disobey

King Solomon Disobeys

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again! Today’s story is from 1 Kings 11.

choices

For all of King Solomon’s wisdom and good decision-making, he had a big problem. He LOVED the ladies. And he didn’t just love one lady…he got married a whole bunch of times, which God said you’re not supposed to do. The ladies he married also didn’t love the One True God, they worshipped other pretend gods.

After a while, one said, “Solomon, hunny…please build a statue of my god!” And he did. Then another said “What about me?! Please build a place for me to worship MY god.” And he did. He built places for them to worship their pretend gods and he even worshipped them too sometimes. His heart was not faithful to God like King David’s had been. And God was NOT happy. 

So the Lord said to him, “Since you have disobeyed my rules and not been faithful to Me, I am going to tear this kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. But because of how much your father David loved and served Me, I will not do this while you are still alive. I will take the kingdom away from your son.  And even then, I will not take away the entire kingdom; I will let him be king of one tribe.”

King Solomon’s choices were going to affect a lot of other people. When we make decisions, we need to think about how it might help or hurt others. Especially people in power…like kings, presidents, moms and dad, teachers, pastors…the things you do and say don’t just have good or bad consequences for you, they can help or hurt others. When we try to follow God’s laws and live a life of love (because of how much He loves us), then our choices will have good consequences for others. But Solomon wasn’t thinking about that. He was only thinking about what HE wanted…not what God wanted and not about what might happen to other people.

The funniest part is that King Solomon wrote a whole chapter of the Bible about this exact thing. Proverbs 29 talks all about how children’s actions affect their parents and how parents affect their children. How bosses and kings and neighbors all affect the people around them. But in the end, Solomon did not follow his own advice. He chose to live the way HE wanted, not the way God wanted…and the people of Israel would soon pay a big price for his poor choices.

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  Colossians 3:17 (ESV)

 

Thanks for joining us again, love to you all.

 

Psalm 51

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hello again! This Psalm was a song written by David after he killed Uriah and married Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. His heart was not obeying God. God was not happy and He sent His prophet Nathan to tell David to ask God to forgive him.

create

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
    because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
    blot out the stain of my sins.

2 Wash me clean from my guilt.
    Make me perfectly clean from my sin.

3 For I recognize my disobedience;
    it haunts me day and night.

4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
    I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say,
    and your judgment against me is fair.

5 For I was born a sinner—
    yes, from the moment i started growing in my mother’s belly.

6 But you desire honesty,
    teaching me wisdom from the beginning.

7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Oh, give me back my joy again;
    you have broken me—
    now let me rejoice.

9 Don’t keep looking at my sins.
    Remove the stain of my guilt.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God.
    Renew a loyal spirit within me.
11 Do not banish me from your presence,
    and don’t take your Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and make me willing to obey you.

13 Then I will teach your ways to others,
    and they will return to you.
14 Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves;
    then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.

15 Unseal my lips, O Lord,
    that my mouth may praise you.

16 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.
You do not want a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

18 Look with favor on Zion and help her;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit—
with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.

 

Back before Jesus, people would make a sacrifice when they did something bad. They would find the best sheep they could. Then they would kill it and give it to God. (This was partly because that was one of the most important things to the people back then. The best sheep got them the most money. They could eat the animals or sell them. They were very important. To give them to God meant God was the MOST important.) God would see the blood from the best animal and forgive the people for what they had done wrong.

(When Jesus came, He was God’s own perfect son and He died as a sacrifice too on the cross. Instead of an animal, He was the PERFECT sacrifice because He never sinned…He was the “spotless lamb.” Once He died, we never had to sacrifice animals again. God will forever look on Jesus dying and see that He took away our punishment for us. His blood covers us forever as long as we believe in Him.)

David knew what was most important to God, more than the animal sacrifice, was what was in his heart. We can’t just say “oh, i messed up, but Jesus died on the cross so it’s fine.” Just like people in David’s day couldn’t say “oh i messed up, i’ll just kill a sheep and God will forgive me.” God forgives because of the sacrifice AND because we ask His forgiveness and have a heart that WANTS His forgiveness and a heart that WANTS to follow Him. (We are saved by the grace of Jesus’ sacrifice though faith.)

David was very sorry and he wanted God to forgive him and give him a new, clean heart and he asked God to help him obey from now on. He promised to rejoice and sing praises to God for his fair punishment and for God forgiving him.

 

Keith Green song 

Rend Collective song

Thanks for joining us!

David and Bathsheba

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all! After a break for a long while :0) we are back with some NEW stories. We have had a pretty good overall cover of Bible stories for littles, but this year we have some bigger kids in the house and some extra time in the year so we’ll be delving in deeper and covering a lot more of the Old Testament.

Today’s story is from 2 Samuel 11 and 12. (Some of it will be glossed over a little. If your kids are old enough you can read through the whole thing. In our house, we’ll be censoring a smidge until they’re a bit older. The details aren’t as necessary as the heart David displayed, his disobedience and repentance.)

uriah

 

David (shepherd, musician, fighter of Goliath and chosen “man after God’s own heart”) was now King. In the spring, David sent Joab (his lead soldier) out with the army. David stayed in Jerusalem while the army was fighting and conquering.

One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman taking a bath. (They didn’t have pipes in their houses back then to take a bath in the bathroom.) The woman he saw was VERY beautiful, and David sent someone to find out who she was! The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” (My kids found it very funny that David saw her taking a bath and her name is BATHsheba hehe.) Then David sent messengers to go get her. Now, he was the King so she couldn’t say no or else she’d be in BIG trouble?! So she went to David and he decided HE wanted to marry her. (Even though she was already married!!! NOT a good choice, David.) 

David decided to get rid of Uriah. Uriah was one of the soldiers fighting in the army. So David wrote a letter to Joab and said, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then everyone move back from him so he will be hit and die.” He was going to have Uriah killed so HE could marry Bathsheba!

So Joab did what David requested and when it came time to fight again, Uriah did die.

When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she was very sad and cried for him. After her time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and she became pregnant with a baby boy. But God was NOT happy. 

The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to talk to David. (Remember, a prophet is someone who talks to God and then tells people what God wants them to know.) When Nathan came to David, he told him a story that goes like this, “There were two men in a certain town, one very rich and the other very poor. The rich man had a LOT of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. The little baby sheep was like a daughter to him. One day a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man did not want to take one of his own sheep or cattle to cook into a meal for the traveler. Instead, he took the one little lamb that belonged to the poor man and gave it to the visitor.”

David was angry and said to Nathan, “The man who did this must die! He must pay for that little lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “YOU are that man! You had EVERYTHING and Uriah didn’t have much….just a wife that he LOVED. But you who had EVERYTHING, you killed him and took his wife. God says to you: ‘I made you king over Israel, and I saved you from Saul. I gave you your great house, and all of Israel and Judah. And IF all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you do such an evil thing!? You killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own wife. Now, there will be severe consequences for what you have done.'”

Then David realized what he had done and he said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord!” David was very sorry and wanted God to forgive him.

Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. He will forgive you. BUT because you made SUCH a bad choice and had Uriah killed so you could have his wife, the baby boy you have will die.”

After Nathan had gone home, the Lord made the baby boy very sick.  David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and prayed and cried. Everyone tried very hard to get David to feel better but he cried and prayed and cried and prayed, asking God to help his son get better. 

But, on the seventh day the baby died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “He was so upset BEFORE…how can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something CRAZY now.”

David noticed that everyone was whispering, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.

“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord (like church) and worshiped God. Then he went to his own palace, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

 His servants asked him, “Um….why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you prayed and cried, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!?”

David answered, “While the child was still alive, I thought, ‘Who knows? Maybe God will be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? It won’t bring him back. God has punished me.”

Before long, David and Bathsheba had another baby boy, named Solomon. He would grow up to be the king after David and we will learn more about him later.

 

So David, even God’s chosen man David, sinned. Because we ALL disobey God sometimes. And even though God forgave David when he was sorry, David still had consequences for  disobeying God’s rules. It was a really bad thing David did and there was a REALLY hard consequence too! God made some good from it too though, He would raise up Solomon to be the wisest king ever and Solomon would build the temple for God. We must always remember that God’s ways are the best ways and we should always try to obey Him.

Here’s an animated version from LC Lifekids: watch here

See also Veggie Tales: King George and the Ducky

 

 

Thanks for joining us. More to come soon, thanks!

Isaiah

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Welcome back! Today’s lesson is about another prophet named Isaiah. A prophet is someone who talks with God and then tells the people what God wants them to know.

Isaiah has a whole book of the Bible for the things God wanted the people of Israel to know.

In this book, God tells His people (the people living in Judah and the rest of Israel) that they have disobeyed Him. Do you remember what it’s called when we disobey God? That’s called sin. And God tells them there will be consequences for their sins. BUT, if they will obey God again, and love only Him, then He will forgive them (1: 18-31).

Isaiah spends a lot of his book reminding the people of all the ways they have disobeyed God and how if they don’t ask Him to forgive them that there will be sad consequences–they will be taken away from the promised land. (And they were!)

We all sin too and when we sin, we can no longer live in heaven with God. We get taken away from the “forever promised land” with God (heaven).

BUT, in this book, God was telling His people, “I have a plan.” Isaiah 12:2 says, “Behold, God is my salvation,  I will trust and not be afraid.” Isaiah told the people that GOD Himself would make a way to save His people and to forgive them. Do you know what that way is?

It’s Jesus! God would send His own son, Jesus to die on the cross for us take our consequences so we could be perfect in God’s eyes. (Isaiah 53)

Isaiah told the people about Jesus who would be coming. In chapter 9, he tells the people that a baby will be born “For to us a child is born (Jesus), to us a son is given (God’s OWN son!), and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor (like a teacher and helper), Mighty God, Everlasting Father (we are God’s children!), Prince of Peace.” Most of the people then didn’t understand what Isaiah was saying…but we know he was talking about Jesus and that we don’t have to be afraid of the consequences of our sins if we believe in Jesus and that He came to die for us–we can just be thankful! 

God let Isaiah see some of heaven. In chapter 6 he says. “I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were creatures, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Holy means special and not like anyone or anything else.)

And at the end of Isaiah, God promises a GREAT future to those who trust in Him. In chapters 65 and 66, He says, “For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes. I will make new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create…I will take delight in my people; there will be no more weeping or crying.” He says all the people and animals will get along. Everyone will have enough food and not have to worry about anything! The people will be healthy and happy. They will worship God together forever. 

Isn’t it wonderful that even though WE disobey God, HE makes a way for us to be forgiven? There is nothing WE can do to get God to forgive us, it’s like a present He gives us, because He loves us. We just have to say “Yes! I want that present! Thank you, God!”

For our craft today we drew pictures of Isaiah’s vision of heaven and talked about how thankful we are for God sending His son Jesus to forgive our sins and all the things we are looking forward to about heaven.

img_0058img_0059

 

THIS VIDEO is a version of the song “I see the Lord” performed by Chris Falson.

THIS VIDEO is an overview of Isaiah by ShareFaithSolutions.

THIS VIDEO is from Saddleback Kids and focuses on the necessity of Jesus’ coming.

THIS VIDEO is from JellyTelly and is also a nice overview.

Thanks for joining us! Love to you all!

Samson (reboot)

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all! Today we studied Judges 13-16 about Samson. We used last year’s lesson found HERE.

What I tried to emphasize today is that Samson did not always obey God. But God used him anyway. Sometimes we disobey God too…but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t have big plans for us!

God gives you special things YOU are good at. He wants you to use those things to worship Him and to love others. Samson gave his power to Delilah instead of keeping it and using it for God. If you sing, sing songs of praise to God. If you draw, draw pictures to give to others. If you play sports, show the love of God while you play…be a good sport. Work hard in whatever you do. But don’t let anything become more important than God and always see how God can use your gifts to help others.

The Bible says Samson was more useful when he died (because he also killed those mean Philistines)…but that wasn’t God’s plan for Samson. God WANTED Samson to do great things with his strength while he was alive! (Like that time he defeated the 1000 men all on his own!) Let’s think about the things WE are good at…the things God has given US and see how we can serve God with those things NOW.

 

For today’s craft, we made “Samson knocking down the pillars” pictures. We drew our Samson (long hair and arms extended). Then we took toilet paper and paper towel tubes and taped them on each side to be the pillars. You could paint or marker these as well to look even more “pillar-y.”

Our text says: Samson-Judges 13-16.

 

Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!

Judges

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hey all! Today’s brief story is from Judges 1-3:6.

judge-clipart-occupations_judge

Joshua was leading the Israelites into the promised land. They were SUPPOSED to defeat everyone and take over the WHOLE land…but they didn’t exactly do that. There were still some of the people that they didn’t defeat.

But Joshua was getting old and all the people who had been mommies and daddies when they got to the promised land were now grandmas and grandpas! And there were new mommies and daddies and new kids and babies. Joshua and the others were getting old and they died.

The new mommies and daddies started to forget all the great things God had done. And they became friends with the people they hadn’t defeated. But those other people didn’t worship God. They had their own pretend gods–statues and idols. They prayed and worshipped to those things….and the Israelites started to too!

God was NOT happy. This was supposed to be the land for His people and they were supposed to worship only Him. So He gave them some judges. A judge is the person who sits in the court and decides if people are following the rules and if they AREN’T…what their consequences will be. If someone steals or kills somebody, they go before a judge. A judge decides if that person really did do those bad things and then they decide what the consequence will be.

So for a long time there were judges who helped Israel make good choices. When God gave the people a judge, that person would help them make good choices and they would follow God…but when there wasn’t a judge…the people would start making bad choices again–and even worse than before!!

Over the next couple of days we will learn about a COUPLE of these judges. The Bible tells us about 15 of these judges. We will be learning about 5 of them.

Thanks for joining us again! Love to you all!

Israel Disobeys

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all! Welcome back! Today’s story is from Exodus 32/33. Last year’s lesson and craft can be found HERE.

So Moses was up on Mt Sinai with God getting all the rules for God’s people. Moses was gone 40 days (about a month) and the Israelites were just sitting down at the bottom of the mountain. In those 40 days they already started to think “Maybe God forgot about us? Maybe God isn’t real? Maybe God doesn’t care about us?”

So they came up with a plan. “We need a NEW god!” they said.

Aaron, Moses’ brother said, “Ok! We’ll make a new god! Everybody take off your rings, earrings, your bracelets…give us your gold cups, plates…whatever you have.” Then he called some guys who knew how to build and they made a cow shape. They heated up all the gold until it was very soft, poured it into the cow shape and let it harden. Then they took the cow shape off and they had made a golden cow statue.

The people then danced and sang and prayed to the cow.

Does God hear us? (Yes) Does God see us? (Yes) Does God love us? (YES!)

Can a cow statue hear us? (No) Can a cow statue see us? (No) Does a cow statue love us? NO!

God was NOT happy. He sent Moses back down the mountain to tell the people to STOP IT! Only GOD is the real God. He is the One we pray to and sing songs for and dance for. He is the One who loves us.

God was very frustrated, but Moses asked God to please forgive the people.

There were still bad consequences for the people worshipping the cow (some of them died and some more got very very sick). God just told us in the 10 commandments to put Him first and not worship any other thing…and His own people turned around and were doing just that.

You probably won’t see too many people where you live worshipping gold cows…but sometimes we DO put other things before God. Sometimes we worry more than we pray. Sometimes we want to watch tv or play games more than we want to talk to God. Sometimes we are more worried about getting toys than we are helping other people. We worry about what WE want, not what God wants.

We should always try to put GOD first. God’s own people forgot all about Him in a month. Let’s pray right now that God will always remind us of who He is and that we will always worship ONLY Him.

For our craft today, we cut out a golden cow shape.

IMG_7638IMG_7641

Then we added some gold glitter and our text: We worship ONLY God. Exodus 32.

Thanks for joining us again. Love to you all!