When I was on my mission to Barcelona, Spain, many of the missionaries used
an object lesson for the apostasy which I fell in love with. It gave
the investigator a good visual idea of the apostasy and the need for the
restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I asked the Elders for some sacrament cups but you could use blocks, small
paper cups or any other type of small, stackable objects. The idea of
this object lesson is to create a "tower" and it is not necessarily
important what you use to create it.
Creating your tower:
The bottom layer (first layer) had twelve cups, each one representing one of
the apostles when Jesus Christ was here upon the earth (i.e. Peter, James,
John, etc.) I've also heard of putting pictures of Latter-Day prophets
on the other side of the cups. You can either cut out pictures from
your Conference Ensign or you can print pictures from
www.lds.org.
The next layer represented principles upon which the gospel was founded and
which these apostles taught us about during their ministries. I made
ten cups. There are so many different ones, just choose some (i.e.
sacrament, revelation, atonement, priesthood, repentance, etc.)
The next layer were ordinances upon which are necessary and essential for us
to return to live with our Heavenly Father (i.e. baptism, receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost, complete your temple ordinances, marriage, etc.)
The next layer represented the three fold mission of the church (therefore,
three cups). Proclaim the gospel, redeem the dead and endure to the
end.
The final and last layer has just one cup. It represents our Savior,
Jesus Christ. He is at the head of this church (the steeple).
Setup: I usually would stack the cups up as I spoke about each
layer.
Analogy: Then, once my "tower" was complete, I would tell them
that as each apostle died, less authority existed upon the earth. One
by one I would take away one of the apostles. There was no way the
church could remain on the earth without the apostles and the authority they
held to perform and run the church. Teachings that were not true were
added to the gospel during the apostasy and teachings that were true were
taken away. After a certain point, your "tower" or "gospel upon the
earth" fell without the apostles and Jesus Christ leading the church.
Therefore, during the Apostasy the Priesthood and it's authority left the
earth.
Here are some of my thoughts for what they are worth. The bottom layer
is where we all start. We are exposed and taught the gospel and learn
about it's message, the second layer. Then we choose whether we are
going to follow it's message by entering into the ordinances necessary for
salvation. We work hard to complete our work and participate in the
mission of the church, the next layer. Our ultimate goal is to be with
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again. How is that possible if we are
given a ladder without any steps? The apostasy was lifted when Jesus
Christ completely restored the gospel through Joseph Smith. He put the
steps back in the ladder in the exact same way as before. (You could
even rebuild your "tower" and explain that many other churches have tried to
follow how Jesus had his church set up but Jesus Christ is the only one that
could give the authority to have His church re-built upon the earth.)
Another version by Kelly Buchanan:
I have been quiet for quite a
long time, but wanted to share my apostasy activity with all of you. I
got this activity from someone on line, but wanted to clarify how I did
it. I used clear cocktail cups, but small bathroom cups would work as
well.
The bottom layer of the
pyramid had 6 glasses. I typed up the names of the 12 original apostles
and glued them to the cup (2 names per glass). On the opposite side of
the glass, I glued the names of the current 12 apostles. The next layer
had 5 glasses. I labeled them with 5 important principles of the gospel
(sacrament, revelation, priesthood, repentance, atonement). I explained
how these were all things that Christ taught about. The next layer had 4
glasses (baptism, gift of Holy Ghost, endowment, temple marriage). These
were ordinances that are essential to return to our Heavenly Father. The
next layer had 3 glasses for the 3-fold mission of the church (redeem the
dead, proclaim the gospel, endure to the end). I then put a ruler on top
and added one cup at the top of the pyramid for Jesus Christ.
I
told them the story of the apostasy, and how the apostles were killed off
one by one, and were not replaced. If you pull one bottom cup out slowly,
only a few of the cups will fall from the upper layers, the entire pyramid
does not collapse immediately. The gospel was changed slowly throughout
time, until all of the apostles were killed. More and more upper cups
fall as you pull the apostle base layer out.
We
talked about how important Joseph Smith was and his role in the
Restoration. We talked about how our church is organized, and I put the
apostle layer down again, with the current apostles showing. Then we
build up the principles, ordinances, 3-fold mission, Christ at the
top. We saw that our church has the same organization that existed in
Christ’s church.
