"If you do not witness to every person you meet, then one day you will stand in heaven watching friends, family, and strangers walk past and ask you why you never told them as you look down and see their blood dripping from your hands."
I can't tell you the number of nightmares I had related to hearing this said in multiple sermons from multiple pastors during my IFBC days. The day my children said the sinner's prayer was a day of great relief for me. I had it in the bag. I got them to say the Jesus prayer and now I would not have to watch them being marched to hell while their begging eyes cried out to me. Their blood would not be on my hands.
Then they became teenagers. In a way, the questions that my teens started asking were good for both them and us. It has made them reckon with their faith in a way that I didn't think I was allowed to reckon until I was an adult. It also started me down the road of Reforming.
What does the scripture actually say about salvation?
Salvation is found in Scripture alone:
Romans 10:14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?As a parent, my duty is not to save my children, but my duty is to faithfully expose my children to the Gospel through the preaching of the Word. This primarily happens through the expository preaching that happens on the Lord's Day, but also happens as I live out faith, repentance, grace, and mercy at home.
Salvation is through grace alone:
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,If my children are saved it is because God has graciously extended salvation to them. This is not a tit-for-tat prosperity gospel thing. There is nothing that my children can do that is good enough to save themselves. There is nothing that I can do as a parent that is good enough to save them.
Salvation is through faith alone:
Romans 3:28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.If my children are to be saved, it will be because THEY put their faith in Jesus Christ. Not because I was faithful. Not because I believed for them. They are responsible for their own faith.
Salvation is in Christ alone:
Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.My children will not be saved by me. My name is not the name that gives them the power to be saved. It is Christ's name that does that. To believe that I am able to save them is to blaspheme God by making myself their savior. I am neither capable nor worthy of this position and I refuse to take it on. I'd fail anyway. I couldn't save myself, so why would I think I am capable of saving them?
Salvation is to the glory of God alone:
Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.If I was able to parent my children into heaven, who gets the glory? Me. But because salvation is wholly and completely an act of God, God deserves and receives all the glory if my children are saved. Salvation is from God, through God, and to God. To him be glory forever. Amen.
I refuse to take on my children's choices to follow or not follow Christ as a reflection of my parenting or my faithfulness. Their choices are not my responsibility. Scripture, and therefore God himself, has relieved me of the burden of saving my children. I am not God and that is a good thing. I am called to be faithful in parenting. I am called to raise my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I am not called to save them. PRAISE GOD.
It has taken me several years of study to even come close to shaking off the guilt-based parenting that has plagued me for most of my years as a parent. Coming face to face with the teen years has a way of pulling the idea that you can help your children get saved right out from underneath you. To be sure, God uses faithful parents as a means to bring children to salvation, but my weary friend, you cannot save your child. Rest in the goodness of God and thank Him that he has not put that burden on you! If your children reject the faith of their parents, they will be responsible for the consequences of that choice. Grieve their rejection. Repent of where you were not as faithful as you should have been. Rest in the finished work of Christ.
As a helpful resource, Steve Lawson is one of my favorites:
Salvation is of the Lord
To the glory of God,
The Grace Divide
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