Topic: Fall of Man Objectives: 1. Provide a simple review on the important events that occurred in the Fall of Man 2. Make children understand the true meaning of sin and forgiveness 3. Encourage children to turn to God for guidance during their difficult times Introductory Activity Charades - a game in which some of the players try to guess a word or phrase from the actions of another player who may not speak. Game Mechanics: 1. Two groups shall be formed, each having 5 members. 2. A representative from the first group will draw a small paper from the basket with a word written on it related to the story of the Fall of Man. 3. Each group is given 2 minutes to act out as many words as they can. 4. The representative will have 5 seconds to contemplate before they act out what was written on the paper without uttering any words. 5. The representative’s groupmates will guess what the person is try to enact. 6. Once a member guesses the correct answer, another representative should immediately take their place and draw out another paper and enact the written word. The process is continuous until the 3 minutes are up. 7. When their time is up, the other group will be doing the same process. 8. The team who acts out the most words will be hailed the winner. *Additional note: they are allowed to pass if they do not know the word Contents of the paper: There are exactly 20 slips of paper 1. snake 2. apple 3. love 4. leave 5. fall 6. man 7. obey 8. God 9. tree 10. Satan 11. garden 12. eyes 13. naked 14. woman 15. crawl 16. clothes 17. promise 18. sword 19. angry 20. good Discussion The Story of the Fall of Man The Creation On the first day, God said, “Let there be a lot of light and darkness, and I will name the light as ‘Day’, and the darkness as the ‘night’” and it happened exactly as he said! On the second day, God decided that there should be an infinite amount of space all around this earth he was planning to create. He decided to call this sky, ‘Heaven’. On the next day, he created seas and land with mountains, rivers, lakes, and ponds. He made the plants, grass, and fruits that would grow in the soil. The following day, he gave a final touch to the light and darkness, by creating millions and billions of stars. The next day was very important to God. This was the day he created fish, aquatic animals, and birds. He wanted numerous little creatures, and that’s why there are millions of fish in the oceans and birds flying in the sky. He slept peacefully that night. The next morning, he had an amazing plan to come up with animals that would roam the land. He said, “Today, I shall create all the animals for the beautiful land. If there is time left, then I shall create a man that can be just like me.” He thought that this plan was a very good idea. This was the seventh day, a Sunday. Since he worked very hard for seven days, God was very tired and he decided to rest on that day. While he was resting, he decided to go to earth and make the most beautiful garden. He named it the Garden of Eden. The garden was filled with wonderful flowers and trees and it has thousands of animals and birds running around. The Start of Adam and Eve He created the first man out of clay, breathed life into him and called him Adam. God then told him, “Now listen, Adam, you can climb the trees, eat the fruits, jump over the bushes, and paddle in the river, but there is one thing you must never do. Never eat the apples from that large tree at the center of the garden. Soon God realized that Adam was lonely as he was only one of his kind. So, he used one of Adam’s ribs to create a wife for him, the first woman, whom he called Eve. Adam and Eve were very happy; they lived a beautiful life in the Garden of Eden. They had animals to talk to and various trees to eat fruits from. God had asked them to eat fruits from the Tree of Life but never from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Their Disobedience One day, while they were walking along the centre of the garden, there was a beautiful apple hanging on the forbidden tree. A snake was also resting on that tree, and he said, “Why don’t the two of you eat this apple? It is the biggest, nicest, and juiciest apple I have ever seen.” Adam was worried and informed the snake that God had told them to never eat anything from that tree. The snake tried to brush away their fears and worries by saying that they had nothing to worry about and encouraged them to take a bite. He even said that they would gain God’s wisdom by eating fruits of this tree. Eve believed the snake’s lies and looked at the juicy apple. She plucked the apple from the tree and took a bite. As the fruit was delicious, she insisted Adam take a bite. Initially, Adam refused to do so but when he was convinced that Eve did not die of eating that fruit, he took a bite too. Suddenly, they realised that they were naked. They covered their bodies with leaves of the trees. All this happened on the day God visited the garden, and when they heard Him coming their way, they felt bad for disobeying him. God knew of their wrong deed and was angry and disappointed with them. Adam told God that he ate the fruit on Eve’s insistence and Eve brushed it off on the snake. But both had disobeyed God. God punished Adam and Eve by banishing them from the Garden of Eden and said that they would have to live a hard life out of paradise. After a great storm, he went back to Heaven, leaving a flaming sword to make sure that nobody on the planet ever touches the tree again. Spiritual Death - When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were punished with spiritual death Spiritual death is the separation of God’s spirit from man’s spirit. One who is not a part of God’s like can be deemed dead spiritually. The first sign of Adam and Eve’s separation was when they realized they were naked. They never needed to be clothed because they had been clothed with the light of God’s glory. Pronouncement of Judgement - Because God is righteous, he cannot overlook sin. God pronounced judgement upon the two, which was to leave the beautiful Garden of Eden. Adam would have to work to get food. Even would have to subject herself to her husband and bear children in pain. The ground will be cursed because of their sin. Obedience of Faith - - God desires from us the obedience of faith. We should not question why we are to act as God requires but simply because it is God who requires it This obedience is based on our faith in God, not because of our own understanding of why God calls one thing good and another evil. We can see such example from our parents when we were children. For example, they tell us not to touch a hot pot. They couldn’t really explain to a child why we could get hurt from this but only tell us to follow for our own safety. Eve’s temptation still resides within us. We still question why we should obey God. When we, the people, fail to understand the reason, we reject God’s commandment, like what happened to Eve. God’s Promise - "He [the coming Saviour shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Genesis 3:15 God gives the promise of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who would defeat Satan. His only begotten Son will die for man’s sin By His death on the cross, man will be forgiven of their sins and come back to fellowship with God. Forgiveness - Forgiveness is about repairing broken relationships. God did not sentence Adam and Eve into an immediate death but rather, punished them by banishing them. But, because of love and mercy, he forgave them and clothed them with animal skins to hide their nakedness. Their relationship changed but God continued to walk with them.
