“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19, KJV).
I found 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!” (The Inner Life of the Believer, p. 102).
No photo ever taken has come close to challenging the impact of the picture of five marines and a navy hospital corpsman who raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, using a piece of Japanese pipe as a mast, on February 23, 1945. That single photo, so say historians, did as much to symbolize what it meant to being a marine as anything ever written or produced.
Battle flags are nothing new! In every war, going back to ancient times, soldiers have gone into battle following their own distinctive flag. The Roman legions took great pride in their flags, and as the legionnaires marched through the country, they were led in procession following the flag. In battle, it was the distinctive flag of a regiment that let a soldier know where their comrades were fighting so they didn’t become disoriented in the smoke and conflagration of the conflict.
Surprising as it may be to you, a study of the Bible indicates that flags—yes, battle 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.”
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). In newer versions, the word is better translated “flag” or “banner”, than standard.
Those old battle flags tattered and torn hanging in St. Giles got me to thinking. Here they are—just pieces of cloth. They’re affixed to a pole, and the flag rallied men who were ready to die in combat. No, it was not the flag. It was what it represented.
Then I started thinking about the battles that people are fighting today—battles which have just as high stakes, because if we lose, we lose our children, our integrity, our husbands, our wives, and perhaps everything we hold dear to our hearts.
Evil and the hideous onslaught of iniquity don’t stop when a peace treaty is signed and the old battle flags are consigned to a museum. The battle goes on today. God’s people still must rally to the standard, the banner of the cross, which has never lost its glory.
When a boy’s choir wanted to march down the aisle of a certain church, carrying the Christian flag, singing, “Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war,” the rector said, “No, we don’t use that flag in this church.” He collected the flags, rolling them up and placing them behind the door of the office.
The boys, though, had the last word. They came down the aisle lustily singing, “Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus hid behind the door.” Rally to the banner, friend. The battle goes on today.
Resource reading: Number 10:1-10.
