Damaged Lives

Application:

Sin and it's effect on our lives. Jesus wants to save us and make us whole again.

Materials You Need:

A piece of thin soft white cotton rope or cord approximately 1,5 metres long,
(do not use plastic rope as it needs to be very pliable for this trick).
Scissors.
An empty Salt Cellar to use as "Faith".

Effect:

Adam was created perfect by God, but because he sinned, sin now spoils our lives. A rope is also spoiled by being cut into two pieces. The two pieces are knotted together and displayed as a spoiled rope. The rope is then coiled around the teacher's hand and when uncoiled, it's restored as an uncut rope again. In the same way our lives can be made whole by accepting Jesus as our Saviour.

Performing the Effect:

Display the rope to your audience, holding the ends between the thumb and fingers of your left hand, so that the centre of the rope hangs down as shown in (1).
With the right-hand fingers lift up the centre loop and move it toward your left hand. As your hands come together, grasp the right-hand rope near the top of your fingers as shown in (2).
Draw up a new loop through the centre loop as shown in (3).
Pull this up and hold this with the left hand next to the two ends as shown in (4). Make sure that your palm always conceals what you are doing. This new loop takes the place of what the audience believes is the real centre loop of the rope.
Cut this new loop as shown in (5) with the scissors saying, "I'll cut the rope at the centre to make two equal lengths." After the cut the audience will see four ends projecting above your left hand.
With your right-hand thumb holding the two ropes as shown in (6) drop the right-hand end saying, "That is one rope......"
Repeat this with the left-hand end saying, "And here is the second rope." Make sure that your hand covers the two ropes where they join.
At this point the audience with see what appears to be two ropes as in (7) and that the "two" ropes did not come out equal in length as you had intended.
Pretend to be puzzled at the results and say, "Something seems to have gone wrong. The rope is now damaged and useless!"
While your hands conceal the true condition of the ropes as in (9) say, "Perhaps I can fix it if I tie these ends together." Tie the ends of the short rope around the long piece of rope.
Then, starting at one end as shown in (10), begin winding the rope around your left hand. As you do so, slide the knot along the rope with your right hand while you continue the winding process.
Keep the knot hidden in your right hand as you slide it along. As you complete the winding, slide the knot off the end of the rope.
Hold it secretly in your curled right hand as shown in (11) and without pausing, dip your right hand into your pocket, remarking, "I now need some faith to fix this".
With that, leave the knot in your pocket, and bring out a bottle of "Faith" and wave it over the rope as you say, "Only Jesus can make us whole."
Uncoil the rope - showing that the knot has vanished and the rope is completely restored!
This trick may seem complicated, but with a little practice it is easy to perform.

Text:

Mark 10:52.

Lesson:

Jesus loved to say to people, "Go on your way - your faith has made you whole" (Mark 10:52). It's not only sickness and being crippled that makes us need healing. Adam spoilt things for us by infecting the human race with sin and we are now under the penalty of death.

However, God created man perfect and whole in His sight, just like this rope is uncut and in one length. It's very useful for tying up parcels and naughty boys and girls! (Demonstrate the rope and it's strength).

I'm going to let the rope represent man before he fell into sin. God made man to take care of the Garden of Eden. But of course, sin spoilt things and so I am going to fold this rope in two and then cut it. Now it's spoilt, but I wonder if I can fix it again. (Do steps 1 to 7 in the figure). Look at that, I thought I could make the two lengths equal! Now I will have to knot it to make it into one length again (Do steps 8 and 9). This rope is spoilt and is useless to me.

We are Imperfect:

In the same way as a result of sin, we are now imperfect and marred. The Bible declares that all of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. And so we can never measure up to God's standard. If we don't do something about our sin, we will be separated from God forever.

God had to send His Son to die for us and bring us back into a right relationship with the Father. Jesus comes to us and asks, "Would you like to be made whole?" If we answer, "Yes" and give our lives to Jesus, and put our trust in Him, He will make us whole again, and we will then be able to live for ever with God in Heaven when we die.

Using Faith:

I am going to take some "Faith" and sprinkle some on this rope (Do steps 10 and 11, and take the salt cellar and pretend to sprinkle "faith" on the rope). Now the rope is whole again!

But what about you? Would you like to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour? If you do, your sins will be cleansed away and Jesus will make you whole again. And then you will be able to live your life with God's richest blessings on it!

God bless.