[The first two parts of this article can be found in the previous issues of the Reformed Herald: Vol. 81, No. 5, for September/October, 2025, pp.12-14 or online Part 1 here and Vol. 81, No. 6, for November/December, 2025, pp.14-15 – ed. or online Part 2 here]
The LORD is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation; he is my God, and I will praise him; My father’s God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war; The Lord is his name” (Ex. 15:2-3).
“The Lord is my strength. He is my song.” These are words that dwell in the heart of Christ’s redeemed people (Ps. 18:2). Christians delight to proclaim that the Lord is the one who provides (Gen. 22:8), and therefore they sing to his name. “He has become my salvation.” Salvation is of the Lord! Jesus Christ is our salvation. He is the grace of God (Titus 2:11), the mercy of God (Titus 3:5), the love of God (Titus 3:4), the kindness of God (Titus 3:4), the forgiveness of God (Eph. 1:7). Every aspect of salvation and all the blessings in the heavenly places are in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12; Eph. 1:3). “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in him Amen, to the glory of God through us” (2 Cor. 1:20). Believers are complete in Christ. As the answer to question thirty of the Heidelberg Catechism states, “they who by true faith receive this Savior, must have in him all that is necessary to their salvation.” We are justified in him (Rom. 5:9). We are forgiven in him (Eph. 1:7). We are sanctified in him (1 Cor. 1:30). We are under the favor of God in Jesus Christ. We dwell in the light in Jesus Christ. As the children of Israel dwelt in light in Goshen (Ex. 10:23), so we dwell in the light of the Lord Jesus while the world walks in darkness. “We walk in the light even as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7).
What a wondrous song! The Lord, He is my God. There is only one God, the true and living God, and God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As the Belgic Confession, Article 8 teaches, “According to this truth and this word of God, we believe in one only God (Deut. 6:4), who is the one single essence (Isa. 43:10-11), in which are three Persons (2 Cor. 13:14; Matt. 28:19), really, truly, and eternally distinct according to their incommunicable properties; namely, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, if you want to speak of the Father, you say God the Father; or the Son, God the Son; or the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit. But the three persons are the one, true, eternal God. As the Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 25 teaches, “Since there is but one Divine Being (Deut. 6:4), why do you speak of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Because God has so revealed himself in his Word (Isa. 61:1; Ps. 110:1; Matt. 3:16–17; 28:19) that these three distinct persons are the one, true, eternal God.” That is the God we worship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
He is my God. He is the one that I worship, the one to whom I bow down. I do not bow to idols, or images, or the golden calf, nor the sinful thinking of fallen humanity. Numerous times over the years, I have heard people say things like, “Well, my God is a God of love. My God would never be wrathful.” But when people say such things, they often mean to the exclusion of the justice of God. But Scripture teaches that God is a just God! And it says right here in our text that he is a man of war. He punishes sin! He drowned the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea! And, beloved, that is what we all deserve. Do you realize that? We all deserve to be drowned in the depths of the sea! Every one of us! Maybe you remember Romans Chapter 9, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” I don’t have a problem with Esau being hated by God. What boggles my mind is that Jacob was loved by God. Jacob wasn’t any better than Esau. And you and I aren’t any better than Esau. Why did God love Jacob and not Esau? The Scripture simply declares, “For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Rom. 9:15). And Ephesians 1:11 reads, “In him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”
You see, every one of us deserves to be hated by God. We have earned it, as the wages of our sin is death, both temporal and eternal (Rom. 6:23). So, when you see the Lord in the Old Covenant wiping out all the Philistines, we must understand that they deserved it, even as the Israelites deserved it and as we deserve it. But according to the Lord’s good pleasure and purpose, “He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion” (Rom. 9:15). We grow accustomed to God’s grace and mercy. We too often grow accustomed to the goodness of God, and we forget, beloved, what we truly deserve. Salvation is of our God.
He is my father’s God. It is the covenant blessing of being reared up under the teaching and admonition of the Lord. Parents who have children in your home, take heart. Rear them up as baptized members of the covenant of grace. Train them up in the fear and instruction of the Lord. When they were baptized, they entered the visible church, and you vowed before the Lord and before the congregation to pray with your children, to read with your children, to pray for your children, and to teach them to worship. You vowed to be a godly example of piety unto your children. It’s a covenant blessing, having our children sitting under the preaching of the word, and so we must lead them to worship.
Fathers and husbands, you ought to be leading your families to worship. It’s a shame for you not to. You are to lead your family to worship on the Lord’s Day. You are to bring them to sing out the honor of our covenant God, to praise his name, and to proclaim that he is our strength and song! The Lord is the one who provides for us, so teach them at a young age that they are sustained by the hand of our God. My father’s God, the God that my father worships and serves, and I worship him too. He’s redeemed me in this manner. It’s like Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth: “Your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16). The one you worship is the one I will worship.
“One great end of our regeneration and marriage with Christ is, that we may sound forth his praise in the world. “This people,” says he, “have I formed for myself, they shall shew forth my praise.” If his heart has been opened to receive us, why should our mouths be shut to his praise. We have no more to render, but the calves of our lips. It serves also for the good of others, that they may fall in love with Christ. “I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations, therefore shall the people praise thee for ever.” The recommendations which the saints give to Christ have often a good effect.”
-Thomas Boston, Sermon on Philippians 3:8
We also see in Scripture (2 Kings 5:1) that Naaman the Syrian was afflicted with leprosy, and he went to Elisha, and Elisha told him to dip himself in the Jordan River seven times, and he would be healed. Naaman didn’t want to do it at first. He thought it was utter foolishness, and he said that “the rivers of Damascus, are better than all the waters of Israel. And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, ‘My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he told you, Wash and be clean?’ So, he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean” (2 Kings 5:12-14). If he would have been cleansed by conquering a city, then the glory would have gone to Naaman. It would have been by the strength of his might, his power. He would have boasted and said, “Look what my hands have done. I’ve brought about my own cleansing.” But the Lord told him to dip seven times in the Jordan River. And he came up out of the water on the seventh time, and his skin “was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean” (2 Kings 5:14). And the Lord God became Naaman’s God (2 Kings 5:17). The Assyrian general recognized the hand of God. He is the God that we exalt, the one who heals His people from their spiritual leprosy!
And lastly, verse 3: The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Simply stated, the Lord punishes sin. The Lord deals seriously with sin. We need to be a people that recognizes this truth. It’s become all too common that people in the church don’t like to hear about sin. But if you don’t want to hear about sin, then you don’t want to hear about the cross. And if you don’t want to hear about the cross, then you don’t want to hear about Christ. If you don’t want to hear about the cross of Christ or the Gospel, then you don’t want to hear about redemption. If you don’t want to hear about redemption, then you don’t want to hear about the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God, and the forgiveness of God. We need to remember, beloved, from where we came.
“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch; like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” And I did not make myself see. The leopard does not change his spots, nor does the Ethiopian change the color of his skin (Jer. 13:23). It’s the Lord who does this work, and our response as the redeemed is to turn and shout the glory of His name. He has put a new song in our heart and that’s where you see the distinction between those who are redeemed and those who are not redeemed. As David declared, “He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; many will see it and fear and will trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:3).
God puts a new song of praise to him in the hearts of his redeemed people, and they cry out, “He is my God, my strength, my song. He has triumphed gloriously!” And as the psalmist declared, “I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being” (Ps. 104:33). That’s the blessing we have and that is what this song of Moses brings our minds captive to this day. Sing out the honor of His name.
Beloved members of the RCUS, rejoice in the milestone of 300 years that the Lord has provided for us as a denomination. It is right that we gather to worship him and praise and thank him. It’s right to commemorate. We see commemoration all throughout the Scriptures. But do not eclipse the glory of the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who has redeemed us and who daily sustains us. Do not eclipse the work of the Lord for the sake of all the festivities and celebrations.
It is the Lord who provides all the covenant blessings as we train our children in the fear and instruction of the Lord. It is the Lord who redeems our children, creates faith in their hearts through the ministry of His Word, and causes them to confess faith in Jesus Christ. It is “the Lord who added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). It is the LORD who raised up the Reformed Church in the United States, and it is the LORD who will sustain the same if it be his will. Our duty, responsibility, and covenant blessing and joy is to, “Sing out the honor of His name; make His praise glorious” (Ps. 66:2). The Lord has redeemed us for his glory, and our response of thanksgiving is to proclaim, The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation; he is my God, and I will praise him; My father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name (Ex. 15:2-3). Amen!
Pastor Scott Henry
Hope RCUS
Sutton, NE