Deut 3:22, 'Do not fear them, for the Lord your God is the one fighting for you.' 
Once again we are brought face to face with the truth that needs to be set in stone in our minds and in our hearts. This is a matter that cannot be compromised within our patterns of thoughts nor distilled in any fashion or by any psychological device of mankind. It is a bedrock reality that needs to become one of the pillars of our belief system to the very point that we will not be moved from it. 'Do not fear them, for the Lord your God is the one fighting for you.
This was the charge given to Joshua as he was preparing to lead the people across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. Moses was instructing him as to the reality that it was God Who would be going before the people into battle, just as He had done for the Children of Israel with the kings as recorded in this morning’s reading. The people were not going into battle by themselves. God was going before them to cause the nations that would be conquered and destroyed to cower in fear and be utterly defeated by the Lord God Almighty.
This was not the first time that Moses so encouraged the people to look to the Lord to fight their battles. If you will recall, when we were reading in Exodus, the people were trapped between the chariots of Pharaoh and the Red Sea. Moses tried to hush the people’s fears with the following encouragement of Ex 14:14. Ex 14:14, The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." 
There is a key component to this fact that we need to take to heart. It is the matter of our being silent before the Lord. This was the urgent message that Moses gave to the people as they were in fear and dread and complaining and moaning and distressing and anxious over what seemed to be a most impossible situation to them. They were delirious in their grief and anguish and anxiety which showed such a lack of trust in the Lord to do all that He said He would do for them. This was the reason that Moses told them to be silent and just wait on the Lord.
This goes hand in hand with the fact that the Lord is the One Who fights our battles. If we are so caught up in our emotional complaining and distress and frustration and worry, it is an immediate indication that we do not know the One Who has us well in hand. It is the indicator that we want to get our hands into the mix and try to make everything better with our own meager and fruitless and powerless understanding and such limited abilities.  
When that is the case, the Lord will often step back and allow us to flounder about like a fish out of water on the banks of the river, trying to return to the life support of the water. He will let us do the very best that we can until the point that we finally realize that we are incapable of doing anything of our own accord. Then, when we become quiet before Him, waiting for Him to save us since we are without hope in ourselves, then He will rescue us and set us back into the course of our flowing forward with Him. 
This is not a matter of punishment or of torturing us or tormenting us. The world does that in its constant, yet futile efforts to cause us to panic and to deny God. No, He waits until we become quiet in order that we can witness the full measure of His grace and His mercy upon us. Until that point of our stillness and our silence before Him, we are prone and apt to try to usurp the credit for and unto ourselves. We will delude ourselves with the thoughts and ideas that we were the driving force behind our salvation, that we were the ones who actually fought the battle and won, rather than it all being the work and the might and the majesty of The Lord God Almighty on display in our deliverance.
This was at the heart of our next passage of encouragement that we read in Deut 1:30+31. Herein, Moses was detailing to the people exactly how the Lord is the One Who had been carrying them throughout their journey in the wilderness, just like a father carries his child. He is the One Who had brought them to the place unto which they have become prepared to inherit the land. All their wanderings in the desert regions was guided by the Lord. He was the One Who fed them, protected them, went before them, caused them to have water, and kept their sandals from wearing out, and their feet from swelling. 
Deut 1:30+31, 'The Lord your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked, until you came to this place.' 
      	There was no reason that the people should ever doubt that the Lord was going before them as He had so carried them out of their vile condition of slavery to the Egyptians. He had protected them so miraculously from the chariots of Pharaoh. He even dried up the Red Sea in order that they could cross on dry land. Then, when there was no food, He provided His manna from heaven. When there was no water, He provided water from the rocks. This same Lord God Almighty had defeated so many other elements of disease and terrors of the night and enemy encroachments that the people should know, without any doubt nor fear nor hesitation that He would fight their battles against all the foes arrayed against them.
	This is something that we each need to recognize as we look back over the course of our lives. We have all, every single one of us, dealwith those times in the wilderness of our walk on this earth when we can truly see that the Lord was going before us. He carried us, as His own beloved children, in His arms through the very worst and the very best of this earthly life. 
Our eyes are so used to seeing only what we want to see in terms of how we made it all happen for ourselves. However, when we ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes fully to the truth of who we are in Jesus Christ, then we will see that at every step of our walk on this earth, at every decision that we made, the Lord was there watching over us. Even when we chose the wrong course, He worked and overruled and brought us back to the place we needed to be. 
In truth, even those wrong decisions, when we see them in the light of the face of Christ, will be seen as our taking another lap around the mountain. This is until we reached the point of complete submission to the will of God and desired to be pleasing to Him, Alone, in the lives that we live here and now. They will be turned to the joy of the Lord in His sovereign ruling and overruling in order to show us that He is fully in charge of our lives and that we are so very securely and eternally in His arms of love. We will learn, through all the details of our walk with Him, that He goes before us into every battle and has the victory in each one. He causes all of them to work to His plan and His purpose in our lives.
This is true of even the ones that we may think are defeats. They will be shown to have accomplished exactly what was needed in our lives to cause us to grow into those greater depths of trust and reliance upon Him. 
Again hear the encouragement of Moses to the people of God detailed and declared in Deut 20:1. Deut 20:1, "When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. 
  	There are those so many times when we think there is no way for us to survive. All the obstacles and all the pressures and all the details of life are so overwhelming. It is as if we were, alone, facing an army of vast and innumerable scale. And yet, the fact is that the Lord is with us. He is the One Who is fighting our battles and we can trust Him thoroughly and completely to manifest His victorious right hand of salvation against all the forces arrayed against us.
	Moses continued with this encouragement just two verses later in Deut 20:3+4. Deut 20:3+4, And he shall say to them, 'Hear, O Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies today. Do not be fainthearted. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.' 
	The people of the Lord are to be strong in Him. Never in our own might or power, but always in the strength and the might and the power and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ going before us. The reason for this confident assurance is the fact that He has already gotten the victory. It is not a matter of hoping that He will be triumphant, but it is the confidence in the reality that He has already put to flight all those arrayed against Him and against us by the Omnipotence of His resurrection from the dead. 
Accordingly, nothing can stand against Him. All the power of this age was aggregated with the sole purpose to keep Him in the grave. That colossal and ultimate endeavor to thwart the plan and purpose of God was utterly shattered when Jesus arose from the dead. With this absolute triumph in place, we are to stand in His victory and rejoice in the full glory of His utter conquest over all the forces that could ever be arrayed against us. As He is our victory, so are we, as His people, to honor Him with no sense of fear or panic or trembling demeanor within the life that we live on this earth. Just as we are to be silent before Him in the confident assurance that He will achieve every victory in our lives, so are we to acknowledge that truth with the conduct and behavior that honors Him as the Lord God of all.
This was reinforced by Joshua’s declaration to the nation as recorded in Joshua Chapter 10. Let us consider first verse 25. Josh 10:25, Joshua then said to them, "Do not fear or be dismayed! Be strong and courageous, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies with whom you fight." 
We are to be strong and courageous in the Lord as we deal with what each day presents to us. We are not to be afraid or living before men with the appearance and attitude and timidity that we are not sure that God will deal with every foe and every situation. He will do as He always does, faithfully hold us in the safety of His loving arms. 
We do face His discipline and we have those times of trials and tribulations, but they should result in the manifest glory of how the Lord is proving Himself day after day after day. Our confidence, our faith, our assurance, and our hope is in the steadfast faithfulness and supreme Omnipotence of Our God.
Now read verse 42 of this chapter 10 in the Book of Joshua. Josh 10:42, And Joshua captured all these kings and their lands at one time, because the Lord, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.
The victory of the nation led by Joshua in conquering the Promised Land was because the Lord fought for them, and not against them, as He did against those peoples who were being dispossessed. The Lord is the One Who fights all our battles, day after day after day. He is Our Victory in the every sense and essence of the reality that Jesus Christ is both our Savior and Our Lord through His death and resurrection from that grave. 
Again, Joshua tells it the way it is to be in our lives and our hearts in Josh 23:8-11. Please open to it and read this glorious promise along with me. Josh 23:8-11, But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. For the Lord has driven out great and strong nations from before you; and as for you, no man has stood before you to this day. One of your men puts to flight a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, just as He promised you. So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God. 
  	Our every trust is to be set in the truth of Jesus Christ going before us. Really to be evidenced is the fact that we are not put off or afraid of whatever or whoever is threatening our forward progress in the love of the Lord. We count on Him and we acknowledge only Him as the essence of our lives and beings. In His truth and in His victorious name all the countless foes and enemies of Christ will be utterly vanquished as were those Egyptian chariots when the Red Sea crashed down upon them.
	The Psalmist picks up this theme for us if you would now please turn to Psalms 44, verses 1-8. Ps 44:1-8, O God, we have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us, The work that Thou didst in their days, In the days of old. Thou with Thine own hand didst drive out the nations; Then Thou didst plant them; Thou didst afflict the peoples, Then Thou didst spread them abroad. For by their own sword they did not possess the land; And their own arm did not save them; But Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy presence, For Thou didst favor them. Thou art my King, O God; Command victories for Jacob. Through Thee we will push back our adversaries; Through Thy name we will trample down those who rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow, Nor will my sword save me. But Thou hast saved us from our adversaries, And Thou hast put to shame those who hate us. In God we have boasted all day long, And we will give thanks to Thy name forever. Selah. 
	We are to give the Lord the thanks that He is due for the great manner in which He has won the eternal victory that is our safety and security and salvation in Jesus Christ. In the fact that He is the one Who fights our every battle, in the reality that His victory is accomplished and sure and ours, in the veracity that our lives are to reflect the full measure of that assurance that we have in Him, so should we be giving Him utmost thanksgiving for Who He is and how He is manifesting Himself in our lives! We are to be the living expression of gratitude unto Him.
	Our final passage for this morning is from the Prophet Isaiah as he gives detail to that which we have expressed in Isa 43:1+2. Isa 43:1+2, But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. 
	Our lives are to manifest exactly this truth of how the Lord has us well in hand. He goes before us into every conflict and trial and tribulation and circumstance. He deals with it all with His Omnipotence and His Omniscience and His Omnipresence on full display. The battle belongs to the Lord and His is the victory, today, tomorrow, and forevermore. So be it!
'Do not fear them, for the Lord your God is the one fighting for you.' Amen.
	
This morning’s benediction is Deut 4:6, concerning keeping the commandments of the Lord for the sake of His testimony in His people. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' Amen.