Use this children’s Sunday School lesson about Ezekiel to teach kids about the need to tell others about their faith.
Needed: Bibles, a volunteer to play Ezekiel (or you can do this yourself)
Intro Game: Watchman
Divide students into two teams. The first team spreads out on one side of your play area and closes their eyes. Choose one of the students on that team to be the Watchman. Explain that a watchman is a lookout to see if another army is coming to attack. In this game, the Watchman won’t use their eyes though. They’ll use their ears.
The second team then tries to sneak up and tag members of the first. If the Watchman hears them sneaking up, he or she calls out, and the first team chases the second until they tag everyone. The teams then switch roles.
Lesson
(Note: Always allow students enough time to think about and answer the questions before clarifying the teaching.)
Say, The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah had been conquered. God let the Assyrians and the Babylonians conquer Israel and Judah because the people of Israel and Judah had done so many bad things. They had believed in and worshipped fake gods instead of the real God, and they had done all the wrong things that God didn’t do want them to do. So, God let the Assyrians and the Babylonians conquer their kingdoms and carry the Israelite people back to Assyria and Babylon.
(Read Ezekiel 1-2 with your students, or read the following story as a summary.)
Ezekiel
Hi, everyone! I’m Ezekiel. I was an Israelite living in Babylon after God punished up by letting the Babylonians conquer us and take us back to their country.
One day, while I was living in Babylon, I began to feel a lot of wind blowing toward me. It was very strong. And there was a huge cloud over my head with lightning in it and fire. Inside the fire were four angels. These angels had four faces, one on each side of their head. One face was a regular human face, but they also had a lion face and an eagle face and a bull face. And they had six wings each, with eyes totally covering their wings.
The four angels were carrying a throne above their heads. God was on the throne. He looked like a man, but from His stomach up, He looked like glowing metal, and from His stomach down, He looked like only fire. I don’t know if that’s how God looks all the time, but that’s how He looked then.
How would all of you like to see God?
Do you think you would be scared?
Well, I can tell you that I was scared, seeing those angels and God. I simply fell down on the ground and bowed before God.
Then God said, “Ezekiel, I’m going to make you a prophet. I want you to go preach to the Israelites living in Babylon and tell them to believe in Me and do the right things that I want them to do. I am making you like a guard on top of the castle. When the guard sees an enemy coming, he’s supposed to warn the rest of the people. Now, I want you to warn the Israelites. Tell them that if they don’t believe in Me and do the right things that I want them to do, then I will punish them again.
“If you don’t warn them, you will be guilty of doing something wrong too, because I told you to warn them and you didn’t. But if you do warn them, and they still won’t believe in Me and do the right things, then only they will be guilty. You will have done the right thing by warning them.”
So, from then on, I was a prophet. Whatever God told me to do, I did. And I tried to warn the people of Israel to start believing in God again and to do the right things that God wanted them to do. Some people believed me and started believing in God, but other people didn’t. At least, I had done what I was supposed to do and warned them, right?
(Have students thank “Ezekiel” for coming to talk to them.)
Review Questions
What did God tell Ezekiel to do? (To warn people to believe in God and do the right things that He wanted them to do.)
What would happen if Ezekiel didn’t warn people to believe in God? (Ezekiel would get in trouble for not warning people as God said.)
Do you think God wants us to tell other people to believe in God too? (Yes.)
What happens to people if they don’t believe in God when they die? Where do they go? (Hell.)
But God doesn’t want people to go to Hell. God loves everyone. He wants us to warn other people to believe in Him so that they can go to Heaven when they die instead of Hell. God says that anyone who believes in Him will go to Heaven and live with Him forever and ever. So, let’s do our best to tell as many people as possible about God so that they can believe in Him too and go to Heaven when they die.
Game: Disciple Tag
Choose one student to be It. When they tag someone, that person links hands with them and joins their team. They continue adding people to their team, linking hands with each one until all but one student is part of their chain. That remaining student becomes It for the next round.
Play two or three rounds and then, explain that when we tell people about Jesus, we want them to believe in Jesus too. If they do, they become a Christian and join our team. Then, they help us tell more people about Jesus.
Activity: Acting it Out
Divide students into groups of two or three. Have each group decide on and act out one way that they can help someone and convince them to believe in Jesus. Name some outreach activities that your church does if students need help thinking of something.
Closing Prayer
Lord, we thank You for being a good and loving God and wanting everyone to go to Heaven when they die. Help us to tell other people about You so that they can believe in You and go to Heaven when they die.
You can also find this lesson for Kindle or in print in my book, Hope in Exile.