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HomeIllustrations

9,108 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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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

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Sermon Illustration

The Plant Doctor Who Needed Someone to Name the Voice

In Diamond, Missouri, around 1874, a frail orphan boy named George Washington Carver wandered the woods behind the Carver farm, whispering to sickly plants. Neighbors...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

258 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 Match Struck in Mammoth Cave

In 1838, explorer Stephen Bishop descended into Mammoth Cave in Kentucky carrying nothing but a lantern and a coil of rope. Deep in the cave...

Luke 2:10-11Universal

245 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 Furniture Store on the Floodwaters

When Hurricane Harvey stalled over Houston in August 2017, dumping more than fifty inches of rain in four days, the city became an inland sea....

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

225 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

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

Sermon Illustration

The Weight of a One-Way Ticket

In 1956, a twenty-three-year-old Hungarian cellist named Katalin Varga walked across the Austrian border carrying nothing but her instrument case and a photograph of her...

Ruth 2:12Universal

227 words

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 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 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 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 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 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

Corrie ten Boom's Hidden Room and the God Who Hides Nothing

In 1944, Corrie ten Boom sat in a cell at Ravensbrück concentration camp, stripped of every comfort — her home, her watch shop, her beloved...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Whole Stadium Forgot Themselves

On November 2, 2016, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. Fans who had inherited their loyalty from...

Psalm 98:1-4Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Stranger at Table Nine

In 2019, a diner in Raleigh, North Carolina, called Clyde Cooper's BBQ had a regular they knew only as "the quiet man." He came in...

Luke 24:13-35Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

Evan Roberts and the Fire That Started with Confession

In the autumn of 1904, a twenty-six-year-old Welsh coal miner named Evan Roberts stood before seventeen people in a small chapel in Loughor, Wales, and...

Matthew 3:1-12Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Restored Brownstone on Halsey Street

In 2019, a young couple in Brooklyn purchased a neglected brownstone on Halsey Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant for a price that stretched every dollar they had....

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Speech That Silenced Every Other

On November 19, 1863, fifteen thousand people gathered at the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery. The featured orator, Edward Everett, was the most celebrated speaker in America...

Hebrews 1:1-4Universal

248 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

Written in the Womb of Your Mother's Hand

In 2015, researchers at the University of Edinburgh published a study confirming what forensic scientists had long observed: fingerprints begin forming around the tenth week...

Psalm 139:1-3, 13-15Universal

241 words