Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2979
“You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” Psalm 60:4.
MOST writers upon this Psalm, after having referred the banner to the Kingdom of David, say that there is here a reference to the Messiah. We believe there is. Nor is that reference an obscure allusion. In the Lord Jesus we find the clue to the history and the solution of the prophecy. He is the banner—He is the ensign that is lifted up before the people. He is Jehovah-Nissi, “the Lord My Banner,” whom it is our joy to follow and around whom it is our delight to rally. We shall not stay to prove—though we might readily do so—that the banner here intended is no other than the Lord Jesus Christ in the majesty of His Person—in the efficacy of His merit—in the completeness of His righteousness—in the success of His triumph—in the glory of His advent. If you read it with an eye to Him, you have the meaning at once— “You has given Christ as a banner to those who fear You, to be displayed because of the truth.” So let us consider our Lord Jesus Christ, first, as He is compared to a banner. Secondly, by whom Hie is given. Thirdly, to whom Hie is given. And fourthly, for what purpose.
I. Let us consider OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST AS HE IS COMPARED TO A BANNER.
The banner was far more useful, I suppose, in ancient, than it is in modern warfare. Times have changed and we are changed by them. Yet we still speak with reverence of the old flag. There is much meaning in the phrase, “the flag that’s braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze.” The soldier still waves the flag of his country and the sailor still looks with patriotic pride to the flag that has so long floated at England’s masthead. Our metaphor, perhaps, rather points to ancient than present use.
We should notice, first of all, that the banner was lifted up and displayed as the point of union. When a leader was about to gather troops for a war, he hoisted his banner and then every man rallied to the standard. The coming to the standard, the rallying round the banner, was the joining with the prince, the espousing of his cause. In the day of battle, when there was always a likelihood that the host would be put to flight, the valiant men all fought around the banner. Its defense was of the first and chief consequence. They might leave the baggage for a while—they might forsake the smaller flags of the divisions—but the great blood-red banner that with prayer had been consecrated—they must all gather round it, and there, if necessary, shed their heart’s blood.
Christ, my Brothers and Sisters, is the point of union for all the soldiers of the Cross! I know of no other place where all Christians can meet. We cannot all meet—I am sorry that we cannot—at the baptismal stream. There are some who will not be baptized—they still persist in the sin of putting drops of water in the place of the ordained flood and bringing infants where faith is required. We cannot all meet even around the table of the Eucharist—there are some who thrust aside their brethren because they do not see eye to eye with them. And even the Communion Table has sometimes become a field of battle. But all Christians can meet in the Person of Christ! All true hearts can meet in the work of Christ! This is a banner that we all love, if we are Christians, and far from it are those who are not. Here to Your Cross, O Jesus, do we come! The Churchman laden with his many forms and vestments. The Presbyterian with his stern Covenant, and his love of those who stained the heather with their blood. The Independent with his passion for liberty and the separateness of the free churches. The Methodist with his intricate forms of Church Government, sometimes forms of bondage, but still forms of power. The Baptist, remembering his ancient pedigree and the days in which his fathers were hounded even by Christians, themselves, and counted not worthy of that name—they all come to Christ!
Various opinions divide them. They do not see eye to eye on many matters. Here and there they will have a skirmish for the old landmarks and rightly so, for we ought to be jealous, as Josiah was, to do that which is right in the sight of the Lord, and neither decline to the right hand nor to the left. But we rally to the Cross of Christ! And there all weapons of national warfare being cast aside, we meet as Brothers, fellow comrades in a blessed Evangelical Alliance who are prepared to suffer and to die for His dear sake! Forward then, Christians, to the point of union! In the crusade against the powers of darkness, with the salvation of sinners for my one undivided aim, little care I for anything but the lifting up of my Master’s Gospel and the proclamation of the Word of mercy through His flowing blood!
Again, the banner, in time of war, was the great guide-star, it was the direction to the soldier. You remember what special care they took, in the day of battle, that in case the standard-bearer should fall, there might still be some means of guiding the warriors.