The seniors asked me to speak on Psalm 28:7: “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.” The text that the seniors chose is especially fitting for the occasion of the first graduation from Genesis Reformed Protestant School.

First, the existence of this school is the work of the grace of God alone. Still more, the existence of the instruction and now the finishing of a year of education here are a testaments to the unfailing and, I might add, the undeserving nature of the grace of God. God’s favor upon us alone explains the existence of the church out of which the school arose. He had favor on us by causing a remnant to escape. Unless the Lord had preserved a remnant, we had been as Sodom and as Gomorrah. Then out of that reformation of the church, the school arose.

The school did not arise out of the church without much struggle. I remember well the very many meetings that we had with regard to the school. We had doubts. We wiggled and we squirmed about what to do. One had this thought, and another had that thought. This trouble of our church members with regard to the school is the fault of those who cruelly cast us out of the church and as cruelly and callously cast us out of our schools. In the words of the psalm, may God give them according to their deeds and reward them according to the wickedness of their works.

Although our trouble and affliction were the fault of those who cruelly cast us out, it was to our shame that upon signing the Act of Separation, whereby the church of Jesus Christ was formed anew, we did not immediately draw up a charter for a Reformed Protestant school. If the Protestant Reformed Churches had, indeed, compromised the gospel of grace; if they had, indeed, denied the truth of justification by faith alone; if they had, indeed, taught contrary to the unconditional nature of God’s covenant, then we had no business even contemplating sending our children to the Protestant Reformed schools.

This is proving true. The magazines for young people, the communications from the teachers and schools, the church bulletins, and the productions of the schools in the Protestant Reformed Churches are full of their theology of man. The theology that the people eat from the pulpit they evacuate into the schools and fill the souls and hearts of the children with that theology.

All of our debating and all of our wondering—save for one man—was our unbelief. It was our unbelief in the grace of God. It was our unbelief in the promise of God. It was that unbelief that God forgave; and God forgiving, God blessed us in spite of ourselves and out of his pure mercy toward us and our children. The Lord put in our hearts to start a school. The formation of this school is as glorious a triumph of the gospel of grace as the formation of the church out of which the school came. The formation of this school, a year of instruction, and a first graduating class are testaments to the grace of God. “Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”

Second, it is a testament to the grace of God and his saving strength that the school that was formed was a Reformed Protestant school. There were those who had joined the Reformed Protestant Churches who were opposed to Reformed Protestant schools. They desired to form undenominational schools with no attachment to the churches and with no mention of the Reformed Protestant Churches and their doctrine in the constitutions or the bylaws of the schools. Others were not committed to schools at all but were—and many still are—committed to homeschooling, so that the covenantal demand for the school is replaced by the independentism of the homeschool movement. The Lord preserved us from that assault on the church, and the Lord put in our hearts not only to form a school but also to form a Reformed Protestant school.

The school that is formed by the parents must arise out of and be consistent with their doctrinal confession and church membership. It is as inconceivable that I would not have a Reformed Protestant school as that I would not have a Reformed Protestant home. The Reformed Protestant school rests on the baptismal vows of Reformed Protestant parents. Reformed Protestant parents promise at the baptism of each of their children that they will instruct their children in the doctrine as it “is taught here in this Christian church” (Confessions and Church Order, 260). The parents never promise to give a generically Reformed or generically Christian education, but they promise to give an education that harmonizes with and, indeed, flows out of the preaching of the church. God gave exactly that to us in order that our school may be the nursery of our church. When we understood that we had to form a school, there was no hesitation on the part of the parents that the school would be Reformed Protestant in name and in fact.

Third, we have witnessed the overflowing grace of God and the flourishing of the covenant of grace and the communion of the saints in the mutual help in Reformed Protestant schooling around the country. Just as important as the formation of the school and the formation of a Reformed Protestant school was that the Lord put in our hearts that to the best of our ability we would help any Reformed Protestant parent in Grand Rapids—where the children had also been shut out of the Protestant Reformed schools and where there was not a school—or parents anywhere in the country and even the world who needed our help to start their own schools. So much did the Lord put that in our hearts that we wrote that into our constitution, and we backed that up with a considerable expenditure of efforts to set up remote learning and resource sharing—an effort that is ongoing and that must continue.

The fruit of that conviction to provide mutual help in schooling by remote learning was that many from around the country benefited from the school that the Lord started here at Genesis.

The fruit of that conviction has also extended far beyond the schools. The schools are always nurseries of the church, and also here in this matter the school was the nursery of the church because out of the school and its commitment to remote learning also a seminary took shape—a seminary where now seven men receive instruction remotely in order to train them to be ministers of the gospel. The fruit of the efforts to establish not only a school but also a school equipped for remote learning is that we realized how we could utilize technology to spread the gospel, teach students, and advance Reformed Protestant education far and wide.

I say to you now as we are looking forward, just as we have looked backward, that by the grace of God this all must continue. There must be the promotion of the school movement in our churches over against the concept of homeschooling. There must be the advance of the idea that the school must be Reformed Protestant over against the idea that the school is not to have a denominational character. There must be the continuation of online learning and resource sharing. Indeed, it must be written into the constitutions of the school associations that are formed. We may not allow the mentality to take hold that remote learning is not covenantal. We may not allow the mentality to take hold that we will not inconvenience ourselves and the education of our own children by expending resources—resources of our own that we use to hire teachers—to help in starting school associations and providing resources for educating other covenant children from around the country where schools are started but where teachers cannot be hired. The words local and autonomous in regard to the school may not mean for ourselves alone, and let the others fend for themselves. Then local and autonomous are nothing more than high-sounding synonyms for selfish and self-centered. The schools that have hired teachers must share them remotely. The schools that cannot hire teachers may not allow that fact to hinder them from forming a school. Form the school. Form the school or die trying because that is the demand of the covenant. And may we together as Reformed Protestant Churches have all things in common, including our teachers and the education of our children.

If those ideas—that is, the idea that remote learning is uncovenantal and the idea that we will not inconvenience ourselves for the education of other children from around the country where teachers cannot be hired—if those ideas take hold, then that will be the death of our churches. That will be the death of our churches, first of all, because such ideas will be a victory for legalism in the churches and thus the death of the gospel. We live and die by the gospel. If our reformation taught us anything, it was that without the gospel we perish and that a compromise to the gospel in any area of life destroys the gospel in every area of life. If the idea takes hold that remote learning is uncovenantal, then we will not have the gospel. And not having the gospel, we will not have churches and schools for very long.

Second, if those un-Reformed and uncovenantal ideas take hold, then it will be a victory for selfish independentism and thus the death of the Christian calling to have all things in common according to Acts 2:44: “All that believed were together, and had all things common.”

Third, if those ideas take hold, it will consign the smaller Reformed Protestant churches to slow and agonizing deaths by attrition. Schools are the nurseries of the churches, and without them the churches perish. They perish in their generations. The small groups of believers who cannot hire teachers may not allow the lack of teachers in their own specific areas to hinder the parents from forming schools. And the larger schools where teachers are hired may not begrudge a vast expenditure of time and energy to share their teachers.

Fourth, if the idea that remote learning is uncovenantal takes hold in the churches, it will be the death of seminary instruction in common. Right now, the churches by remote learning are able to instruct seminary students in common. We learned that from Genesis Reformed Protestant School. We learned that it could be done, that it could be done profitably, and that it could be done for the benefit of the Reformed Protestant Churches around the country. But if remote learning in the school is uncovenantal, then remote learning at the seminary is uncovenantal, and it will be the death of seminary instruction in common. The death, I say, of seminary instruction in common. It will not be the death of seminary instruction altogether because I, for one, will never bow to those legalistic, uncovenantal, and gospel-less ideas.

As we look back over the past year and look forward to the years to come, we confess that Genesis Reformed Protestant School is a wonder of grace and a gift of God to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. There were a thousand ways that we could have been swept away with the ungodly and dashed upon the rocks. But blessed be the Lord, who heard the voice of our supplication—the Lord who is our strength and our shield. He heard us, you understand, because he first heard Christ. That is who speaks in the psalm—Christ. Having heard Christ, he also always hears Christ’s church for Christ’s sake.

Now at graduation we must sing this psalm in Christ with thanksgiving: Jehovah is my strength.

To understand that exclamation of the psalmist, Jehovah is my strength, you must understand the context in which the psalmist uttered that song. The context in which the psalmist uttered that song was one in which he was in the deepest trouble and the most hopeless situation from an earthly point of view.

In the psalm he cries to the Lord in his misery. His cry is simply prayer. He was praying to God; he was beseeching God for God’s deliverance, God’s salvation, God’s help, and God’s strength because the psalmist confessed that he had none of himself, and of himself he would perish. He confessed that there was no way out of his situation as far as human nature and man’s strength were concerned.

Indeed, in his crying he said that he made supplication. The nature of his cry was supplication. Supplication is a cry unto God from the deepest distress. If a cry is prayer, supplication is the cry of a hungry man for a piece of bread; supplication is the cry of the thirsty man for a drink; supplication is the cry of a weak man for deliverance from the proud; supplication is the cry of the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor.

David cries in the psalm, and he makes supplication in the psalm. And David’s situation was dire because he stood among men who spoke peace with their neighbors, and mischief was in their hearts. Mischief was in their hearts. They had a personal hatred and loathing of David. They sought David’s destruction. But they did that with a smile on their faces, with kisses of feigned love, and with honeyed words of friendship. They spoke peace to him with their mouths, while inwardly they hated him. Is there any more wicked person to be around than one who speaks peace to you with his mouth but has mischief in his heart?

Is there any more dangerous person to be around than one who speaks peace to you with his mouth but has mischief in his heart? When such persons are with you, they will say good things to you. When they see you face to face, they will smile at you and wish you a good day. When they are near you, they will put their arms around you, and they will speak soothing words in your ears. They take you off your guard and pretend friendship, but in their hearts they hate you. They loathe you and wish your destruction. Indeed, they plot it. Judas Iscariot was such a man. He betrayed his friend with a kiss.

And, you understand, here in the psalm this duplicity and treachery of the ungodly toward David were an attack on the truth—the truth specifically of salvation. What David’s enemies hated in David was that he was God’s salvation of Israel. They hated the truth of salvation that David represented. The truth of salvation that David represented was that God saved his people by grace alone, that God saved his people by his strength alone, and that God saved his people in his faithfulness alone. David stood for and spoke concerning the truth of salvation without works, justification by faith alone, and the absolutely unconditional character of God’s covenant. Did he not write, “For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them” (Ps. 44:3)? Did he not instruct Israel to sing, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (32:1–2)? Was it not about David, and in David about Christ, that Ethan wrote, “I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah” (89:3–4)? Salvation by sovereign grace and not by a damning mixture of grace and works. David represented that, and his enemies spoke peace to David with their mouths, but they hated David in their hearts, and they plotted against David to overthrow him in order to establish in Israel the rule and wisdom and works of man.

David was a picture of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ understood the words of David because David spoke of Christ in the psalm. Who was Jesus Christ when he came to the church of his day but salvation itself? Who was Jesus Christ but the revelation of the wonderful works of God—the wonderful works of God’s grace, the wonderful works of God’s faithfulness, the wonderful works of God’s doing that which was impossible for the salvation of his people? The Jews saw and beheld the wonderful works of God, and they hated those works of God. They hated Jesus Christ, and yet they spoke peace to him with their mouths: “Rabbi, rabbi, rabbi.” And they plotted his destruction.

In the day of his flesh, Christ offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him from death. I can tell you the most powerful cry in all of scripture: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” In that cry is all our salvation. For God heard Christ’s cry and delivered him, and on Sunday morning he arose from the dead. And he ascended into heaven and now sits at God’s right hand and makes intercession for his church.

The cry of the psalmist, therefore, is the cry always of God’s true church in her deepest distress and trouble, her deepest distress and trouble when she is the object of the duplicity and treachery of wicked men—wicked men who see in her the wonderful works of God; wicked men who see in her the evidence of the grace of God, the power of God, and the faithfulness of God; and who, seeing the works of God, hate those works and plot to destroy them.

It is the prayer of the church when the wicked are strong and the righteous are weak. It is the prayer of the church when the workers of iniquity prosper and the righteous man fails. It is the prayer of the church when God seems afar off, so that he is silent in the church’s distress, and when the wicked are very near and are very loud, threatening to take away and to swallow up the church. It is the prayer of the church always when her situation is from every human point of view impossible, indeed hopeless.

That is how it was with Christ. Christ came to his church as she was in a hopeless situation. She was in common partaker of the sin and condemnation of the world. There was no way out for her. Indeed, there was no way out for Christ—no way out but by the deadly and dreadful wrath-filled way of the cross. On the cross he offered up strong prayers and supplications, and he was heard in that he feared.

God raised Christ from the dead. Because God heard Christ and because God saved Christ and raised him up and set him at his own right hand, God hears his church. He forgives all her sins for Christ’s sake and accounts her perfectly righteous with Christ’s obedience and holiness. God does not hear his church because she believes or because she repents or because of the righteousness of her works. He hears for Christ’s sake because he forgives her sins. He hears his church not as one who is unwilling to hear his church. He hears his church as one who has appointed his church to salvation, who wrought all his wonders and mighty works for the sake of the salvation of his church. He hears his church for Christ’s sake, inasmuch as Christ is the ground and the foundation of the church’s blessing and the church’s salvation. And hearing, God saves her with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and he blesses her with all the riches and treasures of Christ Jesus.

When God hears the church, she sings.

You must see tonight that God heard us. Our situation was impossible. I was half dead; we had a tiny congregation; we did not know what would happen with the school. We did not even know how to start a school. There were no teachers. Where would the resources come from? There were a thousand questions we could have asked. And we cried unto God. We made supplication to him, and in that we confessed, “Lord, there is with us no strength. Lord, there is with us no worthiness. Lord, there is with us only the right to condemnation and to be swallowed up with the ungodly.” And God heard us even while we were in the act of praying. He heard us, and he answered us, and he gave to us a church and a school. He brought us now through a year of education, and he gave us our first graduating class.

Jehovah is our strength.

When you say that Jehovah is your strength, you mean that there is no other strength. There is no strength in my hand, my arm, my legs, my heart, or my brain; there is no strength among men; there is no strength in all of the power of the world. There is no strength but Jehovah’s. In Jehovah alone there is strength.

In Jehovah alone there is strength because Jehovah is Jehovah: he is the I AM THAT I AM. He is the God who is the same in all of the instant and constant fullness of his divine being from eternity to eternity. He is the God who is unchanging in his purpose to bless his church. He is the God who is gracious and merciful, who is longsuffering, full of kindness and tender mercy. He is the God of great power, so that nothing is impossible with God. He is the God of perfect sovereignty, so that all things happen according to the will of God—all things, even the bringing of the church into her hopeless situation. God did that. God brought us to where there was no strength. God brought us to where we wiggled and squirmed and suggested every way out but the way of faith. God brought us to such a point to show us our unbelief, our weakness, and our doubt and to try our faith that it would come forth like gold tried in the fire. God did that so that all the praise would be to his glorious name, that we would sing and worship him, and that we would pray to him again, again, and again.

And the God who has strength and who is strength itself gives power to his people. He causes us to increase in strength; so that although men fall, our strength is renewed like the eagle’s.

Who is a God like our God? In him is strength; in us there is no strength. There is no strength to build a church; there is no strength to start a school; there is no strength to educate our children. You understand that, don’t you? There is no strength in you to educate your children because Reformed Protestant education is not about the mere inculcation of facts and figures. Oh, there must be the teaching of math, history, science, reading, and writing so that our children are educated. We must strive for the best education in the fundamentals of knowledge. But, you understand, that is not a Reformed education. A Reformed education involves faith. A Reformed education involves the receiving of all the instruction as from God himself, seeing all the instruction in the light of God’s covenant, and living out of the instruction unto the glory of the name of God and in recognition of God’s eternal purpose. You can’t do that. You can’t give your children faith. Only God can. God is our strength. He is our help, our covenant friend who always hears us. He hears us in spite of our sins.

Which of you had faith enough, so that God gave you a school? Which of you prayed enough, so that God gave you a school? Which of you repented enough, so that God gave you a school? He heard you.

He heard you out of his great love and his great mercy in his eternal and unchangeable purpose to bless you and your children after you.

So we are helped, and our hearts rejoice, and we praise God. We praise him for his goodness. We praise him for his grace. We praise him with the words of the prayer of David: “Lord, save thy people and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also, and lift them up forever.”

Thank you.