© 2019 Don Pinson | [Download]
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Recently one of the churches in our community held a special meeting on Flag Day, June 14th. They honored the United States Flag, “…the Republic for which it stands…”, and the soldiers who have defended that Republic. Our original Continental Congress approved the basic design of our Flag on June 14th, 1777, which is why the day has been set aside as a day to honor our Flag.
I remember being taught the importance of our Flag as a child by my Dad and Mom. Dad was a World War II veteran and had a great love for our country. The public school I attended likewise taught us respect for country and the Flag which represents it. We saluted the Flag and pledged allegiance to it every morning. This is rarely done now as the emphasis through the education system is on nations coming together in a one-world government. We were taught the Biblical understanding that:
“God hath made of one blood all nations of men…and appointed…the boundaries of their habitation.” (Acts17:26, emphasis added)
Now most children don’t even know the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Let’s carefully consider this pledge in an effort to regain its powerful message. The Pledge states:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The word pledge, defined by Noah Webster in his original 1828 dictionary means “to give as a warrant or security.” In other words, when we pledge to do something, we are giving our solemn promise.
The word allegiance means the ‘duty of firm adherence to the government under which one is born.’ (Paraphrased from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary) Thus, when we “pledge allegiance” we are committing to firmly guard our country against all who would seek to take away its right to exist. This commitment must agree with the Bible to be valid, for no commitment to an earthly person or thing can be valid if that person or thing is not in the order of God. As Acts 5:29 says, “We must obey God rather than men.”
We “…pledge allegiance…to the Republic for which [the Flag] stands.” Webster defines a Republic as: “A commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people.” A “commonwealth” he defines as: “A certain portion of men united by compact or…agreement, under one form of government and system of laws.” In other words we are pledging allegiance, not to one man as the Germans did to Hitler in the 1930s. We are pledging our allegiance to a government in which we the people have ourselves chosen our laws. And those civil laws must be in agreement with the Biblical moral laws to be valid. Thus, we pledge to defend law as the highest authority, not one man’s will as the highest authority!
The next phrase in the pledge is: “One nation under God…” America exists only because of the plan of God. Her purpose is wrapped up in the desire of Jesus Christ to get His Gospel to the world. It is only “under God” that she is “indivisible”; and it is only “under God” that she will have “liberty and justice for all.” “Justice” means “giving to everyone what is his due.” This is impossible in a nation that does not embrace the Bible as the standard for what is right or wrong. This is why Jedediah Morse, a leader in our early Republic, warned us:
“…Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present Republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.”
(Morse, Jedediah. April 25, 1799, in Jedediah Morse’s Election Sermon given at Charleston, Mass.; taken from an original in the Evans collection compiled by the American Antiquarian Society. Verna M. Hall, Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America (San Francisco: Foundation for America Christian Education, 1975), pp. v, 145.)
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.