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HomeIllustrations

10,079 Illustrations

Browse Sermon Illustrations

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Sermon Illustration

Caesar's Heir and Ours

In 44 BC, a teenage boy named Gaius Octavius received staggering news. Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the known world, had named him...

Romans 8:14-17Universal

230 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Envelope on the Kitchen Counter

In 2019, a schoolteacher in Baton Rouge named Clara Dupuis opened a letter from her landlord and felt her stomach drop. Rent was increasing by...

Hebrews 13:5-6Universal

258 words

Sermon Illustration

From Rubble to Harvest

In 2014, volunteers with the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative gathered on a stretch of abandoned lots in Detroit's North End. The properties were littered with...

Ezekiel 37:1-14Universal

231 words

Sermon Illustration

The Letter She Couldn't Open

When Hurricane Katrina swept through Biloxi, Mississippi, in 2005, Margaret Trosclair evacuated with nothing but her purse and her dog. She spent eleven days in...

Mark 16:1-8Universal

251 words

Sermon Illustration

When Freedom's News Finally Arrived

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, and read General Order No. 3 aloud...

Luke 2:10-11Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

It Is Well

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood at the rail of a ship crossing the Atlantic, staring down at the water below him. Weeks earlier, he...

Universalfaith

247 words

Sermon Illustration

George Müller's Empty Cupboard

In 1838, George Müller sat at a breakfast table in Bristol, England, with three hundred orphans and not a single crumb of food in the...

Jeremiah 17:5-10Universal

245 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bridge That Almost Wasn't Built

In 2015, the city council of Greenville, South Carolina faced a problem. The Swamp Rabbit Trail — a beloved walking and biking path — needed...

1 Corinthians 1:10-18Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Moravians Who Would Not Wait

In October 1731, a young Moravian named Johann Leonard Dober attended a gathering in Herrnhut, Germany, where he heard Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf describe the...

Luke 2:15-21Universal

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Porch Light on Garfield Avenue

For eleven years, Maria Gutierrez left her porch light on at 4319 Garfield Avenue in Kansas City. Not because she forgot. Because she remembered. Her...

Matthew 5:13-20Universal

265 words

Sermon Illustration

Wired for the Journey

Every autumn, monarch butterflies undertake one of the most remarkable navigational feats in all of nature. From milkweed fields as far north as Canada, they...

Universaltrust

235 words

Sermon Illustration

Before the Downbeat

On a Sunday afternoon in November 1943, twenty-five-year-old Leonard Bernstein stepped onto the podium at Carnegie Hall. Bruno Walter had fallen ill. There was no...

Genesis 1:1-3Universal

209 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bishop Who Barred an Emperor

In December of 390 AD, Emperor Theodosius rode toward the cathedral in Milan, expecting to enter as he always had — unchallenged, unchecked, draped in...

John 2:13-22Universal

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Choir That Sang Over Bare Concrete

In 1958, the congregation of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem gathered not in their grand sanctuary but in the basement of a half-finished building on...

Ezra 3:11Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Worship That Refused to Stop

On August 13, 1727, a fractured community of Moravian refugees gathered for communion in the small village of Herrnhut, Germany. They had been quarreling for...

Revelation 5:11-14Universal

223 words

Sermon Illustration

The Ulcer and the Unbelieved Truth

For decades, doctors told patients with stomach ulcers the same thing: reduce your stress, change your diet, learn to relax. Millions of people rearranged their...

John 8:32Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Engine That Never Turns Over

A mechanic in Tulsa named Ray Garfield kept a 1967 Mustang in his garage for twenty-three years. He polished the chrome every Saturday. He kept...

James 2:17Universal

230 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 Frequency Only Stillness Can Find

In 1995, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton traveled to Olympic National Park in Washington State to document something increasingly rare: one square inch of pure silence....

1 Samuel 3:10Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Plumb Line of Finkenwalde

In 1935, Dietrich Bonhoeffer opened an underground seminary at Finkenwalde, a small town on the Baltic coast of Germany. The Reich Church had made its...

Amos 7:7-17Universal

217 words

Sermon Illustration

The Voice in the Ravine

In March of 2019, search and rescue volunteer Dale Hitchens spent fourteen hours combing the hills outside Gatlinburg, Tennessee, looking for a seventy-three-year-old woman named...

Luke 15:3-7Universal

228 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

Kagawa's Christmas in the Kobe Slums

On Christmas Day, 1909, a twenty-one-year-old seminary student named Toyohiko Kagawa walked into the Shinkawa slums of Kobe, Japan — six square blocks where fifteen...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

222 words

Sermon Illustration

The Farmer Who Planted in Ash

In 1983, a wheat farmer named Harold Volkmer stood at the edge of his scorched fields outside Ash Flat, Arkansas, after a wildfire had swept...

Lamentations 3:25-26Universal

251 words