Armor of God

Today's lesson was Doctrine and Covenants section 27 specifically verses 15-18.

We talked about war ~ what concerns the kids have about war, what weapons they would want to take with them into battle, what protective equipment they would like to have…

Then we talked about the spiritual war we are all fighting ~ the war that began in the pre-existence when Satan was cast out of heaven and into the earth (See Revelation 12:9). We talked about the weapons that Satan uses and what weapons we can use.

We read Doctrine and Covenants 27:15-18 and then talked about our armor – our WHOLE armor and how we were doing. Kiera was our warrior ~ she dressed up in the armor as we talked about it. President Harold B. Lee said, "We have the four parts of the body that…are the most vulnerable to the powers of darkness. The loins, typifying virtue, chastity. The heart typifying our conduct. Our feet, our goals or objectives in life and finally our head, our thoughts…

"We should have our loins girt about with truth…And the heart…a breastplate of righteousness. Well, having learned truth we have a measure by which we can judge between right and wrong and so our conduct will always be gauged by that thing which we know to be true…Our feet should be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. (repentance, faith, Holy Ghost, prayer)…And then finally the helmet of salvation…Salvation is to be saved…saved from sin."

"Holding in our hand a shield and in our other hand a sword…the shield of faith and the sword of the word of God. I can't think of any more powerful weapons that faith and a knowledge of the scriptures in the which are contained the Word of God." (Feet Shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Provo, 9 Nov. 1954], pp 3-7)

I gave the kids a piece of foil and they wrote on that foil a fiery dart that the adversary throws at them ~ something that they struggle with. They then made arrows out of the foil and threw them at Kiera. She did a great job at dodging them. Then she got to throw them back at the kids and they used their scriptures as their shields. It was a fun object lesson.

Our Armored Warrior

Then in closing I used another object lesson. Mary came to the front. I introduced a potato which the kids affectionately named Sam Spud. I asked them a couple of questions and they had to truthfully answer yes or no. If they answered NO to the question then Mary was to peel the Sam. One peel off for every no in the class. Question 1 – Did you say your personal prayers last night and this morning? Question 2 – Did you have personal scripture study? Question 3 – Did you have family scripture study? Question 4 – Did you have FHE this week? Question 5 – Did you strive all day yesterday to be obedient? By the time we got done with the last question Sam had lost his armor ~ (his skin). It was gone! We are going to watch Sam over the course of the next few months to see what happens to him without his armor. We talked about how not doing all those things leaves us without our armor – without our protection. I told them to put their armor on – don't take it off!

Sam Spud

Day one without armor

I hope it was effective – I hope every time they see a potato they will think of Sam Spud and what is happening to him because he has lost his armor. They are great kids! Together we are going to win this war! Their armor is strong ~ We all have to be reminded to put our armor on and to continually shine it through prayer, scripture study, family home evening, obedience, following the prophet and our other leaders. One step at a time!!!!