This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #9 – Genesis 15:1-21

Powerpoint Pictures: Milky Way; Sun

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If you go out into the countryside at night and look up you might see the sky filled with stars.

Just think for a moment about the stars.

Does anyone know how many stars there are in our galaxy the Milky Way? [200-400 billion stars].

Can anyone tell me what the nearest star to earth is? [The Sun].

But the sun isn’t particularly near is it?  It would take 221 days to reach the sun by space shuttle, 177 years by car and 3000 years by walking.

Stars are important in the next part of the true story of the Bible.

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So far we’ve seen that God spoke to a man named Abram and told him to leave his home, his country and go to the place He would show him.

He also made two wonderful promises: a great nation would come from him and also a Saviour who would mend this broken world.

But there was a problem.  Sarai his wife could not have children.

Abram travelled to the land God showed him.  While he was there, years passed by, and still no child.  Abram began to wonder whether the promise would ever come true?

Then we read that “God took Abram outside and said “Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.”  Then God said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Look up at the stars and count them.  Can you count them?  No, there’s too many.  Well, Abram, that is how many people there will be in your family, and one of those stars represents the Saviour!

To show that He was going to keep this promise, that He was serious, God made a covenant with Abram (a bit like making a deal and shaking hands on it).  Instead of shaking hands, they did it a bit different.  They would get some animals, cut them in half, and walk between them, and by doing so what they were saying is that what happened to the animal will happen to you if you break this promise.

However only God passed between the animals.

God was promising that He would keep His promise.  But how is He going to do this?

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More talks from The Big Bible Adventure can be found HERE.

(Photo: bigal101)

This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #8 – Genesis 12:1-3

Powerpoint Pictures: 10 Downing Street Door; England Shirt; School Uniform; X-Factor Elimination; Prize

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In the story of the Bible we have people who speak different languages in different places divided from one another.

People are still disobeying God and the world is a mixture of good and bad.

But God’s promise to rescue people by sending someone to undo the mess brought into this world by Adam and Eve still stands.

And it begins with God choosing one man and his family.

“The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

God chooses one man, Abram.  He gives him a command, leave everything you know and go to the place He would show him.  He also makes some wonderful promises.

People – a great nation, enough people to fill a country.

Blessing – one from his family who would save people and bring God’s blessing to all the peoples on earth.

But Abram was a surprising choice.  Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren which mean that she couldn’t have children.

So how on earth would a great big family come from Abram?  How would this Saviour of the world come from Abram?

Would Abram believe God’s promises and do what God asked him to do?  Will God keep His promises?

This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #7 – Genesis 11:1-9

Powerpoint Pictures: Hello written in French, German, Italian, Arabic, Swahili, Chinese, Greek

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After Noah and his family came out of the ark, when people only spoke one language, God told Noah to “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1)  That is to have lots of children and spread out so you fill the earth.  This was one way people could love and obey God.

But what we find is that they didn’t want to.  Instead they stayed together in place.  Instead of worshipping God they built a tower to show how great they were.  The flood did not solve the problem of sin and people still disobeyed God.

So God did something again.

Not a flood, remember He promised He would never flood the whole earth again.

To show He was the greatest, and to get people to spread out all over the earth, God confused their languages so they couldn’t understand each other.

Imagine two people on a building site.  One said, “Could you pass the hammer please?” but other person thought he was saying “You smell like a pig!”

So people spread out over the earth with other people who spoke the same language and became the different countries and nations we see today.

But remember that God had promised someone who would come and put the world back together again, by sorting out the problem of sin.  He would also bring people of different nations together too!  Who would this person be?

This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #6 – Genesis 6-9

Powerpoint Pictures: Etch-a-Sketch; Lifeboat; Meerkat; Rainbow

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Can you tell me what the following are photos of?  [An etch-a-sketch, a lifeboat, a meerkat, a rainbow].

These four pictures help us to understand the next part of the true story of the Bible.

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In the beginning God looked at the world He made to be a perfect home for people and said it was “very good”.

But now at the start of Genesis 6 when God looked at the world He was sad.

Why?  Imagine you went home and found that your house had been trashed.  Well that is what people had done to God’s world.

So like an etch-a-sketch, when you don’t like what you see, you start again, so that is what God decide to do.  He decided to send a flood that would cover the whole earth and destroy every living thing.

But if God is going to start again, He would need people and animals to fill the earth.  Would He find someone who loved and obeyed Him and how would He keep him or her safe?  There was one man.  “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9)

God told Noah that He was going to send a flood so He warn people about what was going to happen.  He also told Noah to build an ark.

The ark was like a big lifeboat to keep Noah and his family – his wife, three sons and their wives – safe.

So miles away from the sea in the sunshine Noah got to work on building an ark, following God’s instructions.  As he did people must have laughed at him, but he kept going believing what God had told him.

When the ark was finished, God brought 2 of every kind of animals including probably meerkats into the ark.

When everyone was in God shut the door.

Then came the rain.  For 40 days and 40 nights it rained and the earth was flooded.  Every living thing apart from those inside the ark was wiped out.

After the rain stopped it took a whole year for the water to go down and for dry land to appear again.

Then Noah and his family and all the animals came out of the ark to start life on the earth again.  God promised Noah that He would never flood the earth again and put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise.  So whenever we see a rainbow, we are to remember that God is keeping His promise.

Back to Noah and his family and all the people who would live after them.  Would they love and obey God or like Adam, Cain and all the other people at the time of the flood would they disobey God?

This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #5 – Genesis 4:1-16

Powerpoint Pictures: Diamond Ring; Kitchen Utensils

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Soon it will be my wife’s birthday, and I was wondering whether you could help me to decide what present I should get her.  I want this present to tell her how much I love her.

I need to decide between a diamond ring and some kitchen utensils.

Which one do you think will say to her ‘I love you’ best?

Why?

Do you think she would be pleased if I gave her the kitchen utensils?

This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #4 – Genesis 3:1-24

Powerpoint Pictures: Egg; Smashed Egg

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What do you love about living in this world?  But not everything about this world is great.  There is famine, there is war, and there are natural disasters.  There is lots of sadness in this world.  Why?

Back in Genesis 1, God saw all that He had made and it was good.  What went wrong?

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Adam and Eve were living in the garden of Eden, the best place on the whole earth to live.  There were good things to see, good things to taste and good things to do.  As long as they obeyed the one good rule, they could carry on living in this wonderful garden forever.

But what happens next is one of the saddest stories in the whole Bible.  One day, a serpent comes along, sss-ing up to Eve.  “Did God really say you couldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?  Surely a little bite of the fruit from that tree would be okay.  You won’t really die if you ate from it.

We read that “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” (Genesis 3:6).  They disobeyed God (which the Bible calls sin) and this caused them to feel sad and ashamed.

Now if you do something wrong, what happens to you?  You get punished.  At home that might mean no TV, no playstation, or sitting on the naughty step.  At school that might mean standing outside the head teacher’s office or doing lines.

Adam and Eve had done something wrong, they broke God’s rule, and so they were punished by God.  Their punishment was to live in the world as it is now.

[See an egg]  Imagine this egg represents the perfect world that God made.  The punishment God gave Adam and Eve was for this to happen to the world.  [Smash the egg]  The world is still a good world, like this is still an egg, but it is damaged.

Work was now hard for Adam.  Childbirth was painful for Eve.  They both had to leave the beautiful God and one day they would die.  This is the world we live in today.  It is full of good things, but it is a damaged world.

There was one bit of good news in this sad story.  God promises that one day someone would come who could put this world back together again!

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More talks from The Big Bible Adventure can be found HERE.

(Photo: bigal101)

This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #3 – Genesis 2:4-25

Powerpoint Pictures: Bora Bora Islands; New York; Brazilian Rainforest; Swiss Alps

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There are lots of things I can do with a balloon.  I can use it to make a sword or a hat.  I can also use it to make an animal [make a balloon dog].

Imagine I blew on this balloon dog and it came to life like the toys in Toy Story.

That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?

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God made everything – light, sky, land, plants, sun, moon, stars, fish, birds, animals – so that this world would be a perfect home for people to live in.  He did it all by speaking.

But when it came to making the first human being, God did it slightly differently.  He took some mud, shaped it into a man, like I turned the balloon into a dog.

He then breathed into the man the breath of life, and unlike me blowing on the balloon dog, this man came to life.

God then placed the man (Adam) in a beautiful garden to live.  This was the best place to live on the whole earth.  If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?  Bora Bora Islands?  New York?  Rainforest in Brazil?  Swiss Alps?

Would you go to the Middle East, to places like Iraq or Israel?  Why not?  They are places that are dry, dusty, hot, deserty, and where there is fighting.  Yet that was the place where God placed Adam because once the Middle East was called Eden and in it was a beautiful garden.

In the garden there were good things to see, good things to eat, and good things to do.  Adam had the job of looking after the garden.  But it was a big job to do, so to help Adam do this, God made a wife called Eve.  Together they could enjoy and take care of this wonderful home God had made for them.

In this garden there was one rule.  God gave them one good rule to obey, to make living in the garden really enjoyable.  “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 of it you will surely die.”” (Genesis 2:18-19).

But will they obey this rule?

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More talks from The Big Bible Adventure can be found HERE.

(Photo: bigal101)