Purpose: Use this children’s sermon on the Fall to teach kids how sin is never as rewarding as it seems.
Scripture: Genesis 3:1-6
Needed: a torn up or shredded dollar bill or a crumbled cookie (keep it hidden), a new dollar bill or cookie
Children’s Sermon
Tell students that you will give them a dollar or a cookie if they bark like a dog for five seconds. The first student who volunteers gets to do it. After they do it, congratulate them on a job well done and give them the useless dollar or crumbled cookie.
When they seem disappointed, say something like, I told you I would give you a (dollar, cookie) if you did what I asked. I never told you it would be a good (dollar, cookie). You see, you thought you were going to get something good, but I tricked you, didn’t I?
The same thing happened to the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve. When God made them, He told them not to eat from a certain tree, or they would die. But then Satan used a snake to trick Adam and Eve.
(Read Genesis 3:1-6 , quoted here in the NIV.) “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’
“The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”‘”
“‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'”
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
Satan used the snake to tell the woman that she would get something good when she ate the fruit, but she didn’t get anything good out of it.
(Read Genesis 3:8 , quoted here in the NIV.) “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
The man and the woman were afraid of God after they ate the fruit. Do you think we should be afraid of God?
We should love God. But the man and the woman felt guilty that they had eaten the fruit, so they were afraid and hid from God.
And afterward, God did punish them for breaking His rule when He said not to eat from that tree. The man and the woman had to leave the Garden of Eden and they eventually died, like God said. They never would have died if they hadn’t eaten the fruit that God told them not to eat.
So, just like I promised you a (dollar, cookie), Satan promised to give the man and woman something good, but it only turned out bad.
Satan does the same thing to us today. He tells us that doing something wrong will be fun or that we’ll get something good out of doing something bad, but it never works that way. Instead, we only feel bad about the wrong things we do and get in trouble for them.
Let’s not listen to Satan’s lies. Let’s listen to God and do what He tells us because He knows what’s best.
Closing Prayer
Father God, thank You for always telling us the right thing. Help us not to listen to Satan’s lies when he tells us that we’ll get something good out of doing something bad. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
As children leave, give your volunteer a good dollar bill or cookie.
You can also find this children’s sermon for Kindle or in print in my book, Children’s Sermons about the Fall and the Flood