BANNER - SET UP OUR BANNER
BANNER – SET UP OUR BANNER
Sunday, November 11, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
The attacks within our nation on our flag, our historic statues, our borders, our churches, and our constitution are an attack on our victory as a sovereign nation. If the spirit of antichrist can erase the role of God and faith in America’s public life, then they can redefine our nation; just as many are trying to redefine the Holy Bible.
“A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag sees not the flag only, but the nation itself, and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly In the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation that sets it forth” (Henry Word Beecher).
“They” cannot dismiss the fact that America was founded upon the biblical principles of Judeo/Christian values. All the revisionism is the world cannot change the facts. The spirit of our nation cannot be defeated. The Holy Spirit still covers the Church in America and we will stand and set up our banners. (Psa. 20: 5-8).
The victorious Kingdom sets up its banners. (See sermon notes, The Lord is My Banner, 9/11/16).
Psalm 20:5-8: In the name of our God, we will set up our banners... The Lord saves His anointed. He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the LORD OUR GOD. They have bowed down and fallen; but we have risen and stand upright.
Our brave soldiers have shed blood to keep America safe and free. Many wars have been fought because of evil political maneuvers; but the brave men and women who fought in those wars paid the highest cost that our flag and our Judeo/Christian heritage stands upright. Our American flag is our banner over our nation. Our Christian flag is the banner over the victory of the Commander and Chief of the armies of Heaven and His Church.
The church must arise and cry out to our God as the Psalmist did:
Psa. 74: 4-8: The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary. Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place. They set up their banners for signs. They seem like men who lift up axes among the thick trees. Now they break down its carved work, all at once, with axes and hammers. They have set fire to Your sanctuary. They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground. They said in their hearts, “Let us destroy them altogether.” They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land…22-23: Arise, O God, plead Your own cause. Remember how the foolish man reproaches You daily. Do not forget the voice of Your enemies. The tumult of those who rise up against You increases continually.
I reviewed November 2016 sermons before and after the election. I was preaching from the Book of Joel on the Day of the Lord; and the armies of the Lord in heaven and on earth.
The Day of the Lord is a fullness of time when the Lord moves sovereignly in His creation and the affairs of man. We watched in 2016 as the LORD blew the lid off everything, overturned and destroy the altars of Baal; and the corrupt system of men.
The year 2017, has been a year of continual overturning, warfare, and battles. The revealing of the deep state corruption has only barely skimmed the surface.
Joel is the prophet of “the Day of the Lord”; The Day of the Lord comes in fullness when the night is over! The vindication in the valley deals with every strange “nation.” In the fullness of that Day, once the night is over, and gone, we shall see three glorious things fill the earth.
1 Pet. 2:9: You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praise of Him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
1. There will be one Church – one holy nation. There will be no competition between the denomi-nations. The doctrines of men will dissolve into the true Tabernacle. 2 Co. 5:1: For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2. There shall be one mind, His mind. There is one body and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
3. One God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous King of Zion!
As the army of the Lord, we have been in the trenches in 2017, pressing onward and upward to the high calling. Maps point to where God used to be, but the high calling requires a compass. It directs us to where God is and to where He is leading. We, the church, who are following wholly after the LORD are in unchartered territory.
During these days of transition of the Church, only radical disciples who love God more than themselves will follow onward. For me, it is not clear from day to day as I follow wholly after the LORD, yet I have a compass of the Holy Spirit and He is leading me daily into suddenlies, great adventure, and faith risks. I count it all joy! This transition is not redefinition of the New Covenant or a redefinition of the Church. There are some in these days who are trying to re-define the New Testament to fit their world view. There is an Old Testament given to Moses and the prophets; and a New Testament revealed in Jesus Christ and His Church. There will not be another Testament.
Do not listen to those who are trying to redefine the Kingdom government established by the Lord Jesus and His apostles. Until the Lord comes again, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law, until all be fulfilled (Mt. 5:18).
Only the Holy Spirit in power can reveal and expose the desolation and true condition of the depth of the corruption in our nation and our alliances with other nations, as well as the soul of the church.
On November 6, 2016, I wrote, “If Donald J. Trump is elected, the attack on him by the liberal media will be more brutal than anything we have seen to date.”
Only God can sustain us in the day of persecution.
2 Ti. 3:1-13: In the last days perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away…Just as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith…Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Rom. 12:21: Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
God responds to evil not by obliterating it, but by making evil itself serve a higher good. God overcomes evil by absorbing it. Death is swallowed up by life. Jesus took death upon Himself and in Himself, forgave it, then removed it. By His blood Jesus took away sin (Jn. 1:29: Rev. 1:5) and destroyed him who had the power of it. Now His blood within us is at work to fulfill His victory within a people, to bring us into life and immortality!
All this lower “life” must be laid down in order to receive the higher life of God (Rom. 5:10) “life” = “Zoë”. The Zoe life of God: Strong’s #G2222: “The absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs To God and through him both to the hypostatic “logos” and to Christ in whom the “logos” put on human nature. Life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.”
The blood of the life of God flows from His “new heart” from within us (Ez. 18:31; 36:26). We first received this “new heart” in regeneration, the new birth (Jn. 3:7).
There will be a generation of people who will put on life and immortality. God is going to “cleanse the blood” of His people. A new creation will have a new mind, heart, attitude, will, desire, pleasure and contentment. (2 Cor. 5:17).
The “new heart” of the “new man” (Eph.2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10) is pumping His new life (Zoe) through us, cleansing us.
Eph. 4:24: That you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Col. 3:10: And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.
There will be a generation who will break their appointment with the last enemy by His blood! The sons of Zion will be loosed from their appointment with death (Ps. 102:18-21; Jn. 11:25-26; Rom 2:7).
The message of God’s life was brought to light through the gospel; Jesus met the appointment, tasting death for every man.
Heb. 2: 7-14: He that sanctified and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren…Just as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil…
We shall be changed “in a moment” (1 Cor. 15: 51-57). This is the Greek construction en atomos. We shall be changed in the atoms. This shall happen “at” (in during) the last trump. The last trump is the seventh trump, the clear message of perfection (maturity) being sounded by His prophets. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. No law, no sin. No sin, no death.
Spiritual life is not ethereal and outside of us, or something we must work hard to obtain. (Dissolve Yes! – Work No!) Spiritual life is within us, just as blood is in every living thing (Jn. 6:53-57). Again, this is the principle of overcoming in this shared blood of His life (Zoe of God).
John 6:53-57: Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you no life (Zoë) in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats me, even he shall live (Zao) by me.
Zao: “live, breathe, be among the living (not lifeless, not dead); to enjoy real life; to have true life and worthy of the name; active, blessed, endless in the Kingdom of God; to live, i.e. pass life, in the manner of the living and acting; living water, having vital power in itself and exerting the same upon the soul; to be in full vigor; to be fresh, strong, efficient, active, powerful efficacious.”
Zoe: The Zoe life of God: Strong’s #G2222: “The absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic “logos” and to Christ in whom the “logos” put on human nature. Life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.”
Jesus is life (Jn. 11:25; Rev. 1:18). The Lord’s supper sums up all three tenses of His once-for-all victory---the Life that was, the One who died for us; the Life that is, the One who live sin us; and the Life that will be, the One who will swallow up every memory of death!
No other New Testament concept expresses the truth of “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27) better than the blood, His life in you.
Jesus Christ is Heaven’s banner, the rallying point of all creation. John explained that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.” So the Son of man was lifted up on the cross and His ascension (Jn. 3:14). When the “flag” was ready to be raised at Calvary, Jesus said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.”
I have preached several sermons on The Lord Our Banner (9/11/16) because the LORD has chosen to give me at least four visions of the “flag.” The battle against our flag is against Christ’s blood covenant over this nation. Some say, America doesn’t have a covenant with the LORD. I am not of that persuasion.
We will close with Communion of the Lord’s Supper.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. I entered into the labors of Sound the Alarm by Kelley Varner. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Rev. Varner (1949-2009).