Short Attention Span Sunday School: Primary 5 Lesson 19 The Saints Are Taught To Recognize Good and Evil

PRIMARY 5 LESSON 19 THE SAINTS ARE TAUGHT TO RECOGNIZE GOOD AND EVIL

CLASSROOM PREP

Post up the 7th Article of Faith

OPENING ACTIVITY - BROWN E’S AND RING POP

First tell them that you made everyone a brownie!

Take out brown E’s cut out of paper or cardboard, and hand one to each kid

Wait, what? Are you guys disappointed? What were you expecting?

Why would you rather have the real thing and not an imitation?

What are imitations?

Are they better or worse than the real thing?

What makes them worse? Quality not as good, value is less

Take out a candy ring pop and compare to my wedding ring.

Which one do you think is worth more?

Which one do you think I value more?

Which one do you think will last a really really long time?

Here I plan to tell a story of a ring pop I bought for my sister in law as a cute wedding shower gift, and how I had it sit in the fridge during a hot summer for a week to keep it fresh and good but it still melted and was ruined.

Today we’re going to learn about things that are real vs. things that are not real, things that are of God vs. things that are not of God!

And I did bring in real brownies for you guys!

LESSON

Do you guys remember from past lessons that there were times when Satan tried to stop the restored Church from going forth?

Examples: Joseph felt Satan in the Sacred Grove, people tried to steal the gold plates to sell them (lesson 5), people were persecuting Joseph, people ruined the dam when they tried to have a baptism (lesson 12), etc.

Satan will continue to try to stop and hurt the Lord’s church.

But he doesn’t just try to stop it by ruining good things that are happening.

He also tries to imitate the good things Jesus and Heavenly Father have given us.

It’s like Satan telling me that this ring pop is as valuable and special as a diamond ring.

He wants us to follow him instead of Jesus and Heavenly Father.

But what have we learned about imitations? They aren’t as good as the real thing.

Satan’s imitations aren’t just not as good, but they are actually bad.

The ring pop melted and got ruined. It wasn’t going to last very long. It looked really pretty to start, and it sure looked like it could last a long time. And it was big and pretty and colorful.

Sometimes it’s really easy to tell the difference between something from God and something from Satan.

Sometimes it’s not.

Today we’re going to talk about how to tell.

MIRACLES/BIKE

Write on the board MIRACLE

Who can tell me what a miracle is? An extraordinary event caused by the power of God

A miracle can be big or it can be small.

A friend of mine from college told me a story about when he was a missionary in New York. He was riding his bike down a hill and his brakes suddenly stopped working. A big truck was coming towards him from the side and he was going to hit this truck. He knew he was going to hit it - it was one of those huge long trucks - a semi-truck. He braced himself and prepared to hit it, because remember he had no brakes.

The next thing he knew, he was further down the hill on the other side of the truck - it had continued on and he hadn’t hit it. He should have. It was a miracle that he didn’t.

There are many many miracles like this that happen. Not just to members of our Church but to many people around the world. It testifies of God. And usually when there’s a miracle, people remember God.

MIRACLES/MISSIONARY JERSEY

Here’s a recent example!

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865679320/LDS-missionary-finds-his-own-Jr-Jazz-jersey-while-serving-in-Africa.html

MIRACLES/EARLY CHURCH

Some miracles of the early church that we’ve learned about...

• Joseph Smith and the Three Witnesses seeing the Angel Moroni
• Joseph being able to translate the Book of Mormon from reformed Egyptian (a language he didn’t know)
• Joseph knowing how to protect the gold plates so they wouldn’t be stolen

Here’s another one:

Tell the story of Ezra Booth from the manual

Have illustrations to show while telling it

These miracles were of God because they helped everyone draw closer to the Lord

Do you think Satan wanted the Lord’s church to grow? No

He worked hard to stop it.

He wanted to imitate the miracles so people would leave the Church and follow him.

People would pretend they received revelations like the Prophet.

They would pretend they had visions.

These visions and revelations were never in agreement with what the Lord wanted.

Parley P Pratt and other Church leaders felt these things were not from the Lord.

They asked Joseph to pray and find out what was going on.

Let’s get out our Doctrine & Covenants!

In D&C 50:1-9 he received his answer.

vs 2 there are many spirits which are false spirits, deceiving

vs 3 Satan hath sought to deceive you, that he might overthrow you

vs 5 Blessed are they who are faithful and endure

vs 6 Wo unto them who are deceivers and hypocrites

vs 8 Deceivers and hypocrites shall be detected and cut off from the church (spirit etc)

HOW CAN WE KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUE AND IMITATION SPIRITUAL GIFTS?

Hand out a print out of Moroni 7:16-17

Give everyone a yellow marker/crayon/colored pencil etc.

Also give everyone a grey one (pencil would work)

As you read, have them mark on the printout everything related to Christ in yellow and everything related to Satan in grey.

How do we know if what we’re seeing or hearing is from God?

False = leads us away from Christ

True = leads us to believe in Christ

16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

MATCHING GAME (IN THE MANUAL) - WHAT GIFTS COME OF GOD?

What are some of the true spiritual gifts that come of God?

Rather than print out the chart in the manual, print out each scripture on separate pieces of paper and print each gift on separate pieces of paper

• Tape the scripture papers to one wall
• Tape the gift name papers on the opposite wall
• Have them work together to study them and match them up. They can take them off the wall to match them however they choose.

Read over the gifts to make sure everyone understands what they each mean.

Which ones do you think you have?
We're going to talk about this while we play a game!

PASS THE PARCEL - GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT GAME

Have an empty box wrapped in ribbon.
Play a church hymn/song and when the music stops, ask the kid holding it, "What about you?" and show them the checklist at the below link. Have the checklist retyped to be bigger and perhaps add in other ones too if you can think of any.

Show them the list and have them think about what gifts they feel they may have.
Continue on until everyone has had a turn.

Checklist here:

https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/magazines/friend/2017/03/march-2017-friend-magazine-mormon_1882534.pdf

MORMON MESSAGES ABOUT KUHA'O, BLIND PIANIST

Watch this video about Kuha’o, a blind pianist

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-03-001-extraordinary-gift?lang=eng&category=mormon-messages/mormon-messages-2013

Before watching, give them questions to ponder and then give them a chance to write them down after each has been answered in the video:

Why did Kuha'o say he loves music?
What did Kuha'o say people should do with their gifts?
Why did Kuha'o say Heavenly Father gave him his gift?

What did Elder Eyring say should we do to know the gifts we have been given?



BROWNIES/TESTIMONY
They get their "brown E's" to eat after all (perhaps passed out early during the video), and bear testimony of staying close to the Lord to know what is truly from Him...and to use your spiritual gifts to help others!