It's Egg-citing!

This classic object lesson can be used to illustrate many lesson points. In this article, the application is about straddling the fence, or playing with temptation.


MATERIALS NEEDED:

You'll need a small sized hard boiled egg (peeled), a piece of newspaper that's about 3" x 4", matches or a lighter, and a wide-mouth glass bottle. The bottle in the picture is an old milk bottle. You'll want the mouth of your bottle to be wide enough to allow the egg to squeeze through when you're performing this object lesson.




Practice this object lesson more than once to make sure you've got it down. It won't help your presentation if you're stumbling over your words or if the object lesson itself goes wrong. Practice, practice, practice!

To present your hard-boiled object lesson, have all the items on hand and laid out, ready to go. Check in advance to be certain that the smoke from the burning paper will not set off a fire alarm. If you have a way to vent the smoke from the room quickly, this will help keep the kids' attention on your message point, instead of the smokey smell.

Here's what you're going to do: Show the materials to your audience, pick up the paper and form it into a small tube. It has to be small enough to slide easily into the bottle. With the matches or lighter, light the end of the paper.






Once the paper is burning well, drop it into the bottle.






Wait just a second or two, then pick up the egg and place it, narrow end down, on the mouth of the bottle.






Step back and smile as the egg is sucked whole through the neck and into the body of the bottle.






APPLICATION:

Girls and boys, we have all heard about people who give in to temptation. You probably know someone who does things that God's Word tells us is sin. The fact is that we are all tempted to disobey God. We are all tempted to put our own desires first. When we give in to temptation, we allow sin to control our lives. Look at King David. Was he a great leader? Was he a great man? We look up to him for many reasons, don't we? But when King David saw Bathsheba, he gave in to temptation and put his own desires first, forgetting to please God. King David saw Bathsheba and wanted her for his wife. He did not care that she was already married to another man. King David even had Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, killed, just so David could marry Bathsheba.

Just like King David, you and I face temptations every day. Sometimes the temptations seem so small, and it's easy to forget that those little temptations can lead to big consequences. What are some of the temptations in your life? (Encourage the children to respond with their own struggles.) We might be tempted to tell a lie, or to act in a cruel manner, or to steal something that belongs to another, or to gossip about someone. There are a lot of ways we can be tempted. The question is, will you give in when you are tempted?

The Bible, God's Word, tells us that "...the unfaithful are trapped by evil desires." (Proverb 11:6) Our Heavenly Father tells us that we should "flee youthful lusts, and follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Timothy 2:22) The Bible also tells us, "Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7) God wants us to love Him, and to demonstrate our love for Him. That means He wants us to resist the temptation to sin.

Let me show you what happens when we forget to do what the Bible says. (Pick up paper and roll it into a tube.) When we decide that it's okay to stick around in a situation where we are being tempted, we give that temptation more of a chance to work in our lives (light paper tube). We let things sort of "heat up" (drop lit paper into bottle). It becomes harder and harder to say "No." It becomes easier to forget that we want to put God first (put egg on bottle mouth, narrow end down). And, before we know it, we're sucked in by temptation and trapped by sin.

Psalm 103:5 tells us that God "satisfies our desires with good things." So, which is it that you want for your life? Do you want to be trapped by sin? Or do you want to enjoy God's love and blessing? Do you want to be chained up by the Devil? Or do you want to be free to worship God and show His love to others? By resisting temptation and putting God first in your life, you can continue to receive all the good things He has in store for you.