Ex 15:2, "The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; This is my God, and I will praise Him; My father's God, and I will extol Him. 
	We continue with our consideration of this Song of Moses declaring the greatness and the supremacy and the splendor and the glory and the might and the sovereignty of the Lord God Almighty. It is filled with all the joy of the Lord’s salvation in evidence as we want to see this morning. This is the single greatest reality that God has provided for those who will seek Him and turn to Him and call upon Him and trust in Him. 
	Our certainty of our eternal security is set in the gift of salvation through the death and resurrection of The Only Begotten Son of the Father, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He, being our Salvation, is what makes available to us the ever present and all powerful joy and peace and comfort of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Without God becoming, in every sense, our salvation, we have no hope and no assurance and no real joy in this realm or in the eternity before us which will show forth all God’s wondrous love and praise and honor. It is those whose lives are hidden in Jesus Christ who will be enjoying the fruits of God’s salvation, while those who choose to deny Him will be faced with the everlasting consequences of that decision. 
  	Please open in your Bibles to Isaiah Chapter 12 as we want to read together what the Lord revealed to the prophet of His glorious might in operation. Isa 12:2-6, "Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the Lord God is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation." Therefore you will joyously draw water From the springs of salvation. And in that day you will say, "Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; Make them remember that His name is exalted." Praise the Lord in song, for He has done excellent things; Let this be known throughout the earth. Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. 
	Note the truth of what is ours because of the fact that God has become our salvation. …I will trust and not be afraid; For the Lord God is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation." The fact that God has made Himself our salvation means that we can place our fullest trust in Him. He is the One Who guarantees that He will be Our Savior. He is absolutely trustworthy and faithful and just in the every measure. We do not have to think that there is any possibility that He will let us down or forsake us. We are eternally secure in Him and in Him, Alone. We are not the ones who have to maintain our status or our eligibility. He has done the work and He has done it once and for all time. Oh praise His glorious and awesome and wondrous name for this safekeeping and sanctuary in Him. 
	The second reality of this fact that God, Himself, is Our salvation is that we are not to be afraid. We have that confident assurance that He has us well in hand. He is our guarantee of eternal peace and joy and fellowship in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. He is the One Who has chosen us. He is the One Who has redeemed us unto Himself. He is the Guarantor and the Keeper of the life which He has given us. We have no fear of anything with which this realm can assail us because we know Our Redeemer and that He lives and that He is the source and essence of our lives! When we pass from this realm, we are freed from all the filth and the degradation and the trauma that this old nature drags around. Everything is manifestly and gloriously awaiting us in the arms of Our Savior. In Him, we find no fear or terror.
	The Prophet Isaiah continues in this truth for our encouragement in Chapter 45, verses 17 and 18. Isa 45:17+18, Israel has been saved by the Lord With an everlasting salvation; You will not be put to shame or humiliated To all eternity. For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, But formed it to be inhabited), "I am the Lord, and there is none else. 
	Think on this for a moment. Our salvation is because God has become our Salvation. It is an everlasting salvation because God is everlasting. As a direct result, we will not be ashamed or humiliated because our trust and our hope and our assurance rests in the Lord God Almighty, Creator of all things. As He is and lives and rules and overrules, so are we made to enjoy all that He has for us in the living reality of the life of Jesus Christ. This age seems to delight in trying to belittle and embarrass and humiliate those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Invariably, we are targeted as fools and as those who have an irrational sense of history and destiny. But the reality of who we are rests in the full measure of the mighty working of God, Himself, being our all-in-all. In Him we will realize the full measure that eternity is our joyous opportunity to know His love and abiding peace and joy forever, and forever, and forevermore!
	Again listen to the Prophet Isaiah in Isa 49:6-13 as he details precisely what the heart of God has made ours unto salvation in Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Father. Please read along in this well-known passage. Isa 49:6-13, He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and its Holy One, To the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the Servant of rulers, "Kings shall see and arise, Princes shall also bow down; Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You." Thus says the Lord, "In a favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped You; And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people, To restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages; Saying to those who are bound, 'Go forth,' To those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves.' Along the roads they will feed, And their pasture will be on all bare heights. "They will not hunger or thirst, Neither will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And will guide them to springs of water. "And I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up. "Behold, these shall come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim." Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have compassion on His afflicted. 
	Notice the heart of God to us in His Son. In this world, He was despised and forsaken and it was all for our sake. In Him, we will have all the joy of eternity with no hunger, no thirst, inheriting the uncountable and endless treasury of heaven. We will know only joy and comfort and compassion in the salvation that Jesus is to us.
	Note that this theme of the salvation of the Lord was fore-told at the birth of John the Baptist by Zacharias in Luke 1:68-79. There was absolute certainty expressed by this father as he prophesied to the working might of God in the birth of this one who would go before the Christ and prepare the people to receive the salvation that had been promised from all those ages of old.
	Luke 1:68-79, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant — As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old — Salvation from our enemies, And from the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways; To give to His people the knowledge of salvation By the forgiveness of their sins, Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high shall visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace." Reiterating with all emphasis …Salvation from our enemies, And from the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.
	All the heartache, all the humiliation, all the fear and trembling, all the loathing of the peoples surrounding us, all trials and the tribulations are set aside in the beauty and the joy that God has made us His very own in Jesus Christ. In Him we have peace! We will serve Him in joy and in holiness and in righteousness and in rejoicing! 
	And later, Luke tells us the following in chapter 2, verses 25-32, concerning the prophecy of Simeon about the Christ-Child. Luke 2:25-32, And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said, "Now Lord, Thou dost let Thy bond-servant depart In peace, according to Thy word; For my eyes have seen Thy salvation, Which Thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, A light of revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Thy people Israel." 
In Christ Jesus, we all are the recipients of the fact that God has made Himself to be Our Salvation. We are to rejoice and be glad in Him all the days of our lives as we will be for all of the eternal ages to come. 
	This living and active and prophesied salvation was forcefully proclaimed by Peter at the trial concerning the healing of the lame man in the name of Jesus Christ. Peter made it very clear that there is no other means of being saved. It is all in and through and by Jesus Christ, Alone, that God has opened the floodgates of our eternal salvation. Acts 4:8-12, Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead — by this name this man stands here before you in good health. "He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the very corner stone. "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." 
	Man is continually trying to find some other means of salvation through his own efforts and ideologies and philosophies and fantasies in order to not be utterly dependent upon the Lord God Almighty. To rely on the name of Jesus for deliverance, means that we have to admit that we are utterly incapable of saving ourselves. This is something that humanity is loath to do. There is that false sense of self-reliance which states that we are able to do everything on our own power without any need to count on some supreme being to save us. Humanity considers that human beings are an entity unto themselves, independent and capable of doing it all without any reliance upon superstition or tradition or religious dogma and doctrine. 
	The Writer of the Revelation of Jesus Christ records exactly what that will earn those who refuse to seek God as their salvation. Please turn to Rev 19:1-7 and read along with me. Rev 19:1-7, After these things I heard, as it were, a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His bond-servants on her." And a second time they said, "Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and ever." And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, "Amen. Hallelujah!" And a voice came from the throne, saying, "Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great." And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." 
	We rejoice in the fact that we are saved because God, Himself, has become our salvation. In this reality is manifested the very heart of all that God ever intended for us, His people chosen from before the foundation of the world was laid. So be it!
"The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; This is my God, and I will praise Him; My father's God, and I will extol Him. Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is our morning’s passage, Ex 15:2, "The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; This is my God, and I will praise Him; My father's God, and I will extol Him. Amen.