How young can you be to ask Jesus to be your Savior? Can a 3 or 4 year old truly believe?

We can assure you of our hearty sympathy and interest in the subject of your letter. Your path is very simple. You have only to train your dear children for God and count on God for your children. The Spirit of God alone can make a child understand divine things, and it is not for us to fix a limit as to the precise age at which a child can take in the truth of God. It is the Spirit's work. He can make babes as well as mature people understand. A little child is the very model on which every person must be formed who will enter the kingdom of God.

We believe that Matthew 18:10-14 furnishes the foundation of the precious truth of the salvation of infants. Do you not believe this? Are you not fully persuaded that all who die in infancy are saved? That inasmuch as their little bodies undergo the penalty of Adam's sin, their precious souls partake of the benefit of Christ's atonement! Well, if you believe this, why should your heart be troubled as to the destiny of your infant child in the event of the Lord's coming? Can you not fully trust that blessed One who, in the days of His flesh, said with such touching tenderness, “Suffer the little children to come to Me and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God?” Can your heart entertain for a moment the unworthy thought that your gracious Lord, when He comes for His people, could take the mother to be with Himself and leave her babe behind to perish?

But why should you not be saved even now, young as many of you are? Look at Josiah who lived when Judah was in an evil day and judgment near. At eight years of age he was a decidedly pious child. What will make you so? Nothing but Christ, You are in your sins, it is true; but the very name of Jesus means that He was to save from sins. Whatever be your guilt as you are, look to Him as the Saviour God exalted with His right hand to give repentance and forgiveness of sins. It is just as guilty and lost ones you are now called by the gospel to believe on Him; and, if you believe, each to say, By God's grace I am saved. Salvation does not depend in any way on the desert of the saved, but on the grace of the Saviour. Indeed, it is now a declared part of God's righteousness to justify him that believes in Jesus.

Labour to arouse the conscience; and pray God the Holy Spirit to work by you until the heart becomes tender and the mind perceives the need of the great salvation. Children need to learn the doctrine of the cross that they may find immediate salvation. Believe that God will save your children. Be not content to sow principles in their minds which may possibly develop in later years; but be working for immediate conversion. Expect fruit in your children while they are children. Pray for them that they may not run into the world and fall into the evils of outward sin, and then come back with broken bones to the Good Shepherd; but that they may by God's rich grace be kept from the paths of the destroyer, and grow up in the fold of Christ, first as lambs of His flock and then as sheep of His hand.

When attention is focused upon the best of themes, let us be ready to explain the great transaction by which God is just, and yet sinners are justified. Children can well understand the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice; it was meant to be a gospel for the youngest. The gospel of substitution is a simplicity, though it is a mystery. We ought not to be content until our little ones know and trust in their finished Sacrifice. This is essential knowledge, and the key to all other spiritual teaching. May our dear children know the cross, and they will have begun well. With all their gettings may they get an understanding of this, and they will have the foundation rightly laid.

This will necessitate your teaching the child his need of a Saviour. You must not hold back from this needful task. Do not flatter the child with delusive rubbish about his nature being good and needing to be developed. Tell him he must be born again. Don't bolster him up with the fancy of his own innocence, but show him his sin. Mention the childish sins to which he is prone, and pray the Holy Spirit to work conviction in his heart and conscience.

You will remember how the Lord Jesus Christ said, "Suffer the little children to come to Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Well, that same blessed Saviour is still calling the little ones. He wants to have them in His own home, where there is nothing but brightness and joy, and you are among the ones He wants. Have you answered to His call?

It is a remarkable fact in Christianity that the living faith of a child will lay hold upon Divine truth in the revelation of God where the utmost wisdom of man fails to grasp His thoughts. And this is just what our Lord Himself meant when He said: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes." Matthew 11:25. Because God is sovereign in His grace towards us; and, if He is so pleased, He sets aside the wisdom and learning of men in regard to the knowledge of Himself. So that in Christianity, the secret and precious things of our God are not shut up to those who have great learning and are wise according to this world; but they are revealed to the babes. Even a child may trust the Saviour; the youngest is not excluded from faith in the Name of the Only-begotten Son of God. Now this enhances the perfect grace of the revelation of God; that His heart of love, great enough indeed to fill a universe, yet has stooped to reach the estate of a little child, and to bless him, and to fill his soul with the moral radiance of God.

Why, a little child can be saved just by a few blessed words whispered into the Saviour's ear and believed by the heart. Yes, it will make a vast difference in eternity, not only that one is saved, but that he reads and studies and grows in the Word now so that he will have the spiritual capacity to enter into and enjoy the surpassing riches of the grace and truth of Christ in the eternal ages yet to come.

Yes, "All things are now ready," but not a man will come and enter that feast unless he is converted and becomes as a little child. The little child of the Lord's parable hears and believes, there is no pretence about him, he confesses his need when he feels it, and simply and thankfully receives what is offered him and talks about what he has received. After a protracted gospel service in Kingston, Jamaica, at which many anxious souls had pressed into the feast, a little negro lad, ten years old perhaps, touched me on the elbow and said, "Do speak to me, sir, my soul does feel so unsaved." We found a quiet spot where he could listen to the word, and then we knelt in prayer. When I had prayed for him, he prayed for himself, "Lord Jesus," he said, "save my soul." And he jumped to his feet, having no doubt that his prayer was answered, for as he said, I had told him that the Lord had said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." He had come and proved that the Lord's words were true.

What does it mean for us to bring our children to Him? Let us look at an Old Testament example, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who said: ‘I will wait until the child is weaned; then will I bring him, that he may appear before Jehovah, and there abide for ever’ (1 Sam. 1:22). Here we find a mother who brings her child to the Lord. What is her objective? First, that he should appear before Him; second, that he should abide there forever. This ought to be the great objective of all parenting and the upbringing of our children. First of all, they should appear before the Lord — in other words they should accept Jesus as their Saviour and in doing so get to know Him. Second, they should abide with Him forever — in other words they should accept Him as their Lord, the one they want to follow and serve. Of course, we should also teach them the ‘life skills’ they need as they grow up, especially those to do with the way they relate to other people. But the main point is that they acknowledge Jesus as their Saviour and Lord.

How do we bring them to Him? There are two main elements. The first is that we set them a good example. Generally speaking, children take notice of our actions much more than our words. If they see us following the Lord Jesus and living in daily communion with Him, we create the right preconditions for them to do the same. If instead they realise the opposite is true, and see us living self-centred and hypocritical lives, we hinder them from coming to the Lord Jesus. The second main element is that we start as early as possible to talk to them about Him, and to pray and sing with them. This is the best seed we can sow in their hearts and it is ever more necessary in this age.

The blessing of being a child of Christian parents is an inestimable one. The privilege of a Christian home is a precious one. The teaching and example of a godly parent to his child is a precious heritage, but it does not save. The parent can point the way of salvation, but the child must come in through the gateway, which is Christ. Have you entered by the Door? Have you come in by Christ? Are you amongst God's people, not by mere profession, but have you come as a poor sinner, with nothing of your own, and accepted Christ Jesus and entered by the wide open Way?