Review Titus Memory Verse

Before you speak....

I saw this poster hanging in my niece's home when I was watching her children.  I thought it was a great reminder for us all.

          Before you speak...
                                                  THINK!

Is it True?

Is it Helpful?

Is it Inspiring?

Is it Necessary?

Is it Kind?

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, 

but only such a word as is good for edification 

according to the need of the moment, 

that it may give grace to those who hear.

(Ephesians 4:29)

Jesus took the punishment of Hell for YOU!

Jesus could not stop the punishment for sin, because God is holy and sin has to be paid for.  But Jesus chose to take your place.  He paid the penalty of eternal death for you.  He did it because He loves you.

The suffering the Lord Jesus endured for you was horrible.  Jesus had never done anything wrong.  He was God the Son- He was perfect.  Yet He allowed men to mistreat Him, beat Him and nail Him to a wooden cross.  

Jesus took the darkness of Hell for you.  As He hung on the cross, the land was covered in darkness.  God the Father put all of your sins, and my sins, and the sins of the whole world upon the Lord Jesus, and then poured out His righteous judgment for sin on His own Son.  

Jesus took the punishment of an eternal Hell for you.  Jesus is not just a man- He is the eternal God.  He offered up the value of His eternal life to pay your penalty of eternal death.  

Jesus took the loneliness of Hell for you.  During that time, God the Father, who cannot allow sin in His presence, turned his back on the Lord Jesus.  Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  Jesus was separated from His Father because of your sins and mine.  

Why did Jesus willingly die on the cross?  He died so that people lost in their sin could be found and rescued.  You do not have to spend eternity in Hell because of what Jesus did for you.  

From the cross, Jesus cried out, “It is finished.”  The payment for our sins was complete.  He died, He was buried, and three days later, He rose from the dead- a living Saviour.  

Because Jesus is alive, He is able to save you.  When a person takes the Lord Jesus to be their Saviour, He gives them eternal life.  He forgives their sins and promises that they will spend eternity in Heaven with Him.

"But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

and by His stripes we are healed."

(Isaiah 53:5)

The Works of His Fingers

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

Psalm 8:3-5

Ponder for a moment the vastness of the universe. 

In the book, The Stranger in the Road to Emmaus , the author shares these facts. 

Imagine we are traveling at the speed of light. In one second you will travel around the earth 7 times, pass the moon in two seconds, Mars in four seconds and Pluto in five hours.

At the speed of light you will reach the closest star in 4.3 years. (Every second you are traveling 186,000 miles.)

You will reach the next nearest galaxy in 2,000,000 years. And you have only just began to travel the universe.

This is just the work of his fingers.

To love their children

Titus 2:3,4

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, 

Not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine,

Teaching what is good,

So they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, 

Today we add the second thing that young women need to be encouraged to do, 

To love their children, 

The number 2 reminds us of the word to, the heart is the symbol for love. Whose children? Their children. 

To love their children,

There are seven things listed in Titus 2 that the older women are to encourage the young women to do, we have five more to go. If you are just starting to memorize Titus 2:3,4,5 you might want to look at the links below.

Review Titus 2:3,4
Titus 2:3 Memory Verse
Not Malicious Gossips

Nor Enslaved to Much Wine

Teaching what is good

E T E R N I T Y - the flip side

Hell is a very real place, and children need to be taught the truth about it.  Jesus Himself taught about Hell when He lived on this Earth.  He did not do it in a scary way, but very matter of factly.  It is because of the Lord’s great love for us that He warns us about what is ahead if we die without having our sin problem taken care of.

Why did God create Hell?

Matthew 25:41 tells us that Hell is a place of punishment which God “prepared for the devil and his angels.”  God never intended for people to go to Hell.  But when Adam chose to believe and obey Satan instead of God, he became a sinner.  His sin separated him from God, who is holy.  Adam had made the choice, not just for himself, but for his family as well, to be on Satan’s team.  Because God must punish all sin, Adam (and all of his descendants) would now have to share in the punishment that God had intended for Satan and his bad angels. 

So, what does the Bible say that Hell is like?

We will use the word HELL to help us remember 4 things about that awful place.

Hell is H- horrible.

Luke 16:23-26 tells the experience of a man who died and went to Hell.

Hell is a place of suffering.  An eternal fire burns there- the flames will never be put out. 

Hell is also a place of utter darkness.

The sounds in Hell are weeping and wailing. 

There is no hope in Hell that things will ever be any different- there is only despair.

Hell is E- eternal.

God wants to forgive your sins and give you the gift of eternal life.  But if you will not receive His gift, and die without having your sin problem taken care of, then the punishment you will suffer is eternal death.  (Matthew 25:46)

There is no escape once you are in Hell.  You will spend eternity away from the presence of God.

Hell is L- lonely.

Some people think Hell is a place where they will get to party with all of their bad friends and do all the sinful things they want to do.  But that was not the case for the man in Luke 16.

Hell is a very lonely place.  There will be many people there, but each one will suffer alone for their sins.

Hell is L- for the lost.

When I came into this world, I was born lost in my sin.  If I go out of this world still in my sin, with no Saviour, then I will be lost from God forever.

These are some very sobering facts.  Next time we will look at what the Lord Jesus did so that no one need experience this horrible place. 

"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; 

and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, 

but the wrath of God abides on him.'

(John 3:36)

(Again, thanks to Craig & Nancy Rolinger for this teaching acrostic.)

To Love Their Husband

Today we start memorizing what the young women are to be encouraged in. The first thing is:

to love their husband. 

The number 2 reminds us of the word to. A heart is the symbol of love. The only way to have a husband is to get married so we have a wedding picture. Not pictured is whose husband the young women are to love and that is their husband. 

To love their husband,

Titus 2:3,4

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, 

Not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine,

Teaching what is good,

So they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, 

There is more but this is all we have worked on so far. If you are just starting you might want to look at the links below.

Review Titus 2:3,4
Titus 2:3 Memory Verse
Not Malicious Gossips

Nor Enslaved to Much Wine

Teaching what is good

I Was Wondering About Heaven...

Kids are thinkers.  They have questions.  When I taught the lesson about Heaven at our after-school Bible Club, they asked a lot of good ones.  Here are just a few.

Let’s see what answers the Bible has for them.

What will we wear in Heaven?

I think this one stemmed from the fact that Adam and Eve did not wear clothing when God first placed them in the Garden of Eden, and that it was okay. 

Isaiah 61:10 says, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness…”  Revelation 19:8 also tells us that the Bride of the Lamb will “be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” Even though we don’t know exactly what that means in terms of what our clothing will be like, we can be sure that God always does what is appropriate and that we will never feel ashamed or embarrassed in Heaven. 

Will we be born there as babies?

Heaven is eternal, timeless, and in the spiritual realm- so age, as we know it in the physical realm in which we live, does not exist.  One thing we do know is that in Heaven we will finally be what God intended us to be- conformed to the image of His beloved Son.  1 John 3:2 gives us this wonderful promise- “…it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He (the Lord Jesus) is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”  1 Corinthians 15 talks about the fact that we will receive a new body- one that is immortal and incorruptible (so it will never grow old and die); one that will be fit for Heaven.   

How will we get to Heaven if we’re dead?

This is one that we really don’t have to worry about.  2 Corinthians 5:8 assures the believer that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  The Lord Jesus has taken the responsibility upon Himself to “present you faultless before the presence of His glory…” (Jude 1:24).  Just as you trusted the Lord Jesus to forgive your sins and give you eternal life, you can trust Him to take you safely home to Heaven. 

This is a story that I like to tell the kids:

When our two oldest children were small, we had some friends who lived just down the block from us.  We spent many enjoyable evenings in their home.  We would take our kids’ pajamas along with us, and after supper we would have the kids change into their pjs.  As it got later, we would lay the kids down on one of the beds and they would fall asleep there.  When we were ready to leave, my husband and I would pick up our sleeping children and carry them home.  We would tuck them safely into their own beds.  When they awoke, they found themselves home.  When they closed their eyes at our friends’ house, they had no worries about how they were going to get home.  They knew they could trust their parents to work out all the details on that end. 
It is much the same with our Heavenly Father.  As believers, when we close our eyes for the last time on this earth, we can know that when we open them, we will be safely home in Heaven.  Exactly how our Father gets us home is not really important.  We can rest in the fact that He will, according to the promises He has given us in His Word.  

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man 

the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

(1 Corinthians 2:9)