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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 Surgeon in the Laundry Room

Maria Vargas works the overnight shift in the laundry facility at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She folds fitted sheets with mechanical precision, sorts surgical...

Colossians 3:1-4Universal

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Sermon Illustration

The Tower All of Paris Wanted Torn Down

When Gustave Eiffel unveiled his iron tower for the 1889 World's Fair, three hundred of France's most prominent artists and intellectuals signed a furious petition...

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Glad Procession to Mother Bethel

In 1794, Richard Allen — a formerly enslaved man who had purchased his own freedom — opened the doors of a converted blacksmith shop on...

Psalm 122Universal

Sermon Illustration

Eighty-Six Years and Not Once Forsaken

In February of 155 AD, Roman soldiers came for Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna. He was eighty-six years old. A student of the Apostle...

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18Universal

Sermon Illustration

Named by Grace

In Victor Hugo's *Les Misérables*, Jean Valjean spends nineteen years in prison, reduced to a number: 24601. When he's finally released, he carries that number...

Universalidentity

Sermon Illustration

When Sound Becomes Visible

In 1787, German physicist Ernst Chladni sprinkled fine sand across a metal plate and drew a violin bow along its edge. What happened next stunned...

John 1:1-14Universal

Sermon Illustration

Corrie ten Boom's Hidden Treasure

During the Nazi occupation of Holland, Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jewish refugees in a secret room behind a false wall in their...

Colossians 3:1-4Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Final Word From Mission Control

On July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11's lunar module began its descent toward the Sea of Tranquility, dozens of voices filled the communication channels. Engineers...

Hebrews 1:1-4Universal

Sermon Illustration

Corrie ten Boom's Hidden Refuge

In the winter of 1943, Corrie ten Boom's modest home in Haarlem, Holland, became something extraordinary. Behind a false wall in her bedroom, a cramped...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Emperor Who Could Not Outrun Their Love

In 362 AD, the Roman Emperor Julian set out to destroy Christianity — not with lions or fire, but by trying to out-love the church....

John 13:34-35Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Cup She Kept Raising

Maria Gonzalez almost didn't survive the surgery. When the tumor wrapped around her spine in 2019, doctors at Houston Methodist gave her a thirty percent...

Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18Universal

Sermon Illustration

George Müller's Empty Pantry

In the winter of 1838, George Müller sat at a breakfast table in Bristol, England, with three hundred orphans and not a crumb of food...

Hebrews 13:5-6Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Map They Were Born With

Every autumn, monarch butterflies launch a 3,000-mile migration from Canada to a remote mountain range in Michoacán, Mexico — a forest of Oyamel fir trees...

Universaltrust

Sermon Illustration

The Detour That Built a Church

In 2014, Pastor Marcus Rivera planned a mission trip to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His team of twelve from a small church in Durham, North Carolina, had...

Acts 16:9-15Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Graves That Face the Morning

Walk through the old churchyard at First Presbyterian in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where tombstones date back to 1664. Notice something peculiar: nearly every grave faces...

1 Corinthians 15:55-57Universal

Sermon Illustration

Wonderful Things

When Howard Carter pressed his face to a small hole chiseled through ancient stone on November 26, 1922, his patron Lord Carnarvon called out impatiently...

Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Tide Pool at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

On a fog-laced morning in Moss Beach, California, a kindergarten class crouches around a tide pool at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Their teacher points to a...

Psalm 104:24-34, 35bUniversal

Sermon Illustration

The Burned Pages That Built a Bible

In 1526, copies of William Tyndale's English New Testament began arriving in England, smuggled inside bales of cloth and barrels of flour. The Bishop of...

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Boy Preacher of Southwark

In the winter of 1854, a nineteen-year-old walked into New Park Street Chapel in Southwark, London, and stepped behind a pulpit that had intimidated seasoned...

Jeremiah 1:4-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Coronation No Empire Could Match

On June 2, 1953, over twenty million people across Britain huddled around small television sets to watch something most had never seen — a coronation....

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Hundred-Year Prayer of Herrnhut

In 1727, a small community of Moravian refugees living on Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf's estate in Herrnhut, Germany, was fracturing. Czechs, Germans, and Poles —...

1 Corinthians 1:3-9Universal

Sermon Illustration

Monday Prayers in Leipzig

On October 9, 1989, seventy thousand people filled the streets of Leipzig, East Germany, carrying candles. The Communist regime had stationed troops and armored vehicles...

Acts 12:1-11Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Kidney That Changed Everything

In 2019, Marcus Rivera of San Antonio nearly died waiting for a kidney. When his coworker, a single mother named Dana Wilkins, quietly got tested...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Last Man on the Mound

In September 2013, Mariano Rivera walked to the pitcher's mound at Yankee Stadium for the final time. Nineteen seasons. Six hundred fifty-two saves — more...

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18Universal