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HomeIllustrations

9,108 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Sermon Illustration

The Graduation Speech Nobody Expected

In 2019, a high school in Birmingham, Alabama invited two commencement speakers. The first was a hedge fund manager who flew in on a private...

Matthew 5:1-12aUniversal

227 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Oncologist Who Danced

In 2019, Dr. William Matsui at Johns Hopkins watched a patient named Gerald, a retired Baltimore bus driver, ring the brass bell mounted on the...

1 Corinthians 15:55-57Universal

253 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 Man Who Saved His Enemy on the Ice

In 1569, a Dutch Anabaptist named Dirk Willems sat locked in a prison tower in Asperen, Holland, awaiting execution for the crime of being rebaptized...

Romans 5:5-11Universal

227 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 Violin Maker of Cremona

In Cremona, Italy, a small workshop still builds violins by hand, following methods passed down since the days of Stradivari. When master luthier Stefano Conia...

1 Corinthians 1:3-9Universal

252 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

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 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

Corrie ten Boom's Empty Hands

When the Gestapo raided the ten Boom home in Haarlem, Holland, on February 28, 1944, Corrie ten Boom lost everything in a single afternoon —...

Hebrews 13:5-6Universal

223 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 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 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 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

Eric Liddell's Final Lap

In 1924, Eric Liddell stood on the Olympic podium in Paris, a gold medal around his neck, all of Scotland cheering his name. He was...

Philippians 3:4b-14Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Prism on Dr. Nakamura's Desk

In a physics lab at the University of Chicago, Dr. Keiko Nakamura would begin each semester the same way. She held a glass prism up...

James 1:17Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon Who Switched Sides

In 2003, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was one of Gaza's most promising physicians, trained in Israel at the Sheba Medical Center. For years, he crossed borders...

Acts 9:1-6Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Face That Preached Before He Spoke

In 1836, twenty-three-year-old Robert Murray M'Cheyne arrived at St. Peter's Church in Dundee, Scotland, as its new pastor. What happened over the next seven years...

Exodus 34:29-35Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Immaculate Kitchen

In 1987, a woman named Dorothy Pennington kept the most spotless kitchen in all of Decatur, Georgia. Her copper pots gleamed. Her tile grout was...

Hosea 6:6Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Refugee Doctor Nobody Expected to Find in Rural Kentucky

When Dr. Amara Osei arrived in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 2019, the whispers started immediately. A physician from Ghana, practicing in a coal town of...

John 1:43-51Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cartographer Who Charted Every Vein

In 1958, a young anatomist named Frank Netter sat in his studio at the CIBA pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, painting what no camera could...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

249 words

Sermon Illustration

The Clockmaker of Strasbourg

In 1842, Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué completed his life's masterwork: the astronomical clock inside Strasbourg Cathedral. He had spent thirty years studying the original medieval mechanism, dismantling...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Telescope Nobody Wanted to Look Through

In 1847, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis made a discovery that should have changed medicine overnight. Working in a Vienna maternity ward where one...

Habakkuk 1:5Universal

244 words