Sermon Illustrations

The story is of the little ragged, wretched, starved, emaciated boy who goes to a country school, and they have passed the rule that any boy that is found stealing a lunch will be beat with thirty stripes on his naked back. Upon a day, a lunch is stolen, and the school finds out it is that wretched, hungry boy. So he’s brought before the class, and he is accused. And he admits that he stole the lunch. He was starved and hungry, and he stole a boy’s lunch. The class had passed the rule: on his naked back, thirty stripes. Well, when he bared his back for the teacher to hit him thirty times, little skinny fellow, emaciated and starved, the great big fellow whose lunch the boy had stolen, says to the teacher, “Teacher, let me take the punishment due the boy.” They agreed that he could do it, so he bends over, he bends above. He leans over—huper, that’s it exactly. He bends over, above the poor, starved, emaciated lad, and the stripes that should have fallen upon the little boy fell upon him. That is it exactly. (WA Criswell)

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