Sermon illustrations
A good illustration of deliverance from addiction shows three things: how deep the bondage ran, that the person could not free themselves, and a change so total that those who knew them couldn't deny it. The lives below — a thief, a gambler, a profane drifter — are public-domain accounts you can quote freely.
In short
A good illustration of deliverance from addiction shows three things: how deep the bondage ran, that the person could not free themselves, and a change so total that those who knew them couldn't deny it. The lives below — a thief, a gambler, a profane drifter — are public-domain accounts you can quote freely.
Titus 2:11–12
Before his conversion George Müller stole, lied, and drank his way through his student years, even landing in jail. Afterward he became a man so free of his old appetites that he spent his life caring for thousands of orphans on prayer alone. The proof of the cure was a life that now poured out instead of taking.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Cartwright described his youth as given over to cards, horse-racing, and dancing, until a camp meeting around 1801 left him with an overwhelming sense of forgiveness and joy. He turned around so completely that he spent the rest of his life as a frontier preacher chasing down others like the young man he had been.
From Autobiography of Peter Cartwright by Peter Cartwright (1856) — read the account →
1 Corinthians 6:11
Bunyan was known in his town for swearing and reckless living, by his own confession the ringleader in vice. Overhearing a few poor women speak of the new birth undid him, and the man famous for his foul mouth became the author of the most-read allegory in the English language. 'Such were some of you' — and then grace.
From Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan (1666) — read the account →
T.S. Baker Books — true stories of changed lives, free to read and quote.