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Home›Browse by Type›Stories & Illustrations

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Stories & Illustrations

7,545 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use

Browse Stories & Illustrations by Book

Psalm (82)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)Deuteronomy (8)2 Corinthians (8)Proverbs (8)

Sermon Illustration

She Gave Away the Jewelry

Frances Ridley Havergal wrote the hymn *Take My Life and Let It Be* in February 1874, after visiting a house full of friends and family,...

Universalobedience

235 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Mountain That Learned to Breathe Again

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted with the force of five hundred atomic bombs, flattening 230 square miles of old-growth forest in minutes....

Universalrestoration

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Repair Crew You Never See

In 2015, Swedish scientist Tomas Lindahl shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a discovery that had puzzled him for decades: how do our cells...

Universalrestoration

230 words

Sermon Illustration

Ten Days of Staring at Nothing

In December 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that baffled his colleagues. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he pointed the Hubble...

Universalpatience

244 words

Sermon Illustration

The Murderer and the Girl Who Stayed

In Dostoevsky's *Crime and Punishment*, Raskolnikov commits a horrific murder and then spirals through hundreds of pages of guilt, paranoia, and isolation. He is convinced...

Universalgrace

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hymn Written Over the Atlantic

In 1873, Chicago lawyer Horatio Spafford put his wife and four daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, bound for England. Business had delayed him,...

Universalperseverance

256 words

Sermon Illustration

The Voice They Could Not Silence

On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. Seventy-five thousand people stretched...

Universalcourage

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cells She Left Behind

In 2012, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center made a remarkable discovery. When they examined the brain tissue of women who had passed...

Universallove

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Composer Who Heard Heaven in His Darkest Season

In 1741, George Frideric Handel was a man the world had written off. His health was failing — a stroke had partially paralyzed his right...

Universalhope

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hand That Rewires the Brain

In 2006, neuroscientist Dr. James Coan at the University of Virginia conducted a remarkable experiment. He placed married women inside an fMRI machine and warned...

Universallove

263 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hymn Written at the Water's Edge

In 1882, Louisa Stead took her husband and young daughter Lily to the beach for a picnic. What began as a quiet afternoon shattered in...

Universaltrust

250 words

Sermon Illustration

Connected at the Roots

In 1997, ecologist Suzanne Simard made a discovery that stunned the scientific world. She found that trees in a forest are not competing individuals but...

Universalcommunity

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hymn Written at Midnight After Everyone Said Yes

In February 1874, English hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal arrived at a friend's home where ten people were gathered for a visit. Some were believers...

Universalobedience

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Marble Everyone Else Abandoned

For nearly forty years, a massive block of Carrara marble sat neglected in a cathedral workshop yard in Florence. Two sculptors had already tried and...

Universalidentity

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bishop's Silver

In Victor Hugo's *Les Misérables*, Jean Valjean emerges from nineteen years in prison a hardened, bitter man. No inn will shelter him. No family will...

Universalrestoration

253 words

Sermon Illustration

The Second Life of Henri Matisse

In 1941, Henri Matisse was diagnosed with duodenal cancer. The surgery saved his life but left him largely confined to a wheelchair, unable to stand...

Universalhealing

245 words

Sermon Illustration

When Peace Like a River Was Born from Grief

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood at the railing of a ship crossing the Atlantic, staring into cold, dark water. Weeks earlier, he had put...

Universalfaith

245 words

Sermon Illustration

The Courage Circuit

In 2010, neuroscientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel made a remarkable discovery about the human brain. Dr. Yadin Dudai and his team...

Universalcourage

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Editors Written Into Your Bones

In 2015, three scientists — Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar — received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for mapping how cells repair damaged...

Universalredemption

238 words

Sermon Illustration

What the Seedlings Cannot See

In 1997, ecologist Suzanne Simard published a groundbreaking discovery in the journal *Nature*. She found that trees in a forest are not competing loners but...

Universaltrust

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Artist Who Painted Himself Into the Crime

In 1633, Rembrandt van Rijn completed *The Raising of the Cross*, one of a series of Passion paintings commissioned by the Dutch Stadtholder. The canvas...

Universalsacrifice

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Blind Woman Who Saw Herself Clearly

When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old, a doctor's malpractice left her permanently blind. The world would have written her story in a single word:...

Universalidentity

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Thread That Led Into the Dark

In George MacDonald's *The Princess and the Goblin*, young Princess Irene receives a mysterious gift from her great-great-grandmother — a ball of invisible thread tied...

Universalpurpose

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Forest That Feeds Its Weakest

Ecologist Suzanne Simard spent years studying the forests of British Columbia and discovered something remarkable. Beneath the forest floor, trees are connected by vast fungal...

Universalgrace

229 words