One of the largest free collections of sermon illustrations, organized by topic, scripture, and theological tradition.

Stay updated

New illustrations, features & occasional discounts

Browse

By Topic
By Scripture
By Tradition
By Emotion
By Source Type
Sermon Slides

Resources

Sample Illustrations
About
Premium
Contact Us
SermonWise AI
PewSearch
ChurchWiseAI

Support

Contact Us
+1 (888) 603-0316
support@churchwiseai.com
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Refund Policy

HomeIllustrations

7,545 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

Search, filter, and discover the perfect illustration for your sermon

All Stories & Illustrations Poetry & Verse Quotes Biblical Insights Historical Examples Movie Analogies Devotionals Tradition Perspectives All types →

Top Rated Newest Oldest|All Sources Biblical Illustrator Spurgeon Maclaren

Free to browse · Sign up free to unlock most illustrations · Premium ($9.95/mo) for the full library of 50,000+ illustrations

Sermon Illustration

The Restored Farmhouse on Route 7

In 2019, a couple named David and Maria Hernandez purchased a neglected farmhouse along Route 7 in Bennington, Vermont. The previous owners had used it...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

229 words

PreviousPage 223 of 315Next

Sermon Illustration

The Night the Wall Came Down

On November 9, 1989, East Berliner Angelika Wachs stood in a crowd pressing toward the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint. For twenty-eight years, the Berlin Wall had...

1 Corinthians 15:19-26Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hired Hand Who Came Back as a Son

In 1987, a teenager named Marcus left his father's small furniture shop in Thomasville, North Carolina — not with a blessing, but after a shouting...

Philemon 1:15-16Universal

231 words

Sermon Illustration

The Search That Ended at a Kitchen Table

For eleven years, Maria Santos searched for her birth mother. A hospital intake form from 1987 gave her a first name — Rosa. A cousin...

Hebrews 1:1-4Universal

252 words

Sermon Illustration

The Voice That Holds Everything Together

In 2019, structural engineers inspecting the Morandi Bridge collapse in Genoa, Italy, made a sobering discovery. The bridge hadn't failed because of one catastrophic event....

Psalm 33:4-6, 9, 18-20, 22Universal

246 words

Sermon Illustration

The Prison and the Promise in Burma

In 1813, Adoniram Judson knelt on the deck of a ship bound for Burma, freshly ordained and burning with purpose. He had heard the voice...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

The Moravians Who Sang Through the Storm

On January 25, 1736, a violent storm tore across the Atlantic, splitting the mainsail of the ship *Simmonds* and sending waves crashing over the deck....

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

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Scrapbook in the Attic

In December 1938, a twenty-nine-year-old London stockbroker named Nicholas Winton canceled his ski holiday and traveled instead to Prague. What he found in the refugee...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Fence That Belonged to No One

In 1961, Peter Fechter was a young bricklayer in East Berlin who watched the wall go up brick by brick — some of which he...

1 Kings 18:21Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Ozone Layer and the God Who Heals What We Have Broken

In 1985, scientists Joseph Farman, Brian Gardiner, and Jonathan Shanklin published findings that stunned the world: a gaping hole had opened in the ozone layer...

Universalrestoration

251 words

Sermon Illustration

The Family That Sold Everything for a Country They'd Never Seen

In 2019, the Hernandez family — Marco, his wife Elena, and their three children — sold their home in suburban Dallas, liquidated Marco's profitable landscaping...

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Storm Cellar on Maple Street

Margaret Dunhill was hanging laundry in her backyard in Moore, Oklahoma, when the sky turned the color of a bruise. It was May 20, 2013,...

Psalm 91:1-2Universal

259 words

Sermon Illustration

William Tyndale's Dangerous Devotion to the Word

In 1524, William Tyndale fled England with a single burning conviction: ordinary plowboys deserved to read God's Word in their own language. He settled in...

Psalm 119:1-8Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Promise Planted in Johnny Appleseed's Footsteps

In the early 1800s, a barefoot man named John Chapman walked hundreds of miles across Ohio and Indiana, planting apple nurseries in clearings he would...

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

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Environmental Stewardship Challenge

In the heart of California, a church community has taken a bold step forward in environmental stewardship, transforming their building into a beacon of hope. Imagine a once-ordinary structure, now adorned with gleaming solar panels that catch the sunlight like...

Isaiah 1:17Anabaptist

256 words

Sermon Illustration

The Radiance of Ravensbrück

In the winter of 1944, Corrie ten Boom huddled with her sister Betsie in Barracks 28 of Ravensbrück concentration camp. The stench was unbearable. Fleas...

Psalm 34:2-9Universal

218 words

Sermon Illustration

The Moravian Prayer That Outlasted Empires

On August 13, 1727, a small community of refugees in Herrnhut, Germany, experienced such a profound outpouring of the Holy Spirit that they made a...

Psalm 89:2-5, 27, 29Universal

220 words

Sermon Illustration

The Empty Chair at Margaret's Table

Every Thanksgiving for forty-one years, Margaret Ellison set a place for her husband, Carl, at the head of their dining table in Boone, North Carolina....

1 Corinthians 15:55-57Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

Eric Liddell's Quiet Certainty at Weihsien

In February 1945, the Weihsien internment camp in northern China was a place of dust, disease, and dwindling rations. Eighteen hundred civilians — missionaries, teachers,...

Nahum 1:7Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Living Sacrifice That Keeps Crawling Off - Traditional (Romans 12:1-2)

Someone once observed: "The problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps crawling off the altar." Dead sacrifices stay put; living ones squirm. Paul's image is provocative—offer your BODY as a LIVING sacrifice. Not just intentions or feelings but actual flesh-and-blood living.

Romans 12:1-2Universal

Short79 words

Sermon Illustration

The Master Cellist's Borrowed Stradivarius

In 2012, cellist Alisa Weilerstein received a loan that changed her performing life — a 1731 Stradivarius cello known as the "Isserlis" Stradivarius, valued at...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

253 words

Sermon Illustration

The Storm Cellar on Maple Creek Road

Sarah Hendricks had lived her whole life on the Kansas plains, and she knew the sky the way a sailor knows the sea. She could...

Psalm 91:1-2Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lifeguard Who Jumped

On July 3, 2012, Tomas Lopez was working as a lifeguard at Hallandale Beach, Florida, when someone pointed to a swimmer struggling beyond the roped...

John 3:13-17Universal

254 words

Sermon Illustration

The Mountain Guide's Red Rope

In 2018, a group of inexperienced hikers attempted the Kalalau Trail along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai — eleven miles of narrow cliff paths...

Psalm 25:1-10Universal

250 words