Even YOUNG CHILDREN Need Salvation Said Jesse Overholtzer
[Jesus blessing little children (Mark 10:14-16) L. Prang & Co., Boston, 1892. Library of Congress.]
CAN A CHILD GET SAVED? Jesse Overholtzer would give a resounding “yes,” and he proved his point thousands of times over.
Jesse Overholtzer was born in San Joaquin, California, in 1877. His family were Brethren, with roots extending back into German Anabaptists and Pietists. Between the ages of eight and twelve he became aware he was a sinner and needed a savior. However, when he asked his mother how he could get saved, she told him he was too young. Overholtzer would live with guilt and fear for eight more years. He made matters worse by deciding that if he couldn’t be saved, he might as well sin all he wanted. He became a rebel and prankster and left home at eighteen.
When he was twenty, attending college, he heard the gospel in a way he could understand.
I threw myself on God’s mercy, in Christ, and instantly received peace. This happy experience was short-lived. . . . Soon temptation came and sometimes I yielded, never deliberately, but through weakness and not knowing how to obtain victory. These sins I confessed to God and sought His forgiveness, but gradually Satan tempted me to question whether a sinning Christian was still saved. I began doubting my salvation, for I was now looking to my conduct instead of to the merits of Christ. This grieved the Holy Spirit and I soon lost His witness, not to return for sixteen long weary years.
Trying to please God, he became a pastor and lived a rigid life.
How miserable I was! But instead of casting myself on God's mercy in Christ again I thought my conduct was not pure enough and that He was grieved because of that. . . . I became more and more strict in every way, hoping to get back my joy. I was now preaching a gospel of works. Few responded to my message and these gave but little evidence of being born again.
A biography of famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody helped him see that salvation is God’s free gift. During a quarantine for scarlet fever, he searched the Bible for every verse on grace and works. Finally he saw that salvation was by grace alone.
This recognition brought him to another crisis. “How could I face my people and tell them I had been teaching them error all the years?” He was afraid his church would throw him out. Nonetheless, he told his congregation the truth. He was allowed to keep his pastorate, and soon saw many people come to Christ. However, other ministers of his denomination demanded he abandon his “heretical” theology of salvation by grace alone. Overholtzer left the Brethren.
The well-known preacher Charles Spurgeon had said in a sermon, “A child of five, if properly instructed can as truly believe and be regenerated as an adult.” Overholtzer read this when he was sixty but did not believe it. The thought stuck with him, however. He decided to put Moody’s premise to the test on some ten-year olds. One after another they became Christians. Two in particular became such sound Christians that their unsaved mother sought Christ because of their example. About this time, Overholtzer collapsed from overwork. He could no longer farm.
With the help of Harry Ironside and some other leaders, Overholtzer founded Child Evangelism Fellowship in 1937. It's goal was to present the message of Christ simply. Christ had commanded “Allow the little children to come unto me.” In the twentieth century he was still saying it and gave Overholtzer the necessary background for the job and called him to the task. By his death on this day, 6 August 1955, Child Evangelism Fellowship was at work in sixty countries. Through its ministry, thousands of children have come to know Christ without struggling to find a way through the unmarked paths that Overholtzer had trod as a boy.
—Dan Graves
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