YEA Lesson Library
Too Good To Be True
About This Lesson
This lesson explains why Christians should not celebrate Halloween. It also examines the deceptiveness of judging by appearances.
Scriptures
Isaiah 5:20
Daniel 7:16-19
John 12:31
John 16:11
Romans 13:12-14
2 Corinthians 11:14
1 Peter 5:8
Words to Know
WHEELBARROW - a one-wheeled wagon used for moving heavy things
CHARACTER - person in a play, book, movie, etc.
MASQUERADE - pretend to be something you're not by changing your appearance
The Lesson
Laura splashed in the cool water. This was her favorite part of the creek which ran by her house. The day was hot. Laura was glad she had such a fun way to cool off. Suddenly, the sun hit the creek just right. Laura saw something shiny on the creek bottom. It was gold! As she looked around, she saw that there was lots of gold.
Over the next few weeks, Laura worked hard to get all of the gold out of the creek. As she worked, she dreamed of how life would change for her family. They would be able to buy anything they wanted! She could hardly wait! These thoughts kept her hard at work all summer .
Finally, one day she decided she had enough. She had collected bags of the gold. Now it was time to take it to the bank. She got a wheelbarrow. She put all the bags of gold in it. But it was too heavy, so in the end, she just took one bag.
The banker was a good friend to Laura. As she told him the whole story, he carefully looked at all her gold. Oh, how he hated to tell her the truth! This was not real gold. This was iron pyrite. It was also called fool's gold. It looked like gold. Many people had been fooled by it. But the fact was: it was not gold. In fact, it was not worth anything.
The iron pyrite had masqueraded as gold. It was a nasty trick. Laura was so disappointed.
Every year Halloween comes around. Little children dress up as something they are not. They go door to door and say, "Trick or treat." Sometimes the children dress up as something evil and bad. It is disturbing to think that parents let these little ones pretend they are something horrible - a witch, a scary ghost, an ax murderer, or even death itself. We want to stay completely away from things that are bad and evil. Yet on Halloween parents let, and sometimes even encourage, their children to dress up and pretend they are these really bad characters.
Some parents want to stay away from bad and evil characters, so they dress their child as a princess, a friendly ghost, a football player, or a cheerleader. Children love to dress up. Neither the children nor the parents see anything wrong with dressing up and pretending they are something they really are not.
Dressing up as something good can be as bad as dressing up as something evil. It can make you think that good always looks nice and evil always looks bad. If it looks bad, then it is bad. If it looks good, then it is good. It's a horrible trick. You know you should stay away from evil things and people. But what if you can't tell by looking whether it is good or not? What if the evil person looks nice? What if the good person looks bad? How will you know which is good and which is bad?
This is not a new problem. Satan understands how people look at what they can see and then decide if it's good or bad. That's why "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). Satan makes people think that he is good by the way he looks to them.
It's a nasty trick. But bad people have been using this trick forever. Remember Snow White eating the apple? The wicked queen dressed up as a kindly old woman. Neither the wicked queen nor the poisoned apple looked bad. Snow White would have never willingly eaten the apple otherwise.
Remember the fool's gold that Laura collected? If it hadn't been shiny and yellow like gold, Laura would never have spent hours panning it out of the creek.
Even nonpoisonous snakes look like poisonous snakes sometimes! The bull snake looks a lot like a rattler. And it can even shake its tail to sound like a rattler! The coral snake is deadly poisonous. And the king snake, which is nonpoisonous, has the same brightly colored bands — just in a slightly different order.
Satan loves to trick people into thinking that bad is good and good is bad, so be careful. Ask for God's help to understand whether something truly is good or not. Ask your parents to help you figure out if something is good or not. Stay away from Halloween. It is not something God wants us to do. There is nothing good in it. And, really, there is a lot of bad in Halloween. You may think you're getting a treat, but it could be a nasty trick in disguise.
Student Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father,
Help me to be wise when deciding whether something is good or bad. Please guide my steps and my choices. Protect me from evil.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Daily Devotions
Sunday: 2 Corinthians 11:14
Monday: Isaiah 5:20
Tuesday: 1 Peter 5:8
Wednesday: John 12:31
Thursday: John 16:11
Friday: Romans 13:12-14
Saturday: Daniel 7:16-19
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
1. Give examples of deceiving appearances.
2. Explain that something that looks good is not always good.
3. Recite and explain the memory verse.
4. Give two reasons why it is not good to celebrate Halloween.
Topics & Themes
Halloween
Holidays, Halloween
Pagan Traditions
Materials Needed
Bible, YEA Students' and Teacher's books, attendance and memory verse charts, star stickers, songbook, CD and player, dry erase board and markers, children's books, apple, DVDs, soft drink
Preparation
Because of children's incredible faith that people only mean good, they think of treats as something they like. Our world is very different. Some people mean harm because they are evil. Children should be made aware of this without making them afraid to go outside.
Gather items for lesson: children's books of varying difficulty numbered with post-it notes for easy identification, an apple that looks good outwardly but is bruised with rotten spots, numbered DVDs (some family fare, others inappropriate for children), a soft drink, small squares of paper for writing answers.
How to Teach This Lesson
Judging by appearance object lesson:
A) Show students the books one at a time: Without opening the covers, ask them to decide which book will be 1) the easiest to read and, 2) the scariest to read. Have students write down their answers, using the numbers on the books. Have them share their answers. Tally them on the board and talk about the results. Say: It's hard to judge a book by its cover, isn’t it? You might not know how scary the book is until you read to the middle, but you may know how easy it is by the end of the first page.
B) Show students the apple: Ask if this apple will be juicy and sweet or a bad one that is sour with bruises. Write their answer on a slip of paper and tally results. Ask: How can you know for sure if an apple is good or not? How does your mom or dad choose a good apple in the store? Do they know for sure? How can you know for sure? It's hard to know how good an apple is until you take a bite and even then, you may have to eat most of the apple before you know there are no bad spots.
C) Show the DVDs: Ask: 1) Which would you most like to watch? 2) Which would have the scariest music? and 3) Which would be best to watch together as a family? Let students choose and write their answers. Tally results and talk about how different the answers are or aren't. The first question involves preference: Is it okay for someone to like something you don't? Usually preference is a good thing, but there are times when it isn't.
1. Give examples of deceiving appearances.
2. Explain that something that looks good is not always good.
3. Recite and explain the memory verse.
4. Give two reasons why it is not good to celebrate Halloween. What seems scary to you, may not be scary to another. That's perception.
Ask: Can you tell from looking at DVDs which of them would have the scariest music? No. You have to watch the movies and hear the music. When the background music is played, often we don't notice it. Discuss the most appropriate DVDs for a family to watch. You can likely guess from the cover what the movie is about — a rating will help. There are children's movies that aren't godly that undermine faith in God and confuse what is good and right unless you carefully evaluate what is being seen.
D) Show the soft drink: Have students write good or bad on their slips of paper. Tally the results and talk about the answers. What is one reason why people might say good? What is one reason why people might say bad? List answers on the board. There's no nutritional value to a soft drink. It may settle your stomach, but it can cause harm in the long run. People are attracted to soft drinks by the sweet flavor. This product makes millions of dollars, but is bad for your health.
Halloween: Ask: How can we apply this discussion to Halloween? Make three columns on the board and put answers in the corresponding column as students give good, bad, and tricky parts of Halloween. For good you may get answers such as: it's fun, kids like to dress up, lots of candy, you get time off from regular school work, you can be silly with your friends, etc. Bad may include: kids feel encouraged to do bad things on Halloween, the costumes can be scary to little kids, it's a night in honor of evil, mischief, etc. For tricky, you may get such answers as: you don't know what you'll get when you ring a doorbell, you may not recognize your friend because of his costume, etc.
The Good, Bad, Tricky of Halloween: Show how the things listed that students said were good are not good. Each item in the good column could go in the tricky column. They seem nice, but aren’t. You can't line up five DVDs and tell which has the scariest music by looking at the cover. You can’t line up five people and decide who is most likely to hurt you by looking at them. Hardly anything is good about Halloween. There's never a right time to be bad on purpose! Jesus is to be our role model and He didn't keep Halloween.
Memory Verse: Have students recite their memory verse. Satan wants to trick us into thinking he is good so he can draw us away from a good relationship with God and Jesus Christ. Stay away from anything that you know has elements of evil — including Halloween. Ask a student to read Matthew 6:13 from the NIV Bible. Pray asking God to keep you away from the schemes of Satan. Talk with your parents and depend on God constantly.
Review Questions
1. How can we tell when something is good or bad? (Sometimes we can’t.)
2. Give examples of deceiving appearances.
3. What is this week's memory verse?
4. How does this verse relate to Halloween?
5. What are two reasons why it is not good to celebrate Halloween?
Teacher-Directed Activity
The activity for this lesson is the object lesson (see How to Teach This Lesson).
REACH Activity
Back to the Bible: Mixing Good and Bad
You have likely read all of the scriptures about not having anything to do with fortune telling (necromancers) or pagan rituals. You know that you can’t make something bad into something good just because you want to; there’s too much history of evil and bad associated with it. But what if you did anyway?
In 2 Chronicles 20:35-37 and 1 Kings 22:41-44 talk about good King Jehoshaphat of Judah aligning with the evil King Ahab and his son evil King Ahaziah. Jehoshaphat’s son even married one of King Ahab’s daughters! Even though Jehoshaphat was a good king, doing what was right in God’s sight most of the time, God did not allow his business with Ahaziah to prosper.
What’s the point? You can be very diligent to obey God in most things. But when you decide you are going to get involved with something that is pagan or evil or just plain against God, don’t be surprised when it doesn’t turn out well. Maybe Halloween feels like it’s ok because, after all, it’s just trunk or treat at a church. But one step away from God leads to another. The mixing of good and bad does not make a good result.
Write about this all in your Bible notebook.
Journal Jot: The Reason Why
Do you know why your family and your church family do not celebrate Halloween? If you do, write about it in your Bible notebook. Make sure you use scripture references to explain why it’s important to stay away from this celebration. If you don’t know, ask your parents to explain it to you. Then write this information down, with scriptures, so that you’ll remember the next time someone asks you why you wouldn’t want to dress up and get lots of candy.
Word Study: phōs
Phōs is the Greek word for light. It means “light of the sun or of the day.” It is not the same word that is used for the light of the moon or the stars. “Phōs is never kindled and therefore never quenched. . .” (Source: Zodhiates’ NAS Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, 1990.) When the Apostle Paul uses this word for light, he is specifically emphasizing that Satan is setting himself up as God the Father or Jesus Christ. It is only God who is eternal (never kindled and never quenched).
Write this word, its definition, and scripture reference in your Bible notebook.
Just Toolin’ Around: Following Your Desires
Using a concordance, find three stories of people who were led away from God by their own desires. Cain is a good example. He didn’t get the acceptance from God that he wanted, so he murdered his brother. It did not turn out well for him. (Genesis 4:1-16)
After you find your three stories, write a quick summary (like I did above) and give the scripture citation of where the story is found. Put this in your Bible notebook. Share with your family.
Did you Know? Warning From Jude
The book of Jude is a very short book, but it is full of warnings about being pulled away from the truth. Verse 18 says, . . . “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” (NIV) Be careful of the things that you think you want. Just because you want something doesn’t make it a good thing.
Can you think of anything that looks good and desirable that you know you should stay away from? Write a list of these things in your Bible notebook.
Stretch It Out: Avoid This
Are you familiar with the poison symbol? If you aren’t, look it up. Then create your own symbol that means to avoid or stay completely away from. Write the words “Halloween,” “paganism,” “trunk or treat,” etc. in your Bible notebook. Write your symbol over the top (or next to) the things you should stay away from - if you belong to God and want to follow His ways.
Music Notes: Christ is Made the Sure Foundation
This hymn is found on page 31 of the CEM Hymnal.
John Mason Neale was very good at translating hymns written originally in Latin or Greek. The son of an Anglican clergyman, Neale became an Anglo-Catholic - intensely interested in the medieval church.The words we sing to this hymn today have been modified from his original work, and the tune is very different; “the original music was an unmetered, unaccompanied plainsong melody.” Today the words are set to the stately tune Westminster Abbey composed by the famous English composer Henry Purcell. (Source: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-christ-is-made-the-sure-foundation)
Sing this hymn. Think about the fact that the words were translated from Latin or Greek! These thoughts are that old! The reality is that Jesus is our sure foundation and the writers of the New Testament knew that very well! Do you? Do you know how Jesus is your sure foundation? Write what this means in your Bible notebook.
Questions?
Remember to write down any questions that you think of as you are reading your lesson, daily devotionals, or doing the REACH activities. Plan to ask your parents or your pastor these questions.
Song
“O Be Careful Little Eyes" is on page 39 of Kids Classics Collection.
Closing Prayer
Ask for a volunteer to lead in prayer asking for God's guidance and protection in discerning and avoiding evil.
Printable Pages
