If you would, open your Bibles
again to Exodus chapter 17. Our text is going to pick up
in verse 8. Then came Amalek and fought with
Israel in Rephidim. Now Wayne asked me to read this
whole chapter because it's important for us to know when did this
attack happen? It happened right after God gave
Israel water from that smitten rock. And you know very well
that that rock was Christ. And we know that water is a picture
of Christ, the water of life. Now, to people who live in the
desert, water is so precious. It can't be found just anywhere. And that's another picture of
Christ. We can't live without him any more than people in the
desert can live without water. We cannot live without the Lord
Jesus Christ. And water was so precious to
these people at this time, they frequently started a war over
just one well. Now these descendants of Amalek,
they saw that water gushing from that rock. A river flowed from
that rock. Water for three million people
and all their animals. They saw that river and they
said, we're going to go take that. We're going to take that
rock so we can have all that water. Now, sometime if you'd
like, you can read about this attack in Deuteronomy 25. What
the Amalekites did is they attacked the rear of the column. The children
of Israel marching through the desert and they attacked at the
rear. They found those people who were
slowed by weakness or they were slowed by sickness or old age.
Maybe they had little children who couldn't go as fast as near
that main column and they lagged behind. And that's who these
Amalekites attacked. Now Amalek is the grandson of
Esau. Esau sold his birthright for
a morsel of bread. And everyone who descended from
Amalek hated the descendants of Jacob. And Amalek is a picture
of the flesh. He's exactly like his father,
the grandfather, Esau. And so are all of his descendants.
They're flesh. And what they wanted to do is
take God's free gift by force instead of having it as a free
gift. Just like the flesh. The flesh wants to earn or take
by force God's free gift rather than have it by God's mercy.
Now, we have three new believers here based in Christ. And I don't
want to crush your spirit, but I have to tell you the truth.
I have to tell you the truth, first of all, because it's the
truth. Second, I have to tell you the truth so you won't be
surprised at what's about to happen to you. The warfare with
sin, your warfare with sin, it's just begun. It's just now begun. That's what's pictured here.
Israel never fought a war when they were slaves in Egypt. When
they first left Egypt, Israel didn't fight a war. When they
were trapped by the Red Sea, Israel didn't fight a war. They
stood still and saw the salvation of the Lord. The Lord delivered
them from Egypt. They didn't participate in fighting
that war. But just as soon as they received
the free gift of God, as soon as they received this water of
life, their warfare began in earnest. The scripture says,
then came Amalek. It says that on purpose. Right
after they received that water, then came Amalek and attacked
them. And their warfare began when
they were wickedly attacked. And that's what happens to a
believer. When a believer is born again, he is wickedly attacked
from within. From within. Israel was attacked
by close relatives. Israel descended from Jacob.
Their attackers descended from Jacob's brother, Esau. These
are their close relatives. What a family reunion. Nobody
has a problem fighting against sin when they're in the flesh.
If they've not been born again, all they are is flesh. They never
have a problem. fighting against sin. Because
the flesh is never going to fight against the flesh. The flesh
is never going to fight against sin. But all that changes when
a sinner is born again. When someone is born again, their
heart isn't changed. They don't change their mind.
They're made new. When a sinner is born again,
there is a new person born who never existed before. And if
you look over in 1 Peter chapter 1, He's born, that new man is
born from a very different origin than the flesh is born. In 1 Peter 1, verse 23, being born again, not of fructible
seed, not of the seed of the flesh, but of incorruptible,
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. That incorruptible
seed is Christ. This is Christ being formed in
you. If you look over 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust. How is a sinful man and woman
like us made a partaker of the divine nature? When Christ is
formed in you. When you're born again. And that
which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. That which is born of
the incorruptible seed cannot sin. That which is born of the
Spirit is Spirit. It will never be anything but
Spirit. And that which is born of the flesh is flesh. It will
never be anything but corruptible flesh. And those two who come
from dynamically different backgrounds, from dynamically different seeds,
those two will never agree. They will always fight one against
the other. When a person's born again, that
old man is not eradicated. He's not destroyed. Now, he's
not in power anymore, but he's not destroyed. And he will fight,
that old man, the flesh, he will fight that new man for all he's
worth at every turn. And the new man will fight that
old man for all he's worth at every turn. Because these two
natures are opposites. One is born of the flesh. The
other is born of God. One is so completely sinful,
scripture calls the flesh corruption. It doesn't say the flesh is corrupt,
it just calls the flesh corruption because it's so sinful. The other
is perfectly holy. Those natures are opposite. They
have opposite loves, opposite desires, and they're always pulling
in opposite directions. Never will they see eye to eye. Look in Galatians chapter 5.
They will always battle. They cannot have peace. Reminds
me of this North and South Korea. They cannot leave each other
alone. They're just always got each
other. That's this old man, this new
man. They cannot have peace. They cannot coexist. In Galatians
5, verse 16, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye shall
not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit. It wars, it strives against the
Spirit. And the Spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot
do the things that you would. Now if you look over in Romans
chapter 7, the Apostle Paul gives us good commentary on what he
says here in Galatians, that you cannot do the things that
you would. Romans 7 verse 14, For we know
that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow
not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that's what
I do. If then I do that which I would
not, I can sin under the law that is good. Now then, it is
no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know
that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For the
will is present with me, but how to perform that which is
good I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that
I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is
present with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man, as that new man delights in the law of
God. But I see another law, I see
another nature in my members, warring against the law of my
mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from
the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So then, with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. That
sounds a whole lot like a civil war to me. And it's going on
constantly in the believer. And you never had that battle
until you're born again. And that war with sin begins
when you're born again, and it will never end. That war will
be fought in the believer as long as those two natures coexist. That war will continue until
God puts that old man to the ground and takes the new man
to be with him. That's the way it is for every
believer. Now, we do, we fight spiritual wickedness in high
places. We contend with error of doctrine in the world. We
contend with the hatred of truth in the world. But I'm telling
you, the real battle, is in the believer. That's where the battle
is the worst, and that's what we have pictured here in these
Amalekites' attack history. Now, verse 9, back in our text, Exodus 17.
And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, and fight
with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the
top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. So Joshua
did as Moses said to him, and he fought with Amalek. And Moses,
Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And it came
to pass, and Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed.
And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses'
hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him,
and he sat thereon. And Aaron and Hur stayed up his
hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side.
And his hands were steady till the going down of the sun. And
Joshua disconfitted Amalek and his people with the edge of the
sword." Now, this is the very first time Joshua is mentioned
in scripture, and we meet Joshua as a commander of the army, the
one going out to meet the enemy. And there are several pictures
here, and the first one I want us to look at is this. This is
our Lord Jesus, our Joshua, defeating sin. You know, the New Testament
name for Joshua is Jesus. And this is a clear picture of
our Lord Jesus Christ going to war. He went to war against the
sin of his people, and he discombitted it, utterly destroyed the sin
of his people. So, verse 14, the Lord said unto
Moses, Now you write this in a memorial, in a book, and rehearse
it in the years of Joshua. For I will utterly put out the
remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar,
and called the name of it Jehovanise. For he said, because the Lord
has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation
to generation." Now here's our second picture that we have here.
The second picture is the believers. War with sin. Now sin is defeated. We know that from God's Word.
The Lord Jesus Christ defeated sin. He put sin away. He separated
sin from his people as far east as from the west. We know that,
right? Sin is defeated. Did you have a war of sin today?
I know you did. We all did. Of course we did.
Well, I thought sin was defeated. Well, it is. Sin is defeated,
but the remembrance of sin is not put out from under heaven
yet. Not yet, it's not. And the Lord tells Moses, now
this battle is over, but you write this story and you write
what I'm telling you in a book. Don't write it in loose pages.
You put it in a book. And you rehearse it often in
the years of Joshua. Because Joshua's going to need
it. Joshua's going to need to be reminded of this often so
he does not get discouraged. Because Joshua, this went down
there and defeated the Amalekites. Joshua's going to have to defeat
them again. He's going to have to fight the Amalekites again
and again and again and again. And Joshua's not the only one.
Saul's going to have to fight the Amalekites too. Remember
the Lord told Saul, now the time's come. You go down there and you
kill every one of them. Man, woman, child, infant. You kill them all. You kill their
animals. Don't let one remain. And Saul let some escape. He kept the best animals for
himself. He saved the king alive. He saved some of them alive.
Didn't kill them all. So David had to fight him. Remember
David was out with his men and all his men, all their families,
their wives, their children, their livestock, everything they
owned was in ziklag. And the Amalekites came in and
burned ziklag to the ground and took all their families hostage.
David went to get them back and he took them all back. He didn't
lose one. Four hundred of these Amalekites. I mean, these guys
are, you can't squish them out. 400 of them got on camels and
got away from David. He couldn't get them all. That's
a picture of the ongoing warfare that every believer has with
sin. Now the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, has put away the
sin of His people. He's delivered us from sin. He's
delivered us from the power of sin. He's delivered us from the
penalty of sin. But sin has not been put away
in our body yet, has it? That old sinful nature has not
been destroyed yet. So we're going to continue with
this battle, this warfare against sin. And as you're in this battle,
God's word gives us some good instruction on how to fight this
battle. First, he tells us this. Just
remember, you'll never defeat this enemy. You will never eradicate
this enemy. Just like these Amalekites, they
just keep popping up everywhere. So is our sin. I mean, it's just
everywhere. You squish it down here, it pops
up over here. You're not going to get rid of
it. But our God will. He's going to be rid of it. When
His time comes, He will utterly put out the remembrance of sin
from under heaven. He's going to put the remembrance
of sin out of our bodies. He's going to get rid of that
old nature. This is a war that God's going to win. He's going
to ultimately defeat this enemy and put it away forever. That's
what Joshua is a picture of here. You think about this. Joshua
went down, he went out and picked out men to go out there and fight
with these Amalekites. He didn't take one trained soldier
with him. Not one, they're a bunch of slaves. The only weapons they
could have possibly had is what washed up on the banks of the
Red Sea when Pharaoh and his host were crushed in there. Maybe
there's a little bit of armor, a few swords that didn't sink
or whatever. That's what they had. That's all they had. They
didn't have time to train with it. And they went and fought
these trained warriors of the Amalekites. And Joshua defeated
them because the Lord fought for them. So we're not going
to win this warfare on our own. Second, a believer will win this
battle when we look to Christ. Israel prevailed. as they saw
Moses at the top of that mountain with that rod held above his
hand. And that rod is a picture of the power of God. This is
the rod that turned all the waters of Egypt into blood. This is
the rod that smoked the Red Sea and divided it in two. This is
the rod the day before that smoked the rock and all that water came
out. This is a picture of God's power and the justice of God
fulfilled in the hands of our Savior. And we will win this
battle when we look to the finished work of Christ. And we know Moses,
most times in scripture, he's a picture of the law. Aaron,
he's a picture of Christ, our great high priest. And her, Josephus
is her with Miriam's husband, so he's Moses and Aaron's brother-in-law.
His name means light and liberty and freedom. Well, he's a picture
of God the Holy Spirit. And these three men together
at the top of that mountain, Picture the finished work of
Christ. There's Christ keeping the law for his people, upholding
God's law, magnifying it. There's Christ, the great high
priest, who offers that sacrifice for sin. And there's God, the
Holy Spirit, applying the blood of Christ, giving life and freedom
and light to God's people. And the believer will win the
battle when we look to the finished work of our Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Third, we see this. A believer
will win this battle against sin only because Christ is interceding
for us. Those outstretched hands of Moses
picture prayer and intercession. Moses is known as a man of prayer
and intercession for Israel. Well, he's a picture of Christ
interceding for his people. Look at Romans chapter 8. We're
going to win this battle only because Christ is interceding
for us. Romans 8, verse 26. Likewise,
the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. That's how we're
going to defeat this enemy. Christ is interceding for us.
Fourth, we see this. The believer will win this battle
against sin by using the weapons that God's provided. Moses told
Joshua, you go out there and choose out men to go fight these
Amalekites. I tell you carefully, choose
the weapons that you go fight this battle with. The first weapon
we have here in our picture is prayer. Moses pictures Christ
making intercession for his people, but he also pictures the saints
praying for each other. We can intercede for one another,
pray for one another. I'm afraid many times we forget
that prayer is our most powerful weapon. This is the first weapon
we have in this warfare is prayer. And the second weapon we have
is the Word of God. Joshua disconfitted amulet with
the edge of the sword. And that sword is the Word of
God. And I tell you, read the Word often. Read it often. While we're here in this building,
we make much of God's Word. Tonight already, the men that
we're going to study have read three chapters of God's Word. Sunday, we look at three passages. Dale goes through a passage Sunday
morning. I'll get up. Read a scripture. We'll sing
a song. Get up and read another scripture. We make much of God's
Word here. It's very important. Well, make
much of it at home, too. Open it up and read it often.
God's Word will give you light. It will give you instruction.
It will give you sheep food. And it will give you the right
attitude. Sometimes you just need an attitude
adjustment. In the study, Wayne... I had him pull double duty tonight.
Thank the Lord for bringing us here that we get our attitude
fixed. That ain't going to happen by
me talking. It's God's Word. It'll give you the right attitude,
I'm telling you. And look over Psalm 119. God's Word is a powerful
weapon in this fight against sin. In Psalm 119, verse 11. Thy word have I hid in mine heart,
that I might not sin against thee." Now, I'll tell you children
something that I've heard all my life, and I'm already finding
it to be true. I've heard this from older people
all my life. The Scripture that you remember,
that's in your mind, that you can call to your mind at any
time, are what you memorize when you're your age, when you're
young. It gets harder and harder and harder to memorize those
things. When your teachers give you Bible verses to memorize,
you memorize them. Because these are the things
you'll remember when you get older. They're hid in my heart,
David said, that I might not sin against thee. This is a powerful
weapon in this fight against sin. And the fifth thing we see
here, the believers' battle against sin is not an easy victory. It's not all shock and awe, you're
just strolling. No, there's ups and downs. There's defeats and victories.
It's up and down all along the way. For Israel, this was not
a smooth victory. At times, they were losing the
battle. At times, it looked to them all
was lost. And then the tide turned and suddenly they're winning
the battle. And Israel won this battle when Moses held the rod
of God up in the air. But Moses, an old man, his hands
got tired. Oh, this is so hard. When you
go home tonight, try to hold your hands up for a see how long
you can do it. Boy, you can't do it very long. His hands got
tired. And he started letting his hands down. And when he let
his hands down, the Amalekites won. Now here, Moses is not a
picture of Christ interceding for his people. Christ never
tires. He never gets weary. He never
slumbers nor sleeps. God's hand's not short and it
can't save. God's hand don't get tired. He drops him down.
He can't save his people. Here, Moses is a picture of the
believer fighting the battle against sin in prayer. And this
is very interesting. We don't read Joshua thought
all day long to the going down of the sun. We don't read of
Joshua getting tired down there wielding that sword, but we read
of Moses getting tired. interceding in prayer for the
people. Many times, it is easier to fight than pray. And we're
just like these Israelites. At times, it seems our spiritual
warfare will utterly defeat us. Surely, the enemy is going to
consume us and destroy us. And just at that moment, when
we have absolutely no strength left of our own, the Great High
Priest and God the Holy Spirit come, they pull up a rock that
we can sit on. That's the rock Christ Jesus.
This is the rock of our salvation, the foundation of everything
we believe. This is the rock that we find
rest and we find shade from that desert sun. At the end, we're
sitting on that great rock and our Great High Priest and God
the Holy Spirit Hold up our hands. Make intercession for us. From
within us. The Spirit from within us. You
know, there are times you know you are truly praying. And there
are times, unfortunately, we know we're just going through
the motions. Well, those times when we are truly praying, the
Spirit is bearing witness with our spirit. That's what that
is. And when the Holy Spirit causes us to truly pray. Suddenly, that battle against
sin turns in our favor because we're looking to Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. The Lord Jesus Christ, our Joshua,
says be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. I've
already defeated those enemies. And when you get weary, look
to Christ. And don't wait until you get
weary. In every situation, whatever
mood you're in, look to Christ. He'll hold your hands up and
keep you to victory. And I cannot go on from this
passage without mentioning something I read from several different
places. I've heard many different pastors
speak about this. I read this week's version in
very loving terms, talking about men of his church who often held
up his hands. He said, oh, I'm weary. Just
my knees would want to give out. And these men come hold up my
hands. They pray for me. They mean so much to me. I remember
years ago, very distinctly, Henry talking about, oh, he's so weary. His hands, he just, and he said,
Jeff Thornberry so many times held up my hands. Oh, he's so
thankful. Such a blessing to me. And I
say all that to say this. Remember, we're not the only
ones in this battle. We're not the only ones fighting
this battle against sin. Earl tells me, he's so nice.
He's just nicer than me. We see people at work and they
do something stupid. And Earl's just nice to them.
I'm just like growling. And Earl says, everybody's got
a story. Everybody's going through something. You just don't know
what it is. Remember, our brothers and sisters are fighting the
same battle we're fighting. Maybe it's not going so good.
Maybe the tide's turned against them. Look for an opportunity
to hold their hands up for a little while. You'll be a blessing to
them. If you would, pray for them and help them and hold their
hands up. You'll be a blessing. Now, the title of the message
is Jehovah Nissi. I'm getting there. Moses named
this place Jehovah Nissi so they would remember the battle that
they fought. under the banner of God lifted
up in Moses' hands. And that banner is Christ. And
let me give you a few things that I hope will be a blessing
to me. There are pictures of Christ
here. Number one, very few things have an impact on the hearts
of Americans than the sight of the red, white, and blue. I mean,
it just gets your heart almost every time. We unfurl that flag
at times when we as Americans, we need some encouragement to
keep up the fight for liberty and freedom. After 9-11, that
rubble everywhere, the fire still burning, the dust in the air,
between two fallen beings hung this gigantic American flag to
encourage all those people, all those first responders, all those
people working to find survivors and help That flag stood there,
hung there, as an encouragement to them. Here in Boston, after
these bombings at the Marathon, I watched for this and I went
back today and looked at pictures to see if I was right. I couldn't
find a picture of one gathering of people after this bombing
that people weren't waving flags. Maybe they had it draped on the
fence and people were waving the flags. After they caught
that kid in that boat, and the police were going out and everybody
was cheering them, go back and look at the pictures of how many
people are waving the flag. You drag yourself in here on
a Wednesday night, and I know you're tired. You're beat down
from the fight. It seems like sin's got the upper
hand. And what you need is to come in here and have somebody
grab the banner of our Lord Jesus Christ and wait for everybody
to see. So you can be reminded of the
colors. You can be reminded of who He
is and what He's done for us and what He's done in us. The
sight of Christ our banner will encourage us to keep up the fight. We Americans sing, let freedom
ring. We wave the banner, Christ our banner. We're saying let
grace ring. Let mercy ring. Let salvation
ring. Let the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ ring. It'll be an encouragement to
His people. Number two, in times of war, the flag directs the
battle and encourages the soldiers. I truly enjoy the movie The Patriot. It's too long after I watched
it the first time, so whenever I see it on, I come in bits and
pieces of it knowing my favorite scenes are going to come up.
And one of my favorite scenes is towards the end of the movie
where the battle looks like it's going to be lost. The soldiers
are dropping their weapons and running and they're so afraid,
and Mel Gibson And he sees them running. And he sees a flag somebody
dropped so they could run faster. And he runs and picks it up.
And with determination and fire in his eyes, he runs straight
towards that enemy with nothing but the American flag. And all
those soldiers are fleeing. Stop. And he sees that flag. And they turn around and they
follow him. And they win the victory because
they're following that flag that we all love. I'm telling you
this. If you want to win this battle
against sin, follow the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a spiritual
warfare that's going on inside every believer, and the only
way it will be won is by following Christ Our Banner. Number three,
this banner, we love it, but it will always draw the attack
of the enemy. If we lower the flag, they've
got the victory. But if we raise up our banner,
Christ and Him crucified, you can rest assured we will come
under attack. Under attack of Satan, under
the attack of the world. And they'll always attack Christ
our banner. You can do lots of other things
and they'll let you alone. They will attack Christ our banner. They'll attack His person. They'll
attack His glory. They say, well now He's not God.
Now He just can't save anybody He wants. They attack His glory. Second, they attack the power
of His sacrifice. They say Christ died for everyone.
Now it's up to you. Well, when they say that, they
just took away the power of His sacrifice, didn't they? Put the
power in your hands. They take away the power of His
sacrifice. They attack the sufficiency of
His righteousness. They say, you've got to do something
to add to that righteousness. You've got to do something to
keep it. And they take away from His glory
the sufficiency of His righteousness. They attack the freeness of God's
grace. They say, now you've got to do
something to get that grace. You've got to do something to
keep God's grace. Well, now you've got to do something to get it
and you've got to do something to keep it. It's not free. Let freedom
ring. Let grace ring. Let the freedom
of grace in Christ Jesus ring. And we must be dogmatic in these
areas. We must be dogmatic about the
glory of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to be dogmatic. I mean, not move back a step
from the power of the sacrifice, the power of the blood of Christ.
We have to be dogmatic about the righteousness of Christ.
It's sufficient. He is sufficient. He's our righteousness. We have to be dogmatic. I mean,
never give an inch on the freedom of grace, God's free grace in
Christ Jesus. We must be dogmatic. Not so we
can say we're right and this one and that one and the other
one's wrong. No. I'm telling you, this is important.
Listen to me. If we allow one of these points to be weakened,
we're going to take away from the glory of Christ our banner.
We're going to take away salvation from the law. You weaken these
points, you take salvation away from someone who's lost and cannot
do anything for themselves. If you allow one of these points
to be weakened, you take the assurance of salvation away from
God's people. We must be dogmatic. Lifting
up Christ our banner will draw fire from the enemy. I'm going
to do it anyway, aren't you? There at the start of the Civil
War, those soldiers, Union soldiers in Fort Sumter, they wouldn't
lower that flag. And the shells flew. They flew. And even though
lifting up Christ our banner will draw fire from the enemy,
we're going to keep lifting him up. Because the only way sinners
will be drawn to Christ is if we lift him up. He said, and
I, if I be lifted up, will draw all unto me. As much as God gives
us the strength, we're going to lift Him up. Number four,
the banner unifies countrymen. Now people of our country have
many differences, so many you just can't even name them all.
And Republicans and Democrats, I mean, if it's a good idea,
they still can't agree on it. But let the chips get down. They
will unite behind the flag, behind the banner. When the chips are
down and liberty is threatened, we're going to unite behind this
banner, our banner. And believers do the same thing.
Believers have many differences. We have different nationalities,
different cultures, different thoughts, different backgrounds,
many different opinions about things that don't amount to a
hill of beans. But every believer, without exception,
is unified if you preach Christ. They'll be blessed. They're unified
behind Christ our banner. And last, the banner is the symbol
of victory. In the War of 1812, Francis Scott
Key watched the British bombard Fort McHenry all night long. Boy, it didn't look good. But
in those bomb blasts, he still saw those colors. He still saw
all glory was flying. And in the morning, there she
hung. still flying. He knew they hadn't been defeated.
That was the symbol of victory. And he was so inspired, he went
and wrote the poem that is our national anthem. The island of
Iwo Jima saw some of the bloodiest fighting in World War II, the
Pacific Theater. I learned this, I didn't know
this. That is the only battle where the U.S. Marine casualties
were more than the casualties of the Japanese. Boy, sometimes
that battle looked good, looked like it was going good. Other
times, it looked like disaster. And in the fifth day of that
bloody, bloody battle, five Marines went and stuck a flag on the
top of Mount Suribachi. And this is what they were saying,
this belongs to us. This is under the control of
the United States of America. This mountain is free. That's
what we do. When we preach Christ, we are
firmly planting the banner of Christ in our preaching. We're
firmly planting that banner in our hearts, saying this belongs
to the Lord Jesus Christ. This man is free in Christ Jesus. He's under the control of the
King of Kings. And when the war is over and
the soldiers come home, we have a prayer. We have a Grand Marshal,
we have a bunch of bands, we have a bunch of hoopla, probably
have some ticker tape. But you know what goes first
in the parade? Old Glory. The red, white, and blue goes
first. It's the symbol of victory. And
our worship services are victory parades. The victory of Christ
our banner. He leads the way. He is the way. He's the end of the way. And
by God's grace, We're going to continue. We're determined to
do this. Wave the banner. Wave Christ
our banner for the salvation of the lost, for the encouragement
of God's sheep, and to proclaim the victory of our Savior over
sin, death, and hell. Long may it reign. Long may it
wave. All right. Well, the Lord bless
that to you.