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HomeIllustrations

10,079 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 Messenger of Leidschendam

On the morning of May 5, 1945, a young Dutch resistance courier named Ada pedaled her battered bicycle through the streets of Leidschendam, a town...

Isaiah 52:7-10Universal

227 words

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Sermon Illustration

Wangari Maathai and the Thirty Million Seeds

In 1977, Wangari Maathai knelt in the red dirt outside Nairobi, Kenya, and pressed nine seedlings into the earth. The hills around her told a...

Isaiah 55:10-13Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Band Room That Lacked Nothing

When Marcus Thompson took over the music program at Riverside High in Memphis, half the instrument lockers were empty. Most students came from families that...

1 Corinthians 1:3-9Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Nursery That Was Ready Before the First Breath

In 2019, Maria and Carlos Espinoza spent four months transforming a spare bedroom in their San Antonio home into a nursery. Carlos sanded and painted...

Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Radiance of Ravensbrück

In the winter of 1944, Corrie ten Boom huddled with her sister Betsie in Barracks 28 of Ravensbrück concentration camp. The stench was unbearable. Fleas...

Psalm 34:2-9Universal

218 words

Sermon Illustration

The Prison and the Promise in Burma

In 1813, Adoniram Judson knelt on the deck of a ship bound for Burma, freshly ordained and burning with purpose. He had heard the voice...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

Calm Singing on a Sinking Ship

On January 25, 1736, a violent storm tore across the Atlantic and slammed into the small ship carrying John Wesley toward the colony of Georgia....

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

222 words

Sermon Illustration

Love as Covenant Commitment - Reformed (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

1 Corinthians 13 describes covenant love—love that binds despite circumstances.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7Universal

Short85 words

Sermon Illustration

One More From the Ridge

On May 5, 1945, Private First Class Desmond Doss stood atop a jagged escarpment on Okinawa that soldiers had grimly nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge. His company...

Luke 15:3-7Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Shelter on Galveston's Seawall

When Hurricane Ike barreled toward Galveston, Texas in September 2008, most residents evacuated. But Jim and Elaine Maddox, an elderly couple on 53rd Street, couldn't...

Nahum 1:7Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

Bread on the Hillside

In the summer of 1680, Scottish Covenanters gathered on a remote hillside near Irongray in Dumfriesshire, knowing that government dragoons were hunting them. They had...

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Janitor's Prayer at Cedar-Sinai

In 2014, a janitorial supervisor named Hector Vega worked the overnight shift at a hospital in Los Angeles. He had no medical degree, no letters...

1 Corinthians 2:1-16Universal

235 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 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

The Bishop Who Knew the Apostle's Voice

In 155 AD, the aged bishop Polycarp of Smyrna stood before a Roman proconsul who demanded he renounce Christ. Polycarp replied with words that still...

2 Peter 1:16-19Universal

224 words

Sermon Illustration

The Intersection With No Traffic Light

In 2003, the city of Drachten in the Netherlands tried something radical. Traffic engineer Hans Monderman convinced officials to remove nearly all traffic signs, signals,...

Judges 21:25Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

Mother Teresa and the Train to Darjeeling

On September 10, 1946, a thirty-six-year-old Albanian nun boarded a train in Calcutta bound for Darjeeling, heading to her annual retreat. Sister Teresa had served...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

261 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cup She Couldn't Stop Raising

In 2019, a retired schoolteacher named Dorothy Edwards stood before her small congregation in Macon, Georgia, holding a ceramic coffee mug. It was chipped, stained...

Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Day Moody Stopped Preaching from an Empty Well

In the autumn of 1871, Dwight L. Moody was already filling auditoriums across America. Yet two women in his Chicago congregation — Sarah Anne Cooke...

John 7:37-39Universal

253 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

The Oratorio That Rose from Ruin

In the spring of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. The once-celebrated composer had suffered a debilitating stroke four years earlier that paralyzed...

Universalhealing

228 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

Sermon Illustration

Glory and the Internment Camp

In 1924, Eric Liddell stood on the Olympic podium in Paris, a gold medal around his neck, the world cheering his name. The moment shimmered...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

252 words