Voddie Baucham, in his sermon with Paul Washer, discusses the nature of genuine salvation, particularly in children, emphasizing that a lack of dramatic change does not equate to a lack of authenticity in faith. He argues that the true testimony of grace is when children grow up with Christian values and are saved at a young age, rather than having to experience a dramatic transformation from a life of sin. Baucham warns against the artificial means often used to lead children to profess faith, advocating for a nurturing approach that allows children to express their beliefs while ensuring they understand the depth of true conversion. He stresses the importance of guiding children in their faith journey rather than rushing to declare them saved based on superficial indicators. Ultimately, Baucham calls for a return to biblical understanding of salvation, free from heretical practices that can lead to false assurance.

say like six or seven, and they have always had that, those kind of fruits in their life from their parents, and they've always kind of had that Christian values already kind of set in them, and there's not a humongous dramatic change once they have received salvation. And what do you think about that? Because there's not a dramatic change, does that mean it wasn't really genuine, or? Actually, what you're talking about, you know how people say, I've heard people say that, you know, I was saved really young. I was saved really young, and I don't have that dramatic a testimony. No, that's what we're shooting for. That's the dramatic testimony. That's what Vody's getting about talking about with the family. I would want my son at six years old to be converted and to walk all the days of his life before the Lord in fear. That's the goal. We don't want this idea of, you know, we were drunkards and whoremongers and this and we've got saved. The great work of grace is when someone's never gone through that. And can God save a child? Yes, absolutely. But let me give you an example. Most children today, when they make a profession of faith, are many times led to that profession artificially. You know, how many times? I mean, we know this is true. A Sunday school teacher says, how many of you children love Jesus? You know, and I'll raise their hand. How many want to go to heaven, pray this prayer and they get baptized? You know, it's like the one big Southern Baptist church down there, I think in Texas, you know, they have a firetruck baptism thing where the kid gets baptized in a firetruck and it shoots up graffiti. And I mean, the whole thing is designed to lead children to do something that's not a genuine work of God. I'll give you an example. About a month ago, a month and a half ago, my little Ian. Just started weeping hysterically during the worship. And I said, Ian, Ian, what's wrong? And he said he died, Daddy. He really, really died. Now. My son's not converted. I found him crying on his pillow one night. I said, Ian, what's going on? He goes, I don't want to die, Daddy. Now, he's not converted. Most people would have already had my son baptized. You know, here's the way I deal with a child. Ian comes to me and says, Daddy, you know, what do I have to do? And he's done that many times. And I said, son, son, you have to believe in Christ. You have to recognize the sin in your life and there'll be a brokenness over it and you have to trust in Christ. And you know, he tells me because he's a little boy. He says, I'm doing that, Daddy. Now. As a man who spent many years in scripture. I know my son is not converted, but I am not going to say to him, no, Ian, you're not doing that. You're not believing. I'm not going to crush the light that is in my son. Not at all. I will tell him when he says, Daddy, I'm doing that, I'm believing. I say, wonderful son, you keep believing in him. You keep seeking to do his will. And son, if you truly are believing. Then you are saved, but son, this is going to be the further evidence as you grow. If you're truly believing, you're going to continue walking with him, growing in him, knowing more about him, your passion is going to increase. And one day it's going to come to a point. We're in my own heart is your father. I can look at you and say, son, there is solid biblical evidence that you've really come to know him. And so we don't want to crush that at all. Treat it tenderly. It's like when a person comes forward in a church, you ever notice it comes forward in a church, a church that has invitations. He goes and talks to a counselor, the counselor talks to him for Max five minutes, the cards presented to the preacher and the preacher says, I want to rejoice because Frank's got saved today. I want to ask you a question. There's got to be some serious supernatural revelation going on, some extra biblical angels coming down, talking to preachers for that preacher to know that. And right there is set in course. The possibility of sending this man to hell with false assurance. The preacher just said he saved. It's better to say if you do have invitations and people coming forward like that, it's better to say if you want to present them to the church. I don't have a problem with that. Just say this, folks, we need to rejoice today because Frank has come and he has professed faith in Jesus Christ. And that's absolutely wonderful. Now, because we love Frank, because it's our responsibility, we're going to be spending the next several weeks and months with Frank so that he can come to a biblical assurance of whether or not he's truly believed. He changed everything. And that's what I would do with young kids. On, OK. There's a book that we give to families of your child's profession of faith, which really kind of helps think through some of these things. And you may want to you may want to get that. The problem here's a lot of times, a lot of times here's the difficulty. When we when we ask questions about, you know, theoretical questions about a person's salvation and we go, OK, if a person was saved this and then this happens, usually what we mean is if a person went through the unbiblical, heretical practices that we currently call salvation. And then show evidence that they weren't. See, we start with a false premise. So we go, OK, a six year old. What does that mean? That means that, you know, they were in a Sunday school class or they walked down the aisle and, you know, somebody said, well, where is Jesus right now? And they went in my heart and everybody goes, oh, you know, it can't even stand up in the baptistry. And we, you know, that's what that means. You can't start the question with that false premise. You see, that's the our problem is not that salvation is confusing, the Bible makes it clear the things we went through last night and this morning, it doesn't make it confusing at all. The problem is that our unbiblical, heretical practices of declaring somebody saved. Because they've gone through something that we've created and it's not even anywhere in the scriptures, that's what makes it confusing for us, you know, because we say salvation equals asking Jesus into your heart. That six year old says, I asked Jesus into my heart. That's nowhere in the scriptures. You won't find it anywhere in the Bible, but that's what we say salvation is asking Jesus into your heart. So this six year old says, I asked Jesus into my heart. And that's why all of him, you've been in the ministry any length of time, you've heard this, you know, well, I got saved when I was six. But then, you know, when I was a teenager, I kind of went astray and I did this and I did that. And or, you know, or the teenager who comes up and says, I'm just really confused about, you know, my salvation if I've lost it. Why? Because when I was six, I got baptized and I this and that and the other. But I'm struggling with this and I'm struggling with that and I'm struggling with the other. Why is that so common? One of the reasons it's so common is because we have a heretical understanding of what salvation is in the first place. And we've projected that heretical understanding on impressionable young children and they believe they've got something that they really don't have. And oftentimes their spiritual lives, they're crippled beyond that. Because if praying the prayer when I was six didn't work, how do I know it took this time at 16 or at 26 or at 46? And you got people who've been in church forever who still wrestle with that all because they started. From a false premise. This is a question for both of you, but from your understanding of the women these days living in the bondage of being aggressively competitive with one another, what kind of lies are we believing and what kind of lies are before us and keeping us from loving someone that's younger than us or from not being competitive like all around with women? I think that goes back to this idea that we're not raising women anymore. You know, we're raising we're raising these these females to be men with the biological capacity for, you know, for for giving birth and even beyond the competitiveness with women. We also have this competitiveness with with men that really bothers me. You know, when our kids were little, a lot of people take their kids and they're little and they put them in these leagues where their boys are competing against girls. I won't let my little boys compete against girls in those settings. No, son, I'm trying to teach my son to protect women, not to see them as opponents. I'm not going to do that.