Scripture: 2 Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn Satan can still convince godly people to disobey God.
- Students will learn David’s pride and perhaps lack of faith in God caused him to sin. We too can let our pride and lack of faith cause us to make poor choices.
- Students will learn it is important to listen to godly people and take their advice when it too is godly.
- Students will learn how to skip count.
Guiding Question: How can pride pull us away from God?
Materials: Toy or paper soldiers
Procedure: Review the story of David counting the fighting men. Have students share why they think David chose to disobey God. Reinforce with students that even though David was a man after God’s own heart, Satan was still able to find a way to convince David to disobey God. Explain that David’s pride and possible lack of faith in God at the time was used by Satan to help lure David to disobey God. Explain that Satan knows what our weaknesses are just like God does. However Satan will try his best to take our weaknesses and use them to lead us away from God. Explain that is why it is very important to seek godly advice from others and turn to the Bible for advice.
Introduce the activity. Show students toy or paper soldiers and explain that there are different ways to count than just by ones. Sometimes it can help to skip count when counting a large amount of objects. Show students how to skip count by 2’s and allow them to practice with soldiers. Then move up to skip counting by 5’s and 10’s.
Additional Questions: How can students practice skip counting with a variety of numbers?
Supplemental Activity: Have a paper bag filled with various numbers (45, 30, 62, etc) and have a student pull a numbers. Then have this student practice skip counting as high as they can go starting from that number. Give assistance where needed. Repeat with each student.