Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
February 18, 2009
Had I been there, on the dawn of Creation when God said, “Let there be light”, mine eyes would have beheld the glory of the coming of the Lord. For it was into the darkness that Light came. John, the apostle, wrote that all things were made through Him and that without Him nothing was made. John went on to write in the Spirit that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The world has truly reached the point where America has faltered so that all nations now are as the blind stumbling along in the darkness of their own vileness.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Nowhere in the Bible can such a statement be made of religion, that the Light of the world was full of grace and religion. To the contrary, God’s first commandment forbids religious idolatry. He and only He is the Lord God, and He and only He shall be worshiped – not Allah, not Buddha, and most certainly not anyone with the trappings of a guru. Nor shall we bow down to any man, whether or not a religious man claiming inerrancy in order to make himself like the Most High God, when Jesus was the only inerrant One to ever live. Let us understand that His glory and His truth cannot be separated, for they are one, as are the Father and Son one.
And to the shepherds the angels announced His birth, while the glory of the Lord shone around them. It was His light they saw coming, just as it came in the beginning and the angels declared it in praise saying, “Glory to God in the highest (Luke 2:14).” And in accordance with the Law, when the Baby was brought to the temple, an old man called Simeon was there waiting for the consolation of Israel, as was his custom. And he spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit saying his eyes had seen God’s salvation, which He had prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the gentiles and the glory of His people Israel (see Luke 2:30-32). Simeon’s eyes had beheld the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Were Israel and America not called to be the two nations to show the light of liberty in His Law and His truth as nations in covenant with God their Ruler, nations that had been taught and knew about the glory of the coming of the Lord? Where has the glory disappeared in this nation of Canada for Him of Whom it is written on stone – shall have dominion from sea to sea?
Is the religious institutional church system of Christianity not a mere counterfeit of the true church established on a rock-solid foundation of truth, which pointed to the glory of the true Light of men? Now we see the institutions, which call themselves ‘church’, as being willing to give up the Light to become ecumenical, united, and nothing more than shells of religion.
Adam knew the glory of the Light and His truth with Whom he had once walked in the cool of the day, before the death judgment of God came down upon mankind. Noah knew the Lord and spoke to Him in preparation for the water judgment. Moses had a face-to-face relationship with God and asked to see His glory. God said he could not see His face and live, but He would make all His goodness pass before him and proclaim the name of the Lord before him. He declared He would be gracious to whom He would be gracious and have compassion upon whom He chose to have compassion. And by this His glory would be known as it passed by.
Moses saw and knew the judgment, like Adam and Noah before him, but with a difference. Adam was confronted with the fire judgment of death, which reduced wicked mankind back to the state of dust from which it had come, before God breathed the breath of life into it. Noah rode over the judgment, but Moses came through the judgment to see a new day under God’s government, which was, once again, as it had been in the beginning before Satan took over the world in the liberalism of religion apart from the truth. Religion is nothing but a belief system that begins with the lie that God’s word is not truth.
Now America, like Israel before her, was brought back into a government under God, where He ruled over His people and His truth was inseparable from justice. This land showed the world a picture of liberty in God to reveal a glimpse of His glory in freedom from religion in a nation with a foundation of truth. The entire world looked to the West for the freedom of education, justice, and moral righteousness. America had caught a glimpse of God’s glory.
There is no greater praise for the King than that which is written into the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Let us look at those marvelous words and become the soldiers for the truth that He has called these two nations of America to be! Let us fight to regain the power of His glory before it is lost and America joins the rest of the world, by becoming captive to the darkness from which the earth was snatched in the beginning, when God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light (Genesis 1:3).
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 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.
(Chorus)
…His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
(Chorus)
…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.
(Chorus)
…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.
(Chorus)
…While God is marching on.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
(Chorus)
…Our God is marching on.
Note: In later years, when this song was sung in a non-military environment, the clause “let us die to make men free” was sometimes changed to “let us live to make men free”.