Don’t Be Proud, Building Yourself Up May Make You Fall | Object Lesson
This is an object lesson that can help you teach your class about the dangers of pride… pride goeth before destruction!
NEEDED:
You need a Jenga set (or any similar tower-building block game that requires stacking). You need to be fast and dramatic with this one, so make sure the blocks are stacked and ready to go before the children arrive. You’ll be building a tower and then dismantling its foundation, so plan for the inevitable crash.
Start with your Jenga set ready, but don’t begin building yet. Tell the children you’re talking about King Nebuchadnezzar, a great king. Just because he was a king, or had lots of money, didn’t mean he was a bad guy. Remind them that the Bible says God sets up who He wants to set up, and He pulls down whom He wants to pull down. Nebby was doing great! Now, every time you mention something good he did, add a layer to the tower. He was King of the greatest city, Babylon. He had a mighty army and defeated great nations. He built the Hanging Gardens. He had lots and lots of money. Build that tower up, making it strong and stable. Explain that God was giving him power, money, and position.
But one day, Nebby thought, “I don’t have enough money. I want more power. I want to build myself up.” This is where pride sneaks in. Tell the kids that when you want to build yourself up, you usually end up pulling down what God told you to do, or even pulling down the people around you. Every time you mention a bad deed, have the children start carefully pulling a block from the middle or foundation of the tower and add it to the top. This is the secret to destruction!
He destroyed the Temple of God. He took all the people of Israel captive. He got so proud that he built a statue of himself and forced the entire kingdom to worship him! He even threw three men into a fiery furnace because they wouldn’t bow to him. Tell them the tower is getting pretty wobbly, and they need to be careful! Stop and point to the shaky tower. He had built himself up to the point that he was in a really scary, unstable position.
God warned him with a dream, but Nebby just said, “I do what I want to do.” The final straw was when Nebby stood on his balcony, looked out, and bragged: “Look at this city I have built with my might and my power!” Right then, God spoke. God said, “I warned you—it’s happening now.” Tell the kids that Nebby lost his mind, went on all fours, and ate grass like a cow. Pull out a foundational block and let the tower crash down! What else did you expect to happen? Nebuchadnezzar built himself up at the expense of the One who had built his life up in the first place: God! It all came down because he pulled away the foundation.
This can happen to us when we start bragging about how good we are, or when we pull away from the foundation of the teaching our parents gave us. Tell them that Jesus said proud people talk bad about others just so they can stand up more. That is sad.
Now, give them the good news. God gave Nebby a second chance! Quickly rebuild the entire tower. He got his mind back, and he got to build his life back up, but this time on a foundation of God. Tell them that if they want to be somebody special, or if they want to be built up, they need to put it in God’s hands. Pray more. Be humble. If God wants you in that position, He will put you there. You can’t put yourself there, or you’ll just end up with a pile of blocks on the floor.
