The Battle Hymn of The Republic - The End of Days?

 

The Battle Hymn of The Republic – The End of Days?

 

Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of The LORD;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift Sword;

His Truth is marching on.

 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

His Truth is marching on.

 

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;

His Day is marching on.

 

I have read His fiery Gospel writ in rows of burnished steel!

“As ye deal with My condemners, so with you My Grace shall deal with you!

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel.”

Since GOD is marching on.

 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant my feet!

Our GOD is marching on.

 

In the beauty of the lilies CHRIST was born across the sea,

With a Glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!

While GOD is marching on. [Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management]

 

Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist wrote the lyrics in November 1861 to the music of the song, John Brown’s Body by William Steffe written in 1856. It was first published by the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. The song links the judgment of the wicked at the end of the age (through allusions to Biblical passages such as Isaiah 63 and Revelation 19) with the American Civil War. [Wikipedia]

 

The other night as I was getting ready for bed the tune and pieces of the chorus and first verse started playing in my head, by the time I got in bed I remembered the first verse and chorus but not the name of the song. It would not stop repeating in my head so I got up and wrote it as a memo in my phone, today I saw the memo and so I looked up the song.

 

This was written during a very dark and trying time in America, the forces of evil wanted to control and destroy America, not unlike today. It was not just about slavery, it was about the economics of an elite class living off the labor of a working class that was prevalent in both the north and south. Today we have the socialist who believe they are the elite that know how to rule the world best and they need a large working class to support them. Historically you can look at every country that has been ruled by communist and socialists and see what has happed, a small elite ruling class over a large oppressed working class; power and wealth for the elite and poverty and struggle for the working class; and a large standing police and military to control the populace.

 

Many Christians believe that we are living in the end times and that if we just hold on we will be taken out of the earth before it gets really bad. I do not believe either that we are living in the end days or that we will be rescued before it gets really bad. My study of the scriptures and seeking The LORD cause me to believe that there is a couple of hundred more years before the end of days and that Christians will go through the Great Tribulation that leads up to CHRIST’s thousand year reign over the earth from Jerusalem.

 

An interesting side note is that Howe wrote new words to the music of an existing abolitionist song which caused it to have a familiar ring but with a better message. Martin Luther is purported to have done the same thing with popular drinking songs of his day when he wrote some of his hymns, the familiar ring with the better Gospel message.