His Day IS Coming!

In 1861 Julia Ward Howe, wife of a government official, wrote a poem for Atlantic Monthly for five dollars. The magazine called it, Battle Hymn of the Republic. The music may be by William Steffe.

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.

Chorus

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watchfires
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.

Chorus

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.

Chorus

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.

We are living in tumultuous times. There is a lot of uncertainty in America today, indeed in the world. Jesus said “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

So it would seem today.

“He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

Paul said “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”

You see, Man has not changed; man still has the sinful nature that was created when Adam sinned against God, and man will always have that sinful nature and be enslaved to it.

Unless.

Unless they realize their inability to change themselves, and ask God to change them, and cover them with the Righteousness of Jesus Christ. And when they do – when WE do – our sin is completely covered and hidden in Christ so that the judgment we deserve is replaced with mercy.

²But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire (Malachi 3).

And His day IS coming! The Day of the Lord will never be cancelled, postponed, late, or forgotten. Throughout all of time that Day has stood as it does now, appointed to be fulfilled at the Lord’s return. Nothing can stop it.

¹³Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words. ( 1 Thessalonians 4)

“Do not fret yourselves over the workers of inequity; they are like the chaff that will be blown away in the wind. We may suffer yet a little while but those sufferings cannot take away from what the Lord has in store for us in heaven!!”

Even so, come Lord Jesus!