Lieutenant Colonel Allen West reminds us of the true meaning of Memorial Day – it’s an opportunity to remember and respect the members of our armed forces who paid the ultimate price to defend the freedoms we enjoy in the United States.

we’re not going to be able to hold this great nation unless you all be the salt of the earth. We’re not gonna be able to hold the last best hope for mankind. United States of America, if you all don’t stand up for Judeo christian faith heritage. Right? Welcome to the focus on the family broadcast, helping families thrive today. We have an opportunity to honor the men and women of our armed forces who died defending the freedoms that we hold dear. That’s what memorial Day is about. And today’s guest has seen those sacrifices up close during his 22 year career in the U. S. Army. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West served in several combat zones and received many honors for valor, including a bronze star. He’s also been involved in politics, most notably serving as a U. S. Congressman and is a conservative media commentator, Here’s Allen West speaking at an event hosted by Wingman ministries on today’s focus on the family. Thanks a lot guys. What a great time to stand before you and and share some thoughts, perspectives and insights because it is Memorial Day and what I want to challenge you to do is you go out this weekend, don’t say Happy Memorial Day. It’s on a memorial day. It’s honoring the sacrifices of men and women who have gone before so that we can be here here to just enjoy the blessings of liberty and freedom. So instead of taking your kids or your grandkids out for a barbecue or taking them over to a rangers game to get an overpriced hot dog or taking them somewhere where you know, the pools are open or a furniture sale or whatever. Take him to a national cemetery. Take him to walk amongst the garden of stone so that they can understand what it means to be an american, what it means to live here. Because if we don’t do that, if we don’t tell those stories, we don’t pass these things on the subsequent generations, then it does just become a day of pools opening barbecues, baseball games or what have you. That’s the importance of Memorial Day. And so with that being said, I want to share a verse with you that kind of sets the stage before I want to talk to you about today. It comes from john 15 13. Greater Love has no one than this, that one laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends. If you do what I command you no longer do. I call you slaves. But the slave does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends for all the things that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. How many folks here have seen the movie saving private Ryan, don’t you? Everybody’s seen saving private and I’m sure it’s gonna be on this memorial day weekend. But there was a great part. Little vignette at the end of saving private Ryan that I really think is the most important part of that movie. And I want to share that with you because I think it has a message that is relevant for us today as tom Hanks Captain Miller the character there has been shot and he’s bleeding out, he calls matt Ryan’s character Private Ryan, remember he had given up his entire company for just a few of his rangers to go find one person, one soul to save that soul so that they could have a life because of all of his other brothers had died in the pacific in the european theater and so is matt Damon kneels down closer to tom Hanks. He whispers two simple words earn this, earn this. And when you think about it, then it fast forward to the grown up Ryan standing there in Normandy before the final resting spot of Captain Miller and he turns over to his wife and he says, tell me that I was a good man, tell me that I lived a good life. See that’s the lesson that I want you to think about this Memorial Day. But I also want you to think about it as christian man, that greater lesson because just the same as tom Hanks whispered over to young Private Ryan to earn this. Our Lord and savior, jesus christ is whispering to us as well saying earn this, earn the sacrifice because he came down to save Just one soul and one soul and one soul and one soul to rescue them from harm and danger because he did not want to see you fall like maybe some of your other brothers had done. But when you look at where we are in the United States of America today, are we truly living up to that challenge of earning this? When you think about what is going on in the country? I mean we have gone from just murdering unborn babies to now murdering born babies. Are we earning this? When you look at the incredible freedoms and liberties that we have in this constitutional republic, you go back and think about those incredibly brave men on april the 19th of 17 75 who stepped out on Lexington green. See there was no army, there was no navy, there was no Marine Corps, There was no United States of America. There was no federal government. There were just people that believed and freedom and liberty and they stepped out and they made a sacrifice so that we could be here today. Are we earning That sacrifice that goes back 244 years that continues on to the day somewhere. Some place in the world today a young soldier, sailor, airman, Marine Coast Guardsman is going out on patrol there jumping into a cockpit of an aircraft. They’re standing on an aircraft carrier getting ready to launch. They’re going out on freedom’s ramparts for each and every one of us so we can have these freedoms and liberties. But are we truly earning it? It’s really nice when you see these young men and women in uniform and you come up to them, you say thank you for your service, but are you earning the service that they are giving with these blessings that they are bestowing upon you? And just the same ask yourself every single day when you walk out, when you come back in at the end of the day, did you earn the blessings of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, jesus christ? Because I gotta tell you, I think that we as christians, we gotta stand up too often for whatever reason, we are afraid to confront this evil that we see and I’m gonna be honest and I know they’re taping it’s evil, I’m sorry, I’m gonna call it for what it is. You know, the Canaanites, Joshua warned the Israelites in his farewell speech, he said choose for yourselves today, whom you shall serve, being the gods of the amorous or gods from across the river. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And when you shift over to judges, not too long after the Israelites, they didn’t earn it the next thing, you know, they started hanging out worshiping the bales and all the other gods. One of the gods of the bales and the Canaanites was the God moloch, You know what moloch was the god of child sacrifice. And so we have that right here today because we’re not going out each and every day and earning it. We’re not sitting down with our Children and grandchildren and talking to them about the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord and Savior. Jesus christ, I mean Abraham Lincoln talked about it when he was there at the Gettysburg dedication of the national cemetery there after the battle of Gettysburg and he talked about the last full measure of devotion. That’s what John 15 and 13 is all about. That last full measure of devotion. The fact that someone would go to the cross for our sins. But what are we doing to earn that? That’s the challenge for us. Each and every day. You know again the the challenges in American. When Benjamin Franklin came out of Constitution Hall the day that our constitution was signed 17 September 1787. And a woman came up to Benjamin franklin said, well doctor, what is it that we have a republic or a monarchy franklin replied. A republic. If you can keep it. Then George Washington came back and said, you must study and read its laws in order to keep it just the same. Our Lord and Savior, jesus christ is saying you’ve got to keep this, but you must bury yourself in my word. You must study my word. You remember, you know, do not turn from it from the right or to the left. That’s what God told Joshua when he took over to be strong and of good courage, that’s what I’m challenging you men to do. It was so lovely to hear your voices in that stentorian manner come together this morning to sing. But when you leave out of these doors, you gotta be ready to go out and sing solo, no matter what confronts you, because that’s the challenge of earning the sacrifice that our Lord and Savior made for us. Each and every day, we’re not going to be able to hold this great nation unless you all be the salt of the earth, we’re not gonna be able to hold the last best hope for mankind. The United States of America. If you all don’t stand up for Judeo christian faith heritage. Now I hear that this is the last meeting for the summer. Guess what happens over the summer, your kids out of school, but that doesn’t mean that you stopped teaching them and you start teaching them about what it means to earn this every day. It could have been very easy when my folks dropped me off back in 1979 Knoxville Tennessee at the University of Tennessee Hess hall, I could have gone off in a different direction, but as I watched them walk out, I said, I gotta make them proud of me because I knew that when I was there, my dad had given me a challenge. My dad had given me the challenge to be the first officer in our family because dad was just a simple corporal United States Army in World War Two? My older brother, just a simple marine Lance corporal Vietnam wounded at cason. And they challenged me at 15. They basically told me to earn this, earned the right to be part of our family, earn a right to be a part of the heritage of service, sacrifice and commitment that we have made. And they had seen men die on battlefields. So 31 July 1982, dad was on the right show the moms on the left shoulder and they pinned on second lieutenant bars for me find something to challenge your Children and your grandchildren to do. And I think the greatest challenge. It’s for them to understand the sacrifices that men and women have made throughout history in the United States of America and a certain man had made or calvary for their eternal life and for their soul. If we don’t do this guys, someone else is waiting out there to do it and your kids gonna come home, you’re not gonna recognize him. They’re gonna tell you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t want to hear it. I gotta tell you if I ever told that to my mommy and daddy, it’ll be a different person speaking for y’all here today. Okay, But that’s what you need to be. You need to be strong and forceful and saying this will not stand in my house. So start that today. How many of you can take the time on Memorial Day and go to the national cemetery with your Children or your grandchildren. Just tell them this is what we’re gonna do and walk by and just pick out a name and talk to them about this person died in World War Two when this person died in the korean war. This person died in Vietnam and explain to them what that means. You know why that’s so important. I mean here have heard of the Bladensburg cross? Okay, the Bladensburg cross in Bladensburg Maryland. There’s a memorial to 41 young men who died from that city in World War One In 2011. We lost our last World War I veteran Man by the name of Frank Buckles. He was 110 years of age. A couple of people were driving by the Bladensburg cross and they decided that it offended them. So they went and they made a complaint and it went through the court system and the Bladensburg cross was scheduled to be torn down to keep the Bladensburg cross up. That had to go all the way to the highest court in the land. I think about this. I don’t know if any of you went to see that incredible movie done by Peter Jackson call. They shall never grow old. It’s about the restoration of film from World War One. Here we are in America. Want to tear down a cross a memorial, a monument to 41 who had lost their lives in that Great War, the war to end all wars, they had gone over there. How can we say that we are earning it when we want to do that? How can we say that we are earning the divine providence that our founding fathers asked for in the Declaration of Independence when we are trying to push everything about our Judeo christian faith heritage out of the open marketplace. See there’s a reason we’ve seen God bless America and we don’t see in government. Bless America. We don’t sing Mr president or Miss President bless America. We don’t sing republican or democrat bless America we recognize from which are incredible blessings come from. But if you’re not careful if you don’t earn this each and every day that will be gone because secular humanism is on the rise here in the United States of America. And the reason why secular humanism is on the rise in America because there are people that want to believe that they’re the ones that bestow upon you your rights. But if you think about it, thomas, jefferson wrote that you’re an alien of a rice are not in down to you by man of these being life, liberty and the pursuit of habits they’re endowed to you by a creator. But if you don’t go out every day and fight and earn that and understand that then someone will come along and they will pour honey in the ears and all of a sudden Well I can give you health care, I can give you a free housing. I can give you free college education. I will relieve your debt. And the next thing you know, you bow down to the bales. You don’t bow down to the God that Joshua said as for me and my house, who would choose to serve the Lord. I just have a simple message for you today that ties into this incredible weekend. It’s all about the ultimate sacrifice that you can be here today is the ultimate sacrifice of men and women that have gone before us, allow us to live in the greatest nation that the world has ever known. That’s your earthly life. Was the ultimate sacrifice. The man from galilee who carried that cross up to calvary who bled much the same as Captain Miller bled in that movie. Just the same as Captain Miller said those two words, Our Lord and savior, jesus christ. It’s whispering those two words to us right now and he’s saying earned this, we have a blessing and internal life but we need to continue to fight for it right here in the now because there’s only a few words that you should live to want to hear. It is well done. That good and faithful servant. Welcome home God bless you all and thank you. That was an excellent presentation and our thanks go out to Colonel West and the folks at wingman ministries for allowing us to share it with you today. I really appreciated how Colonel West used the phrase earned this from the movie saving private Ryan. What a vivid reminder of our obligation to honor and respect those brave men and women who died defending our freedoms. And as Colonel West said, we should all be at our local cemeteries honoring our veterans today and their families. They have given their all for this country. And let me just say if you’ve lost someone who was serving our country, my heart goes out to you. I pray that the Lord will be your comfort in the days ahead. Let me make one last point about Colonel West’s presentation. He also used the phrase earn this in regard to our christian faith and jesus, sacrificial death on the cross. Now we know that none of us can earn our salvation and that wasn’t Colonel West point he is urging us to never take the death of our Lord for granted. He’s encouraging us to honor it, to treasure it and remember it and dedicate our lives to serving him out of gratitude for his great sacrifice for us. And remember if this broadcast brought up a painful issue for you, please visit us online for some follow up articles or give us a call. Our friendly staff members would count it a privilege to hear your concerns, pray with you. And if your situation warrants it arrange for a call back from one of our caring christian counselors. Let me give a big shout out to to the donors who make it possible for us to offer our counseling services for free. We couldn’t do it without you. And if you can make a donation of any amount today, we’d like to send you a copy of the CD presentation from Colonel West as our way of saying thank you. Yeah, that CD would be great to share with somebody, you know. And our number is 800 the letter A in the word family or the link is in the show notes on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team. Thanks for joining us today and plan to be with us next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in christ