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HomeIllustrations

7,545 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 Seeds That Outlasted the Siege

During the 900-day Siege of Leningrad, twelve scientists at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources starved to death — surrounded by tons of edible...

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50Universal

242 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Teenager Who Spoke Before Congress

In 2019, seventeen-year-old Greta Thunberg sat in a chair far too large for her small frame, facing a room full of seasoned politicians in the...

Jeremiah 1:4-10Universal

253 words

Sermon Illustration

The Debt That Receipts Could Never Clear

For eleven years, Maria Gonzalez made minimum payments on her student loans — $287 each month, mailed like clockwork from her apartment in Des Moines....

Hebrews 10:4-10Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Night They Disabled the Safety Systems

On April 26, 1986, operators at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine began a routine safety test on Reactor No. 4. To complete it,...

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Restoration of Notre-Dame

When fire consumed Notre-Dame de Paris on April 15, 2019, the world watched in horror as the iconic spire collapsed into the burning nave. But...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Flowers That Never Reached the Kitchen Table

In 1987, Margaret Ellison of Tupelo, Mississippi, kept a pristine house. Every Sunday she arranged fresh-cut hydrangeas on the foyer table, polished the silver until...

Hosea 6:6Universal

213 words

Sermon Illustration

The Mechanic Who Recognized the Engine by Its Sound

In 2019, a young woman named Lucia drove her sputtering Civic into a small repair shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She had never been there...

John 1:43-51Universal

245 words

Sermon Illustration

The Blind Hymn Writer Who Lacked Nothing

When Frances Jane Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old due to a doctor's tragic error, no one in her small New York village...

1 Corinthians 1:1-9Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cup She Couldn't Stop Raising

In 2019, a retired schoolteacher named Dorothy Edwards stood before her small congregation in Macon, Georgia, holding a ceramic coffee mug. It was chipped, stained...

Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

Wings That Know the Way

Every autumn, millions of Monarch butterflies lift off from Canada and the northern United States and fly nearly 3,000 miles south to a specific cluster...

Universalfaith

258 words

Sermon Illustration

The Day Moody Stopped Preaching from an Empty Well

In the autumn of 1871, Dwight L. Moody was already filling auditoriums across America. Yet two women in his Chicago congregation — Sarah Anne Cooke...

John 7:37-39Universal

253 words

Sermon Illustration

The Mother Who Knew Before He Told Her

In June 1849, seventeen-year-old Hudson Taylor wandered into his father's library in Barnsley, Yorkshire, looking for something to pass the time. He picked up a...

John 1:43-51Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

What the Deep Water Holds

In March 2012, filmmaker James Cameron descended nearly seven miles to the floor of the Challenger Deep, the lowest point on Earth. At that depth,...

Micah 7:18-19Universal

218 words

Sermon Illustration

The Voice in the Ravine

In March of 2019, search and rescue volunteer Dale Hitchens spent fourteen hours combing the hills outside Gatlinburg, Tennessee, looking for a seventy-three-year-old woman named...

Luke 15:3-7Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Path Her Feet Already Knew

In 1987, Margaret Ellison lost her sight to macular degeneration at sixty-three. Her husband Harold worried she would never walk their half-mile gravel lane to...

2 John 1:6Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bridge That Held for a Hundred Years

In 1883, when the Brooklyn Bridge finally opened after fourteen years of construction, skeptics filled the newspapers with predictions of collapse. Engineer John Roebling had...

Psalm 89:2-5, 27, 29Universal

253 words

Sermon Illustration

The Name on the Bracelet

When Maria Santos gave birth to her son at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, the nurses handed her a tiny plastic bracelet. On...

Luke 2:15-21Universal

256 words

Sermon Illustration

Written on the Inside

For twenty-two years, Marcus Chen played cello in the Houston Symphony — technically flawless, always reading from the score. Then one evening during a performance...

Psalm 40:7-11Universal

213 words

Sermon Illustration

The Night the Brandenburg Gate Opened

For twenty-eight years, the Brandenburg Gate stood sealed — a monument trapped behind concrete and barbed wire, its grand columns watching over no man's land...

Psalm 24:7-10Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cabin That Became a Cathedral

In 1956, a young carpenter named Earl Palmer saved up enough money to buy land outside Asheville, North Carolina. He had one dream: build a...

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

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Kindergarten Teacher of Room 4B

In 2019, a reporter from the *Dallas Morning News* profiled a kindergarten teacher named Elena Vargas at Rusk Elementary, one of the lowest-funded schools in...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Weight of the Wheelbarrow

In 2019, a community garden in East Nashville nearly shut down. The soil was contaminated, the fence was broken, and most of the original volunteers...

Galatians 6:1-16Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Wall That Rose in Seventy-Two Hours

In 1900, a hurricane flattened Galveston, Texas, killing over 6,000 people and leaving the survivors standing in a graveyard of splintered wood and salt-crusted rubble....

Nehemiah 4:6Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lunch Table Nobody Wanted

In 2019, a middle school in Jacksonville, Florida, started something they called "No One Eats Alone Day." The idea was simple — students would intentionally...

John 13:34-35Universal

246 words