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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

Tested Right After the Call

In 2019, Keisha Morgan graduated top of her class from Howard University's school of education. Her professors praised her. Her family celebrated. She had the...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

244 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Cobbler God Kept in His Quiver

William Carey mended shoes in the English village of Moulton, a self-taught cobbler with a homemade leather globe stitched together on his workbench. He had...

Isaiah 49:1-6Universal

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Father Who Caught Every Fall

In 1952, a young aerialist named Elena Montoya joined the Flying Wallendas for their European tour. She was talented but terrified — not of the...

Jude 1:24-25Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

Fanny Crosby and the Riches She Could Not See

Fanny Crosby lost her sight at six weeks old due to a doctor's mistake. She never saw a sunset, never read a printed page, never...

Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Restaurant That Lost Its Salt

In 2019, a beloved barbecue joint in Memphis called Central BBQ faced an unexpected crisis. A new kitchen manager, trying to cut costs, quietly reduced...

Matthew 5:13-20Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Medical Student and the Heart Murmur She Couldn't Hear

Dr. Maria Chen still remembers her first week of clinical rotations at Johns Hopkins in 2019. Her attending physician, Dr. Hadley, placed a stethoscope against...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

256 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bare Pantry Hymn

Clara Montrose stood in her kitchen on a January morning in 1934, staring at three nearly empty shelves. The drought had taken the wheat. The...

Habakkuk 3:17-19Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Telescope Everyone Called a Failure

When NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope in April 1990, engineers expected triumph. Instead, the first images came back blurred and useless. A grinding error...

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Muddy River and the General's Pride

In 2003, a retired Army colonel named Frank sat in a bare church basement in Columbus, Ohio, staring at a circle of metal folding chairs....

2 Kings 5:14Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Stadium That Sang in Every Language

On a sweltering July evening in 2019, sixty thousand people packed Busan Asiad Main Stadium in South Korea for the closing worship of the World...

Revelation 7:9-17Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

The Promise Planted in Johnny Appleseed's Orchards

In 1806, John Chapman — better known as Johnny Appleseed — planted a small nursery of apple trees along the banks of Owl Creek in...

2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon Who Waited

In 2010, a young mother named Clara Benitez sat in a hospital waiting room in Houston, clutching her phone, watching the minutes crawl by. Her...

John 11:1-45Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Voice in the Milan Garden

In the summer of 386 AD, Augustine sat weeping beneath a fig tree in a Milan garden, torn between the life he had been living...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

Eighty-Six Years of Lifting the Cup

In the winter of 155 AD, Roman soldiers led the elderly bishop Polycarp into the stadium at Smyrna. The crowd roared for his blood. The...

Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

Augustine and the Child's Voice in the Garden

In the summer of 386 AD, a thirty-one-year-old rhetoric professor sat weeping in a Milan garden. Augustine of Hippo had spent years running from God...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

240 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 Death of the Aral Sea

In 1960, the Aral Sea stretched across 26,000 square miles of Central Asia — the fourth-largest lake on earth. Fed by two mighty rivers, the...

Jeremiah 2:4-13Universal

246 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lunch Table No One Expected

In 2014, a middle school in Nashville made national news — not for test scores or athletics, but for a cafeteria table. Twelve-year-old Marcus Thompson...

John 13:34-35Universal

226 words

Sermon Illustration

The Coach Who Already Knew His Name

In 2019, Marcus Thompson was a lanky fifteen-year-old shooting free throws alone at a cracked outdoor court in Flint, Michigan. He had no AAU team,...

John 1:43-51Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Name on the Tablet

When Maria and Carlos Gutierrez adopted their daughter from foster care in Houston in 2019, everyone assumed they'd rename her. That's what families did —...

Luke 1:57-66, 80Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Man Who Said Yes in the Dark

In December 1938, twenty-nine-year-old Nicholas Winton arrived in Prague and found something that shattered his plans. Hundreds of Jewish families, desperate and hunted, were begging...

Matthew 1:18-25Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cells That Knew When to Let Go

During human development, something remarkable happens inside the womb. Your fingers don't grow outward like branches — they're sculpted. The hand begins as a flat...

Universalobedience

257 words

Sermon Illustration

The Happiness Nobody Wanted

In 2018, a Finnish documentary crew followed Heikki Nousiainen, a retired bus driver in Helsinki, as part of a study on contentment. Finland had just...

Matthew 5:1-12aUniversal

244 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