Jehovah Nissi: The Lord Is My Banner

Proofread Broadcast Transcript

We're glad you're here. We're glad you're here. Fellowship is sweeter, knowing you're near.

So good to see you. We hope that it's clear. Everyone loves you.

We're glad you're here. Welcome to Mark & Friends. I'm your host, Donna Leland.

And today we have our Bible facilitator back. It's Karilyn Eastvold. And she has been so faithful to be digging into the names of God.

And these are names that he communicated himself in the Old Testament. And it still has so much information for us today. Welcome, Karilyn, to Mark & Friends.

Thank you, Donna. It's good to talk to you again. You're a familiar voice and you're also an amazing friend of the ministry.

I just want to make sure people understand that you and your husband, Paul, have just been foundational to the WLUJ community in Springfield. Paul is our super volunteer. So we're just very appreciative of everything that you have given to this ministry over the years and your faithfulness.

So we enjoy that. Well, what is our name for today? The name for today is Jehovah Nissi. Not nearly as familiar as El Shaddai or Jehovah Jireh.

But Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner. Like I said, I wasn't really excited about this one until I started studying it. Me too.

But it's very powerful. Going over the word Jehovah again. Jehovah, which is our translation for Yahweh, which is God's covenant name that he gave to his people.

The great I am. I am who I am. It means he's a self-existent one.

We're totally dependent on him for our existence, but he is not dependent on any other being for his existence. He's self-existent. He is Yahweh.

Then the second part of that name is Nisi, N-I-S-S-I, which means banner. So the Lord is my banner. Yahweh is my banner.

Now we want to figure out what the significance of that is. Ancient armies used to carry standards or banners that served as marks of identification, and they expressed the ideals of their people. If you just think about the Star Spangled Banner and think about during the Revolutionary War when Baltimore was attacked by the British.

And as the song says, when the sun came up, they saw that flag still hanging there and think that that meant to them. We are this little fledgling nation that is surviving, and we're independent. We have like values, and we had victory that night.

So that banner is very, very significant to the people who live under that. But the ancient people didn't necessarily use a flag. They would have a pole and a wooden piece of metal on it that could be seen from a distance, especially if the sun would shine on that piece of metal.

They could see it from miles away. And so that was carried by either a leader in the front of the army, or it would be planted on the high hill. And it was used as a rallying point for the troops before the battle and as a signal that the battle had been won.

So the Hebrew word for pole is nes, n-e-s, which means banner. We can translate it as pole or banner. So that's how they came to the Lord is my banner.

And the first use, we always like to go back to the first use, right? Absolutely. I really enjoy that aspect of these. Okay, the first use then is in Exodus 17.

In verse 5, it says that Moses built an altar and named it the Lord is my banner. Why did he do that? If we read back a little ways in Exodus, we'll see that the Amalekites were attacking the Israelites. And Joshua and the Israelites fought against the Amalekites while Moses stood on top of a hill with the staff of God in his hands.

And when Moses, I know this is a familiar story, when Moses' hands were lifted up, the Israelites were winning. But when he lowered his hands, the Amalekites began to win. So, of course, he got tired with his arms raised up like that.

So he sat down on a stone and Aaron and Hur held up his hands. And Israel did win the victory. And then God instructed Moses to write an account of the battle on the scroll so that it would be remembered.

And it was then that Moses built that altar and he named it the Lord is my banner. So that name proclaims God's leadership and his protection of his people. Verse 15 tells us Moses built an altar and called it the Lord is my banner.

He said because hands were lifted up against the throne of the Lord and the Lord will be a war against Amalekites from generation to generation. So the Lord is my banner is the translation of the Hebrew words Yahweh Nissi. So to even understand that, we have to go back to say who are the Amalekites? We need some history here.

Oh, yeah. Some context. So the Amalekites were descendants of Amalek.

And Amalek was a grandson of Esau. And so they were a fierce warring people. Of course, the Israelites just came out of being slaves.

So they weren't soldiers. They were slaves coming into freedom. But this group of Amalekites were warring people and they were fierce.

And they were the very first ones to attack Israel after they escaped Egypt. And their strategy of attack was to attack the weakest, the tired, the people that were lagging behind the group. So Israel had just experienced God's miraculous deliverance from Egypt.

They had 10 plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea. They'd eaten the bread and then drank the water that God provided them. And then they came under this attack.

But the Amalekites, because they were trying to stop God's plan for his people, they became perpetual enemies of God. So going back even further to Esau, the grandfather. Remember, Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau.

Esau was the oldest. And as the oldest, he would receive the inheritance of the oldest son. But he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of porridge to satisfy his immediate hunger.

I think we can kind of identify with Esau when we have those fleshly cravings that just seem like they can't wait. I've got to have it right now. So those immediate fleshly cravings were a battle for Esau, which he lost.

But God said to Moses in Deuteronomy 25, Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt, how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary and he did not fear God. Therefore, this is still God speaking, Therefore it shall come about that when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land in which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. You must not forget.

We can identify, right? We constantly battle just like Esau did. We battle our fleshly desires. And then Israel had a constant battle with Esau's descendants.

So it's kind of ongoing and we just need to be on our guard. We don't want to be the ones that are lagging behind or that grow faint and weary. And for sure, we never want to forget to fear God.

Absolutely. Just recently, Benjamin Netanyahu referenced the Amalekites. He says that the current fight against the murderers of Hamas is another chapter in the generations-long story of our national resilience.

Remember what Amalek did to you. Yeah, so he takes it all the way back. And I remember there's another verse.

I think it was Esau and his descendants. They went out and everywhere they went, it says, around the Egyptian area, they caused trouble and no one wanted to be around them. They did.

Yes. So it just continues to go on generation after generation. Just like God said it would.

Mm-hmm. I kind of wonder what's so important about the fact that Moses' arms had to be lifted up in that battle. Well, not only was he holding the staff of God, which symbolized God's power to the Israelites.

Think about what his staff had already done. It became a serpent that swallowed Pharaoh's serpents. It parted the Red Sea and many of the other miracles.

But not only was he holding that up, but his posture of holding his arms up to the Lord, that was a universal sign or posture of prayer. So the army was fighting, but Moses was praying. He was calling on God's power to give the victory over the Amalekites, and he was holding up a visual of God's power for all of them to see.

So let's look at what was God teaching the Israelites through this battle? Well, hopefully they learned that God would give them the victory over their enemies as long as they relied on him. That God is their victor and their champion. Dr. Tom Constable said Jehovah used the attack of Amalek on Israel at the very beginning of their national history to demonstrate to his chosen people the potency of intercession, of intercessory prayer.

The event reveals a mighty means of strength and victory, which God has graciously afforded his people of all ages. And that includes us. We have that power of intercessory prayer.

Then there's another time, another banner that comes up in Numbers 21. The Israelites had been wandering the wilderness for years, and they were following the pillar of cloud which God has leading them. But they became discouraged and disillusioned, and they started complaining.

And my Bible says, but the people grew impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread. There is no water.

And we detest this miserable food, this miserable food that God had provided. And then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them, and they bit the people, and many Israelites died. Verse 7 says, the people came to Moses and said, we sinned when we spoke against Yahweh and against you.

Pray that Yahweh will take away the snakes. So Moses prayed for the people. He interceded for them.

And then the Lord said to Moses, make a snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look on it and live. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole.

Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at that bronze snake, they looked at it. If they believed enough to look at it, that's all they had to do, and then they would live. So they became like, we do.

I think when we have complaints, we tend to exaggerate the situation. You know, God hates us. Moses is a fool.

The manna from heaven tastes like garbage. Yeah. And life was better in Egypt, right? No.

But again, God provided them with a banner, a rallying point. And they had to have enough faith to obey God and to look up. And they were healed.

So the interesting thing is that Jesus himself talks about this incident. Remember in John 3, Nicodemus had come to him. The Pharisee had come to him under the secrecy of nighttime and asked him some questions.

And this is a very famous passage. Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus what it means to be born again. And in verse 14, Jesus said to him, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.

And then, of course, this very next verse is John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, and whosoever should believe in him will not perish but have eternal life. So when was this Son of Man lifted up? What was Jesus talking about? He referred to himself as the Son of Man when he was here on earth.

But when was he lifted up? I mean, that is the perfect picture of the cross. It is. It doesn't get any better.

Those two parallels are incredible. That's exactly right. The cross of Christ where he paid in full for our sins.

He provided for our forgiveness. That's the banner on which we can rally. So the bronze serpent, as you said, was a beautiful object lesson of what was to come.

But we need to remember that we are in a battle. And when we're in a battle, where do we run? We run to the banner of Christ, knowing that that victory is already won. It's in his cross that we have the power to conquer.

We forget that. We do. It's so easy to forget.

Another thing I think is so beautiful. Maybe you've already put that in your notes. I don't want to steal any of your thunder here coming up.

But I just love that all we have to do is look. We don't have to fight the snake. We don't have to say sorry, sorry over again for getting bit by the snake.

We just look. And we say, heal me. And it's so beautiful.

That's the gospel. What do we do to get saved? We look. And it's not by works.

So just to review that a little bit, a banner is something that identifies and unifies a particular group of people, like a military flag or our flag or all the flags of the nations that we see, like at the Olympics. That group of people is identified by their banner, by their flag. So the Israelites saying, the Lord is my banner was a way for them to identify as a unified group of followers of Yahweh.

And then a banner also functioned as a rallying point for the troops in a battle. Let's go back again to Exodus 17. The altar Moses built marked a place where God intervened on behalf of his people and promised to utterly defeat his enemies.

In her book, Kay Arthur said, she has a book on the names of God. And she said, only by abiding under the power and standard, the banner, the instant of your Jehovah Nissi, can you have victory over the flesh, the world, and the devil, which are your enemies and God's enemies under the banner of God. Victory is always assured, but apart from it, defeat is certainty.

As we close thinking about this name, let's turn to Psalm 20 in verse five. It says, may we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God. So there we have victory and banner and the name of our God, all the same sentence.

Versus six, it goes on. It says now this, I know the Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord, our God, they are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm. So God's people can continue to say, we can continue to say the Lord is my banner because it is his power that enemies are vanquished. We can, the Lord is our banner is he's the one under whom we unite.

He's our savior. We are rescued by him and we identify in him. Have you ever been traveling and you met some other Christians and immediately you were united.

A lot of times I can find them because they have their banner is their t-shirts. People are running around wearing their banner by saying, I trust the Lord or Bible verse. Or one time we were out in the middle of Yellowstone and I had a WMBI bumper sticker on the back of our van.

And sure enough, the people next to us was so excited because we both listened and yeah, that's, that's one way we can show our banners. Well, this is kind of interesting to study it, but what are some life lessons that we can learn from this name of God? Wear t-shirts with the name Jesus on it. No, I'm just kidding.

Well, okay. I came up with three. You might come up with some more.

First, we need to have good memories, right? We need to think back. Oh, the times that God has been faithful and, and we've experienced victory, but then we can also remember maybe there was a time when we were trying to deal with a spiritual enemy. And then I tried to do it at our own strength.

And how did that work out? Not good, not good. So in fact, he alone is the one that gives us the victory. And we have to remember that it is only by God's power that we can be victorious.

It's not us. And the cross of Christ is our rallying point. It's our banner.

And secondly, I was thinking about Moses praying on that hilltop with his arms lifted up towards heaven and the power of his intercessory prayer. There's power when we pray for one another. And you do that every day on your morning show, when you pray your intercessory prayer for some, whatever God has laid on your heart.

And I was thinking about that. I thought there's power in not only you praying, but all your listeners are praying with you and what great power there is in coming before the Lord and intercessory prayer for another. So I always appreciate that.

I wonder if we should ask everyone to raise their hands, you know, in the air next time we do our, maybe we should, I mean, it's only a two minute prayer. So I think we could keep our hands up for two minutes. Maybe we should do that.

Yeah, that would be really cool. And then back in Exodus 17, 15, Moses built a memorial to remember God's protection and power. Remember from this very first battle that they had to fight.

So what I was thinking about, what are some memorials that we can create to help us remember God's victories, victories in the past that help us to have the courage to endure the current ones? I thought of journaling. Yeah. What comes to your mind? Pictures for some reason, photographs, maybe, you know, putting around your home, just a memorial of moments in time where God was faithful.

Right. That's a good one. Yeah.

I have a plant. That was given to me at a time like that. And I, and it's an inside plant, but you could plant a tree or something, you know, object of remembrance, something that when you see it, you're reminded of God's power and his faithfulness.

We need that. We do need it. We forget.

We do. We need these little, Oh yeah, that's right. God is here.

He's with me. And you know, he's in this moment with me. Another book about praying the names of God is Anne Spangler's book.

She said that just as the Israelites were freed from their bondage to Egypt, we are freed from bondage to sin and to Satan. The moment we surrender ourselves to Christ, but we still face countless battles on our way to the promised land of heaven. And some of those worst battles are internal.

As we struggle to overcome the dividing wall in our own souls, kind of spiritual ambivalence that makes us easy prey for our enemies. Today, as you face spiritual battles of many kinds, remember to hold high the banner of God's power, knowing that he alone gives a victory, no matter how fierce the enemy, he alone gives a victory. And we do have to remind ourselves of who it is that lives within us and whose banner we live under.

That verse comes back to mind. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord. Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner.

The Lord, my banner leading from the sky. From Edom's fight, to lands of peace restored. His guiding hand, my soul has soared.

The Lord is my banner. Victory sign. In every triumph, is my divide.

With strength from above, I'll never fall. The Lord is my banner. Over all.

The force of truth, that pride laid in the dust. In God's own power, I place my trust. With every step, his presence lights my way.

A better race for endless days. The Lord is my banner. Victory sign.

In every triumph, is my divide. With strength from above, I'll never fall. The Lord is my banner.

Over all. In Edom's silence, his glory shines so clear. A standard for all to adhere.

Through war and peace, his love will ever lead. My banner strong in every need. The nations bow his name, they now confess.

In David's reign, his righteousness. With every breath, I lift his banner high. The Lord my guide until I die.

The Lord is my banner. Victory sign. In every triumph, is my divide.

With strength from above, I'll never fall. The Lord is my banner. Over all.

Oh, the swing of time, where banners went so free. In God's own love, my victory. Forever healthy, his eternal care.

The Lord is my banner. Always there. Thanks for listening to Mark & Friends, and thanks to Karilyn Eastvold for being our Bible facilitator.

Mark & Friends is a ministry of Great News Media. We thank you so much for being a part of our listening and our giving family. Have a great day.