Sermon Illustrations

Augustine, the distinguished bishop of Hippo in North Africa, was strolling the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea one morning, engaged in deep thought. He was attempting to come to grips with the depths of the doctrine of the Trinity.

He was interrupted in his thoughts when he stopped to watch a little fellow running toward the ocean with a bucket. He watched with amusement as the little guy filled his pail with water and hurried back up the beach to pour it into a little hole he had pawed into the sand. Within seconds the sea water soaked into sunbaked, thirsty sand.

Then the bishop’s eyes followed the little boy down to the ocean again, and then back up to the hole. Once again the little guy poured the water into the hole, and once again the sand swallowed it up greedily.

"What are you trying to do?” asked Augustine with a smile. The little boy, a little annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of his busy task, replied, "I’m trying to put the ocean into this hole." Suddenly, it dawned on Augustine that he was behaving much like this little fellow. He was trying to cram the ocean of God’s truth about Himself into his little box of brains and was having no more success than the little boy with his bucket.

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