The Marks of Disobedience

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivewires/ / CC BY 2.0

There is an old, old story about a father who had great difficulty in making his boy obey. The boy did wrong in spite of all that the father could say or do. One day the father said to the boy, "Here is the shed door, now every time you do wrong I am going to pound a nail into the door."

One by one the nails were pounded into the door, until it was literally filled with nails. The boy did not like the looks of the door, the thought of it began to trouble his conscience. So he spoke to his father about it. "Well," said his father, "I'll tell you what we will do. Every time you are obedient, every time you do a good deed rather than a wrong one, we will pull a nail out." The bargain was struck, and as, one by one, the nails were driven in, so, one by one, they were pulled out.

Finally the day arrived when there was but one nail left. You can imagine the joy of the boy when he and his father went together to pull that nail out. With great glee the claws of the hammer were fastened about the head of Mr. Nail and, jerk, out he came.

"Oh," exclaimed the boy, "the marks are left." Yes, it was true, for every nail driven in and pulled out a mark was left, and it was an ugly looking door. "That is the sad thing about it all," said the father, "every time you do an evil deed a mark is left upon the life. It is never the same as if the evil deed had not been committed. It is fine that we have all the nails out, but it would have been much better had they never been driven in."

Relate this object lesson to the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience (Genesis 3).  What mark did their disobedience leave for us to remember?  death, sin, no tree of life, pain in childbearing, work to eat, etc.  Share also the blessings of what Jesus did on the cross. 

MEMORY VERSE:  Romans 5:12

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—

KIDS CRAFT: 
Make a mini-book of the story of Adam and Eve.  Go to DLTK for templates and instructions.
Apple Stamp Craft:  Tell the children to follow carefully the instructions because "Obedience makes things beautiful."