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Home›Browse by Type›Stories & Illustrations

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Stories & Illustrations

6,717 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use

Browse Stories & Illustrations by Book

Psalm (81)Luke (49)Matthew (42)John (36)1 Corinthians (31)Romans (29)Isaiah (29)Genesis (25)Acts (24)Hebrews (17)Ephesians (16)Revelation (14)Jeremiah (14)Galatians (10)Colossians (10)Mark (9)Philippians (8)2 Corinthians (8)Proverbs (7)James (7)

Sermon Illustration

The Lighthouse Keeper of Matinicus Rock

In 1853, a seventeen-year-old girl named Abbie Burgess took over the twin lighthouses on Matinicus Rock, a barren granite outcrop twenty-five miles off the coast...

Malachi 3:6Universal

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Sermon Illustration

The Habitat House on Millbrook Lane

In 2019, Maria Gonzalez and her three children moved into a Habitat for Humanity home on Millbrook Lane in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over four hundred...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Unpayable Tab

In 2019, a diner in New Hampshire called Joey's Pancake House started something unexpected. A regular customer left forty dollars on the counter and told...

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17Universal

Sermon Illustration

Buying a House in Detroit

In 2009, Detroit was a city the world had written off. Factories stood hollow. Entire neighborhoods lay abandoned, with houses selling for a dollar. Financial...

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Room That Was Ready Before She Arrived

In 2019, Marcus and Denise Thompson of Nashville spent eleven months preparing for a daughter they had never met. They painted her room soft yellow....

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Theologian Who Could Not Stay in New York

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrived in New York City with every reason to stay. Friends had arranged a safe teaching position at Union Theological...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Stockbroker Who Became a Father to 669

In December 1938, a twenty-nine-year-old London stockbroker named Nicholas Winton canceled his skiing holiday and traveled to Prague instead. What he found in the refugee...

Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24aUniversal

Sermon Illustration

The Weight of a One-Way Ticket

In 1956, a twenty-three-year-old Hungarian cellist named Katalin Varga walked across the Austrian border carrying nothing but her instrument case and a photograph of her...

Ruth 2:12Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Lawyer Who Stood Alone

In 1963, a young civil rights attorney named Constance Baker Motley walked into a Mississippi courtroom to argue for the admission of James Meredith to...

Romans 8:31Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Nets Left Behind on Lake Victoria

In 2014, a young fisherman named David Ochieng worked the pre-dawn waters of Lake Victoria near Kisumu, Kenya. Fishing was all he knew — his...

Matthew 4:12-23Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Map That Was Already There

In 2003, after thirteen years of painstaking work, Francis Collins and an international team of scientists completed the Human Genome Project — mapping the entire...

Psalm 139:1-3, 13-15Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Hands That Stayed on the Keys

Margaret Ellington taught piano in her living room in Savannah for forty-one years. She never once slapped a student's hand for hitting a wrong note....

Titus 2:11-12Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Bare Tree That Spoke to a Soldier

In the winter of 1632, an eighteen-year-old French soldier named Nicholas Herman stood staring at a leafless tree in the frozen countryside of Lorraine. The...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

Hudson Taylor and the Letter That Changed Everything

In 1869, after years of pioneering missionary work across China — founding the China Inland Mission, opening inland provinces to the gospel, watching hundreds come...

1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15aUniversal

Sermon Illustration

After the Locusts Came Rain

In 2004, a swarm of desert locusts descended on West Africa — the worst infestation in fifteen years. Farmers in Mali watched helplessly as clouds...

Joel 2:23-32Universal

Sermon Illustration

Hallelujah from the Ruins

In 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. Four years earlier, a stroke had left his right hand partially paralyzed. His London operas were...

Universalhope

Sermon Illustration

The Finish Line Eric Liddell Never Saw

In 1924, Eric Liddell stunned the world at the Paris Olympics, winning gold in the 400 meters after refusing to run on Sunday. The newspapers...

Hebrews 11:29-12:2Universal

Sermon Illustration

William Wilberforce and the Pews That Finally Meant Something

For decades, the churches of 18th-century England were filled every Sunday. Hymns rose from polished pews. Prayers were offered with eloquent precision. The liturgy was...

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

Newton's Stubborn Kindness

In 1767, the poet William Cowper moved to Olney, England, already haunted by bouts of severe melancholy that had twice driven him to the brink...

Galatians 6:1-16Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon Who Worked by Ultraviolet Light

In 2012, a surgical team at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York began using fluorescence-guided surgery to remove cancerous tumors. The surgeon would inject a...

2 Kings 6:16-17Universal

Sermon Illustration

Glory and the Internment Camp

In 1924, Eric Liddell stood on the Olympic podium in Paris, a gold medal around his neck, the world cheering his name. The moment shimmered...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Mutiny on the Bounty

In April 1789, HMS Bounty sailed through the South Pacific under Captain William Bligh. The crew had spent five months in Tahiti, living in paradise...

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Golden Cross of Dresden

For nearly sixty years, the ruins of Dresden's Frauenkirche stood as a blackened heap in the center of the city — a wound left open...

Isaiah 60:1-6Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Bridge at Mostar

In November 1993, Croatian forces deliberately shelled the Stari Most, the ancient stone bridge in Mostar, Bosnia. Built in 1566 by Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin,...

Obadiah 1:15Universal