The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
God and man
I. How God should be realized by every man. What should He be to every many
1. He should be his strength. All the strength we have, physical, intellectual, and moral is from God; nay, more, is God’s. Conscious dependence upon His strength is the foundation of piety. “Hold thou me up, and I shall be saved.”
2. He should be his “song”; that is, his joy. The source of all his joy and spring of his delights. We should rejoice in God as our Father.
3. He should be his salvation. He saves from misery by saving from sin.
II. How God is enjoyed by the righteous. Who is the righteous man? The man who is right in himself and right in relation to God and the universe.
1. Such a man has rejoicing. “Being justified,” or made right by faith; he has “peace that passeth all understanding.” Religion is happiness wherever it exists.
2. Such a man has salvation. A righteous man is saved--saved from sin, and to be saved from sin, is to be saved from all evils of all kinds.
III. How God appears in His procedure.
1. Courageous (verse 16). He moves on in the execution of His eternal purposes with absolute fearlessness. Of what can He be afraid, whose will can at any moment create or destroy universes?
2. Glorious. “The right hand of the Lord is exalted.” That is, praised, hououred, adored. Who that studies His works, whether the minute or the vast can fail to exalt and adore the right hand of the Lord? 3.Restorative (verses 17, 18). (Homilist.)
Christ is our song
I. In what sense Christ is a believer’s song.
1. He is the main object of hope and trust (Isaiah 12:2).
2. He is the main subject of praise and thanksgiving (2 Corinthians 9:15).
3. He is the main matter of joy and rejoicing (Psalms 137:6; Psalms 43:4). Three things are necessary.
(1) An interest in Him as our Saviour.
(2) The knowledge of that interest.
(3) Suitable walking.
II. What of Christ especially is a believer’s song? True believers sing, and ought to sing--
1. Of what Jesus Christ is in Himself as to His personal excellences and perfections.
2. Of what He is to us. He is our foundation, our food, our root, our raiment; and should we not sing of these?
3. Of what He hath done, and is doing, and will yet do, for us.
(1) He hath taken our nature upon Him, and in our nature suffered and died; He hath washed us from our sins in His own blood; called us with a holy calling; begun a good work.
(2) Is He not ever living to make intercession for us? Is He not guiding and guarding us, enlightening and comforting us, every day?
(3) He will perform the good work that He hath begun; He will come again and fetch us to Himself, that where He is there we may be also. Can ye name any other to sing of, that hath done the like for you?
III. What are the properties of this song?
1. He is the angels’ song (Job 38:7; Luke 2:13-14).
2. He is the most ancient song; the song of the ancients. They sung of Him as one to come, for they saw Him, though it was but as through the lattices, or as through a glass darkly.
3. He is the new song. Wherever ye read of a new song in Scripture, it points at Him (Psalms 33:3; Psalms 96:1; Psalms 98:1; Psalms 149:1). He is the New Testament song. Ever since His coming in the flesh all His saints have been singing of Him, as of one already come; rejoicing in Him, and showing forth His praises. As fast, as they have been made new creatures they have learned this new song.
4. He is their night song (Psalms 42:8; Job 35:10).
(1) In the night season, when others are sleeping, true believers are rejoicing in God their Redeemer, and solacing themselves in Him (Psalms 149:5; Song of Solomon 1:13; Acts 16:1-40.) Paul and Silas sang at midnight.
(2) In the night of sorrow and affliction. To be able to sing then, when everything looks sad and sorrowful round about us, is a great matter; as David (1 Samuel 30:6)
5. He is their song all the week, and their song on the Sabbath. We are bid to rejoice in the Lord always, every day, and they that have an interest in Christ, and know it, do so; but especially on Sabbath days (Psalms 118:24). Sabbath days are set apart on purpose.
6. He is their song while they live, and their song when they die. While they live, in all the turns of their lives (Psalms 146:2). And in a special manner when they come to die; upon sick-beds, and death-beds. As it is said of the swan, that she sings sweetest when dying, so it is with many of God’s people. At the death of Mr. John Janeway, one present said he never was in a room where God in Christ had more praises than there at that time.
7. He is their song in the world, and will he their song to eternity. What is the great employment of heaven, and what will it be for ever and ever, but to lift up God-redeemer (Revelation 5:9-13). Jesus Christ is to be our everlasting song (Isaiah 35:10). It is good to be found doing that, now that we would be glad to be found doing hereafter--world without end.
IV. Application.
1. This may serve for an examining sign, or mark of trial, whereby to know what we are as to our spiritual state and condition. We are bid to try ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5). What, is Jesus Christ to us? What think we of Him? Hath He ever been our song? Do we rejoice in Him?
2. Here is a word of reproof to the true believers among us, that do not make Christ their song, that are in Him, but do not rejoice in Him; however, not with evenness and constancy, not in that measure and degree, that they should and ought. Thou shouldst chide thyself for it (Psalms 43:5).
(1) It grieves the Spirit of God.
(2) It blemishes the ways of God; makes thee a stumbling-block to them that are without, like the evil spies.
(3) It is weakening to thyself. The more Christ is our song the more is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). Then search out the cause.
3. Exhortation, to all that call themselves believers. Make Christ your song, week days and Sabbath days.
(1) He is worthy that you should.
(2) The gain of it will be thy own, in present comfort, in eternal recompense. (Philip Henry.)
Making God our song
Instead of waiting until you get sick and worn out before you speak the praise of Christ, while your heart is happiest, and your step is lightest, and your fortune smiles, and your pathway blossoms, and the overarching heavens drop upon you their benediction, speak the praises of Jesus. The old Greek orators, when they saw their audiences inattentive and slumbering, had one word with which they would rouse them up to the greatest enthusiasm. In the midst of their orations they would stop and cry out: “Marathon!” and the people’s enthusiasm would be unbounded. My hearers, though you may have been borne down with sin, and though trouble, and trial, and temptation may have come upon you, and you feel to-night hardly like looking up, methinks there is one grand, royal, imperial, word that ought to rouse, your soul to infinite rejoicing, and that word is Jesus. (T. De Witt Talmage.)