Sermon Illustrations

In a remote Swiss village stands a beautiful church - Mountain Valley Cathedral. It has high pillars and magnificent stained glass windows, but what makes it special is the most beautiful pipe organ in the whole region. People would come from far off lands just to hear the lovely tunes of this organ.

One day something went wrong with the pipe organ. It releases the wrong tones and sounds of disharmony. Musicians and experts from around the world had tried to repair it. No one could find the fault. It was made unique, customised and no one really knows how to fit it. They gave up.

After some time, one old man came. "Why wasn’t the pipe organ used?"

"It’s not playing right," said the church staff.

"Let me try." Since it had been lying there, the staff reluctantly agreed to let the old man try his hand at it.

For two days the old man worked in almost total silence. The church worker was, in fact, getting a bit nervous.

Then on the third day - at noon – suddenly the music came. The pipe organ gave off the best music after so many years. The people in the village heard the beautiful music. They came to the church to see.

This old man was playing at the organ. After he finished, one man asked, "How did you fix it? How did you manage to restore this magnificent instrument when even the world's experts could not?"

The old man said, "It was I who built this organ fifty years ago. I created it, and now I have restored it."

...James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 244-245.

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