Isaiah Stories &amp; Illustrations

The Nurse Who Kept the Night Watch

In 2014, when Ebola swept through Liberia and the world recoiled in fear, a Liberian nurse named Salome Karwah did something remarkably simple. She held...

⛪ LensLines™ (1296)🏛️ Historical Examples (233)🎬 Movie Analogies (92)📜 Theological Quotes (70)🙏 Devotionals (62)🔍 Biblical Insights (44)🎯 Application Points (36)💭 Theological Reflections (25)🧘 Spiritual Disciplines (17)📝 Commentary (15)

PreviousPage 14 of 15Next

Also from Isaiah

📝

Need a full sermon?

SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with Isaiah.

Generate a sermon →

Sermon Illustration

The Quaker Who Entered Newgate

In 1813, Elizabeth Fry walked through the iron gates of London's Newgate Prison and into a scene that made seasoned guards look away. Three hundred...

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

The Washing Machines at Grace Point on Tuesday Nights

Every Sunday morning, the congregation at Grace Point Church in Long Beach, California, sang worship songs with hands raised and voices strong. But pastor Chris...

Singing Through the Storm

In January 1736, the ship Simmonds pitched violently in the North Atlantic as a winter gale tore its mainsail to shreds. Seawater poured across the...

Isaiah 12:2-6Universal

Jefferson's Fruitless Vines

Thomas Jefferson spent over thirty years trying to cultivate European wine grapes at Monticello. Beginning in 1773, he imported the finest *Vitis vinifera* cuttings from...

Isaiah 5:1-7Universal

The Song Beneath the Live Oaks

On New Year's Day, 1863, thousands of formerly enslaved men, women, and children gathered at Camp Saxton near Beaufort, South Carolina. Ancient live oaks trailed...

Isaiah 52:7-10Universal

When the Heavens Split Over Wales

In the autumn of 1904, a twenty-six-year-old Welsh coal miner named Evan Roberts could barely sleep. For thirteen years he had prayed the same desperate...

The Lighthouse at Punta de Teno

On the western tip of Tenerife, where the Atlantic crashes against volcanic cliffs, stands the Faro de Teno — a lighthouse that has guided sailors...

Isaiah 60:1-6Universal

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...

The Quaker Who Read to Prisoners

In 1813, Elizabeth Fry stepped through the iron gates of London's Newgate Prison and found three hundred women and children crammed into two wards. The...

When the Kitchen Is Spotless but the Family Is Starving

Every Sunday morning, Margaret Chen arrived early at Grace Community Church in Naperville, Illinois. She arranged the altar flowers just so, ironed the communion linens...

The Luthier on Elm Street

In a cluttered workshop on Elm Street in Portland, Oregon, a luthier named Marco Benedetti spends his days with instruments other repair shops would refuse....

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...

The Refrigerator on Marconi Avenue

Every Sunday morning, the congregation at Grace Fellowship in Sacramento sang about God's provision. They tithed faithfully, attended Wednesday night Bible study, and fasted during...

The Hymns That Couldn't Drown Out the Chains

In 1787, the churches of Bristol, England, were magnificent. Their choirs sang anthems that echoed off vaulted stone ceilings. Their congregations filled polished pews every...

Bartolomé de las Casas and the Sermon He Could Not Preach

In 1514, a Spanish priest named Bartolomé de las Casas sat in his study on the island of Cuba, preparing a Pentecost sermon for his...

The Retuned Instrument

When a tuning fork is struck against a hard surface, it vibrates at exactly 440 hertz — the note A. Place it near a piano...

Isaiah 6:1-8Universal

The Potter's Wheel on Main Street

In downtown Asheville, North Carolina, a ceramics studio called Earth and Fire offers a class they call "Second Chances." Instructor Maria Gonzalez takes pieces that...

The Reclaim Barrel

At a ceramics studio in Decatur, Georgia, potter Ellen Marsh keeps a five-gallon bucket by her wheel she calls "the reclaim barrel." It's where failed...

The Master Potter of Staffordshire

In the 1760s, Josiah Wedgwood walked the factory floors of his Etruria Works in Staffordshire, England, with a wooden cane in one hand and an...

The Quakers Who Fed a Starving Nation

In 1846, as the Irish Potato Famine tightened its grip, Parliament debated policy and churches held solemn days of prayer and fasting. Meanwhile, a tiny...

The Priest Who Heard Isaiah in the New World

In 1514, the Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas stood before his congregation on the island of Hispaniola preparing a Pentecost sermon. The chapel was...

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

The Gentle Cartographer of the Congo

In 1913, a young British missionary named Arthur Banks arrived in the Belgian Congo, where King Leopold's brutal rubber trade had left entire villages shattered....