Sermon Illustrations

A certain atheistic barber was conversing with a minister as they rode through the slums of a large city. Said the unbeliever, "If there is a loving God, how can he permit all this poverty, suffering, and violence among these people? Why doesn’t he save them from all this?"

Just then a disheveled bum crossed the street. He was unshaven and filthy, with long scraggly hair hanging down his neck. The minister pointed to him and said, "You are a barber and claim to be a good one, so why do you allow that man to go unkempt and unshaven?"

"Why, why ..." the barber stuttered, "he never gave me a chance to fix him up."

"Exactly," said the minister. "Men are what they are because they reject God’s help."