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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 Letter That Arrived Before She Applied

In 2019, a high school senior named Destiny Williams in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, opened her mailbox to find a handwritten note from a college admissions...

John 1:43-51Universal

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Sermon Illustration

The House on Pilings

When Hurricane Harvey slammed into Rockport, Texas, in August 2017, entire neighborhoods were flattened. Roofs peeled away like paper. Walls collapsed into heaps of soggy...

1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17Universal

Sermon Illustration

The African Boy Who Taught the Professors to Pray

In 1891, a young Liberian man named Samuel Morris arrived at Taylor University in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He had no formal education. He owned no...

1 Corinthians 2:1-16Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Lighthouse Keeper of Cape Bonavista

For thirty-seven years, Gerald Howell climbed the spiral stairs of the Cape Bonavista Lighthouse in Newfoundland every evening at dusk. Even after the Canadian government...

Matthew 5:13-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Well That Feeds a Thousand Taps

In 2018, Cape Town, South Africa, counted down to what officials called "Day Zero" — the day the city's reservoirs would run dry. Four million...

John 7:37-39Universal

Sermon Illustration

George Washington Carver's Conversation with the Creator

George Washington Carver, the brilliant agricultural chemist born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri, around 1864, made a habit that puzzled his colleagues at Tuskegee Institute....

Psalm 104:24-34, 35bUniversal

Sermon Illustration

The Fruit That Grew While She Wasn't Looking

In 2019, Maria Gonzalez planted a small community garden behind her church in Tucson, Arizona. She had no budget, just a patch of sun-scorched dirt...

Colossians 1:1-14Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Mold That Saved Two Hundred Million Lives

In September 1928, Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to his laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital in London and found a petri dish he'd accidentally left...

Romans 1:16Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Riptide at Pensacola Beach

Every summer, lifeguards along the Gulf Coast at Pensacola Beach, Florida, pull dozens of swimmers from riptides — narrow channels of water rushing seaward at...

Exodus 14:13-14Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Plague That Revealed the Church

In 250 AD, a devastating plague swept through the Roman Empire. The illness — likely smallpox or measles — killed as many as five thousand...

John 13:34-35Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Wardrobe Cleanout on Maple Street

Last spring, Maria Gutierrez finally tackled the hall closet in her Chicago bungalow. For years she had shoved old coats, stained shirts, and shoes that...

Colossians 3:1-11Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Deed in the Dresser Drawer

When Marco Alvarez moved into the small bungalow on Sycamore Street in Tucson, he treated it like every other rental. He let the faucet drip...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Wisdom Hidden in Simple Rules

In 2010, researchers at Hokkaido University published a study in *Science* that stunned the engineering world. They placed a slime mold — a single-celled organism...

Universalobedience

Sermon Illustration

The Name on the Nursery Door

When Marcus and Elena Torres of San Antonio learned they were expecting their first child in 2019, everyone assumed the boy would be Marcus Antonio...

Luke 1:57-66, 80Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Painting That Pierced a Young Count's Heart

In 1720, a twenty-year-old German nobleman named Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf wandered into an art gallery in Düsseldorf. He was wealthy, educated, and comfortable —...

Acts 2:14a, 36-41Universal

Sermon Illustration

Michelangelo's Hidden Colors

In 1980, a team of restorers climbed scaffolding in the Sistine Chapel to begin one of the most controversial art restorations in history. For nearly...

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Trickle That Transformed Wales

In the autumn of 1904, a twenty-six-year-old Welsh coal miner named Evan Roberts knelt in a small chapel in Loughor, Wales, and prayed a simple...

Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Doctor Who Listened for the First Breath

In 1952, Dr. Virginia Apgar sat in the delivery room at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York and did something no physician had systematically done before....

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

Sermon Illustration

Corrie ten Boom and the Yielded Body

In 1944, Corrie ten Boom stood inside the delousing shower at Ravensbrück concentration camp, stripped bare alongside her sister Betsie and hundreds of other women....

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

Restored to Factory Settings

Every smartphone owner knows the moment of dread: a device gone wrong. Maybe it happened gradually — too many careless downloads, settings tweaked until nothing...

Universalredemption

Sermon Illustration

The Last Grove Standing in the Mountains of Lebanon

In the mountains above Bsharri, Lebanon, there stands a grove of cedars that the locals call the Cedars of God. Some of these trees are...

Psalm 29Universal

Sermon Illustration

Notebooks Full of Spanish

Elena Rodriguez signed up for Spanish classes the year her abuela moved from San Salvador to the apartment downstairs. For eighteen months, she filled three...

James 1:22Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Signature on the Blueprint

In 1943, a small congregation in Birmingham, Alabama gathered in a borrowed basement to plan their first church building. They had no architect, no contractor,...

Nehemiah 2:20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Soldier Who Mistook God's Voice for Restlessness

In 1521, a Basque soldier named Ignatius of Loyola lay in a castle in northern Spain, his right leg shattered by a French cannonball at...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal