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We've all experienced it. You are in the midst of a sermon when you sense that attention is lagging. Eye contact is weak. You know you are losing them. Then, almost miraculously, at that very moment of apathy, you illustrate the point you are making. Suddenly all eyes are on you. Waning interest is recovered. You feel again that delight of having the communication circuit reestablished.

There is an almost magical quality about good illustrative material. Not only does the audience delight in it, so does the preacher. Whatever sparkle there is in the sermon can be noticed in the illustrations. Interest, attention and understanding all lean heavily on illustrative material for their support. Pastor and people alike know that a sermon weak in effective illustrations will be dull.

Whether you like it or not, the people usually remember the story you tell or the metaphor you use and forget most everything else. The biblical truths you want to be remembered must be accompanied by vivid and appropriate mental pictures if they are to be assimilated into the thinking of the hearer.

Why is illustration so vital to good preaching? How does it work in the communication process? Is effective illustration a luxury or a necessity for good preaching? How can we find the right illustration to drive home a sermon point? All of these questions and more demand our attention.

An illustrator for a magazine is someone who draws pictures. An illustration in a book is a picture. When we speak of illustration for preaching, we are also thinking primarily of pictures, of visual images. A sermon illustration is any word picture that gives the biblical truth a familiar enough image that the listener can see it in his mind.

Human nature is such that effective communication demands illustrative material. A concept does not impact our thinking unless we can see it. Abstract ideas elude us unless they a are attached to concrete symbols. This is especially true of spiritual truth. Jesus pointed this out when he told Nicodemus, 'If you do not believe me when I tell you earthly things, how will you ever understand and believe heavenly truth?' (John 3:12).

Whatever his dialect, the language of man is the language of human experience. He can comprehend ideas only when they fit somewhere into what he already knows. And he knows little or nothing beyond the range of human observation. He is bound by the limits of man's history and earth's geography. He cannot grasp eternal truth unless it is clothed in earthly images.

This is, of course, why God uses human means to make himself known to man. Our language is the language of human experience. So God speaks to us in our own language. Jesus came as man so we would understand God. 'If you have seen me,' he said, 'you have seen the Father' (John 14:9). Seeing the Father would be entirely beyond us unless He had come to us in human form.

This incarnational (in human form) principle must guide us today as we seek, through preaching, to be channels of God's ongoing revelation. 'The Word became flesh and dwelled among us,' John wrote, 'And we beheld his glory.' (John 1:14). God's method is 'the word become flesh,' not only for the Son, but for the preaching which declares Him. The only way the hearer will 'see' the reality of God in our preaching is that in it the word becomes flesh. We must declare eternal truth in terms of human experience.

So God's method of revelation is incarnational. He speaks our language because we can never understand his. As the written record of God's revelation, the Bible is written in the language of human experience. It is not a book of mysterious philosophies and abstractions. It is concrete, vivid, experiential, very human. It must be or we would never understand.

Look at the way the great truths of the Bible are given. God is not presented in Scripture as the Ultimate Mind or the Ground of Being. He is rather the Shepherd of Israel, the Covenant King, the Rock and Fortress. These metaphors and many others communicate the eternal God to us in terms of earthly images.

So it is with the miracle God works in the lives of men. It is salvation, rescue from peril and death. It is reconciliation, the renewal of a broken relationship. It is regeneration, the new birth of resurrection life. It is redemption, the restoration of what was lost, freedom from bondage. Every one of these biblical metaphors pictures God's miracle in man's life in terms familiar to us because they are drawn from human experience.

Preaching is a part of the ongoing process of God's revelation to man. The preacher must, therefore, speak the language of man, the language of human experience. Every biblical truth he wants to communicate must be clothed in a form familiar to the people to whom he speaks. This is the essence of illustration. It is not an optional element to add pizzazz to our sermons. It is a function of human communication necessary to God's revelational process.

Everything other than God himself was created by God. It is all one creation, wherever it lies along the continuum of spiritual and natural. Though we cannot see the spiritual dimension, we know something about it by the revelation of God. What we know has been made known to us in terms of what we can see in the natural dimension. Heaven, unseen to our eyes and inconceivable to our minds, is nonetheless known to us as a royal city, a living garden.

This understanding of what we cannot see is possible because there is a oneness and consistency in all of God's creation, whether natural or spiritual. The same patterns and principles are in operation throughout the full dimensions of reality. 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse' (Rom. 1:20).

Could we ever understand, for example, how human beings respond to the eternal word of God? We could not, except for the parallel of those spiritual concepts in the natural dimension. Jesus explained it simply in our own language when he told the parable of the Sower and the Seed. In the four kinds of soil we understand the various human responses to the revelation of God's truth. Natural reality corresponds to spiritual reality.

This truth is a tremendous source of encouragement to the preacher. He can be sure that the powerful spiritual truths he wants to communicate can be couched in language his hearers will understand. There is a parallel picture in human experience for every concept God intends to make known to man. This does not mean we can know all about God. It does mean that those truths God wants us to know can be pictured in earthly images so we can grasp it.

It is obvious that the teachings of the Bible are not all other-worldly. Most of it concerns our interaction with other people on Planet Earth. Even in these moral instructions, however, there is the dimension of faith which calls for a super-natural response. Good illustrations are needed to show the believer the faith dimension of the most mundane Bible admonitions.

Paul prays for the Ephesians 'that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe' (Eph. 1:18, 19). He wants for them the inner illumination of the Spirit which will impress these grand concepts on their understanding. In the task of preaching we can be confident that the 'Spirit of wisdom and revelation' (vs. 17) is at work in the hearts of our hearers.

This role of the Holy Spirit is a vital necessity in the awakening of faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (Rom. 10:17). That 'hearing' is spiritual understanding. It is the 'seeing' Paul desires in the passage above. We can be sure that the Spirit of Truth is at work always to enable men to grasp the truth of God which can only be known by this supernatural revelation.

The role of the preacher, as modeled by Jesus himself, is to present those truths from God in the language of man's own experience. We must not presume on the Holy Spirit to do what we are to do. 'How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?' (Rom. 10:14).

Producing the 'seeing' and 'hearing' which awakens faith is a divine/human process. Faith is spiritual sight. It is seeing in the imagination what is unseen in the natural world. But because of the limitations of man's experience, that picture in the imagination must be sketched in terms of the familiar images of the world around us.

The preacher, then, must draw the picture of spiritual reality which the imagination can present to the 'eyes of heart.' The Holy Spirit then spiritually 'enlightens' that picture as the truth so that faith is awakened and the believer is able to 'see' what is otherwise unseen. He can then act on what he sees to be true; he can 'walk by faith and not by sight.'

Imagination is vital to the effective communication process, not less for the speaker than for the hearer. Whatever the truth you declare, the hearer needs to see it in his mind. It will be clear to him only to the extent he can vividly imagine it. If there are no images to represent the idea, he just shakes his head, 'I don't see what you are trying to say,' he says.

It could well be that your hearer does not see it because you do not see it. Clarity is the primary aim of sermon illustration. Since an idea is clear only when we can 'see' it in vivid images, illustration is necessary for the clarity you want. Until you picture your ideas with the right illustrations, chances are they are not really clear, even to you.

Though all the senses may be involved in a vividly imagined idea, the visual will likely dominate. Imagination is primarily a matter of images, with sounds, odors, feelings or flavors having a secondary impact. These other senses, however, will help to create a picture that has impact. Look at what you say for its sensory appeal.

Since imagination is essentially visual, you need to use as vivid and concrete images as you can. Be specific. If you tell a story, use names, dates, places, descriptions. If you use an analogy, make the picture as parallel an example as possible. Use description and dialogue. Use enough drama to make your pictures live. If action is involved, describe it.

Haddon Robinson reminds us that 'vividness increases when you use specific, concrete details and plenty of them' (Biblical Preaching, pp. 185, 186). He continues, 'Specific details add interest if they are concrete. They communicate because they relate to the experiences of the audience. Therefore instead of `produce' say `cabbages, cucumbers, and oranges.' Rather than `weapon' say `heavy lead pipe.' In place of `major cities' be specific: `New York, Chicago, Dallas, or San Francisco.''

This vividness appeals directly to the imagination. This is so necessary because the human mind cannot grasp abstract ideas unless they are attached to some symbol or image. You may well move up and down the scale of abstraction in your sermons. But be sure that you always clothe any abstract idea you want to be 'seen' in the earthly language of concrete images.

A good exercise for strengthening your skills at this point is to read novels with well written description. Watch what the writer does to make you 'see' what he is describing. Notice how an appeal to the other senses enhances the vision in your mind. Look at the careful choice of words. Begin to give your sermons the same strengths.

It is possible, of course, that a preacher could become so dramatic and imaginative in his style that it would distract from his message. His hearers might think him artificial and showy. This comes when the preaching style calls attention to itself rather than to the message. But for most of us that is not the problem. Most of us need to move in the direction of more imaginative language.

It is a good idea to think through (and write down) as vivid a version of your illustrations as you can imagine. As we have already pointed out, your audience will never 'see' what you do not 'see.' But if what you have to say is clearly pictured in your own mind, the hearer is much more likely to see it. Think of your illustrations, then, as not only for your hearers, but for you as well.

By the time you complete a careful study of your text, you may well have more illustrations than you need. That may sound like a gross exaggeration, but let me assure you it is not. The preacher who skips over a thorough exegesis of his text (or doesn't take the text seriously) will miss the first and possibly best source of illustrative ideas.

This is true because the Bible is written in the language of man, the language of human experience. Every passage has a historical context, a real-world occasion for its writing. The very human drama of that day will often provide graphic images of the timeless truth the passage brings to this day.

A great temptation for the preacher is to jump too quickly from text to sermonizing. My students constantly demonstrate how prone we are to grab a quickie little outline from a text which may well be dealing with another subject. Recently, in class, we were doing a group exercise to get the main idea and a proposition from assigned texts. One group said the subject of John 3:14-18 was 'God,' and proceeded from there to take an outline from a surface skimming of that passage. Of course, the subject of the entire Bible is God, but a close examination of the text will reveal that the writer intended to deal with a much more precise subject.

If we discipline ourselves to dig in, we will identify clear ideas in the passage which a superficial look will never discover. In the words used, the tenses, the grammar, the style and intensity of the passage, we will see snapshots of scenes from the imagination of the writer as he penned the text.

Because the biblical writer was writing to real people about issues current at that time, he used the most effective language he could to communicate his thoughts. Just as we do today, he wanted his audience to 'see' what he was talking about. These graphic images are already in the text if we will look closely. And they can be just as effective in the retelling for our modern audience.

There are symbols, metaphors, analogies and examples already there as the writer illustrated the ideas he was attempting to communicate. Jesus' parables are vivid motion pictures. Paul writes of sports, farming, anatomy and a number of other images which stamp his ideas on the imagination of the reader. James pictures a forest fire, a ship, a riding horse, a church meeting and more. Take up these ancient images and color them in today's hues.

Use Inductive Study Methods. What we are describing here is done best in an inductive approach to your text. Inductive Bible study attempts to come to the text with an open mind to let it speak. Deductive Bible study seeks out passages which support ideas the preacher has already settled on. There is a place for each approach, but I think most preachers have never quite gotten into the mindset of the inductive approach.

If you come to a passage with the inductive approach you probably do not even have a subject in mind. The text will give you its subject. You do not have any 'points' you expect to make. The text will provide its universal truths. You may have no special agenda, no 'hobby horse' to ride, nothing to push with the audience. You simply want the written word to yield the spoken word as you preach.

Casey Stengel was quoted as saying, 'It's amazing how much you can observe just by watching.' The first stage in inductive Bible study, observation, is the key. This approach to your text study attempts to complete the process of observation before moving on to interpretation and application. Every word and phrase must be turned over to see what lies underneath. Every question you can ask the text is to be raised.

Only when this process is completed (or exhausted) do we move on to interpret and apply the biblical ideas. That's when we shift out of exegesis into hermeneutics. The preacher comes to be taught by the text. In the process he will find an abundance of illustrative material to communicate those truths effectively.

Look for the Human Need. A third key to making your exegesis a source of abundant illustrations is an alertness for the need element in the biblical record. For every scriptural truth there is a corresponding need in the life of man. If we train our minds to backtrack to the need, we will 'see' a continuous flow of graphic images. We will see the dramatic story of man in his need.

What is there about man, in his humanity and his fallenness, which called forth the truth in this passage? Can you see it? Can you feel it? Can you enter into it in your imagination and experience it? Even though the human need may not be spelled out in the text, or even mentioned, you know the Bible is God's good news at the very point of man's bad news.

Forgiveness suggests sin. Power makes us think of weakness. Guidance brings to mind confusion. Peace leads to anxiety. Love pictures worthlessness. Joy comes to sorrow. Comfort focuses on grief. Reconciliation overcomes alienation. Regeneration resurrects the dead. Salvation rescues those in peril. Do you see it? Can you trace the good news to the bad news which it addresses?

William D. Thompson, in Preaching Biblically (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981), suggests that the preacher write out a clear statement of just what the problem areas were, then and now. Even if the text does not discuss it explicitly, we must state the human need it addresses. We can see, in the text and in the present generation, the symptomatic behavior which reflects that need. Then we can go to the root of that behavior in the thinking and attitudes of the people.

Thompson says that the 'very process of defining the human need merges into the process of fleshing out, of surfacing illustrative material for the sermon. That is as it should be; no search for illustrations is worthwhile if they are to be tacked on to a disembodied homiletical proposition. Worked at this way, the materials of the sermon should provide an embarrassment of illustrative riches at the very earliest stages of conceptualization' (p. 84).

A sermon from John 1:1-18 was entitled, 'A Word from Beyond.' In dealing with the issue of God's revelation in Jesus Christ, I asked myself what needs I saw in the first century man and in this generation which called for such a word from God. So I concentrated on the symptoms of man and the thinking behind them which show he needs a sure word from beyond. Illustrations flowed from that line of inquiry. I thought of scientists using radio telescopes to listen for signals in space, the uncertainty of 'experts' today, cults leaders with eager followers, etc.

All the preacher has to do is to describe what he sees of the human condition the text addresses. The images are all around us. Pictured in graphic detail, they will imprint the biblical truth on the imagination of the hearer in a powerful way. Not only will he have the attention of the audience, he will be communicating in a way sure to be remembered.

You can have more illustrations than you need if you will take your text seriously. 1. Approach it with a commitment to let the text determine the sermon. 2. Use the methods of inductive Bible study. 3. Trace every truth to the human need which it addresses. With the material this will give you, you may never need to struggle for illustrations again.

Illustrations for our sermon ideas come to us in a very natural way. We just 'think them up' without even examining the process we use to do it. As we ponder the sermon point, the ideas just seem to come, in the form of personal experiences, observations, anecdotes, examples, analogies, and so on. What is happening is that we are tapping into our own store of information. Our own memories, programmed like computers, are full of great ideas for every sort of sermon development, including illustrations. The problem we often face is coming against that blank wall. Try as we might, we cannot think of appropriate images to picture an idea.

If we preachers were wiser, we would all have files of illustrative material on hand to draw from. Few of us do, however. The file I have is as good as any, I suppose, but I have a hard time finding what I want when I need it. Books of illustrations are also disappointing. Though the material may be excellent, finding the right picture for a specific sermon idea is pretty difficult.

Let me suggest a simple one-two-three method for tapping into your own computer for illustrative material. It is the method of exploring natural analogies. Natural refers to the fact that our illustrations are drawn from the natural dimension, the familiar experience of man on earth. Analogy means that the continuity between the spiritual and natural dimensions will always allow us to find earthly images to picture spiritual truth.

There is really nothing mysterious about this method. It is actually the process we automatically use without realizing it. When we draw a blank, however, we can deliberately tap into the file of natural analogy for the illustrative material needed for the sermon.

The first step in the process is to make sure you have a clear grasp of the idea. This is best accomplished by carefully wording precisely what you want to say. If you cannot state your sermon proposition or division statement in a clear sentence, you are still not sure what you are saying.

Illustrations are for the purpose of making your point clear to the hearer. You want him to 'see' it as vividly as possible so that he understands the truth in question. If your thinking is not precise, you will have difficulty finding illustrative material to picture it clearly.

So the first step is to craft carefully the wording of your idea. One word sermon 'points' do not really say anything. Complete ideas require a subject and a complement. Your division statements, like your sermon proposition, need to state universal principles which can stand alone as biblical truth. Until each idea you want to communicate is spelled out this way, you will have trouble finding effective illustrations. Generalize the concept Once your idea is clearly stated, you may find yourself automatically thinking of illustrative material. If you are still stymied, however, the next step is to generalize the idea. Here you are moving from the specific idea in your sermon text to the general idea.

Every teaching of Scripture is a particular expression of a general concept normal to God's creation. We assume that all God wants us to know of himself and his ways can be pictured in earthly images. So there is a general idea that includes the sermon truth and all other expressions of the same concept. Very simply, you are moving from the particular idea to the general idea. In a sermon from Matthew 9:35-37, my proposition was 'There aren't enough workers for the harvest.' Each division statement answered the question 'Why aren't there?' The first point was 'Too few Christians see the condition of the multitudes' (vs. 35). To illustrate this idea, I moved to the general concept of looking without seeing. Whereas Jesus saw the multitudes in their need, there is no indication the disciples saw them that way, nor do we. Moving to the general concept of looking without seeing opened a whole channel of input from my own memory bank of information. I could think of a number of instances in which this concept shows up in life. So I illustrated the point by talking about an astronomer friend who could see the constellations while I saw only stars. I mentioned the electronics engineer who repaired my intercom, seeing circuits and components, while I saw only a jumble of wires.

By going from the specific sermon idea of our failure to see the needs of people to the general idea of looking without seeing, I was able to go to the third step and recall particular instances where that general concept emerges in life. These became pictures for my sermon idea right from the familiar experience of my hearers.

This is the third step of this process of pulling illustrative material out of what you already know. As already indicated in the example above, you go to the general concept, and from there to the specific expressions of that concept in areas other than the spiritual dimension. These expressions are natural analogies. Once the general idea is in hand, hold it up before as many arenas of life as you can to see if anything shows up by reflection. Some of these other arenas are science, politics, business, nature, family, children, history, athletics, current events, friendship, workaday world and so on. There is really no limit to the arenas of human interaction where you might find some analogy for your sermon idea.

In a sermon about the implications of the return of Christ, one point was, 'There is a point of no return in human affairs.' To find illustrations for this idea, I moved to the general idea, point of no return. From there I did a memory search for expressions of that concept. What I came up with was a novel I had read called Fail Safe about nuclear war. A second picture was the common idea of going over the falls in a canoe after passing the last chance to get ashore.

In that same sermon I also needed an opening illustration to get attention and create interest in my subject, the return of Christ. At this point I wanted to illustrate the proposition itself. My proposition was, 'The return of Christ gives urgency to the demands of the Christian life.' The general idea was life urgency. Using this generalized concept, I searched for a graphic contemporary picture. Quickly coming to mind was the Challenger disaster in which seven astronauts were killed. I described how I felt, that somehow we couldn't do enough to acknowledge that tragedy, that even then 'life goes on.' From there I described other historic events after which 'life goes on.' Then I moved into the text by indicating that one day it would all be over and we could no longer say, 'Life goes on.' Maybe these examples will help demonstrate how to manually operate the normal creative process when you draw a blank. The steps are simple: clear statement of your idea, to general concept, to natural analogy in some arena of human interaction. After you get the feel of it, you will never run out of illustrations again. I can assure you that there is an ample supply of vivid images stored in your own memory.

Our conclusion is obvious. Illustration, picturing spiritual reality in natural images, is necessary, not only to the nature of man but to the nature of God's revelation. Faith is our fundamental objective in preaching. If we are to preach for faith, we must do the work of translation, the work of interpreting God's revelation in man's language. The effective preacher will be an able illustrator. He will learn the methods and put in the work to be sure that the biblical truths he presents are clearly illustrated.

Wayne McDill

Senior Professor of Preaching

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

http://www.waynemcdill.net