn't matter. We'll play sports, we'll do all our shopping, we'll work in the yard, whatever.

And we won't see it as that special day of one in seven where we specifically set aside to meet with God's people. You know, one of the most basic things I was reading last night in family worship, in 2 Peter chapter one, he says in verse 10, make your calling and election sure.

And one of the ways that we're to make our calling and election sure is by these qualities, is the word that he keeps using. And one of these qualities, I think in the King James, it says brotherly kindness, but in the ESV, it says brotherly affection.

That's around verse six and seven, I believe, of 2 Peter one, brotherly affection. So how do you make your calling and election sure? In other words, how do you know if you're a Christian? Well, it's similar to 1 John 3, 14.

We know that we've passed from death to life because we love the brothers.

That's right.

Brotherly affection. Well, how do you manifest brotherly affection? Well, it's not just, oh, I feel I love all Christians. No, it means a lot actually, Eddie, but at its base level, like it means more than this, but it doesn't mean less than this.

And that is weekly gathering with God's people. And so I think this idea, obviously you can't destroy Christianity. You can snuff it out maybe in a culture.

Right.

We can't get rid of it altogether. And I think we've seen that in America. And I think that there's a direct connection between the destroying of Sunday and the demise of Christianity.

Right.

And I would say one of the, if we say, how do we know, how do you know your church is healthy or moving in a more healthy direction? And I would say one of the things is the, not just how long, but just how vibrant is the fellowship of Christians on the Lord's day in your church.

If you see a growing fellowship and vibrancy and people just lingering to talk about the things of God when you meet together on the Lord's day, that is a sure sign that your church is growing in health and glorifying the Lord.

Why Local Church Fellowship Matters More Than Conference Christianity

Yeah, that's really good. We don't just come to church and check it off the box, but we have brotherly affection. We desire to be with people. And I assume most people listening to this are in agreement with this.

But if you happen to be listening to this and you're one of those people that you just listen to podcasts and you just kind of roam around, but you're not really connected to a local church, well, you're really in a dangerous situation because

You know, I've had this thought before.

Yeah, go ahead.

If you were like independently wealthy, you might would think, man

Are you saying I'm not?

I could buy an RV. I could become like James White and hit the road, Jack. And don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more. And I could just go like, I could go to Founders Conference, Ligonier, G3.

You could just make a circuit of it. You could go to ShepCon. You could go to all these amazing conferences, but you would not be more spiritually healthy if you had neglected the local church for that year.

Yeah.

With all of the biblical preaching that you heard, I would argue you would not be more spiritually healthy having spent a year on the road, hitting all these conferences because you did not have regular fellowship with your local body, under the leadership of your local pastors and growing in those relationships.

I would argue you would be less spiritually healthy, even though you heard a lot of biblical truth.

You know, our friend, Jeff Johnson said one time in a class, very good, I remembered it. He said, Sunday is what our week should revolve around. And most of the time, folks have Sunday revolve around their week.

That is, you know, it's an afterthought. It's a secondary thought. Sunday is seen as the weekend, the last day of the week. Instead of the first, well, you got something?

Oh.

No, I was just saying it's the first day.

Yeah, it's the first day of the week. And the first day of the week is, it ought to be our priority. Let's begin our week right. But usually we treat it, if we have anything left over, we'll drag ourselves into church.

Maybe we'll come to Sunday school. Maybe we'll be able to pay attention during the service. Maybe we'll come back Sunday night. You know, the Lord's day has turned into, at best, the Lord's hour. And then, you know, people have joked, but, you know, the Lord's visitation rights now every other weekend.

But even now, it's worse. Now you're an active member if you come once a month or whatever.

Well, even think about the way that a person budgets finances. If you say, I'm gonna take what the Lord has given me, you know, what the Lord has allowed me to earn, and I'm gonna set aside a portion to give to the Lord from the start, right?

I'm gonna budget that first. That comes before everything else. First fruits, if you wanna use that language. You are, I promise, you're gonna give more than if your strategy is, well, I'll just see if I've got anything left at the end of the month, and I'll give that to the Lord.

You won't have anything left. And if you budget your time that way, if you say, well, I'm gonna, we're gonna do the sports, and we're gonna get school, and we're gonna go to a job, and we're gonna do all that stuff.

And then, you know, once the grass is mowed and all the chores are done, then we'll gather with God's people with whatever time is left. Then you won't. No, you won't.

Yeah, and it's not just about showing up, obviously, but it's not less than that. So we're not just saying just show up. I mean, there's so much more than that, but that's a basic principle of brotherly affection.

So anyway, I thought that was interesting. I read that this morning. I was listening to Richard Barcelos talk about the Christian Sabbath, which was really good, by the way, but he had mentioned that, and I think it's so true, and we see it today.

Even churches, even churches killing Sunday in the way that they have constructed their worship or organize, you know, the way that they preach. But we're gonna talk about preaching in this episode. We've already, I don't wanna say wasted.

We've already gone about 10 minutes. I hope that's been profitable, a little over 10 minutes, I think, talking about these things. But what we wanted to get in today is something that will hopefully make Sunday more profitable, and what's that?

Well, it's not just Sundays, but in your main preaching service, most likely, Sunday morning. What's something that will make that more profitable?

Well, the good use of preaching and teaching illustrations. So we wanna talk about, you know, maybe the good, bad, and the ugly of preaching and teaching illustrations. I know that if you ask most preachers or teachers, you know, especially about horror stories, most of us probably have a horror story surrounding some sports analogy that we just knew was gonna really land, and it really crashed.

I kind of used one even this last Sunday. I tried to throw in a thing about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and I feel like it just really bombed. It didn't work at all. And I know that I shouldn't do sports things.

They don't ever work. But yeah, I just wanted us to talk a little bit about illustrations, and maybe even, you know, you and I probably even have some differences in the way that we come up with illustrations, and, you know, the way that we find those, and just kind of talk a little bit about.

The Purpose of Sermon Illustrations

Yeah, I'm reading a little bit. I mean, it's been slow, but there's a three-volume Pastoral Theology by Albert Martin. Have you heard of it?

I've heard of it, yes.

I highly recommend to you, Eddie, and highly recommend to our listeners if you can make it through the first volume. So the first volume, he talks about who's qualified. And, you know, every young man aspiring to ministry in seminary should read it, and if they don't go to seminary in a local church, they should read it.

It's not easy, you know, and this is a high calling. But the second volume, which I'm in right now, he talks about the importance, like how to preach and those sorts of things. And so he has a whole chapter on illustrations, and he reminds us so many people in the past have done well at illustration and advocated illustration.

So you think about Spurgeon. Spurgeon is a very illustrative preacher. One of my favorite Puritans, Thomas Watson, you know, excellent with illustrations. What we're doing with illustrations is taking the heavenly, taking the high and weighty doctrines of the scriptures, and we're bringing them down and connecting them to people's minds where people are at.

Is that, I just kind of threw that up off the top of my head.

Yeah, no, I think that's good. That's really good. And the thing is that illustrations allow us to remember, if they're doing their job, they're allowing us to remember the thing being taught. If the person walks away remembering the illustration, but they have no idea what it was supposed to teach, that's not a good illustration, even though they remember it.

What matters is, can they remember what the illustration was illustrating?

I'll give you an example. We had Sunday, I was talking about in Ephesians 6, we're still in Ephesians, verse eight, it talks about the Lord will reward the good that we've done, whether slave or free.

And I was just kind of working through and encouraging young mothers, encouraging young fathers. It's like, sometimes your days are hard. I made this comment about, you're doing family worship, you think your little girl's finally got it.

She raises her hand at the end, and she asked a question like, can you eat unicorns? Like, she's like, if you do family worship, you've all been there, like.

Yes.

Their mind was not on what you were talking about. It's on like something silly, can you eat unicorn? Well, there was a little girl at the end of service, like that's what she remembered. Like that's what she got out of the message.

So anyway, let me read to you a quote from John Broadus, who's in our tradition, Reformed Baptist. He says, the importance of illustration and preaching is beyond expression. In numerous cases, it is our best means of explaining religious truth.

And often to the popular mind, our only means of proving it. Ornament too has its legitimate place in preaching. And whatever will help us to move the hard hearts of men is unspeakably valuable. Besides for whatever purpose illustration may especially be especially employed, it often causes the truth to be remembered.

Sometimes indeed, even where it's forced as an explanation or proof was not at first fully apprehended the illustration, particularly if it be a narrative is retained in the mind until subsequent instruction or experience brings out the meaning.

Such was frequently the case with the first hearers of our Lord's parables. In preaching to children and to the great mass of adults, illustration is simply indispensable. If we would either interest, instruct or impress them, while good illustration is always acceptable and useful to hearers of the highest talent and culture.

The example of our Lord decides the whole question. And the illustrations which so abound in the records of his preaching ought to be heedfully studied by every preacher as to their source, their aim, their style and their relation to the other elements of his teaching.

Among the Christian preachers of different ages who have been most remarkable for affluence and felicity of illustration, there may be mission Chrysostom, Jeremy Taylor, Christmas Evans, Chalmers, Guthrie, Spurgeon and Beecher.

I think that's really good. You know, as you were just reading that, I was just thinking about illustrations that have really impacted me, some that have stayed with me. And one actually that I got from you, and you can tell me if this was not original with you, but I know that it is, I believe it's in both of your books, both in From Death to Life and in A Change of Heart.

And I use it all the time. And I try to always give you attribution when I use it, but the illustration of, and the illustration is dealing with the issue of our nature really drives our will. We make choices that is driven by what we are.

And it's the illustration of you can offer the buzzard, you know, the rancid meat or the fresh salad. And it really could use the fresh salad, but it always chooses the rancid meat because it's a buzzard.

And that illustration is so powerful for understanding that, wouldn't even be able to count up the number of times because it is so helpful in just getting that picture in a person's mind. Yes, you're making choices, but in your sin, you're gonna make sinful choices because you're a sinner, just like a buzzard is gonna choose rancid meat.

Yeah.

So those kinds of illustrations can really get deep into our hearts.

Truthfulness, Sources, and Appropriate Use of Illustrations

Yeah, that's right. A couple of things I wanna say about illustrations. One, you should not use illustrations. It's okay to use someone else's illustration. Even, I think even without citation, as long as you're not like changing the details, you could even say, for example, if I hear an illustration that you do, I could say something like, I heard one time, and then I could say like that.

But what I can't do is I can't hear something Eddie has done and then tell it as though I have done it.

Yeah, let's say that on Sunday, I were gonna tell your story about family worship and bitch at my daughter. That would be problematic since I don't have a daughter.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, yeah, but that's right, but it's just, that's lying.

That's right.

And it's actually so easy not to do. So, I mean, you easily could tell the same story, just say, hey, I heard about this guy and then boom.

Right, right.

Or my friend.

My friend, yeah, yeah.

But you can't tell an illustration of something that happened to you that didn't happen to you.

That's right.

So avoid that.

We should never bear false witness for the power of the illustration.

The other thing, of course, is know your audience. Be careful with the kind of illustrations. Make sure they're appropriate. You shouldn't be watching terrible movies anyway, but I would avoid illustrations from wicked movies.

Maybe there's an exception to that. There's some sort of like just well-known quote or something maybe. But for the most part, I'd stay away from that. You don't want to give, even if you don't watch the movie, you don't want to give the idea to your people that that's something that's okay to do.

Yeah, and I'll admit, I'll admit a couple of weeks ago, I kind of caught myself in the middle of a situation like that. It was, I'd watched a, and I guess I'm doing it again here, but maybe this will illustrate the problem with that.

So I'd watched a small clip on YouTube from a Joe Rogan podcast. I wouldn't suggest that Christians need to be filling up their time with Joe Rogan podcasts. You're going to hear a lot on Joe Rogan podcasts that is not going to be edifying.

However, he was talking to Stephen Meyer, and you may know Dr. Stephen Meyer. He's an intelligent design advocate. And they were talking about Christianity. And so it was applicable in my sermon, but I was about halfway into making the point about it.

And I was like, but don't listen to Joe Rogan. I was like, I probably just shouldn't have included that at all.

I think also it's okay to make up stories. Imagine, like Jesus, like imagine this. You know what I'm saying? Like you don't always, don't, you don't. So maybe we should think about like where you find illustrations, you know, movies, television, reading, those are all areas, history, all areas.

It's okay also to, what I was just saying, make up a scenario, you know, create a scenario.

Right.

Well, your illustration with the buzzard and the fresh salad, it's, that's a made up scenario. It's not, you didn't see that actually happen.

I wrote a story one time about Brittany, the broccoli hater, you know, and just going.

I remember that.

Yeah, she hated broccoli and it was just a point of, we need regeneration to have a taste for the things of Christ. But I just made it up. But this Sunday, I'm beginning the last section of Ephesians on Ephesians 6, 10 through 20, the last major section.

Then of course you have the conclusion. But we're talking about spiritual warfare and the, and so you think about spiritual warfare and the sermon title is Welcome to the War. And so I was just trying to think through, is there any, is there a illustration of someone in a war but didn't realize they were in a war?

You know, cause that's the idea like of the point of the sermon Sunday is like, we need to know we're in the war.

Yeah.

Well, I came across and I knew about this. So it was not exactly what I was going for, but I was able to adapt. The idea of like the last Japanese surrender from World War II, do you know when it was?

I know that it was a long time after because they still thought they were in the war.

That's right, it was like 1974.

Yeah.

And so I'm gonna begin the sermon with that illustration and I'm gonna tell that story, true story. By the way, so it's okay to fictionalize illustration, but like, if you're telling a historical story, you should tell it accurately.

Right.

But I'm gonna tell that story, true story. And I'm gonna say actually how it applies to us is it's the opposite. Whereas this man is fighting a war that didn't exist. Most, too many professing Christians are not fighting a war that does exist.

That's right.

And typically I begin sermons with an illustration with the purpose of trying to pull listeners in. If you just stand out and say, turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 6, I'm not, I mean, you can do that.

That's great. And I don't have a problem with that. And there's many great preachers that start that way. But for me, I've just found it most of the time, I try to start with some sort of question or illustration.

I'm trying to engage people in. Maybe another point of illustration, bringing them in. The primary point is making that connection to help them from the earth wrap their mind around the things of heaven, if you will.

Right.

And illustrations, one thing that can be helpful is if the illustration has a part in it that changes what they thought. Even this may happen a little bit with your telling that story, and then you're gonna say, but what we're dealing with is the opposite.

Or a few weeks ago, I was dealing with Philippians 3 where Paul says he has lost everything for the sake of gaining Christ Jesus. And he counts everything as loss and as rubbish for the sake of gaining Christ.

I was dealing with that issue. Paul's just going over and over there about loss. And so I shared this illustration with the church and I said, imagine you're in a game and you're quickly up eight to two.

And then I said, then you're up 16 to five. And I just kept going on like that. And finally I said, the game is over and you're up 140 to 68. And then I said, but let me tell you, you were playing golf.

And I said, it just changed everything. And I said, that was exactly what was going on for Paul because he was living his life. He was zealous for his Judaism. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, all those things.

And then he meets Jesus and he realizes he was playing golf.

Jesus' Parables, Scriptural Illustrations, and the Use of Humor

Yeah, that's good. This idea of, and Jesus did that in several of his parables, like you're going one direction. The prodigal son is one I can think of off the top of my head. You're going one direction.

You're like, oh man, the father's fixing to get him. And it goes in a direction you don't expect. And then even beyond that, that one has like multiple parts like that. Cause one, you like expect the father.

Then the next thing you realize by the end, oh, actually that parable is not so much about the prodigal son as it is about the older brother.

That's right.

Like, whoa.

And so Jesus is a master storyteller. I have something else I want to mention. It's good to give illustrations with a twist. Like Eddie just said, I would caution you from doing illustrations that are just way too emotional.

You know, sometimes people give emotional illustrations and those are okay. But there are some that are just too far, you know, maybe the harming of a child or something like that. You know, it's like, you just can't emotionally.

It's too much.

Right.

And cause we're not trying to manipulate emotions or take people in such a way that like they can't hear the rest of the sermon.

That's right. That's right.

Well, we've had pretty good.

There's something else I want to ask you about. I think it comes up. Oh, go ahead, bro.

Well, there was one other thing I wanted to mention and you brought up the Lord Jesus and the parables that he would share. Thinking about where do we get illustrations? And even some of those brothers that brought us mentioned, the greatest place for you to find illustrations is the scripture.

You think about it. In almost any passage of scripture that you're going to preach or teach, there's going to be another place in scripture that's going to illustrate that point. And so I'm not saying absolutely you should only get your illustrations from scripture.

We've already made the point that we can get them from history. We can get them even from fictional stories, but we should never lessen the idea that there are illustrations of our points and of the main points in the scripture in other places in scripture.

And you just think about, you think about how so many of the sermons, especially when you look at the book of Acts, what did they do? They went right back to the Old Testament. They went right back to Abraham.

They went right back to Adam. They went right back to Joseph. They went right back to Moses. And they used the illustrations of what had come before them in the Old Covenant to illustrate the points that they were making as they preached the gospel.

I mean, not only can you do that, but I would encourage you to, if you're not doing that, that should be a regular part of your illustration because something else it does. Not only does it serve the purpose of illustration, it also serves the purpose of encouraging your people to know their Bibles.

That's right.

I think that's great. Well, another thing, and I don't want to spend forever on this, but I think it falls under the category of illustration, and then we'll kind of land this plane, but that is the use of humor in the pulpit.

You know, one thing that you see about the Lord Jesus is you'd never see him cracking jokes, you know, telling jokes in his teaching. And I don't think it's wrong to tell a joke, but as a general principle, you shouldn't be a joke teller.

And there's a different

You're not a comedian.

That's right. There's a different kind of humor that I think can flow from the scriptures, or sorry, flow from the sermon that is appropriate. It's kind of more natural, you know, than being up there telling a joke.

Right.

I think if you start your sermon with a joke, or you're trying to set up this joke, first of all, you're probably not good at it. You're not nearly as good as you think.

That's right.

And if you are, maybe you're in the wrong profession. But the other thing is, it kind of like sets a different tone, you know?

That's right.

Now, you listen to my sermons, like I make humorous references, but usually they come more naturally.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah. I absolutely agree. I think, I mean, we probably all heard the preacher who really wants to be a comedian. So he's trying to put in, you know, lots of jokes. I wouldn't say I never, but very, very rarely do I plan any of the humor in my sermons.

If there's humorous things, those kind of just come out as I go. So for example, this last Sunday, I was making a point about, actually I was talking about Sundays, and I was talking about how we ought to be investing in Sundays, be together more and all these things.

And I said, our meeting is bigger than even just this service, because, you know, we have a meal afterward. And so one of the brothers who always hangs around, like the longest, he's sitting over there.

And I said, we're not done till Jason leaves.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, and everybody kind of laughed. Well, that wasn't planned.

Yeah.

But in the course of talking about it, it just came, and everybody thought it was funny. And it didn't take away, it added to, but it wasn't something where I had to spend a long time building up so that I could hit this laugh point and wasn't focused on the point that was being made from the text of scripture.

This isn't like overly profound or whatever, but if humor is used to serve the sermon, and the sermon's not used to serve the humor, then I think you're on the right track, you know?

That's right.

Most of the time, planned humor usually ends up being maybe kind of lame or whatever.

Yeah.

But, you know, I think humor is a useful tool in preaching.

Yeah.

But it's, we're not comedians. I don't know, man. If somebody was like, man, I love listening to Quatro because he's just so funny, I think I'd be disappointed at that. I'd be highly disappointed in that.

On the other hand, let's not ignore the fact that there are humorous portions of the Bible. You know, a couple of nights ago, my sons and I, we are reading 1 Samuel right now. And a couple of nights ago, we were at the story of Dagon.

And I think it's one of the funniest stories in the Bible. I just love it, you know, because he just keeps falling down. The idol just keeps falling. It is hilarious to me every time I read it. And if I were preaching that, I don't think I could preach it where I didn't bring out the humorous nature of, look how Yahweh is just casting down this idol.

Yeah.

And the imagery of they gotta come in and set him back up again.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's hilarious.

And it's pretty similar with, you know, like you go the opposite too, because you know, God, humor's good if it's used well. Sorrow is good if it's used well. Fear is good if it's used well. Like all these aspects of that make up who we are, they can be used in illustration as long as they're serving the sermon and the sermon is not serving them.