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HomeIllustrations

9,108 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Top Rated Newest Oldest|All Sources Biblical Illustrator Spurgeon Maclaren

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Sermon Illustration

The Song in the Night Nursery

In 2019, a NICU nurse named Mary Beth Harrell at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville started an unusual practice. Each evening during her shift, she...

Zephaniah 3:17Universal

241 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Prescription That Only Works If You Take It

In 1921, Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin at the University of Toronto, transforming Type 1 diabetes from a death sentence into a manageable...

Universalobedience

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Library That Never Ends

In 2019, a team of astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at what appeared to be an empty patch of sky — a dark sliver...

Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19Universal

254 words

Sermon Illustration

The Guards Who Never Return

In 2004, immunologist Arturo Zychlinsky and his team at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin discovered something astonishing about neutrophils — the white blood cells...

Universalsacrifice

222 words

Sermon Illustration

Polycarp's Eighty-Six Years

In 155 AD, Roman soldiers marched into the hills outside Smyrna to arrest an elderly bishop named Polycarp. He was eighty-six years old, a disciple...

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

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Parlor Maid Who Crossed the Mountains

In 1930, Gladys Aylward was a parlor maid in London — short, uneducated, and utterly unremarkable by the world's standards. When she applied to the...

Luke 1:26-38Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

When the River Jumped Its Banks

In the summer of 1993, the small farming community of Hardin, Montana, watched the Bighorn River swell past its banks after weeks of relentless rain....

Joel 2:28-29Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The King's Own Language

When William Tyndale smuggled the first printed English New Testament into England in 1526, he did so because he believed something radical — that ordinary...

Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

Becoming Real Takes Time

In Margery Williams's beloved children's story *The Velveteen Rabbit*, there is a quiet conversation between two nursery toys that holds more theology than some entire...

Universalpatience

240 words

Sermon Illustration

Bonhoeffer's Prayers from a Distance

When the Gestapo shuttered his underground seminary at Finkenwalde in 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not stop being a pastor to his students. Scattered across Germany,...

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13Universal

244 words

Sermon Illustration

The Library That Stayed Open

In August 2014, when tear gas drifted through the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and the world watched a community fracture on live television, the Ferguson...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

245 words

Sermon Illustration

One Loaf, One Family

Every Sunday morning at Grace Community Church in Tupelo, Mississippi, eighty-three-year-old Martha Jenkins arrives early to bake communion bread. She has done this for thirty-seven...

1 Corinthians 10:16-17Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Last Ship Back to Berlin

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood on the deck of a steamship crossing the Atlantic, heading back toward everything he had just escaped. Friends in...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

246 words

Sermon Illustration

The Language She Finally Understood

For three years, Marcus Chen wrote letters to his estranged daughter, Lily, after she moved to Osaka to teach English. He poured his heart onto...

John 1:1-14Universal

286 words

Sermon Illustration

The Barefoot Pilgrims of Lalibela

Every January, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians set out on foot toward the ancient city of Lalibela, high in the mountains of northern...

Psalm 122Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Symphony Beyond Silence

On May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood on stage in Vienna for the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. He had composed every note of...

Universaltransformation

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hard Drive That Remembered Everything

In September 2001, recovery teams pulled dozens of computer hard drives from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. They were crushed, waterlogged, scorched beyond...

Universalredemption

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Name That Broke the Silence

In 1505, Martin Luther's father Hans had mapped out his son's entire future. Martin would study law, rise in society, and bring honor to the...

Luke 1:57-66, 80Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Masterpiece Composed from the Ruins

In the autumn of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. The composer who had once dazzled the courts of Europe was now sixty-six,...

Universalfaith

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hands That Welcome You Home

In 1669, near the end of his life, Rembrandt van Rijn completed one of the most tender paintings in Western art. *The Return of the...

Universallove

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Notes You Don't Deserve

In music, there is a technique called the grace note. It is a small, ornamental note printed tiny in the score, with no official rhythmic...

Universalgrace

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Ceiling He Almost Quit

In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo protested. He considered himself a sculptor, not a painter....

Universalperseverance

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Broadcast From Aleppo

In December 2016, as Syrian government forces closed in on eastern Aleppo, a young journalist named Lina Shamy recorded a final video message. With dust...

Isaiah 52:7-10Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The News No One Could Carry

On April 15, 1945, British soldiers rolled open the gates of Bergen-Belsen. Sixty thousand prisoners stood on the other side. The soldiers expected cheering, embraces,...

Mark 16:1-8Universal

231 words