SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON to describe the power of persevering in prayer.

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your preaching to describe the power of persevering in prayer.

 

Up in one of the northern counties of England, there was a woman, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose prayer went up continually for her husband; but he never entered the house of God, and despised her for doing so. She was accustomed to going to her usual place of worship alone, so far as any human companions were concerned, yet she was not quite alone, for there was a dog that always went with her. This dog curled himself up under the seat, lay quite still during the service, and then walked home with his mistress. The first Sunday after she was dead, the poor dog went off to the meeting house as usual and curled himself up in his old place. He did the same the next Sunday, and the husband, noticing the dog started so regularly, was struck by its action, and wondered where the dog went now that his mistress was gone; so, he thought he would go and see. The dog went before him to his mistress’s old seat, and curled himself up; the man went in after the dog and sat down in his wife’s place, and God helped the minister, that day, to show him that his good works and self-righteousness, in which he had always trusted, would not be sufficient for his salvation, and he preached to him the full salvation of Christ Jesus, and the man believed and lived. Was not he also “born out of due time,” for his wife’s prayers for him were all over, and she was gone? Yet was he brought to Christ.