Can Young Children Be Converted To Christianity?

A lady named Denise said, "It grieves my heart to hear a parent say to me that their child has been asking to be saved, but 'We don’t feel he’s ready.' To me, that’s a scary place to be. Don’t stand in front of the cross and hinder them; move aside and join them on your knees as they, in their childlike faith pray to be saved! My girls were saved at a very young age, and both have said they never doubted their salvation. Neither have I. I knew God would keep His promise when He told me I would have eternal life! I believe that’s the very essence of child-like faith!" -  Denise https://refreshher.com 6/25/2015

"But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 19:14

It may be easier for children to come to Christ than adults with their preconceived ideas of who God is and what He has done to atone for sin. Our religion and knowledge, or lack thereof, restricts our ability to trust the Bible's teaching about Jesus and salvation. Many times, it is religion that has us confused and we have to unlearn some things before we can trust Christ (Ephesians 1:13).

I was conducting a revival in Arkansas a few years ago, and we held children’s meetings in succession to the adult services. After the service on Sunday morning I went over to the place where the altar workers were dealing with children. There was a young lad who had just received Christ, he was about 13 or 14 years old, and I questioned him as to what he did to be sure he understood. I was satisfied he got hold of the truth so I asked him if he would like to be baptized. He said he would. When his mother showed up to pick him up, I thought I would explain his decision to her and ask her permission to baptize her son. I explained to the mother what her son had done and that he had expressed a desire to be baptized in obedience to Scripture. The mother was Catholic and she did not want her son baptized because she thought if he was to be baptized in the Baptist church he was just saved in, that he would then be a member of that church. The excuse she used was, “He is too young, he does not understand enough.” In front of her I asked the boy if he knew he was a sinner. He answered in the affirmative, so I asked him if he knew his sins deserved hell. (I was witnessing to the mother; she just did not know it.) I asked him several questions like, "do you believe Jesus is God, do you believe He made atonement for your sin, etc." When I got through the whole gospel and asked her son if he was trusting Christ alone as his Saviour, I then turned to the mother and said, “Mom, I would not offend you for all the world, but your son understands all he needs to know to be baptized. He is trusting Christ.” Salvation, baptism, and church membership are three separate steps according to Acts 2:41. “…they that gladly received his word were baptized,” “They that gladly received His word” is obviously referring to them being saved, “were baptized” on the spot spontaneously. Baptism did not validate salvation, it merely testified to it. The events happened together in succession though just as in the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), because baptism is intended to accompany salvation. They are two separate consecutive simultaneous events. Then there is a colon and the phrase “and the same day there were added unto them…” They were saved and immediately baptized, and before the day was out, joined the church. Obviously three separate events. That boy’s mom did not really need to fear baptism so much, but she was thinking like a Catholic, baptism equals church membership. She regarded baptism as a sacrament, but baptism is a church ordinance, not a sacrament. It has nothing to do with salvation or church membership, it is just sandwiched in between them.

On the other hand, it is a good thing always to make sure children understand because they are easily influenced by authority figures. For many years my wife and I raised our children on the road. When one of my boys was seven years old, he went through a period when he wanted to “get saved” in every church service we were in. He did not understand salvation yet; even though I had explained the gospel to all of our children many times. Of course, while traveling and visiting many churches, our children also heard many different “versions” of the gospel too. I did not discourage him, but I told him that he does not need to worry about salvation yet because even though he was not saved, because he did not understand yet he was safe. I believe that is true if he was unable to understand the gospel yet. I know there are those who believe that children who make professions of faith at age 4 or 5 are saved. Maybe you were told you were saved at an early age because you were led to pray a "sinner's prayer." I think the age of accountability (age or maturity level where children can understand the concept of sin, grace, redemption, and believe the true Bible gospel) is more accurately somewhere between age 9 and 12, or early teen years. It depends on the child, their understanding, and their exposure to the true gospel. I’m not going to argue this point; it is a matter of individual opinion since the Bible does not give an age, but I know grown adults who are still struggling to understand the gospel. That is because it is not based on age exactly, but on one's ability to understand grace and accept the gospel. It is just called the “age” of accountability by preachers (Romans 7:7-14).

Romans 7:7-14 (KJV) "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence [lustful desires]. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: [the age of innocence] but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. [spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, I became accountable] And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin."

The cure is being born again, John 3:7. There are many adults having difficulty understanding the way God’s grace works, and sometimes we are so eager to make sure our children are saved we accept their profession without questioning their understanding. Giving a child false assurance based on a prayer is no more right for a child than it is for an adult. Make sure your child knows what they are trusting and have entered into that rest and peace God promised would accompany salvation (Hebrews 4:1-3).

Romans 7:22-25 "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

Romans 8:1-3 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:"

Romans 7:7 through Romans 8:3 and other Scriptures like the example of David and Bathsheba lay the foundation for what preachers and theologians call the age of accountability. There are some that go so far with the a heresy called "lordship salvation" and the heresy of "Calvinism" that they do not believe children will be taken in the rapture, because they cannot "repent" according to the secular dictionaries definition of "repentance" I suppose, which is not the same as the Bible definition of repentance. Lordship preachers are legalists requiring grace and works for salvation. This is unscriptural, children who have not reached the age of accountability are not saved, but they are safe. They are under grace, at the age of innocence, because they are not mentally able to make a conscientious decision about salvation. That is why Adam was blamed for the fall (Romans 5:12-14; 18-19; 1 Timothy 2:13-14) instead of Eve who sinned first, but she was deceived. Adam understood and was held accountable. Children who have not reached the age of accountability have a sin nature, they are not actually innocent, but their sins were atoned for and they are covered by the age of innocence or ignorance, because they are not able to respond to the gospel message without understanding (Ephesians 1:13). They are not yet able to reject something they do not comprehend.

When God took David and Bathsheba's child to punish them because he was the result of their sin, after the child died David said, “…can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” David said I cannot bring the child back (give him life), but I shall go where he is. I believe David was going to Paradise, and that he believed the child was there too. I think he was right because the Holy Spirit told him to write that in 2 Samuel 12:23. Babies who are in the innocence stage go to Heaven when they die according to the Scriptures. Thank God for that, since we are murdering (dismembering and mercilessly slaughtering) millions of babies everyday through legal abortion. Since that is true, then babies who have not reached the level of maturity to understand the gospel would obviously be raptured when the Lord comes for His church. 

For just about every Old Testament illustration there is a New Testament doctrine, so let us look to the New Testament to see the doctrine of the age of accountability. Romans 7:8-10. When was I without the law? I was alive without the law (innocence), then the law came and sin revived (accountability), and I died (law without Christ). I was without the law when I did not understand it (the age of innocence), but when (the understanding of) the law came, and I saw I was a sinner; I died spiritually as Adam did (Genesis 3). I was dead in trespasses and sins. The law was my schoolmaster and it taught me I was guilty, and deserved hell. I received Christ as my Saviour and then I was given life again. Eternal life only comes through Christ. Romans 7:8-10 teaches I was alive, then dead, then alive again. This is the doctrine of the age of accountability in the New Testament. The age of accountability is the age where I became accountable to God. When the law came is when I understood I was a sinner that needed a Saviour. I know the Bible says suffer not the little children to come unto me, but it does not say how little. A Jewish boy becomes a man when he is thirteen according to Jewish custom, he celebrates his right of passage with a bar mitzvah. Those clinging to a profession made at a very early age should consider this, you would not even expect a five or six-year-old to pass a driver’s test, why would you expect them to understand the grace of God at that age? You read what is necessary for real salvation in the Bible; do you really think a five-year-old is able to thoroughly understand all that is required to be saved and consciously act on it? Can he believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired, Word of God; or that Jesus is the creator, God, the Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6, the second part of the Trinity); that we are incapable of obtaining and unworthy of God’s favor apart from Christ; that Christ has made atonement for sin with His own blood; and that it is only by grace that we can and must rest in His finished work, already accomplished on our behalf vicariously over two millennia ago, but planned by God before the earth was formed? Can a five-year-old really comprehend all that the learning process can produce in older children and adults? If you say yes, would you bet their eternal soul on it? You better think about that long and hard if you are trusting in an early profession to get you to heaven. Your eternal soul is weighing in the balance. In our evangelical infatuation with numbers we have cut too many corners to get the results in numbers we want. Since children are intimidated by adults, more trusting of authority figures and more gullible, many “instant professions” can be reaped from them to get our numbers up. We must be careful not to be presumptuous.

When the children that made false professions grow up and go swimming in the cesspool of the world, they point back to the time they prayed a sinner’s prayer in Bible class, or in a church service and asked Jesus “into their heart.” The greatest deception in Satan’s arsenal is convincing people who are lost that they are saved. Man naturally wants to be good, feel good about themselves, and think that only other people are wicked and deserving of hell. If Satan can make you think you are saved when you are really lost, you will not search any further to find the truth. If a baseball player runs around the diamond and slides into home, and the umpire noticed he didn't really contact first base he still calls him out, even though he thinks he is safely home. You could just play church and trust in what others think right or wrong. Unless you have doubts you will be satisfied with what you have, that is why Satan does not want the lost religious person to doubt. If a religious person has doubts about their salvation it has to be the Holy Spirit convicting them. If you have doubts and a spiritual leader with good intentions tries to give you "assurance" he may be giving you "false assurance." Nowhere in the Bible does it teach Christians should give anyone assurance, that's the Holy Spirit's job. I would recommend preaching the gospel to children beginning at school age, but I would not put too much stock in their professions until they were older and have confidence in their profession. Keep teaching them the gospel until they are into their adult years. How old a child will embrace genuine conversion depends on the factors mentioned earlier, the child, their intelligence, environment, exposure to the gospel, and other factors. Like the adults though, we need to let them tell us when they are saved instead of praying with them and telling them. Remember the Holy Spirit does the saving, we are here just to get the message out. We sow the seed and water the soil, God gleans the harvest.

We must be diligent to pray for our children. The Lord is coming soon and we don't want to lose one precious soul. 

This article was taken from a chapter in my book, "The Truth About Salvation." If you have further questions on this topic my contact information is listed on my home page. We are always glad to speak to or minister to those in need on this or any other subject.

? 2015 Evangelist Art Shady

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