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HomeIllustrations

7,545 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Sermon Illustration

Warsaw Rebuilt from Paintings

In January 1945, Soviet soldiers entering Warsaw found a graveyard of rubble. The Nazis had systematically demolished eighty-five percent of the city, block by block,...

Revelation 21:1-6Universal

237 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Parlor Maid Who Was Expected in Yangcheng

In 1930, Gladys Aylward was a parlor maid in London — small in stature, plain in education, with no theological degree and no mission board...

John 1:43-51Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lion's Jaws After the Laying of Hands

On a November evening in 1840, David Livingstone knelt in a small London chapel as elder missionaries laid hands on him. He was ordained, commissioned,...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Two Oak Trees on Maple Street

In 2019, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina planted two identical red oak saplings along Maple Street, just three blocks apart. Same species, same nursery,...

Jeremiah 17:5-10Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

Coming Up from the Water

In 2019, a retired Marine named David Cade walked into a small church in Clarksville, Tennessee, carrying thirty years of silence. He had never told...

Mark 1:4-11Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Gold Medalist Who Chose the Wilderness

In July 1924, Eric Liddell stood on the Olympic podium in Paris, a gold medal around his neck for the 400 meters. All of Scotland...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

Perpetua's Journal from the Arena Floor

In the year 203 AD, a young noblewoman named Vibia Perpetua sat in a Carthaginian prison, nursing her infant son and writing in her journal....

Colossians 3:1-4Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Quiet Roots of Willowbrook Street

In 2019, Maria Gonzalez watched three houses on her block in East Austin flip to investors within a single summer. Glossy renovation crews arrived. Prices...

Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40Universal

222 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bridge They Built Through the Floodwaters

In June 2016, the Brazos River in Texas swelled beyond anything residents of Simonton had seen in over a century. Floodwaters swallowed roads, turned neighborhoods...

1 Peter 3:18-22Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Deep Ran Dark

In November of 1873, Horatio Spafford stood on the deck of a ship crossing the Atlantic, staring at the cold water passing beneath him. Two...

Universalhealing

258 words

Sermon Illustration

The Second Foreman

On March 17, 1977, George Foreman shuffled into his dressing room in Puerto Rico after losing a grueling twelve-round decision to Jimmy Young. Foreman was...

Universaltransformation

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Love That Would Not Let Him Go

In the summer of 1882, a Scottish minister named George Matheson sat alone in his family home while his sister's wedding celebration filled the rooms...

Universallove

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Dress She Never Looked Back For

When Amara Okafor left Lagos, Nigeria, in 2019 to marry David Chen in Vancouver, her mother wept at Murtala Muhammed Airport and pressed a small...

Psalm 45:10-12, 16Universal

245 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bread Line at St. Gregory's

Every Saturday morning at 6 a.m., Maria Gonzalez unlocks the side door of St. Gregory's Church in the Bronx and begins slicing bread. By seven,...

Psalm 34:2-9Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cellar on Peshtigo's Darkest Night

On the evening of October 8, 1871, while the nation's attention would later fix on the Great Chicago Fire, something far deadlier swept through Peshtigo,...

Nahum 1:7Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Evergreen in the Churchyard

In the village of Luss, on the western shore of Loch Lomond in Scotland, there stands a yew tree in the churchyard that has been...

1 Chronicles 16:34Universal

231 words

Sermon Illustration

The Choir That Needed No Translator

In 2015, a video went viral from a packed church in Beirut, Lebanon. Syrian refugees, Iraqi Christians, Lebanese believers, and a handful of Filipino migrant...

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hallelujah He Could Not Hold Back

In the autumn of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. His health had failed him — a stroke years earlier had briefly paralyzed...

Universaltrust

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bones That Grow Stronger Under Pressure

In 1892, German surgeon Julius Wolff published a discovery that still shapes orthopedic medicine today. He found that human bone tissue actually remodels itself in...

Universalcourage

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Murmur Only a Trained Ear Can Catch

In her first week of clinical rotations at Johns Hopkins, medical student Priya Anand pressed a stethoscope to a patient's chest and heard nothing unusual....

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The First Light Over Longyearbyen

Every February in Longyearbyen, Norway — the northernmost town on earth — residents gather on the old hospital steps for a moment they have waited...

Luke 2:10-11Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Weight You Were Never Meant to Hold

Maria Hernandez sat in a hospital cardiac unit for eleven days while her husband, Ernesto, waited for a donor heart. She later said the worst...

1 Peter 5:7Universalanxiety

231 words

Sermon Illustration

The Heart That Never Hoards

Your heart pumps roughly 2,000 gallons of blood every single day — enough to fill a backyard swimming pool every week. And here is what...

Luke 6:38Universal

212 words

Sermon Illustration

The Vault Inside the Mountain

On the Norwegian island of Svalbard, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, a concrete portal juts from a frozen mountainside. The Svalbard Global...

Matthew 28:1-10Universal

243 words