We are coming up on another celebration of Independence Day in the USA. I hope it is a special day in your community. We are blessed to have family coming to spend the weekend with us. The flag is flying, something not limited to special days such as this.
There is an issue that has been on my mind for
some time now. It hit me some time back
when we were studying the “Names of God.”
It was the name, Yahweh-Nissi, the LORD is my banner. For Israel, there was really no disconnect
between love of country and love of God; the land was God’s blessing promised
to Abraham, and it was an unconditional promise. Thus, Israel was to go out, under the banner
of Yahweh, and fight her battles.
For Christians, it is different. Our banner is Christ, and our motto, if you
will, is Christ crucified (1:23).
It is w hat Paul calls the “message of the cross” (1:18). In Paul’s day, the enemy of the cross of
Christ in the Church was the “Judaizers.”
Of these people Paul said, as many as desire to make a good showing
in the flesh, these would compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not
suffer persecution for the cross of Christ (Gal. 6;12). They spoke of Christ, but they did not fight
under the banner of Christ; they fought under the banner of the flesh.
From our study, you may remember that the term
“nissi” was used of the pole on which the bronze snake was hung for the healing
of Israel in Numbers 21. Christ was
crucified, lifted up, like that bronze snake, so that people might look to Him
for healing. Today our task, from
Christ, is to lift Him up by the preaching of the gospel. That is our banner. We are to be known as those who belong to
Christ.
Today, the enemy of this might be conservative
politics. Evangelical Christians might
be becoming known more for their political stand than for the gospel. The conversations among Christians are much
more political, it seems, than about our Master’s command that we go and make
disciples.
I understand the temptation to replace the
banner of Christ with the banner of Patriotism.
We believe the things we fight for are in sync with Scripture. Furthermore, countless thousands died to
protect these freedoms. The Declaration
of Independence was based on inalienable rights from our Creator. It rested on an appeal to the Supreme
Judge of the world, and depended on the protection of Divine Providence. We have been privileged to visit several
American Cemeteries in Europe. It is a
deeply significant experience, seeing row upon row of white crosses, and the
American flag flying on foreign soil. I
am pretty sure that God has worked in and through this nation, and I should
thank Him for it and I should respect those who gave their lives for the
freedom to preach the cross of Christ without persecution.
But I must tell you, that while touring those
cemeteries, and visiting the chapels that are often part of those memorials, I
could never get away from the thought that many of those men and women were
doing something very noble when they entered a Christ-less eternity. Their heroism, their sacrifice, was not
sufficient to win them a place in the presence of God. What we could hope for, and stories tell us
it did happen often, was that there were chaplains and other Christians raising
the banner of the cross for these soldiers.
Being a good citizen, a patriot, might relieve
us from persecution. According to the
last election, pretty much half the United States was on your side, whoever you
voted for. Those are much better “odds”
than you would have, fighting under the banner of the cross. In the latest matter, the coronavirus
pandemic, from the beginning the discussions were not about faith in Christ;
rather they were political, and intense as we argued masks, lockdowns, vaccines
and so forth. Now hear me: these were
important issues at different levels, but none of them attained to the level of
the gospel of Christ.
I just ask that, with me, you think about
these things this Independence Day. Do
people think of us as conservative or patriotic? Or do they think of us as followers of
Christ? The bottom line is, we are pilgrims,
strangers on this earth. Our citizenship
is in heaven. We are not “of” this
world. But we are “in” the world, left
here to march under the banner of the cross of Christ.
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