Quote Source – Jeff Hilles
Every parent who’s watched a child raise a hand at Vacation Bible School knows the pull. You want that child saved, want the assurance settled now, want to get it done before something else claims that soft, teachable heart. Jeff Hilles names the real danger hiding inside that impulse: a premature profession doesn’t necessarily guard a child from unbelief. A small, controlled dose of Christian language, absorbed before a child has any real grasp of what it costs to call Jesus Lord, can leave that child immune to the very gospel meant to save them.
A Small Dose That Prevents the Real Infection
A vaccine works by introducing a weakened version of a disease so the body builds defenses against the real thing. Something eerily similar can happen in a young soul. A child repeats a prayer because the room expects it, gets baptized because everyone else in the class did, and grows up believing the matter is closed. Years later, when the Holy Spirit brings real conviction, that grown child has an answer ready: I already did that. I already said the words. The very thing meant to be a gateway becomes a door bolted shut from the inside.
What “Jesus Is Lord” Actually Asks
“Jesus is Lord” was never meant to be a phrase you learn, like a password that opens Heaven’s gate. It’s a surrender. It means His authority over your money, your body, your future, your grudges – not just His usefulness to your problems. Paul didn’t separate confession from belief when he wrote to the Romans.
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. [Romans 10:9-10]
Notice the order: heart, then mouth. Belief that produces confession, not confession hoping belief will catch up later. A child can be taught the words years before the heart has any context for what they mean – and that gap is exactly where dead faith takes root.
Raising Children Toward Real Faith, Not Manufactured Assurance
None of this means we stop teaching young children the gospel young – quite the opposite. Deuteronomy 6 tells parents to talk about God’s ways at home, on the road, and at bedtime, constantly. The danger isn’t early teaching. It’s early closure – treating a recited prayer as the finish line instead of one more step on a long walk toward genuine repentance. Better to let a child sit honestly in “I don’t understand this yet” than to hand them a false peace that will calcify into presumption. Real faith can wait for the Spirit’s timing. Manufactured decisions can’t afford to.
Guarding Against Dead Faith
Jesus warned that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of Heaven – only those who do the will of His Father (Matthew 7:21-23). James went further: even demons believe and shudder (James 2:19). Head knowledge and vocabulary were never the test. Fruit is. So examine, gently and patiently, whether a child’s profession is producing a growing love for Christ or just a settled sense that the subject is closed. A living faith keeps asking questions. A dead one stops needing to.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org