THE BASIC REVELATION IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

(For Younger Children)

Lesson Eleven: What Happened to the Two People: The Fall (Part 1 )

Objectives:

Materials:

1. Chalkboard & chalk or
2. Large piece of paper mounted or held up.
3. Two cut-out stick figures and some detachable means of sticking them to the paper
4. One crayola or marking pen, etc.
5. Lessons One and Two in this series.

Implementation:

1. Review last lesson, beginning with asking children who remembers what God's plan was to get what He wanted most of all. (His plan was to get Himself inside of some people, so that they would be like Him and show what He's like.) Then go on to how God's great enemy Satan tried to "mess up" God's plan. (He got one of the first two people. Eve. to eat a piece of the wrong tree, the Tree of Knowing Good and Evil - if the two people had eaten some of the fruit of the other tree, the Tree of Life, they would have gotten some of God's own life into them and become His sons like Him the whole idea in the first place!)
2. Draw two trees on the paper/chalkboard, as in the previous lesson. Ask the children for the trees' names and label the trees. Can anyone think of another name, a very shart name. for the Tree of Knowing Good and Evil?--a name that tells what God said would happen if the two people ate some fruit from off of it. How about "the tree of Death"? Write this in parenthesis somewhere near the tree but away from the tree's long/official name. That's not the tree's real name, but we can remember that if the other tree was the Tree of Life, then this one was the Tree of Death and that's what happened when God's enemy talked the first woman, Eve, into eating the fruit from this tree, the wrong tree. More about that later.
3. Draw across the board, after erasing The trees - or on a fresh piece of large paper - a line like this Don't make it too steep, and leave some room underneath it.) Let s say that this line is God's plan to get what He wants most (sons like Him). When He put the two people there with the two trees, the idea was for them to do what? (Eat the fruit of the Tree of Life.) If they did that, they would be just right in God s plan. wouldn't they? As they ate the Tree of Life's fruit, they would become God s sons. like Him, more and more.
4. Draw two stick figures on chalkboard toward the left, going up the line; on the large sheet of paper, attach the two stick figures accordingly. As they ate more and more of the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would become more and more like God. Like going on up this line of God's plan.
5. Erase the figures and re-draw about half way up the line; move cut-out figures up half-way, if using the large paper. But instead of that happening, what did happen? When the children have answered.
6. Erase figures and re draw down at the bottom of the board this time, over on their sides sort of laying down; on the large paper, move the stick figures the same way.
7. Ask: Do you know what we call this, what we call what happened here? We say that they fell They really did, didn't they? They fell off the road of God s plan. They were up here on the road, the plan, and then they fell off of it. So we call what happened here "the Fall." This was the biggest fall that anybody, ever had, ever! God meant for those two people to go right on up the road, for everything to be as wonderful as wonderful could be, and to go on being that way, But now see what has happened - they have fallen off of God's road/God's plan. Well, God had to do something for these two people, because of what had happened, Before they ate the wrong fruit, they had been sort of like babies or very young children as far as clothes go - they hadn't needed any or felt funny or anything without them, Now, though, they felt very funny and ashamed and even made clothes for themselves out of large leaves. But there was a lot more happening here than just what happened to the two of them, a lot of very big, important and even terrible things, and part of this meant that now God had to make certain clothes for these first two people. clothes not of leaves or anything else off of plants, but clothes of animals' skins.
8. Darken appropriate areas on figures. What does that mean had to happen to some animals? Yes. some had to die so that their skins could be clothes to cover up the two people. So you see that what they did is also now affecting first some of the plants and then some of the animals, which even had to die, Remember the short name we gave the wrong tree (the Tree of Knowing Good and Evil)? Yes, the "tree of Death." Well, this with the animals was one way it turned out to be the tree of Death, and next time we'll see some more ways, and some more things that happened to the two people because of falling off of God s road/God's plan.
   So here the two people are, down here off of God's road/God's plan, and now wearing animal skin clothes. Maybe the two people could just climb back up onto the road/God's plan, and just go on? NO, they can't do that. Because something very big has happened and it has changed everything. It's not just that they didn't eat the right fruit, it's also that they did eat the wrong fruit! God had to do something right away, about those two trees of fruit, and He did. Does anybody know what? He Fixed it so that the two people, or anybody else either, could never eat the wrong fruit again, or the right tree's Fruit, for that matter. He made the two people leave the place where the two trees were and He closed off the way to get to the two trees, and even put an angel there with a burning sword to guard the way against anyone getting past. That shows you that some thing awfully important and serious had happened, If God had to do that.

Reinforcement:

1. Now who can tell me what all has happened to the two people since they ate the fruit off fo the wrong tree? You see, these things that happened which we have talked about today all happened on the outside of them, to their bodies - they had animal - skin clothes put on the outside of their bodies and they had to leave the beautiful place where the two trees were, forever. But a lot more than that happened that day. Things happened on the inside of the two people, too - very, very big things. We'll take a look at what some of them were, next time, You be thinking what some of them might be, until then. If ages and dispositions of children make it workable,
2. Act Out today's lesson, from the eating of the fruit (begin after Satan has spoken and presumably left the scene) through the severe shame and making of the leaf clothes through God having to kill some animals and to make clothes for the two people, through God sending them out - away and putting an armed angel to guard the way to the Tree of Life. [NOTE: Other details, e.g., God's oral reprimand of them and their response, and the cursing of Satan and sentencing of Adam and Eve, will come in subsequent lessons - omit them, for the present.]