Purpose: Use this children’s sermon on the Fall to teach kids how to resist temptation.
Scripture: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-6
Needed: candy or other treats for each student
Children’s Sermon
Hand out your treats, but tell students not to eat it while you go get your Bible. Then, have someone else “sneak up” and talk to the kids about how good the treat is and how much the kids would enjoy eating it.
Come back and send the other person away. Ask students, Do you think it was mean of (name of the other person) to tell you how good that treat is after I told you not to eat it?
The same thing happened in the Garden of Eden. This happened right after God the first man.
(Read Genesis 2:15-17 , quoted here in the NIV.) “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'”
What would happen if the man ate from the tree that God told him not to eat from?
He would die. If the man never ate from the tree, he would live forever.
(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.”
So, there was a certain tree that God told the man not to eat from. And then the serpent, the snake, the devil came and told the woman that she should eat it!
Who do you think the woman should have listened to? Should she have listened to God or the snake?
She should have listened to God. But the devil lied to her and tempted her to do something God told her not to.
Did you know that the devil tries to keep us from listening to God too? He tempts us to do things that God told us not to.
What do you think we can do when we feel the devil tempting us to do something wrong?
I think the woman could have done two things when the devil was tempting her. First, she could have prayed for God’s help to know what to do. She didn’t talk to God at all, did she? She only talked to the snake.
So, when we feel tempted to do something God told us not to, we should pray and ask for God’s help.
Second, she could have went away and stopped talking to the snake. When she feel tempted, we can go do something else so that we don’t keep thinking about doing that bad thing.
Closing Prayer
Dear Father, thank You for the lesson that the first man and woman taught us. And thank You that we don’t have to give into temptation like they did. When we’re tempted to do something You’ve said is wrong, help us to pray to You and leave the temptation behind. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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