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HomeIllustrations

7,545 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Sermon Illustration

From Dragon to Boy Again

In C.S. Lewis's *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader*, the selfish boy Eustace Scrubb falls asleep on a dragon's hoard and wakes to discover he...

Universaltransformation

236 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Man Who Could Have Stayed Silent

In Victor Hugo's *Les Misérables*, there is a moment that still haunts readers over a century later. Jean Valjean, the former convict, has rebuilt his...

Universalcourage

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Brain That Refuses to Hold a Grudge

In 2004, a team of neuroscientists at University College London led by Dr. Tania Singer conducted a groundbreaking study on empathy and fairness using brain...

Universalforgiveness

238 words

Sermon Illustration

Thirty Seconds on the Gymnasium Floor

Marcus DeLeon was seventeen years old when his heart stopped during the third quarter of a Friday night basketball game in Waco, Texas. He crumpled...

Romans 1:16Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Star You Never See at Night

On a clear night in the high desert of New Mexico, you can see roughly five thousand stars. But there is one star you never...

Colossians 1:15-17Universal

218 words

Sermon Illustration

The Wall That Rose in Millbrook

In 2019, a tornado carved a quarter-mile scar through Millbrook, Alabama, peeling roofs off homes and snapping a century-old oak across the entrance of Millbrook...

Nehemiah 4:6Universal

221 words

Sermon Illustration

The Little Church on Vine Street

In 2019, a tornado carved through Joplin, Missouri, and left First Community Church as nothing but a concrete slab and a splintered cross. When the...

Haggai 1:15b-2:9Universal

264 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Rivers Changed Course

In 1995, ecologists released fourteen gray wolves into Yellowstone National Park. The wolves had been absent for seventy years, and without them, the ecosystem had...

Universalrestoration

218 words

Sermon Illustration

The Password You Never Have to Remember

Every year, the average person manages over 100 passwords. We forget them constantly. We lock ourselves out of bank accounts, email, even our own phones....

Universaltrust

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Woman Who Thanks God for Tuesdays

Margaret Chen was fifty-three when the oncologist in Portland gave her eight months. That was six years ago. She'll tell you about the morning she...

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24Universal

249 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hymn Writer Who Chose Her Blindness

Fanny Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old when a mustard poultice, applied by an incompetent doctor, destroyed her vision permanently. She would never...

Universalfaith

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Shepherd on the Colca Canyon Ridge

Maria Quispe was seven years old the first time her father took her to tend alpacas along the rim of Peru's Colca Canyon. The drop...

Psalm 121Universal

253 words

Sermon Illustration

The Fortune Poured Out in Cairo

In 1912, William Borden walked away from a fortune worth roughly sixteen million dollars. The twenty-five-year-old heir to the Borden dairy empire had graduated from...

John 12:1-8Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Teacher Who Stayed at Garfield Elementary

When budget cuts gutted the arts program at Garfield Elementary in East Cleveland, most of the experienced teachers transferred to suburban districts where the pay...

Matthew 5:13-20Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Voyage Back Into the Wilderness

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood on the deck of a ship bound for New York. Friends in America had arranged everything — a teaching...

Luke 4:1-13Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

Bonhoeffer's Return to the Darkness

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood on the deck of a ship bound for New York, watching the German coastline disappear. Friends had arranged a...

Matthew 4:12-23Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Nurse Who Knew Them by Heartbeat

In the neonatal intensive care unit at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, a veteran nurse named Carolyn has spent twenty-three years caring for premature infants. Some of...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Blacksmith's First Commission

The first time twelve-year-old Samuel Whitfield stepped into his grandfather's forge in rural Tennessee, the heat nearly drove him back through the door. The furnace...

Isaiah 6:1-8Universal

273 words

Sermon Illustration

The Chemistry of Belonging

In 2012, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden discovered something remarkable about oxytocin, the hormone often called "the bonding chemical." When a parent holds...

Universallove

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The First Face She Would Ever See

When Fanny Crosby was just six weeks old, a man claiming to be a doctor applied a hot mustard poultice to her inflamed eyes. The...

Universalhope

264 words

Sermon Illustration

The Smoke Detector with Dead Batteries

Every year, the National Fire Protection Association reports that three out of five home fire deaths occur in houses where smoke detectors were either missing...

James 1:22Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Artist Who Mapped the Hidden Brain

In 1888, Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal bent over his microscope in Barcelona and began to draw what no one had ever truly seen...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

245 words

Sermon Illustration

The Barista Who Knew His Order Before He Walked In

When Marcus Chen transferred to a small branch office in Tupelo, Mississippi, he wanted nothing to do with the town. A software engineer from Seattle,...

John 1:43-51Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

Gladys Aylward and the Call No One Else Could Hear

In 1920s London, Gladys Aylward was a parlor maid — barely five feet tall, with little formal education and no connections to the missionary world....

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

239 words