Christ the Standard Bearer – Charles Spurgeon

WHENEVER the old Knights of the Red Cross fought the Saracens, they always endeavored to make their steel ring upon the helmet of the man whose hand held the crescent, the standard of Mohammed; ever the fight was bloodiest around the standard. Sometimes when the battle was over if you walked the field, you would see it strewn with legs and arms and mangled bodies everywhere. In one place there would be a heap where they were piled one upon another, a great mountain of flesh and armor, broken bones and smashed skulls, and you would ask, “What is this? How came they here? How trampled they so upon one another, and fought in pools of human blood?” The answer would be, “‘Twas there the standard-bearer stood, and first the adversary made a dash and stole the banner, and then fifty knights vowed to redeem it, and they dashed against their foes and took it by storm, and then again hand to hand they fought with the banner between them, first in one hand and then in another, changing ownership each hour. Well, dear friends, Christ Jesus has always been the object of attack. You will remember when justice came forth against the elect it made five rents in the great banner, and those five rents all-glorious are in the banner still. Since that day many a shot has sought to riddle, but not one has been able to touch it. Borne aloft, first by one hand and then by another, the mighty God of Jacob being the strength of the standard-bearers, that flag has bidden defiance to the leaguered hosts of the flesh and the devil, but never has it been trailed in the river, and never once carried in jeering triumph by the adversary.