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HomeIllustrations

9,187 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 Watchmaker's Home That Was Ready Before the Storm

In the Dutch city of Haarlem, Casper ten Boom ran a small watch shop called the Beje. For decades before the Second World War, the...

Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12Universal

232 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Rector of Epworth Who Could Not Have Imagined

Samuel Wesley served as rector of a small parish in Epworth, England, for nearly forty years. He baptized babies, buried the dead, and preached faithfully...

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

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Small Woman Who Carried No Credentials

In 1930, the China Inland Mission rejected Gladys Aylward. She was a parlor maid from Edmonton, north London — no university degree, no seminary training,...

1 Corinthians 2:1-16Universal

249 words

Sermon Illustration

The Farmer Who Planted What No One Expected

In 2014, Marcus Bridgewater left his corporate marketing job in Houston and did something his family couldn't understand. For three generations, the Bridgewaters had worked...

Luke 1:57-66, 80Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Detour That Changed Everything

In 2018, Dr. Sarah Chen planned to open her free medical clinic in downtown Phoenix. She had the funding, the building lease, even the volunteer...

Acts 16:9-15Universal

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Skin Eustace Could Not Shed

In C.S. Lewis's *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader*, a selfish boy named Eustace Scrubb wanders into a dragon's cave, falls asleep on the treasure...

Universalrestoration

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Phone Call That Changed Everything

In 2015, twenty-six-year-old Stefanie Davis was stocking shelves at a grocery store in rural Kentucky when her phone buzzed. A social worker was on the...

Luke 1:26-38Universal

221 words

Sermon Illustration

The Letter That Arrived Two Centuries Late

In 1493, Christopher Columbus wrote a letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella announcing his discovery of the New World. That letter changed the course...

Acts 13:22-26Universal

254 words

Sermon Illustration

The Conductor Who Owned Nothing

In 1954, Arturo Toscanini stepped down as conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra after seventeen years. He had shaped one of the most celebrated ensembles...

1 Chronicles 29:11Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Car Seat in the Hatchback

Keisha Williams was twenty-three, working double shifts at the hospital in Macon, Georgia, when the social worker called on a Tuesday evening. A newborn —...

Luke 1:26-38Universal

223 words

Sermon Illustration

The Garden on Maple Street

For fifteen years, Ruth Halloran poured herself into the community garden on Maple Street in southeast Portland. She hauled in twelve tons of composted soil...

Isaiah 5:1-7Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Photographer Who Was Actually There

In 2023, Boris Eldagsen submitted an AI-generated image to the Sony World Photography Awards and won. When he revealed the truth, he declined the prize,...

2 Peter 1:16-21Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Words You Memorized Before the Storm

On a gray Tuesday in March, a woman named Rachel Chen sat in her car outside a liquor store in Portland, Oregon. She had been...

Luke 4:1-13Universal

250 words

Sermon Illustration

The Scholar Who Found Living Water at Mukti

In 1878, Pandita Ramabai stood before the scholars of Calcutta — the first woman in India to earn the title "Pandita," a Sanskrit scholar of...

John 4:5-42Universal

217 words

Sermon Illustration

The Manuscript Room at Chester Beatty

In 1950, a fire broke out in a small library near Dublin where the Chester Beatty collection of biblical papyri was stored. A young curator...

Jude 1:3Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Sunday School Lesson That Changed Everything

In March 1841, a young Boston schoolteacher named Dorothea Dix agreed to teach a Sunday school class at the East Cambridge jail. What she found...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

A Name No One Expected

In 2019, Maria Gonzalez stood in a hospital room in San Antonio, Texas, holding her newborn son. Her mother-in-law had already monogrammed blankets with the...

Luke 1:57-66, 80Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

George Müller's Surrendered Appetite

In 1825, a young German student named George Müller was living recklessly in Halle, drinking heavily, running up debts, and treating his body as a...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

253 words

Sermon Illustration

Florence Nightingale's Diary Entry, February 7, 1837

On a winter morning in Embley Park, England, sixteen-year-old Florence Nightingale sat in her family's parlor and heard something she could not explain. She later...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

249 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Gift Shop Swallowed the Sanctuary

In 2019, visitors to a historic cathedral in Europe discovered that the gift shop had quietly expanded — again. What had once been a small...

John 2:13-22Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgery That Needed Every Hand

In 2017, a team at Johns Hopkins Hospital performed a groundbreaking face transplant on Katie Stubblefield, a young woman from Mississippi. The operation lasted thirty-one...

1 Corinthians 12:12-31aUniversal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Judge's Question

In adoption finalization hearings across the country, there comes a moment when everything else falls silent. The social worker reports have been filed. The home...

Matthew 16:13-19Universal

228 words

Sermon Illustration

The Molecular Stapler

Every day, the DNA inside each of your cells sustains tens of thousands of breaks — from ultraviolet light, metabolic stress, even the ordinary work...

Universalforgiveness

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bee That Already Stung

On a warm afternoon in late August, a beekeeper named Margaret was checking her hives when a honeybee landed on her bare forearm. She didn't...

1 Corinthians 15:55-57Universal

248 words