Date posted: 07-27-2021
Estimated Reading Time : 6:00
Andrew Wommack is president of the Truth & Liberty Coalition. He and other influential Christian leaders formed the Truth & Liberty Coalition to make a difference in the culture by speaking about moral issues and dealing with current events.
President Ronald Reagan said, freedom is never more than one generation away from being lost, and “it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” It seems that our freedoms are under an increasingly severe attack every day. And yet, many Christians continue to think we shouldn’t be involved in the political process.
I believe we have as much at stake now as we did during the American Revolution when we fought for the independence of this nation. In some ways, I believe it’s even more serious now because the attack is more subtle. People aren’t using guns against us and it’s not hand-to-hand combat. It’s an ideology that we’re fighting.
The truth is, many Christians are just asleep and not involved. Many of them feel like we shouldn’t be involved—we just need to stick to “preaching the Gospel.” That’s a total misrepresentation of the Gospel! The Bible talks about Christians being salt and light to prevent moral decay.
What Did Jesus Say?
Some people argue, “But Jesus said you’re supposed to love one another.” They believe that you’re just supposed to turn the other cheek and not get involved. But we need to understand what Jesus actually said in Matthew 22:37–40, after a man came to him and said, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
People will take what Jesus said—“You need to love your neighbor as yourself” —and say, “You’re supposed to be tolerant toward everybody.”
Let me take this exact verse that he used about “love your neighbor as yourself” and give you the context. Jesus was quoting from Leviticus 19:18:
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.
But the verse immediately in front of Leviticus 19:18 says “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him” (Lev. 19:17).
If you don’t rebuke (warn) a person who you see entering into sin—if you see somebody doing something that is destroying them and destroying this nation—and you don’t say something, you do not love your neighbor. When we put the commandment to love our neighbours as we love ourselves in context, it reads like this:
“Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.
Those verses are plainly telling us that, if we love our neighbor, we will warn them about sin, and if we allow sin to come on them, we actually hate our brother, and don’t love him.
Putting Others Before Yourself
I live in Colorado near a four-lane road that twists around in the mountains. One night when I was going home, it was very foggy and dark. There was no moon out and you couldn’t see anything.
A man passed me going about 55 or 60 miles an hour around this curve, and as soon as he got around it I saw his brake lights come on. His car jerked to the right, so I slammed on my brakes and came to rest on the shoulder. He was in the right lane and in the left lane was a horse that he had hit. This horse had caved in his windshield, and the man was slumped over with blood all over him.
As I was trying to help him, a Suburban came around the corner and hit this horse going 50 miles an hour. It launched that Suburban five feet in the air for probably 20 feet. The woman who was driving was able to regain control and stop the car, but she made a bubble in the roof where her head hit. She was obviously hurting, so I went to see if she was okay. Then I heard another car coming around the corner!
I ran down the road around the corner and, on a dark night where you could only see just a few feet, I started jumping out in front of cars that were going 50 and 60 miles an hour, trying to slow them down. People were putting on their brakes and skidding.
I heard a horn honk at me. People were yelling stuff at me. They were probably not telling me how awesome I was. There might have even been some women who thought, Why is this crazy man trying to slow me down and stop me on a road at night like this? There’s no telling what they thought, and I’m sure there were people offended at me.
But when they got around the corner, I bet you some of those same people that cursed me said, “Well, praise God!” and were thankful that I had warned them.
Telling the Truth in Love
The point is, if I love people I can’t just sit there and say, “Well, somebody might think that I’ve got bad intentions trying to flag them down.” You can’t do stuff like that—you have to stand up!
If I hadn’t said something to them, the truth would have been I didn’t love them. I would have been more concerned about somebody not liking me and thinking I had a negative motive than I was about their safety and well-being.
If you don’t speak up and tell people the truth, you don’t love them. The truth is, you love yourself so much you don’t want anybody to roll their eyes at you or say anything negative to you. We’re way past that, brothers and sisters. We need to stand up, and we need to defend our freedoms!
Learn More
Explore the Truth & Liberty website and visit our Research Center for great practical resources. Also, learn how you can become a Truth & Liberty Coalition member and join us in standing for truth in the public square.