Hymn Devotion for 2 July 2024 Anno Domini, the Anglican Orthodox
Communion Worldwide
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10
This hymn is quite ancient, but the antiquity of the hymn testifies of its truth as well as of the judgment to be meted out by God at the Last Day. The author is Thomas of Celano (13th Century). It was translated into English by Sir Walter Scott in 1805. It biblical emphasis on the final fiery ruin of this old earth and all the heavenly bodies could only have been written at a time when man understood his own depravity as opposed to the perfection and righteousness of God. The musical score is by John Bacchus Dykes (1861)
THAT DAY OF WRATH
1 That day of wrath, that dreadful day
When heav’n and earth shall pass away!
What pow’r shall be the sinner’s stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?
2 When, shriveling like a parched scroll,
The flaming heav’ns together roll;
When louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead;
3 O on that day, that wrathful day
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be thou the trembling sinner’s stay,
Though heav’n and earth shall pass away.
Amen.
1 That day of wrath, that dreadful day When heav’n and earth shall pass away! What pow’r shall be the sinner’s stay? How shall he meet that dreadful day? Just as all life, matter and space were created by the breathed Word of God, so shall the catastrophic upheaval of end times be wasted by the same Word and utterance. The lost will have no place to place their feet on terra firma. The residue of that destruction will be fire and smoke and terror of being found without an Advocate. The proud and obstinate unbelievers will become, in an instant, believers in the One whom they have denied for a lifetime – but too late!
2 When, shriveling like a parched scroll, The flaming heav’ns together roll; When louder yet, and yet more dread, Swells the high trump that wakes the dead; The intensity of heat will be sufficient to melt the very atomic elements. The domain of Hell will be unleashed into which the wicked shall awaken from the sleep of death to its terrors. The trump of God will sound from one end of the heavens to the other waking all the dead – some to eternal life, and some to eternal damnation. The Angelic Trumpeter stands poised, even now, at the ready to answer the order of His Sovereign to sound the trump.
3 O on that day, that wrathful day When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be thou the trembling sinner’s stay, Though heav’n and earth shall pass away. Amen. The modern Christian church, for the most part, has forgotten to preach judgment; instead they preach love alone without the justice that God demands. I will end this devotion with a quote of J.C. Ryle, first Bishop of Liverpool, 1816-1900:
“Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not Holy; a God who is as a heaven for everybody, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and bad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.”
AMEN!
