Set Up Your Banners

“May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!

    May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!

May he send you help from the sanctuary

    and give you support from Zion!

May he remember all your offerings

    and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

“May he grant you your heart's desire

    and fulfill all your plans!

May we shout for joy over your salvation,

    and in the name of our God set up our banners!

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

“Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;

    he will answer him from his holy heaven

    with the saving might of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,

    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

They collapse and fall,

    but we rise and stand upright.” (Psalms 20:1-8 ESV)

Our trust needs to always be in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit. We are not to place our trust in human beings and in human governments and in our military or in any people group to be our saviors, and to save us from those we regard as our enemies, whether falsely or in truth. For all humans are born with sin natures, and all humans have the propensity to sin and to lie and to deceive and to fail us. So God alone is to be our hope.

So we who live in America are not to pledge (vow) our allegiance (worship, devotion, loyalty) to our flag (our national banner/standard) and to the republic for which it stands (our form of government). And we are not to give honor to our military as though they are our saviors, the ones keeping us safe from our purported “enemies.” And we are not to sing patriotic songs of worship to our government, either. For that is idolatry, for it is giving our loyalty, worship, and devotion to man, and many times this is over God.

But much of this was ingrained (indoctrinated, brainwashed) in us from childhood (the 1950s and beyond) both at home, at school, and at our church gatherings where oftentimes the American flag was in the front of the room called “the sanctuary” where we had our religious services. And in our schools we were mandated to daily put hand over heart and to pledge our allegiance to the American flag (our banner, our standard for America) and to our government, which claimed to be one nation under the one true God.

And why should our trust not be in human beings? Because they collapse and fall, i.e. they are flesh and blood and they are bound to fail us. And many of them are not who they say they are, anyway, and they are not doing what they claim to be doing. But many of them are literally doing the opposite of what they claim to be doing. And so sometimes those we think we can trust are those who are really our enemies, if truth be told. So, if your trust is in the government and military, that’s not a good place to be.

And besides that, the Scriptures make it clear that the Lord God is to be the one in whom we place our trust and loyalty and devotion and worship. He is our only true protection from those who are our true enemies, and those enemies could be those that many are trusting in blindly, too. Our Lord is to be our only salvation, not our military, and not our government, and not any other human government. And our banners should not be government flags, but God’s standards that he raises for us, his people, to adhere to. 

And the battles we are to fight and to defend are those of the Lord’s with us as his soldiers, under his banners (standards), relying on his strength, and not on our own, and on his guidance and direction, and not on our own human thinking and reasoning. And our enemies are those who are the Lord’s enemies, who do not submit to him as Lord, and who do not follow him in obedience, but who oppose him and his gospel message and who speak lies to the people to lead them away from pure devotion to Christ.

And his standards are those of righteousness, holiness, godliness, moral purity, honesty, uprightness, faithfulness and obedience to our Lord and to his commands under the New Covenant. These are the banners/standards that we are to raise, not those of physical worldly governments who do not have the mind of God, and who are not following the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience to his commands, but who are following after their own fleshly desires and plans and purposes for us, as a people.

Oh, I so wish that all of you who live in America could get a good hard look into who our government really is, and into who they are serving, and for what purposes, and into what they have been up to, especially since the bombing of Pearl Harbor and beyond. For there is “a man” behind the curtain who you can’t see who is the one running the show, and it isn’t just one man, but is a group of the elite and powerful of the world who are the de facto government of the USA and those truly running the world.

But, regardless of that, our trust, and our hope for salvation and for protection from our true enemies needs to be in the Lord and not in armies and not in human beings, for no matter who they are or what they are up to, in reality, they are still human beings and they are bound to fail us and/or to betray us and to turn against their own people. Read the book of Revelation, especially chapter 13, and that will give you good insight into where we are headed and/or to where we are presently, and to what we can expect.

So, let the Lord alone be the one in whom you trust and in whom you rely for safety, protection, and security. Let him be the one you call upon in the day of trouble, and not human governments and military forces. And don’t be surprised if the government you trust in is not trustworthy at all, but they may actually turn out to be your worst enemy. And don’t let that undo you, but just keep putting your trust solely in God and let him guide you in the way that he would have you to go. And it will end well for you.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

Taken from “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

“Will you give all you can give

So that our banner may advance

Some will fall and some will live

Will you stand up and take your chance?”

Only our banner is the Lord’s. It is his standards (commands) which we must follow. And we are his spiritual soldiers in his spiritual army in a war that is spiritual and not physical. And our enemy is Satan, and one of his biggest weapons against us is deception. And the weapons we fight this battle with are the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20), which includes faith, truth, righteousness, the gospel, the word of God, our salvation, and prayer, etc. So, stand on the word of God, and put your trust solely in the Lord.