Leading children to the Lord can be a unique challenge because they’re easily led – but they’re just as easily misled. So when a youth worker asks the children in Sunday school, children’s church, or Wednesday night Bible club “Who would like to be saved,” it’s crucial that the youngsters understand the question and comprehend the gospel. Otherwise, our children grow up thinking that they’re saved because of some type of church experience, when they were really too young to grasp the reality of sin and hell.
My grandsons both asked Jesus into their hearts at very young ages. (Between age 5 and 6.) Both of them made professions of faith at church because in both cases, the excited youth worker approached us and said…
“Jay accepted the Lord as His Savior this morning.”
“Luke got saved this morning.”
What conscientious Christian parent (or grandparent) doesn’t want to hear those words? So all the adults in the lives of these two little boys accepted their conversion experiences as genuine. As far as we were concerned, these children were now saved; we needed to focus on their spiritual growth.
In order to protect their young minds from the ungodly indoctrination of the public school system, we put them into a Christian school for about three years; then I home-schooled them for a couple of years. Because it was a Christian-based curriculum and they faithfully attended a Gospel-preaching, Bible believing church, they both grew in knowledge, but they didn’t grow spiritually. They both got caught cheating in school on more than one occasion. They both lied about it.
So last month, I cornered them on a Spiritual question that I demanded an answer to. I said, “Are you two really saved, or have you been ‘playing church’ all these years?” Naturally, I expected both boys to assure me that their salvation had been genuine. Instead, they just stared at me. They didn’t know how to respond to that question, so I asked them something different. “When you lie, when you cheat, does the Holy Spirit convict you?” Again, they didn’t answer, so I reworded my question. “Do you feel badly and know that it’s something you shouldn’t be doing?” That question got an answer from both of them. “No.” And they looked at me as if to ask. Why should I feel bad? In that instance I knew that neither of them were saved.
I wasted no time. Their school work got put on hold and I talked to them about salvation and where they would spend eternity if they rejected the Savior. With moistened eyes, both boys prayed, confessing that they were sinners and asking Jesus to save them. Luke is now eleven-and-a-half, and Jay is almost thirteen.
After they prayed, I asked them if they had known they weren’t saved. Luke nodded. He said, “Grandma, I knew. But everyone thought I was saved, so I was afraid to tell anyone. But I was terrified that I was going to die and go too hell.” After he was genuinely born again, he exclaimed, “It’s like there’s a party going on inside me.” But Jay was somber, quiet. “I said, what’s wrong? You just got saved. You should be happy.” I paused, but he didn’t say anything. “Is God convicting you of something?”Jay nodded. God was already at work in his life convicting him of something he had done before he was saved, but something that he needed to confess and get right.
There’s a fine line between leading a child to the Lord and leading them astray. It’s absolutely crucial that we don’t push them into salvation. My grandmother told me that my dad was saved when he was about five years old. But I never saw God working in his life in any way, so one day I asked him about his salvation. He said, “I did it to get my mother off my back because she was always hounding me about getting saved.” My dad’s grandfather was a Baptist preacher. Yet I believe that my dad went to hell when he died.
We need to make sure that we aren’t pushing children into making a decision for the Lord before they’re spiritually ready. If we do, when God calls them, they may be afraid to come to Him, like Luke was. Or they may simply reject Him, like my dad did. How many children raised in church are dying and going to hell?