Tomorrow is the 150thanniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. On November 19, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic two minute speech at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
There are ultimately two kinds of government. Those with God and those without God. But this raises a very important question, “What God brings freedom, justice and peace to all mankind?” Jesus came to radically liberate people’s hearts and then call them to radically love others and spread the freedom and peace of God. Where true Christianity flourishes freedom and prosperity flourish. Yes, there have been some black spots in Christian history like the Crusades and Slavery in America, but these were never in line with what Jesus taught. They were sparked by men who misused the scriptures for their political means. But where true Christianity has flourished it has brought incredible freedom and prosperity to the world.
Politics does not change hearts – Changed hearts change politics!
A person can only truly live in freedom and for freedom if they are freed from their sin, shame and guilt and in a genuine relationship with God. Jesus came to liberate our hearts that we might bring a deeper lasting change to the world around us – even politics. No god or politician has ever done that for the world. Lincoln realized the source of true freedom and that for our nation to experience “a new birth of freedom” that we would have to be a nation “under God” and a nation with changed hearts not just changed politics.
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