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HomeIllustrations

9,108 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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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

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Sermon Illustration

The Recipe Card That Never Fed Anyone

Margaret Chen kept a wooden recipe box on her kitchen counter in Portland, Oregon — a gift from her grandmother. Inside were over two hundred...

James 1:22Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Coronation No Camera Could Capture

On June 2, 1953, twenty-seven million people across Britain huddled around television sets to watch Queen Elizabeth II crowned in Westminster Abbey. The BBC positioned...

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

Jefferson's Fruitless Vines

Thomas Jefferson spent over thirty years trying to cultivate European wine grapes at Monticello. Beginning in 1773, he imported the finest *Vitis vinifera* cuttings from...

Isaiah 5:1-7Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Orchard That Had to Be Cut Back

In 2019, apple grower Maria Gonzalez stood in her family's orchard outside Yakima, Washington, and made a decision that horrified her neighbors. She ordered every...

Matthew 3:1-12Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Grandmother Who Spoke in the Town Square

In 1904, in a rain-soaked Welsh mining village called Loughor, a sixteen-year-old named Evan Roberts stood up in a prayer meeting and wept openly for...

Joel 2:28-29Universal

222 words

Sermon Illustration

The Woman Who Lit a Candle in Newgate

In 1817, Elizabeth Fry walked through the iron gates of Newgate Prison in London, a place so wretched that even the guards warned her not...

Matthew 5:13-20Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Old Slave Trader Who Saw a Young Man's Destiny

In 1785, a twenty-five-year-old member of Parliament named William Wilberforce sat in the parlor of John Newton, the aging rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in...

John 1:43-51Universal

249 words

Sermon Illustration

The Passport That Changed Everything

In 2015, a young woman named Farah arrived at a refugee processing center in Berlin, clutching a worn Syrian passport. She had walked across four...

Philippians 3:17-4:1Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Fork on the Appalachian Trail

In 2019, a hiker named Martin Strel stood at a junction on the Appalachian Trail near Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. One path led north along...

Deuteronomy 30:15-20Universal

256 words

Sermon Illustration

The Library That Locked Its Doors

In 1986, the coal town of Centralia, Pennsylvania had a problem far worse than its famous underground mine fire. As toxic gases seeped through basement...

Amos 8:11Universal

252 words

Sermon Illustration

Eighty-Six Years of Knowing His Name

In 155 AD, the Roman proconsul in Smyrna gave the aged bishop Polycarp one simple way to save his life: curse Christ and swear by...

Matthew 16:13-19Universal

246 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bishop Who Knew the Eyewitness

In 155 AD, the Roman proconsul gave the elderly bishop Polycarp one final chance. "Swear by Caesar and I will release you," he demanded. "Revile...

2 Peter 1:16-19Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon Who Was Also Her Father

Seven-year-old Elena Vasquez was wheeled into Portland General's trauma unit on a Tuesday evening, her right arm broken in two places after falling from the...

Hebrews 4:16Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Pit Ponies Lost Their Way

In the coal mines of South Wales in 1904, pit ponies hauled carts through tunnels so narrow that miners guided them with a steady stream...

2 Chronicles 7:14Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lighthouse Keeper of Matinicus Rock

In 1853, a seventeen-year-old girl named Abbie Burgess took over the twin lighthouses on Matinicus Rock, a barren granite outcrop twenty-five miles off the coast...

Malachi 3:6Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Unpayable Tab

In 2019, a diner in New Hampshire called Joey's Pancake House started something unexpected. A regular customer left forty dollars on the counter and told...

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17Universal

255 words

Sermon Illustration

The Room That Was Ready Before She Arrived

In 2019, Marcus and Denise Thompson of Nashville spent eleven months preparing for a daughter they had never met. They painted her room soft yellow....

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

221 words

Sermon Illustration

The Theologian Who Could Not Stay in New York

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrived in New York City with every reason to stay. Friends had arranged a safe teaching position at Union Theological...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

Eric Liddell and the Call He Almost Mistook for Guilt

In 1924, Eric Liddell was the most famous athlete in Scotland. After his Olympic gold medal in Paris, universities and speaking platforms competed for his...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Evidence Doesn't Look Like You Expected

In 2010, a young doctor named Paul Kalanithi was finishing his neurosurgery residency at Stanford — years of grueling work nearly behind him, a brilliant...

Matthew 11:2-11Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Slave Who Could Finally Read

In 1834, when the British Emancipation Act took effect across the Caribbean, a formerly enslaved man named James Williams in Jamaica reportedly wept not because...

Jeremiah 31:27-34Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

Hudson Taylor and the Letter That Changed Everything

In 1869, after years of pioneering missionary work across China — founding the China Inland Mission, opening inland provinces to the gospel, watching hundreds come...

1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15aUniversal

244 words

Sermon Illustration

After the Locusts Came Rain

In 2004, a swarm of desert locusts descended on West Africa — the worst infestation in fifteen years. Farmers in Mali watched helplessly as clouds...

Joel 2:23-32Universal

222 words