September 6: God's Promise Remains

Last week the students destroyed their beautiful artwork to symbolize God destroying the temple Solomon built for Him before turning his heart away. We kept the pieces in a ziploc bag for today.

Read part 11 of The Big Picture Story Bible "God's Promise Remains."


Have multiple copies of enlarged cards for each character- Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel- and also a poster for each action- "raise the Temple and give the people new hearts," "a forever King would come from David's family," "the people would return home in 70 years," and "prayed for God's promise to come true."

Students will work in small groups to match each prophet with what they said. Then go over together.

After many years and God's people finally were able to come back to God's special place, they were very sorry for disobeying Him for so long. The city and the temple had been destroyed and they had to work hard at repairing their mess.

Hand out puzzle pieces from last week along with a slightly larger sheet of construction paper and glue. 

Just as God's people rebuilt Solomon's temple, you are going to rebuild your artwork today. It will take some hard work and a lot of time, but when you are done it will be cause for celebration!

After giving students time to work, have them review their final project. Does it look like it did before? How is it different? Is it better or worse? Why?

The pictures will look similar, but not identical, to their picture from last week. Students may note that their are missing pieces, open spaces, torn edges or rough spots. I had a quick mini-lesson about how this is similar to when we sin, also. Even though we say we're sorry and we try to fix our mistakes, we can't take away hurt or pain we've caused someone else. Saying hurtful things to someone can't be undone, just as the temple couldn't go back to it's original condition. Only God can fix what's been broken and make it like new, we can apologize for our mistakes and try to fix our problems, but our relationships with those we've hurt will never be "like new."

"The old men cried because they remembered Solomon's beautiful temple and knew that Israel could never completely rebuild God's place. They cried because they still longed for God's forever king to come."