True, sourced stories for sermons and lessons. Search by keyword, theme, or Bible book.
17 illustrations found
Augustine Heard Take Up and Read
Augustine was a gifted teacher who had spent years chasing pleasure and wrestling with his sin. He later wrote about stealing pears as a youth just for the thrill of doing what was forbidden.
Bald Eagles Came Back
The bald eagle is the national symbol of the United States, but by 1963 only 417 nesting pairs were known in the lower 48 states. Habitat loss, illegal shooting, and the pesticide DDT had nearly wiped them out.
Glasses for the Hubble
The Hubble Space Telescope launched in April 1990 with huge expectations, and two months later NASA had to admit the images were blurry. The main mirror had been ground to the wrong shape, too flat near its outer edge, with an error ten times larger than allowed.
Humpback Whales Got a Second Chance
Humpback whales live in every ocean and make one of the longest migrations of any mammal. Some swim 5,000 miles between warm breeding waters and cold feeding grounds.
John Newton: Amazing Grace from a Slave Trader
John Newton spent his early years working in the slave trade, about as far from God as a man could get. Later he became a preacher, the rector of the parish in Olney, England, and he ended up fighting to abolish slavery.
Louis Zamperini: From Revenge to Release
Louis Zamperini was an Olympic runner who survived a plane crash, weeks adrift on a raft in the Pacific, and brutal treatment in Japanese prison camps during World War II.
Spurgeon in the Snowstorm
As a teenager, Charles Spurgeon was miserable under the weight of his sin and kept visiting churches hoping somebody would show him how to be saved.
The Doolittle Raider Who Went Back to Japan
Jacob DeShazer was a bombardier in the Doolittle Raid of April 1942, the first American bombing of Japan after Pearl Harbor. His plane went down in enemy territory, and he spent 40 months as a prisoner, beaten, starved, and held in solitary confinement for 34 months.
The Fish That Came Back from Extinction
For a long time scientists believed the coelacanth had died out with the dinosaurs, about 70 million years ago. They knew it only from fossils.
The Gophers of Mount St. Helens
When Mount St. Helens blew in 1980, it flattened about 135 square miles of forest and buried the ground under ash thick enough to bury a car.
The Homeless Man Who Kept the Ring Safe
In February 2013, Sarah Darling of Kansas City accidentally dumped her diamond engagement ring into the donation cup of Billy Ray Harris, a homeless man who often slept under a bridge.
The Marathon That Took 54 Years
Japan sent only two athletes to the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, and one of them was marathon runner Shiso (often spelled Shizo) Kanakuri. The trip took ten days by train, and race day was brutally hot.
The River That Ran Free Again
In the early 1900s two dams went up on the Elwha River in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. They made electricity, but they also blocked salmon from the upper river for about a century.
The Soldier Who Didn’t Know the War Was Over
Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese army officer sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines near the end of World War II with orders never to surrender.
The Survivor Tree
A month after the September 11 attacks, workers at Ground Zero found a badly damaged Callery pear tree in the rubble. Its roots were snapped and its branches were burned and broken.
The Wood Frog Thaws Heart First
The wood frog of the far north survives winter in a remarkable way. It freezes.
Yellowstone Welcomed the Wolves Back
Early managers at Yellowstone National Park saw wolves as nothing but destructive predators. Between 1914 and 1926, at least 136 wolves were killed in the park, and by the 1940s wolf packs were nearly gone.