Battle flags

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

The battle flags hanging from the rafters of old St. Giles in Edinburgh, those frayed, tattered and dirty pieces of cloth suspended on poles, are rather meaningless to the thousands of tourists who gawk at the stained glass windows and the polished wood centuries old. But to the men who rallied behind those battle flags, they were symbols of patriotism, pride and significance.

Of those flags Sherwood Eliot Wirt wrote, “The precious emblems are not too exciting to outsiders, but to the combat veterans who took part in the engagements where those flags were carried into the fighting zone, they have become colorful symbols of living history. What memories they evoke! What trials! What dangers! And – what victories!”

A study of Scripture indicates that flags were used by ancient Israel. When the Hebrew children left Egypt and camped in the desert, flags or standards were posted identifying different groups. In Numbers 10:14 Moses wrote, “In the first place went the standard of the camp of the children of Judah according to their armies: and over his host was Nahshon the son of Amminadab.”

Isaiah challenged his people saying that “when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19).

Evil and the hideous onslaught of iniquity don’t stop when a peace treaty is signed and the old battle flags are sent to a museum. The battle goes on today. God’s people still have to rally to the standard, the banner of the Cross, which has never lost its glory.