Leading our little ones to Christ

A question has been put forward regarding young children and salvation: What about a 4-year-old who knows right from wrong, but doesn’t understand salvation yet?

To be quite honest, I wondered if I should have addressed this question after my article regarding where babies go when they die and was undecided until now. Today, if you are a Christian parent concerned for the salvation of your growing child, God has something very special to say to you.

Nestled in a passage dealing more with marriage than child rearing, Paul underscores the power one saved individual can bring to his or her family. In I Corinthians 7, Paul says in verse 14, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”

While the Bible instructs Christians to marry Christians, Paul here is addressing the issue where one spouse turns to Christ after marriage while the other remains lost.

The point he is driving home here is not that God grants salvation to the unbelieving, for everyone must come to Christ on their own. However, when he says “sanctified,” he wants us to understand that the salvation of one spouse brings the other spouse into a special relation to God, and God takes special interest in them. God’s design is for the one spouse to be his emissary to the other, and because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God can begin to move on the unsaved spouse in ways not possible before.

And the same thing is true for your children. If only one parent was a believer, God’s special attention is toward each of the children and he calls them “holy.” How much more, then, when both parents have been born again?

Now when it comes to the situation of the 4-year-old who has been taught right from wrong and yet doesn’t understand salvation, you need to bear in mind there is a difference between mental assent and self-consciousness. Parroting what has been taught is not the same as being self-conscious of one’s own nakedness. Self-consciousness is an issue of the soul and is a switch no parent can throw.

I am not saying it is wrong to teach them right from wrong; quite the contrary, that is your duty. But to know where your child’s understanding is you need to look for clues that the switch has been thrown. And what did Adam and Eve do when their switch was thrown? They both hid and covered themselves.

When your child begins exhibiting these behaviors, the first thing you need to do is pray the more earnestly for them. Doubtless you have been praying for them all along as a Christian parent, but now is the time to do it more. This was my first response on a couple of occasions when the Holy Spirit signaled to me that he was dealing with some of my children.

Secondly, you need to talk to them of biblical themes. In Deuteronomy 6, the Israelites were instructed to teach God’s Word “diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

Have family devotions together. Teach them about Adam and Eve and how they fell into sin. Teach them about the Passover lamb whose blood was applied to the door posts of the Israelite houses. And then tell them about the cross, and how God the Son came to earth to die on it, and how he shed his blood, and that he is our Passover Lamb. Every question they ask, answer it simply so they can understand, yet with great interest so they sense the importance. And don’t forget to tell them of their need for Christ.

And lastly, remember that you are God’s emissary. You must demonstrate Christianity before them. Children have a natural desire to become like their parents, so if something else is more important to you than your Christianity, be sure that your children will treat it so. They must know it is more important than your job, your house and everything else you possess. In short, what you are doing in your household is what every missionary does in a foreign land.

And then watch as God’s Spirit begins to work in that young life that he says is “holy” unto him. Remember — silver and gold cannot be taken with us into eternity, but the souls of our children we can.

Ron Hamman is pastor of Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla. Contact him at 357-4229 or ron.hamman@gci.net.