MAKING A CHURCH FLAG

OBJECTS: The Word "Come" Made by Flag Signals

One of the best church flags is the flag of invitation.

Let me tell you how you can make one to hang from your steeple point, and decorate your meeting-room. You can also carry it in your church parade, and hang it over the pulpit when you give your lesson.

It is a set of signal flags which spell out "Come." Here are the flags arranged as a streamer. They can be made of bunting or silk and fastened on a cord in the following order.

These flags say "Come" to the outside world. It is your invitation in the air.

The colors can be made to mean "White—Purity". Here is the church to which you are invited. You will be taught that purity is a gift from God, through Jesus Christ. It is given away in the church at the meeting. Come, and receive it.

The Red stands for the blood of Jesus, which makes black white, and takes away sin.

The Yellow stands for Glory. Yellow is the dominating color in the sunset which shows forth the glory of God. The glory of life is produced by the forgiveness of sin. The glory we can take with us to the City of Glory. The life all-glorious is the life offered by the church. The salvation of the soul makes the soul shine forth like the sun.

Note that the last flag of the word "Come" contains the three colors of our flag, the red, white, and blue; so in the church the best citizens are made and stay made. The flag calls you to the ascending life.

These flags are like the bells around the high priest's garments—the bells of invitation. When the Jews heard the clang of those bells in the hem of the high priest's garment they knew it was a call to worship. The bells said, "Come, worship!" The word "come" occurs six hundred and forty-two times in the Bible. It is "Come to the supper"; "Come to the waters"; "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come"; "Come," "Come now"; "Come to Jesus." The call is for all. Hang this signal on the top of the world, the highest mountaintop, it tells the same story to all people, "Come." A minister of the gospel hastening to the train with only a moment to spare, was stopped by a gentleman, who ran after him, and asked him this question, "O, sir, stop a moment, I am anxious about my soul, and I want to know what to do." "Well," said the pastor, "my train is just here, and I can only say turn to Isaiah 53:6. Go in at the first 'all,' and go out at the last 'all.'" "What does he mean," said the stranger. He went to the Bible and read the text: "All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." So he repeated to himself the minister's message "Go in at the first 'all,' come out at the last 'all.'" So he read the text again, "All." "All we like sheep have gone astray." That was the first "all." "Yes, that is where I am to 'go in,' I'll go." He believed it. "Hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The second "all." "Jesus bore the sins of 'all,' so he bore my sins. That is where I go out, through the last 'all.' I go in as a sinner on the first 'all,' I come out through the last 'all' because my sins were all laid on him"; and in so doing he rejoiced in Christ, his Saviour. That is what the signal "Come" says. Hear it singing, "Come." Listen to the call of the signals which, interpreted by Isaiah 53:6, rings out, "Come in at the first 'all,' go out at the last 'all.'" And so make your church flag, and as you read its meaning, go and tell it to all the people.