Floating Fingers!

Bible Text:

John 14:6

Materials You Need:

Your own two fingers and two eyes!

Effect:

The index fingers are held in front of the eyes and slowly brought closer to the face. As the fingers come closer, one can see a "Vienna Sausage" joined to the fingers. The fingers are pulled apart and the "Sausage" appears to be floating in the air! Pulling pull the fingers further apart and the "Sausage" suddenly disappears!

Age Group:

Grades 1 - 5 (7 to 11 years).

Theme:

An illusion to help boys and girls realise that the devil wants to trick them into believing they have all the time in the world to get to Heaven. Jesus is the Way and the truth, but now is the accepted time, and its later than we think!

Here's a Cool Trick to try on your Friends!

Do you like tricks? You do? Well I have trick that you can do whenever you are hungry. It makes instant "food". You can even try to eat it! Shall we try it? Good, now I want you to follow everything that I do. You need to do it just right or you will never ever get the trick to work. Are you ready?

A Sausage on Your Fingers:

Hold out your hands in front of you. Lace your fingers together and stretch your hands out as far as they will go. Good, now your fingers are flexible enough to do the trick. Now, bring your two index fingers together, until the tips just touch each other. Hold your hands so that your fingers are level with your eyes. You can do that? Very good, I am very pleased with you!

Now, bring your fingers slowly closer to your eyes while you keep looking at the tips of your fingers. Do you see it? I have made a "Vienna Sausage" and it looks really good enough to eat! Can you see yours? Now, we don't have to worry about finding some lunch. We will just buy some rolls and we can have Hotdogs for lunch!

Let's pull our fingers slowly about a centimetre apart. Now my "Vienna" is floating between my fingers! Pull your fingers slowly further apart. Wow! My "Vienna" has disappeared! Who has taken it? I was going to eat it for lunch and now it has gone!

Possible or Impossible:

What can we learn from this trick? Your eyes are experienced at looking at objects and telling your brain what they are, where they are, and how far away from you they are. You can tell at a glance where your favourite boyfriend or girlfriend is sitting in class right now. And you can judge what is the shortest route to them so that you can give them a great big hug!

However, your eyes don't always tell you the truth. In fact, if we just use our "experience" to find out truth, we would be in serious trouble! Our "experience" has just told us that we saw something happen that's impossible. We made a "Vienna Sausage" to "float" and then made it to disappear.

You were Deceived:

In fact, nothing happened! I was watching you as you did my trick. What did I see? You were just waving your fingers around in front of your face. I saw nothing floating and there were no "Vienna Sausages" and now you are going to go hungry at lunch time!

All we actually did was trick our eyes into believing in something that wasn't there. We need to remember that it's very easy to trick our physical senses. You enjoyed the mystery of this trick, but let's be sure we know the truth.

Knowing the Truth:

God gave us a spiritual side to our lives so that we can know good from bad, and the truth from a lie. Jesus said in John 14:6:

"I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me."

The devil wants to trick children and young people into believing that they don't have to worry about when they're going to die. After all it's years and years away isn't it? No, that's not true! Children get run over, fall off buildings, get sick, take drugs and find themselves in the middle of wars. In fact you don't have to be old to die, as you can die young. None of us knows just how long we will live.

The devil is also busy telling children that they don't need God. The TV characters have superpowers so it's only a matter of time before scientists can make us live forever. They will just replace the bits that wear out! Not true! Jesus said that no one can come to God, except by Him. He is the only way and the Bible says that "Now" is the accepted time. Don't leave it too late, or like our trick, your chance of entering Heaven will disappear forever!

God bless.