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HomeIllustrations

10,079 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Top Rated Newest Oldest|All Sources Biblical Illustrator Spurgeon Maclaren

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Sermon Illustration

The Smoke That Thunders

In November 1855, Scottish missionary David Livingstone paddled a canoe down the Zambezi River in southern Africa. He had heard the indigenous Kololo people speak...

Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 9Universal

226 words

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Sermon Illustration

Churchill's Covenant with a Broken Nation

On May 8, 1945, Winston Churchill stood on the balcony of the Ministry of Health in London and addressed a crowd of thousands packed into...

Genesis 9:8-17Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Safe Room She Didn't Know Was There

In 2011, a massive EF5 tornado carved through Joplin, Missouri, leveling entire neighborhoods in minutes. Bethany Stover clutched her newborn son in a hallway closet...

Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10abUniversal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Carvings No One Was Meant to See

When restoration workers climbed scaffolding to the upper reaches of Chartres Cathedral in France, they discovered something remarkable. The medieval stone carvers — anonymous craftsmen...

Universalobedience

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Orchardist's Graft

In the apple orchards of Yakima Valley, Washington, growers practice an ancient technique called grafting. A farmer takes a cutting from a prized Honeycrisp tree...

Proverbs 16:3Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Shortwave Radio in Grandpa's Garage

Fourteen-year-old Marcus thought his grandfather's ham radio setup was just a relic — dusty dials and tangled cables filling half the garage in Topeka, Kansas....

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The House That Bach Did Not Build Alone

Johann Sebastian Bach signed nearly every manuscript the same way: "S.D.G." — *Soli Deo Gloria*, "To God alone be the glory." In the dim candlelight...

2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16Universal

227 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

Sermon Illustration

The Mirror in the Neonatal Ward

Elena Vasquez had not slept in thirty-one hours. She sat in the NICU at St. Joseph's in Denver, her fingertip resting in the curled fist...

Psalm 139:14Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Grief He Couldn't Argue Away

When Joy Davidman died of cancer in July 1960, C.S. Lewis — the man who had spent decades writing the twentieth century's most compelling defenses...

Revelation 21:1-4Universal

256 words

Sermon Illustration

Science Illustration: Order and Design in Creation

In the heart of the mountains, where soaring peaks kiss the sky, there sits a hidden valley—a place where the whispers of creation are palpable. One chilly morning, I found myself wandering down a narrow path, surrounded by trees that...

Hebrews 11:1-3Universal

256 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Words Finally Came Home

In 2015, the American Bible Society completed a translation of Scripture into Bibleless languages for a small community of Kimyal people in Papua, Indonesia. When...

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

Real-World Preaching

Imagine a small fishing village nestled along a rocky coast, where the waves crash fiercely against the cliffs. Each morning, fishermen set out into the churning sea, their boats small and vulnerable against the vastness of the ocean. They know...

Titus 3:5Arminian/Wesleyan

326 words

Sermon Illustration

The Letter She Already Knew by Heart

When Margaret Chen's husband David deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, he left a handwritten letter tucked inside her nightstand drawer. "Read this when you're afraid,"...

John 14:23-29Universal

252 words

Sermon Illustration

Harriet Tubman and the God Who Never Slept

On a moonless December night in 1851, Harriet Tubman led a group of eleven fugitives through the frozen marshlands of Maryland's Eastern Shore. The temperature...

Psalm 121Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

George Washington Carver and God's Little Workshop

George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Missouri around 1864, stolen as an infant by Confederate raiders, and traded for a racehorse. The world...

Psalm 8:4-9Universal

226 words

Sermon Illustration

The Priest Who Touched the Untouchable

In 1873, a young Belgian priest named Father Damien de Veuster stepped off a cargo ship onto the shores of Molokai, Hawaii — a place...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Promise That Rebuilt a Continent

On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall stood before Harvard's graduating class and made a quiet, extraordinary promise. Europe lay in ruins —...

Genesis 9:8-17Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Prepared Path Through Tham Luang

In June 2018, twelve boys from the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach crawled into the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand for a...

Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10abUniversal

226 words

Sermon Illustration

Luther's Hymn in the Shadow of Plague

In the autumn of 1527, the bubonic plague swept through Wittenberg. Families fled the city in terror. The university relocated. Yet Martin Luther refused to...

Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

When Science and Faith Meets Real Life

In our rapidly changing world, where the dialogues between science and faith often feel like a tug-of-war, we find ourselves in a place not unlike the biblical figures who grappled with their own understandings of truth. Think of Noah, standing...

Genesis 1:26-28Traditional

279 words

Sermon Illustration

The Garden in the Parking Lot

A congregation in Memphis decided to observe a week-long fast during Lent. They posted about it on social media, shared recipes for bone broth, and...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

Shaped in the Dark

In 2010, twenty-year-old Katie Davis left her comfortable life in Brentwood, Tennessee, and moved to Jinja, Uganda. She had felt the tug since childhood —...

Isaiah 49:1-6Universal

224 words

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