Sermon Illustrations
Man Escapes Shark by Punching it
Watching YouTube videos can teach you a lot of things. For British doctor Charlie Fry, it taught him how to survive a life-threatening shark attack. A beginner surfer, Fry found himself blindsided by a shark on a recent vacation to Australia and did exactly what he saw pro surfer Mick Fanning teach in a YouTube video-punch the shark square on the nose. "I thought it was a friend goofing around. I turned and I saw this shark come out of the water and breach its head," he said. "So I just punched it in the face with my left hand and then managed to scramble back on my board, shout at my friends and luckily a wave came, so I just sort of surfed the wave in." Fry said afterwards that he didn't even notice until he got to shore that his arm was punctured and bleeding. "I didn't really notice it at the time because when you're surfing, all I'm thinking was: 'I'm about to die. I'm literally about to die,'" he said. Luckily, thanks to quick thinking and a productive YouTube search, the new surfer's injuries were not serious and he'll live to surf another wave.
Potential Preaching Angles: James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 1 Peter 5:8 says that "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Imagining Satan as a lion (or shark) to be avoided might be easy, but we must also view our daily temptations on equal ground: flee from them, before they devour you.