The American flag stands for freedom. If you go anywhere in the world where you do not have a Judeo-Christian worldview, you don’t have freedom. You don’t have the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, or the freedom to assemble. We live in a day and age where America is insulted left and right. The flag is an insult!
Let’s face it: many of our politicians who are going to be elected in a few months will raise their hand and say that they are going to pledge allegiance to America, then immediately upon taking office, begin working to unravel the Constitution.
America is rooted in a Judeo-Christian worldview that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The United States is being mocked for our founding, but the reality is that the flag stood for freedom in the past, and it still stands for freedom—it is for that reason that it is assaulted at every turn.
Earlier this month, we celebrated Independence Day. It means a lot more than hot dogs, ice cream, and going to the cabin. As nice as all that is, the Declaration of Independence is incalculably more significant. It declared that we are independent from England, that we acknowledge that there is a God, and that we recognize that there are certain inalienable rights. Our founders were determined to do something different than any other nation. The Revolutionary War took six years of fighting to bring about that conclusion.
I recently read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States and prayed for America as God commands us to do in whatever country He places us. I was reminded that we are ambassadors for Him and, as such, we ought to be praying for the good of the people and working to that end.
I once took my children to Baltimore to visit Fort McKenry. Fort McKenry covered the harbor so that when the British came back to finish the job 30 years after the Revolutionary War in 1814, McKenry was the only thing standing in their way.
The stakes were high: it was the British superpower against a little colony. They had destroyed Washington, burning the city to the ground, and now they were coming up the river system to Baltimore, which was the third largest city in America. McKenry was the only obstacle as they tried a ground assault. They couldn’t sack the fort and the flag was still standing.
Francis Scott Key went out to negotiate for one of the dignitaries in the area, had been picked up by the British, and watched as their ships assembled two miles out. They bombarded Fort McKenry for 25 hours with one objective: to make that flag come down, which would convey that America had surrendered. If the flag stood, that meant that they were still resisting. That’s where The Star Spangled Banner comes from.
Many today attack The Star Spangled Banner and are completely ignorant of what it represents. What is this banner that still flies? It is the banner of freedom. Too many Americans have never heard the fourth stanza, which states that it was the providence and grace of God that allowed us to be a nation:
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand; Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land; Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just; And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave; O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Hold it! I thought America had no Christian Roots. I thought we were a secular Country. No. Freedom is rooted in the reality that there’s a God who has made us and made us in His image. The Star-Spangled Banner, which was only written 30 years after our nation’s inception, ends in acknowledgment of God.
As you look around, even just within the last year, the landscape is changing. Flags within the United States are changing.
The historic flag of the Ottoman Empire dawned a crescent moon and an eight-pointed star. If you ask a Muslim person today, they will tell you that Muslim flags across the Middle East always have these two symbols. Muhammad’s tribe worshiped Celestial deities, and Allah was the moon god. The eight-pointed star represented the Babylonian god Ishtar. Those two symbols from the very beginning up until today are a testimony of their roots.
The Betsy Ross flag and all of our flags have five points—the reason for that goes all the way back to George Washington. Sadly, we are seeing a transition all across the country with these eight-pointed stars being added to our flags. The city of Hutchinson, Kansas, has an eight-point star on its new flag. The state of Utah’s new flag also includes an eight-point star. Washington State—named after the first American president, George Washington—has a green flag with his picture on it, similar to a dollar bill. That flag has come under attack, and shockingly, funds are now being raised to change it to a blue and green mountainscape featuring an eight-point star in the sky.
That’s happening all across the United States.
Children in schools are being taught that all religions are the same, Christianity and Islam are the same, and so forth. That is not true.
If you want to have a place with no freedom, go to an Islamic country. There, you won’t find freedom or prosperity; you will find oppression.
The scriptures say there are only two kingdoms. The stark difference is obvious. The American flag meant something back in 1814 when that battle took place at Fort McHenry. It still means something today. That’s why it’s hated. Freedom is a gift from God, and we should pray for it. We should ask that God’s grace would be upon this country. We should ask that God would give us leaders after His own heart—good leaders who fear Him, turn away from evil, and stand for freedom.
