THE Five Hundred Gospel Illustrations, Incidents, Records of Conversion, and Personal Testimonies, which appear in the following pages, have been gathered from a great variety of sources, throughout a period of forty years, Most of them have been used in preaching the Gospel to old and young, in crowded cities, in rural villages, at the street corner, on the racecourse, and in the market place, where congregations have usually to be found and retained, as well as preached to. A simple, striking Illustration of some great Gospel truth, used at a proper time; a true and telling Incident, introducing, pointing, and applying the truth proclaimed; the Testimony of some public and well-known person concerning eternal things, or the Record of some striking and authenticated case of conversion, well told, with the definite purpose of winging, elucidating, and clinching the message, has been often used of God, to interest, arrest, convict, and bring to the point of decision in eternal things, hearers of the Word in many spheres and conditions.
The compiler is well aware that such "Helps" are only as the feather to the arrow, and as the picture to the printed page. They cannot do the work of the "Word of Truth" (James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)), which is the chosen instrument used by the Divine Spirit in the great work of Regeneration; nor should they be used for mere story telling or entertainment. The over-use of Stories—so many of them exceedingly weak and pointless—by some preachers, has raised prejudice against their use. But surely we need to distinguish between the use and abuse of both things and means, in the service of the Lord.
Having had many tokens of the Divine blessing, on the wise, discriminate, and seasonable use of such "aids," and feeling it to be a stewardship to select, arrange, and pass on what may be of real utility to many young, earnest, and active Gospelers, who had neither time nor opportunity to gather them for themselves, it is a pleasure to here present them for general use, with the earnest prayer that God may richly bless and abundantly use them, in telling out the "old, old story," which, now as ever, is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”
J. R.
KILMARNOCK, November, 1912.