When the Holy Spirit fires up the classroom, things can get pretty interesting. We were doing a review today about God and how much he hates sin, how all of us are born with a sin nature and are therefore cut off from God and are considered God's enemies. This doctrinal teaching brought forth many questions from the kids. Questions that even many adults don't think about. Questions like:
- Will babies who die go to heaven?
- Will God accept a homosexual who says he believes but continues to be a homosexual?
- Why don't we need to bring God a blood sacrifice?
- How can we gain a righteousness that is equal to God's righteousness and therefore be acceptable to him?
Deep, deep questions that when you get the answer and understand the truth, you will have a rock solid foundation on which to build your faith in God. As part of the review, we taught the class about God sending the fiery serpents to bite the people and kill them for their unbelief and lack of trust for God's provision (Numbers 21:4-9). Then when the people changed their minds, they pleaded with God to save them. That act of changing their minds was repentance. We told the class that simply changing your mind and turning to God was repentance. God told them that if they trusted him, if they believed what he said, all they had to do was turn and look at the bronze snake that Moses had put up on a pole and they would be healed. There was nothing they needed to do: no potions to take, no prayers to utter, no special actions at all. Just believe and turn to look at the brazen snake. If someone refused to believe and thus refused to look, not only would the venom kill them, their unbelief killed them.
You could see the children's eyes light up when we explained this. They were getting it. There was nothing they could do to make themselves right with God. But God was providing a way for them. All they have to do was believe. It was as simple as that. We tackled all the kids questions except for the one about why we don't need a blood sacrifice anymore when God demanded it from people in the past. We told them to stay tuned, we would talk about how God would send a final lamb, the Deliverer, and he would be the last blood sacrifice needed for all mankind. That would be an even more intense and exciting lesson.
