I began this object lessons by asking the children, "Have you ever tried to catch a bird?  Are birds easy to catch?"  They all answered that birds are very hard to catch. They fly away as soon as you get close to them.

I surprised them by telling them that birds are actually very easy to catch and then I demonstrated this by setting up a bird trap.  I took a fishing net and held it up with a piece of wood. I had a length of string tied to the wood.   I then used sunflower seeds as bait and I had a pretend bird go under the net to eat the seeds.  I had one of the children pull the string to catch the bird. I told them that they could catch birds this way in their back yards, but I urged them to be kind to the birds and let them go.

We then went to the story about a boy who caught birds in a similar fashion, but he mistreated them and even wanted to eventually feed them to his cat.

This story can be found as told by Paul Harvey and others.  See https://tonycooke.org/holiday-resources/jesus-birdcage/

I used this basic story with some modifications as follows (you could modify it to serve your purposes or improve it):

A Pastor placed a beat up, bent, rusted old bird cage beside his pulpit when he told this story. The bird cage was empty but when he first got the cage it had birds in it.

How did he get this cage and what happened to the birds? One day a young boy about 10 years old was coming up the alley swinging this old cavedin bird cage with several tiny birds shivering on the floor of it.

The Pastor asked the boy where he got the birds.

He said he trapped them (similar to the trap we showed you).

The Pastor asked the boy what he was going to do with the birds. The boy replied that he was going to play with them and have fun with them. The preacher said, "Sooner or later you’ll get tired of them and then what are you going to do with them?" The lad said, "I have some cats at home. They like birds. I’ll feed them to my cats."

The Pastor said, "Son, how much do you want for the birds?" The boy, surprised, hesitated and said, "Mister, you don’t want these birds. There just plain old field birds. They can’t even sing very well, and they’re ugly." The preacher said, "Just tell me. How much do you want for them?" The grubby little lad thought about it. He squinted up one eye. He calculated and hesitated and said, "Ten dollars?" To his surprise the Pastor reached into his pocket and handed the boy two five dollar bills.

The boy, in a wink, hurried up the alley thinking about what he might do with that money. The Pastor took the cage to a nice field with trees nearby, and he opened the door of the cage. Tapping on the rusty exterior he encouraged the little birds, one at a time, to find their way out through the narrow door and fly away. He let them all go. They were free.

Now the people in the church knew why his cage was empty. The pastor went on to bring home the application. Satan had baited a trap in the Garden of Eden and caught himself a world full of people. He tricked Eve and she ate the forbidden fruit and then Adam ate, and they became sinners. And all their children became sinners too, receiving a sinful nature from their parents.

These people were trapped by Satan, in his cage, doing what he wanted them to do.  They were under "the power of Satan" (compare Acts 26:18).

What would Satan do with all those human people in his cage?  He would energize them (Eph. 2:2) and work in them to fulfill his purposes. They would do all sorts of evil (Gal. 5:19-21).

Eventually what would Satan do?  He would see them die and go to a place of punishment.

However, there is a loving God in heaven who loved these evil people and devised a way to save them.  Just as the Pastor paid a price to let the birds go free, so God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, to this earth to pay a great price on the cross so that sinful men can be set free, if they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We can be free from sin and free to serve the Lord Jesus who paid such a great price for us.

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