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HomeIllustrations

9,000 Illustrations

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Top Rated Newest Oldest|All Sources Biblical Illustrator Spurgeon Maclaren

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Sermon Illustration

The First Harvest at Tuskegee

When Booker T. Washington arrived in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881, he found a broken-down shanty and an abandoned church. That was his school. He had...

Deuteronomy 26:1-11Universal

245 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Orchestra That Plays Without a Conductor

In 1972, a group of musicians in New York City formed the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with a radical idea: no conductor. No single person waving...

John 17:20-26Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Scientist Who Listened to Peanuts

George Washington Carver rose each morning at four o'clock, walking the fields around Tuskegee Institute in the predawn darkness. He called these walks his conversations...

Psalm 148Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Woman Who Lit Newgate Prison

In 1817, Elizabeth Fry stepped through the iron gates of London's Newgate Prison and into a scene that made seasoned guards flinch. Three hundred women...

Matthew 5:13-20Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Echo That Fills the Universe

In 1964, two Bell Labs engineers in Holmdel, New Jersey — Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson — couldn't figure out why their radio antenna kept...

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Map in the Glove Box

Margaret Chen had driven the same stretch of Highway 9 for forty years, but the evening her daughter called from a broken-down car somewhere outside...

Matthew 7:7-8Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

Lessons from Human Nature

Imagine a scene in a bustling city park, where people of all walks of life come together, each one carrying their own burden. You see a mother trying to juggle her responsibilities, a young man lost in thought, and an...

Isaiah 58:6-7Anglican

279 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lawyer Who Held Their Hands

Bryan Stevenson was a young Harvard law student the first time he visited death row in Alabama. The man he met there — condemned, forgotten,...

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

When Power Chose to Heal

In June 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall stood before Harvard's graduating class and proposed something the world had never seen. Instead of punishing a...

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19Universal

224 words

Sermon Illustration

The Grace That Taught Wilberforce to Say No

In 1785, William Wilberforce was a young Member of Parliament with everything the world could offer — wealth, charm, political influence, and a calendar full...

Titus 2:11-12Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

Lessons from Technology and Human Connection

In our rapidly evolving world, technology often feels like a double-edged sword. On one side, it connects us in ways that our ancestors could only dream of—think of the video calls that let us share birthdays with loved ones across...

John 13:12-17Traditional

308 words

Sermon Illustration

When You Thought the File Was Gone Forever

Every computer user knows the cold panic of accidentally deleting something irreplaceable — a year's worth of photos, a dissertation, a project built over months....

Universalredemption

221 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hand Pump and the Hidden Aquifer

In rural Appalachia, old hand-pumped wells still dot the hillsides. Anyone who has used one knows the rule: before you can draw water out, you...

Malachi 3:10Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Tramp for the Lord

Corrie ten Boom was fifty-three years old when the Nazis arrested her family for hiding Jews in their Haarlem watchshop. She lost her father. She...

Psalm 40:7-11Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Prisoner Who Wrote Poetry in the Dark

In 1577, Spanish friar John of the Cross was seized by his own religious brothers and dragged to a windowless cell in Toledo. For nine...

Psalm 42Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Prophet Next Door

In 2015, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan, stood before city officials and announced what nobody wanted to hear: the water was poisoning...

Luke 4:21-30Universal

224 words

Sermon Illustration

The Congregation That Opened Its Doors on a Monday

For years, Grace Community Church in Dalton, Georgia, held a January prayer-and-fasting week. Members skipped meals, filled the sanctuary for midday devotions, and posted scripture...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Volunteer Who Never Clocked In

When Hurricane Helene tore through Asheville, North Carolina in September 2024, Marcus Jennings drove fourteen hours from Indianapolis with a truck full of chainsaws, tarps,...

Psalm 40:7-11Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Seamstress of Calais

In 2015, when thousands of refugees huddled in the mud of the Calais "Jungle" camp in northern France, local churches organized prayer vigils. They sang...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Thinking Reed

On a November night in 1654, Blaise Pascal — already one of the finest mathematical minds in Europe — had an encounter with the living...

Psalm 8:4-9Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cartographer's Forgotten Trails

In 1978, a young park ranger named David Muller arrived at Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah with a crisp topographic map and the confidence...

Psalm 25:1-10Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Clownfish and the Anemone

On the coral reefs off the coast of Queensland, Australia, a remarkable partnership unfolds every day. The magnificent sea anemone sways in the current, its...

Hebrews 4:16Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Song in the Dark

When journalist Sarah Bessey's daughter was born premature at a hospital in Abbotsford, British Columbia, the NICU nurses told her something she never forgot. They...

Zephaniah 3:17Universal

221 words

Sermon Illustration

The Terms at Appomattox

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee walked into the parlor of Wilmer McLean's farmhouse at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Civil War had...

Genesis 9:8-17Universal

239 words