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Counting Sand

Children's sermon
Revelation 5:11-14
Wesley T. Runk
The Giant Book Of Children's Sermons
Matthew To Revelation
Object: a handful of sand and a piece of paper


Good morning, boys and girls. How many angels do you think there are in heaven? (let them answer) What do you think these angels do? (let them answer) We know, of course, that many of the angels are messengers of God to people on earth. We also know that the angels work for God in many other ways. But I wonder, this morning, if you or I know how many angels there are in heaven? (let them answer) We know that there are over 200,000,000 people in the United States. Do you think there are more people in the United States than there are angels, or do you think there are more angels than there are American citizens? (let them answer)

I brought along something that I thought might help us. I have a handful of sand that I want to spread out here on this piece of paper. Let's see how many grains of sand there in a handful. Who would like to help me count them while I tell the rest of the story for today? (select a volunteer)

A man named John had a vision of the angels in heaven singing their praises to Jesus, who had died for all of the people on the earth. It was like a great, great choir saying over and over again that this Jesus should receive all of the power, and all of the wealth, and all of the knowledge that there was in the world for the great thing he had done when he died for people's sins. Now how many were there? (ask the volunteer counter) We could ask our volunteer to tell us how many grains of sand he has counted by now, and see how that compares with the number of angels that there are in heaven. How many have you counted by now? (let him give you a number) How long do you think it would take you to count all of the grains of sand that I put on this paper? (let him answer) I think it would take you more than a day. But it would be safe to say that there are thousands and thousands of grains of sand here. The Bible writers could not count the number of angels either, so they just said that there were myriads of myriads, which is another way of saying, "More than any number that could be counted."

Maybe the next time you are on a beach, or the next time you see a bucket of sand, you will think about the angels and how many there are. When you are thinking about that, I want you also to think about the way they praised Jesus for saving us from our sins. If the angels are thanking Jesus for loving and caring about us, don't you think that it would be a good idea if we did the same, and told him how grateful we are for what he did for us? I think we should, and I am happy that we do.
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