From another pocket produce a white piece of bunting with the figures "18" marked on it, and say: "I am a temperance advocate. I believe in the Eighteenth Amendment, and I will support it with all my heart. It is a glorious part of the Constitution of the United States. I will not call it a failure, and thereby cause the wicked to jeer at it. I will not speak slightingly of it, and thereby cause the weak to disrespect it. I believe it came from God and it has come to stay. I am for it with all my soul."
A visitor once came as a stranger to a Southern town on the eve of "a license" or "no-license campaign," and was asked by one of the liquor men which side he was on, He replied: "You just step up to God and ask him which side he is on; step up to the wives and children of the drunkards, and ask them which side they are on; I am on the same side."
He was out and out a defender of the glorious Eighteenth Amendment. Now place this flag over the pulpit next to the Stars and Stripes. At this time produce from another pocket the church flag, which is the white flag with a red cross in its center, and as you display it, say: "I am out and out for the Church of God. I love its walls and its glorious old songs. I live in it and live for it, because I want to do good by my example. I need the church. There is mighty power in 'the assembly.'"
This I say with my lips, and this I say also by my example. Jesus was a church-goer, and I want to be like him. It was his custom to go to the assembly. It was a good custom. The Church is "the meeting-place," not the place where we meet each other only, but where we meet God. It is good to be there. Jesus went there to meet his heavenly Father, for "God is in his holy temple." Heaven bless the meeting-house.
God feels hurt if we do not come to see him, because we are the children of his heart. Let us go to church.
When Mr. Moody was converted he went out every Sunday morning and collected half a dozen boys and brought them into the church, and they sat in the same church pew with him, "He showed his colors." Here wave the church flag and place this flag beside the Eighteenth Amendment flag.
Draw out now from another pocket a missionary flag (the conquest flag) and say, "I believe in spreading the good news of the gospel to all the world." Here is a good story about a missionary potato. A little boy, a son of a rich and prosperous farmer, came home one day from Sunday school very much excited about the stories he had heard about the heathen people who worshiped idols. "Never mind about them, John," said the father, "we have no money to send them, besides we have heathen enough at home."
This did not satisfy John, and he puzzled his curly head with his own plans to help them.
One day he said to his father who seemed to be in a good humor, "Daddy, if you will not give me money to help the heathen will you give me a potato?" "Why certainly, son, I will give you a peck if you like." John said, "No, daddy, only one good one, and give me land enough to plant it in, and all it will produce in four years."
This pleased the father greatly and he promised him he would be glad to do this and he said to himself, "This lad of mine will make a good farmer some day." So John planted his potato, and the first year it rewarded him by producing nine. These he carefully kept for planting, and the second year he had a peck. These became seven and a half bushels the third year, and when the fourth harvest came, lo, the one potato had increased to seventy bushels. When he took them to town he told the store-keeper that he had some missionary potatoes to sell. "That must be a new kind of potato," the store-keeper said, "well, bring them over and if they are all right I'll take 'em." So he sold his potatoes for a good price and gave the money to missions. His father seeing this, concluded he would become a missionary helper also, and gave liberally each year of his money for the cause. So John showed his "missionary colors" and won his father by so doing. Jesus wants us to come out into the open and tell the world the story of his love. "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed [show your colors] because of the truth" (Ps. 60: 4). We are the flags in full view of the people. Let us display our colors.