Let love be without hypocrisy

In our modern culture, love and tolerance are seen as synonymous. To love people means to either agree with them in everything, or to at least not voice your dissent. If you disagree with someone, you're not loving them. If you offend someone, you're a hateful bigot.

This is not love at all. Love has nothing to do with unconditional support. In truth, this is hypocritical love. What parent would raise a child without delivering the hard truths? Isn't such a foolish attitude setting the child up for destruction? Indeed, the Bible says whoever spares the rod hates the child (Proverbs 13:24). Why? Because without discipline, that child will grow up having missed out on some very valuable life lessons. They will be violent, and thus will suffer violence. They will be foolish, and thus will reap the reward of folly. They will be greedy, and thus will lack even their most basic needs.

The same principle is true for adults. Inevitably, as sinners, we all run into sin, and often, we don't even want to repent. Yet evil destroys the soul. If I say I love you, yet I do not abhor the evil you cling to, am I not a hypocrite? My brethren, he who says he loves you, yet will let you destroy yourself for fear of offending you, is by no means your friend.

I remember a time in a bar, I was with a very attractive girl. Because she was so attractive, she brought us all sorts of unwanted attention. All sorts of depraved men were following us that night. One of them followed us outside, and he noticed she was a smoker, so he offered her a suspicious cigarette. This man was obviously very strong, and his friend had previously boasted about battles he'd had with notoriously aggressive bouncers at a local night club. Furthermore, my friend was already too drunk to make sound decisions. But I knew I didn't trust this man. He was posing a threat to her, and so even in spite of my fear, I told her not to touch the cigarette, and quickly formulated a plan to get us out of the bar as quickly as possible.

I knew my friend would be upset, and indeed, for the next week or so, she was. But which do you suppose was more important to me? Her temporary "happiness", or our physical safety? As I watched her take that cigarette, only one thing went through my mind: What kind of friend am I to her if I let her risk this? I didn't know what he'd done to the cigarette, but I did know he had already touched her against her will, and was following us where we did not want to be followed. He was a very serious threat to us, and she wasn't even sober enough to recognise it.

Well my brethren, the wrath of God is significantly worse than the wrath of a big headed pervert. If I would have been a bad friend for letting her stay in that dangerous situation, we would be the worst of hypocrites to stay silent in the face of evil. Even the evil of our loved ones. Let us therefore be encouraged, as I was that night, to shut down the fear that restrains us. My brethren, we must speak when our friends are in danger, even if they themselves are the cause of the danger. If they cause their own downfall, let it not be because we did not have the courage to warn them, but because they rejected our courageous warnings.