Here are some illustrations for your file. They may be useful to you in the future.
DECEPTION
Danny Sampson robbed a bank in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada used a hand-me-down Colt 45 and got $6,000. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police caught him and confiscated the gun. They sent the gun to their laboratory, as their normal procedure, where it was recognized as a collector's prize. Danny Sampson didn't have to rob a bank; he had a gun worth $100,000.
DECISIONS
Ronald Reagan had an aunt who liked him a lot and was very kind to him. She took him to the shoe cobbler and told the shoe cobbler that she wanted him to make a pair of custom shoes for young Ronald Reagan. And the cobbler asked, "Do you want square toes or round toes on the shoes?" Ronald hemhawed around; he didn't know what he wanted. The cobbler said, "That's all right, see me in a couple of days and tell me and I'll make them for you." A couple of days later the cobbler saw him around town and he looked at him and he said, "Do you want square toes or do you want round toes on your shoes?" Ronald said "I don't know." The cobbler responded, "Well, come in a couple of days your shoes will be ready." Ronald Reagan said when he picked up his shoes one shoe was square-toed and one was round-toed. He said that the shoe cobbler looked at him and said, "This will teach you never to let people make your decisions for you from this time on." And Ronald Reagan said, "I learned right then, make your decision; if you don't, someone else will."
DISEASES
700,000 babies are being born each year with AIDS. Within 10 years the World Health Organization expects 10 million will be born with AIDS, infected by their mothers while they are still in the womb or shortly thereafter.
FAITH
On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made history. Their motorized vehicle defied the law of gravity and flew through the air. The idea wasn't new. Years before the Wright brothers got off the ground Albert Santos Dumont, a Brazilian living in Paris, had proven that flight was possible. Many people who read those facts couldn't believe that flying would ever become a reality. However, Alberto Santos Dumont believed the facts and mathematical formulas, and he built the first flying machine. When it became airborne, he demonstrated that you have to trust in the facts and act on them if you want results. The same holds true for our Christian lives. We can know a lot of facts about Jesus Christ, but unless we trust and obey, they do us no good.
FAITHFULNESS
Just suppose the Lord would begin to make people as sick as they claim to be on Saturday.
Just suppose the Lord would take away the child you used as an excuse for not being in worship Saturday.
Just suppose the Lord would make people as poor as they say they are when they are asked to help finance His work.
Just suppose you had to live on ten times what you give to the Lord each week.
Just suppose the Lord would strike all who lie about their giving as He did Ananias and Sapphira.
Just suppose the Lord let some parents look into the future and see what their example and lax control are doing for their children.
Just suppose you had no opportunity to make amends for these things.
FEAR
Illinois is properly proud of its identification with Abraham Lincoln. Elementary school children in Bloomington, Illinois, were asked by their teacher: "If you could talk to President Lincoln, what one question would you like to ask him?" One first grader said he would like to ask him, "Mr. Lincoln, were you afraid when you started first grade?"
FORGIVENESS
Texan Don Nut says he and his wife have been married fifty years. He says that the secret is that they never went to bed without settling any differences between them. But Don concedes there have been times when he went ten days without sleep.
EXAMPLES OF KINDNESS
Little Anne Freezner of McCook, Nebraska, went with her mother on November 6 to vote. The mother, Char Freezner, said that tiny Anne must wait outside while mommy went into the voting booth. The little girl wanted to know what was she going to do in there. Her mother said that she was going to vote for somebody who would look after things and take care of people and be nice to everybody.
While the mother was in the booth little Anne, age 5, explained to one of the election clerks, that mommy was in that little room voting for grandma.
EXAMPLES OF HONESTY
Bring honesty and kindness together and you have a wonderful combination. Rick Graham was being honest when he drove around the streets of San Francisco for more than an hour to find the lady who had left her purse with $1,792.00 in cash on the back seat of his cab. He was also being kind, because his action would spare the woman a lot of distress. I like what he said when some of the other drivers ridiculed him for not pocketing the money. "I am a card-carrying member of the Christian faith, and what good is it to go to church if you don't practice what you preach?"
HOPE IN GOD
A popular song in the 1960s dealt with the apparent insignificance of life, asking the question, "Is that all there is?"
Mankind needs hope in order to survive the pressures of the world today.
Many years ago a submarine was rammed by another ship and quickly sank off the Massachusetts coast. Although rescue was impossible at that depth, a diver was dispatched to determine if there was still life aboard the disabled vessel. The diver placed his helmeted ear against the sub's hull and heard a faint tapping sound. Carefully he made note of the dots and dashes and decoded the following question: "is .. . there ... any ... hope?" With great remorse he slowly signaled back: "Hope ... in ... God ... alone."
God's Word reminds us that Christ is the hope of the world; indeed Christ is the basis of all human existence. In what do you place your hope?
HYPOCRISY
In his book Living the Christian Life, George Duncan told of a remark made at the funeral of Fred Mitchell, chairman of the China Inland Mission. One of the speakers said: "You never caught Fred Mitchell off his guard because he never needed to be on it."
Duncan called that statement "one of the most remarkable tributes I ever heard paid to any Christian." Could the same testimonial be given about you about me? Remember Jesus' words, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Let's be for real!
