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IFT up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah. (Psalm 24:7-10)
This is the official hymn of the US Army. Its author is Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) who published this hymn in 1861 at the beginning of the War Between the States. The tune is Hesperus, or Quebec, by Henry Bakker in 1864. Since our God is the God of Battles Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not your's, but God's – (2 Chronicles 20:15), and a Man of War; 3 The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name – (Exodus 15:3), He is the arbiter of all victories in war.
O Lord of hosts, Almighty King,
Behold the sacrifice we bring:
To every arm Thy strength impart;
Thy Spirit shed through every heart.
Wake in our breasts the living fires,
The holy faith that warmed our sires:
Thy hand hath made our nation free;
To die for her is serving Thee.
Be Thou a pillared flame to show
The midnight snare, the silent foe;
And when the battle thunders loud,
Still guide us in its moving cloud.
God of all nations, Sovereign Lord,
In Thy dread Name we draw the sword,
We lift the starry flag on high
That fills with light our stormy sky.
From treason's rent, from murder's stain,
Guard Thou its folds till peace shall reign,
Till fort and field, till shore and sea,
Join our loud anthem,-- Praise to Thee. Amen.
1 O Lord of hosts, Almighty King, Behold the sacrifice we bring: To every arm Thy strength impart; Thy Spirit shed through every heart. Every soldier, upon enrollment to military service, writes a blank check as a voucher for his service to his nation up to and including his very life. No greater human sacrifice can a soldier offer than his life. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” God does not demand the life blood of His elect as redemption for their sins for that sacrifice has already been made by a “Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24 Our strength in the battles of life come from God, and His Holy Spirit is our Chart, Compass and Guide through those minefields that lay in the path of the soldier of Christ (we are all soldiers of Christ if we belong to Him).
2 Wake in our breasts the living fires, The holy faith that warmed our sires: Thy hand hath made our nation free; To die for her is serving Thee. The building of nations relies upon her families and her families’ families. If the foundation of the families of a nation are anchored in Christ, that nation’s security will be measured by the extent of that faith reposed in her families. Courage and conviction are passed from father and mother to sons and daughters continually. If there arises a vacant link in that transmission, the nation’s hope declines. Our soldiers in the profession of arms have historically called upon that greater Field Commander above for courage and guidance, and He has responded. Christ is the grantor of true Liberty and Freedom.
3 Be Thou a pillared flame to show The midnight snare, the silent foe; And when the battle thunders loud, Still guide us in its moving cloud. Our fathers trusted in that God of the Pillar of Fire by Nighty and Cloud by Day to guide us in our national deliberations. But our ears have grown dull of hearing and our eyes weak of seeing truth. It is a pervading darkness in which men lose their way, and that darkness has descended upon our fields of amber waves of grain and purple-mountain majesties in recent decades. We have forgotten the blood sacrifice that has purchase, under God, our Liberty. The foe, which once was silent, has come out of the closet to proclaim his wicked agenda. The battle already thunders more loudly than at any point in our past history. It proclaims an appeal to arms of the spirit and soul. Can we not hear it?
4 God of all nations, Sovereign Lord, In Thy dread Name we draw the sword, We lift the starry flag on high That fills with light our stormy sky. It may be high time for God to bring a crushing judgment upon a people who have defamed His Name and rejected His Sovereignty. He is the God of Nations and often uses those wicked and godless nations to bring judgment against His beloveds. The soldier in the field most often knowns and depends upon our God more than many parishioners of the Church. He realizes that death stands greedy for blood before him; yet, he draws his sword to confront that lusting hunger before him. To the soldier, the ’starry’ banner is held aloft for righteousness by His Lord. But many for whom the soldier wages his battles have forgotten the Cause.
5 From treason's rent, from murder's stain, Guard Thou its folds till peace shall reign, Till fort and field, till shore and sea, Join our loud anthem,-- Praise to Thee. Amen. There is a new specter of evil that haunts, not only Europe, but the world – godless Marxism! The Trojan Horse of humanistic Communism has been admitted within our gates. Shall we expel the wanton beast ere the flag is furled and freedom forgotten? I leave my readers with this incisive quote of Marcus Tullius Cicero (44 BC):
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor; he speaks in the accent that is familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.
