The next Wednesday night the Professor, Shane, and Shelly went to Church early because they needed to clean up all the sawdust from cutting out the cars! They got out brooms and swept the sawdust into a big pile in the middle of the room, and then the Professor got out the shop vacuum suck up all that sawdust. Unfortunately, the Professor attached the hose to the wrong end of the shop vac, and instead of sucking up the sawdust, it blew the sawdust all over the room! The Professor said, “Ooops!” They had to start over cleaning up all that sawdust and the Professor made sure he hooked up the shop vac right this time! They finished the job just before the kids arrived.
As the kids came in and sat down, the Professor came in carrying a cardboard box that was filled with little plastic bottles of paint. One of the Professor’s shoes was untied, and he tripped on his shoelace! The cardboard box flew out of the Professor’s hands! Both Shane and Shelly tried to catch the box, but they ran into each other and fell to the floor! The box broke when it hit the floor and the little round plastic bottles of paint rolled in every direction! The Professor said, “Ooops!” The kids helped Shane and Shelly to pick up all the plastic bottles of paint.
The Professor said that they were going to sand the pinewood derby cars to make them smooth, and then they were going to paint them. He told the kids to come up to the table in the front of the room and get their pinewood derby cars.
Then there was trouble! The cars did not have the kids’ names on them! The kids said that this was impossible because they had obeyed the Professor, when he told them on the very first night, to put their names on the top of the block of wood. Shelly went to the Professor and quietly said, “Professor, when you cut out the cars you cut off the part that had the kids’ names. We should have had the kids put their names on the bottom of the blocks of wood.” The Professor said, “Ooops!”
The kids started yelling and arguing with each other about which car was theirs! The group was out of control and the Professor, Shane, and Shelly did not know what to do! Just then two of the boys started fighting over two of the cars! They were punching each other, and someone was going to get hurt! The Professor ran across the room to break up the fight, and he stepped on a bottle of blue paint that had not been picked up! The blue paint exploded out of the bottle and all that paint landed in Shelly’s hair! The Professor said, “Ooops!”
All the kids saw the blue paint in Shelly’s hair, and they all started laughing! The two boys that were fighting started laughing so hard that they could not fight anymore! Then those two boys realized something; the two cars that they were fighting over were exactly alike! Without realizing it, they had designed identical cars! There was nothing to fight about!
It took the rest of the evening to get all the cars given to the right kids and finally get their names written on the bottom of the cars! There was not time for sanding or painting, so the Professor told the kids to gather around him because he was going to teach them more about God!
Professor Ooops Lesson from the Bible:
The Professor told the kids that names are very important. They had seen the confusion that happened that night because the pinewood derby cars did not have names on them.
Names are also very important to God! Even though He created the whole universe, and every day keeps everything in the universe running, He still takes the time to know each of us by name!
In the Bible in Isaiah 43:1b God says:
“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.”
Not only does God know each of our names, but there is one very special name! That name is Jesus, God’s one and only Son! God sent His Son Jesus to earth, being born as a human, to be the most unusual person in history. Jesus is completely God, but also completely human! We cannot begin to understand this, but God made it happen. Only Jesus, being God and human, could die on the cross to pay for the sins of the world. He is the only way to be forgiven and get to heaven!
In the Bible in John 14:6 Jesus says:
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me.”
In the Bible in Act 4:12 it says:
There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
When a person accepts forgiveness from Jesus, and asks Him to come into their life, then an amazing thing happens; God writes that person’s name in a book! This book is called the Lamb’s Book of Life, and the name of every believer is written in that book. When you reach the end of your life on this earth, your eternal destiny is decided by looking in this book!
In the Bible in Revelation 21:27 it says this about heaven:
Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty – but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
In the Bible in Revelation 20:15 it says:
And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
So, it comes down to this; if your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life, you will spend eternity in heaven with God, and if your name is not in the Lamb’s Book of Life, you will spend eternity in the lake of fire in torment! The only way to have your name written in this book is to accept the forgiveness offered by Jesus and ask Him to come into your life and take over.
Only you can make the choice! Choose Jesus and get your name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life today!