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HomeIllustrations

9,085 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Sermon Illustration

Buying the House on Flood Street

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swallowed the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans whole. When the waters finally receded, Robert Green came back to find...

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15Universal

232 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Cobbler Who Refused to Sit Down

In 1786, a twenty-five-year-old cobbler named William Carey stood before a gathering of seasoned Baptist ministers in Northampton, England. He posed a simple question: Did...

Jeremiah 1:4-10Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Rent Receipts in Pastor Linda's Filing Cabinet

For eleven years, Grace Community Church in Tulsa held a weekly prayer breakfast every Wednesday at 6 a.m. They sang beautifully. They fasted during Lent...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Acorn That Became a Cathedral

In 1823, a schoolboy named Johann planted an acorn in his family's garden outside Dresden, Germany. He wanted a climbing tree — something to swing...

Ephesians 3:20Universal

246 words

Sermon Illustration

The Pastor Who Knelt at the Gallows

On April 9, 1945, just two weeks before Allied forces liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was led to the gallows. The camp doctor who...

1 Corinthians 15:55-57Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cellar on Remembered Street

In September 1940, the German Luftwaffe dropped incendiary bombs across London for fifty-seven consecutive nights. Margaret Braithwaite, a schoolteacher on Albion Road in Lewisham, described...

Nahum 1:7Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Boy Who Couldn't Shed His Own Skin

In C.S. Lewis's *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader*, a disagreeable boy named Eustace Scrubb wanders into a dragon's cave and falls asleep on a...

Universalredemption

222 words

Sermon Illustration

The Tide Pool at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

On a fog-laced morning in Moss Beach, California, a kindergarten class crouches around a tide pool at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Their teacher points to a...

Psalm 104:24-34, 35bUniversal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

Leonardo's Anatomy and the Architect Who Came First

In 1510, Leonardo da Vinci hunched over a candlelit table in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, carefully peeling back layers of muscle...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The GPS That Required Trust

In 2019, journalist Sarah Marquis spent three months hiking alone across remote stretches of Tasmania's wilderness. She carried a GPS device but quickly discovered something...

Psalm 25:1-10Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Table That Wasn't Set for Them

When Grace Community Church in Boise opened a free Wednesday night dinner in 2019, the congregation had a picture in their minds of who would...

Acts 11:1-18Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Runner From Kabul

In August 2021, when the last American planes lifted off from Kabul's airport, thousands of Afghan families were left behind with nothing but fear and...

Isaiah 52:7-10Universal

249 words

Sermon Illustration

The Boy Preacher of Southwark

In the winter of 1854, a nineteen-year-old walked into New Park Street Chapel in Southwark, London, and stepped behind a pulpit that had intimidated seasoned...

Jeremiah 1:4-10Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon's Unthinkable Cut

In 1846, a young mother named Alice Bennett lay dying of gangrene in a London hospital. Dr. Robert Liston told her he would save her...

Habakkuk 1:5Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Coronation No Empire Could Match

On June 2, 1953, over twenty million people across Britain huddled around small television sets to watch something most had never seen — a coronation....

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Stone That Decoded Everything

For centuries, European scholars stared at the temples and tombs of Egypt, captivated by the elegant hieroglyphics carved into every surface. They knew the symbols...

Hebrews 1:1-4Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Compass That Points Two Directions

In 1943, a Norwegian fisherman named Arne Kvalvik discovered that his boat compass had been sabotaged by the German occupation forces. They had placed a...

1 Kings 18:21Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

Well With My Soul

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford sent his wife Anna and their four daughters ahead to France aboard the *Ville du Havre*, intending to follow once...

Universalredemption

226 words

Sermon Illustration

The Casserole Brigade of Maple Street

Margaret Chen had lived on Maple Street for forty-one years, but she had never once knocked on her neighbor's door. Then her husband died on...

John 13:34-35Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Weather Station on Grandfather Mountain

In 2018, meteorologist Katie Nickolaou noticed something odd on her monitors in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Barometric pressure was dropping fast, wind patterns were shifting in...

Luke 21:25-36Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Last Man on the Mound

In September 2013, Mariano Rivera walked to the pitcher's mound at Yankee Stadium for the final time. Nineteen seasons. Six hundred fifty-two saves — more...

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

Augustine and the Child's Voice in the Garden

In the summer of 386 AD, a thirty-one-year-old rhetoric professor sat weeping in a Milan garden. Augustine of Hippo had spent years running from God...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Music the World Forgot

When Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig in 1750, the musical world shrugged. Critics dismissed his compositions as overly complex, hopelessly old-fashioned. His manuscripts were...

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Quaker Who Entered Newgate

In 1813, Elizabeth Fry walked through the iron gates of London's Newgate Prison and into a scene that made seasoned guards look away. Three hundred...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

240 words