Safe in the Ark of Jesus

One of the goals of the Children Desiring God curriculum is to teach the children all of Scripture, not just a few well-known Bible stories over and over again. This is so very important. But those weeks when we do tell one of the more commonly told stories, I'm reminded: There's a reason that these have emerged as crowd favorites!

That was the case this week with the account of God's just judgment on the wicked with the flood and His merciful rescue of Noah -- in other words, the story of Noah's Ark. As has most certainly been true forever, the children love the animals in this story. As I told how God Himself had caused the animals to come to Noah and how God Himself closed the door of the Ark, Melanie cocked her head to one side and smiled so sweetly and dreamily. I was reminded right then of how God, the author of all history, is so kind and wise to give us such a wonderful, captivating Bible history. He knows our frame, and He knows the frame of little children.

Our evening began in the courtyard this week, because the school was holding a Book Fair in the library. Joey and Brielle were the first to arrive, so we got started on a game where the goal was to arrange rainbow pieces from largest to smallest. Each piece was a different colored arc from a rainbow and had part of our verse written on it: "For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Psalm 1:6." The children did great with size relationship and each time we put another piece in place, we sang the entire verse to the tune of "Jingle Bells." I had given each child a Beanie Baby animal to hold. As we sang the verse, the children took turns and had their Beanies sing the words that they had placed in the puzzle. Then I showed them how the pieces all fit on top of each other to form a rainbow. Some of the children surprised me by knowing the order of all the colors of the rainbow!

We lined up and marched to our classroom, where we did the Rainy Day Dance, (a version of the "Hokey Pokey") pretending to hold up umbrellas and to splash in puddles using different parts of our body (toes, feet, hands, whole self, etc.) We had set up for the game by taking turns flipping over the "rain noisemaker" (a stick filled with rice that makes a noise like falling rain when you tip it over) and then throwing down three blue vinyl "puddles" in which to stick our toes, etc.

This led right into our Bible story time, as I told them that today we would hear about a time when it rained and rained and rained and didn't stop for a long, long time.

In telling this well-known story, I emphasized that God is Just. He always does what is right. And it is right to punish sin. That is why the people who didn't believe God died in the flood. But God is also Merciful. Noah was a sinner, too. The difference was Noah's faith: Noah believed God and did what He said. God saves sinners who believe what He says and trust in His promises. Obeying God shows that we have hearts that love and believe Him.

And just like all of the Bible, this story reminds us of Jesus. Noah the sinner was safe from God's judgment because he believed God when He told him the ark would keep him safe. We are safe from judgment for all of our sins when we believe God's message that Jesus has paid for our sins. Just like Noah was safe in the ark, we are safe in Jesus!


When the story was finished, I reminded the children of the verse that we had learned in the opening time and related it to this story. I was careful to explain that "righteous" in this verse doesn't mean perfect or without sin. Righteous people are those who love God and trust in His promises and seek to obey Him because of that.

Then we talked about how good God was to send the animals to the Ark instead of making Noah go find them. For fun and to get wiggles out, I hid the Beanie Baby animals around the room and had the children go find them and put them in the "Ark" (a basket) while we sang Psalm 1:6 over and over.

We gathered back on the carpet for our Question and Answer time. I layed out numbered cards shaped like puddles and had the children take turns picking one each. They are doing very well at taking turns and raising hands to answer the questions.

There were some funny comments during this time. Jacob: "Those people who didn't get on the Ark were EEEE-VIL!" (His expression completes the picture.) Melanie: "That part where the people were all doing bad things, that was kind of rude of them."

There were also some very sweet comments. Brielle: " 'Just' means doing what is right." Joey: "I don't need a turn. Everyone else can have a turn first." Melanie: "I want all the evil to just be destroyed."

All our talk of rain had its effect. We came to the last card in the Question Time, which read "Are you a sinner? How can sinners be saved from God's judgment?" Kayla's hand shot up -- because just then she needed a bathroom break. This is the way it is in teaching little children, and we trust God to use it all! I told the short version of the Gospel and we took care of business.

When we had finished, I came back to that question. I had prepared a special way to talk about the Gospel message that goes with Noah's narrative, using an idea I had heard from two sources: I had heard it first from one of my husband's Old Testament professors, and then I just read a version of it this week in The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, by Sally Lloyd-Jones. So while it does employ some sanctified imagination, it comes from some knowledegable and reliable sources!

God says in Genesis 9: "Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth ... I have set my bow in the cloud." I explained that God was talking about the beautiful bands of colorful light that you see in the sky after it rains. Several of the children, including Jacob and Brielle, were quick to chime in that they had seen some amazing rainbows. That rainbow is a sign that God will keep His promise never to destroy the earth again.

Then I told the children that a "bow" is also a weapon of war, and then I showed them the kind of bow that shoots an arrow, which I had brought from home. I let them pull the string several times and showed them how the arrow would fly toward wherever the "arc" shape was pointing. Then I held the bow sideways, so it looked like a rainbow. I told the children that when they see the rainbow they can also remember that God's judgment on sin does not fall on His people who believe His promise about Jesus. God's war bow is not pointing down at His people. It is pointing away from them, up toward the heart of Heaven. Jesus takes all the penalty for our sins and gives us all His goodness. God makes and keeps wonderful promises.