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 today with the Song of Moses. We gave a quick overview of it last week. We saw that there is very much in this passage that reflects our heart toward God and His heart toward us. 
We are in the general process of looking at the living and personal relationship that is ours with God through Jesus Christ. We can not have such a relationship unless we know the other in a very intimate manner. This song is an example of how God shows us a deeper understanding of Who He is in His place as Our Living Lord God Almighty, Our Deliverer and Our Savior, Our strength and Our Song. We spent much of our previous time together looking at the manner in which God’s revelation of Himself in such might and power deserves our bursting forth in a song such as this which declares His glory and His praise and His adoration. 
That is where we want to pick up this morning. We want to spend a little time in those wonderful scriptures which give detail and reinforcement to the fact that we can rely on God and count on Him as Our Strength in the midst of every situation and dilemma and trial and tribulation and circumstance. 
One of the key elements that we need to keep in mind is that we are to find our every source of ability to stand for the name and the glory and the praise of God in Him. This means, in very simple and straightforward reality, that He is our strength. We do not have what is necessary to do anything for the Lord. This is a grave misconception within the Church that we are called to do something to make a difference for the sake of God and to promote His purposes. The fact is that we are called to be what the Lord has designed us to be, utterly and absolutely, and wholly reliant upon Him for every measure of all that we are and ever will be. 
Think about what those Children of Israel had to offer the Lord in their being released from slavery. Nothing! They had nothing to help free themselves! They had no will power, no weapons, no ability to do anything except complain the entire time that it would have been easier to die in Egypt than in the desert. Everything which brought about their deliverance was from the mighty and awesome hand of God. There is no change to this. Everything in our lives, every deliverance, every manner of our getting through the hard times is by the grace and the mercy and the working might of God’s deliverance in operation. We can add nothing to it, no matter how hard we might try. 
As we read in Deut 10:21, He is your praise and He is your God, who has done these great and awesome things for you which your eyes have seen. We will have this same heart in evidence in our attitudes if we will but watch how the Lord manifests Himself and His power and His heart of love toward us in the every manner of our deliverance. This absolutely includes even the strength to face each day. Each morning, as we rise to meet the challenges before us, it is a gift from the heart of God to you and to me. Our rising up and our lying down are at the will and the manifest grace of God. Our every interaction with others is directed and choreographed by the design and the love of God. Every detail of our day is at the full measure of God’s Omnipotent mercy and Omniscient blessing in action. 
The Psalmist understood the reality of what it meant to rely upon the Lord God Almighty in every instance. In the times of trial and hardship, we have the record of how he called upon and trusted in the Lord. Ps 18:1-3, "I love Thee, O Lord, my strength." The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies. He knew the Lord in the power of God as his Strength and his Rock and his Deliverer. 
So often we worry and fret and frustrate ourselves in all the hopelessness of our inability to accomplish anything toward our own deliverance in times of tribulation and dire circumstances. We will do everything we can to make our own way out of a crisis, to the point at which we become utterly paralyzed in our inability to do anything except call on the name of the Lord. If we would only learn to call on Him immediately in the realization that He, Alone, is our Rock and our Fortress, our strength and our Deliverer, so much would be set aside in our lives which rob us of our joy and our peace in Jesus Christ. 
Again listen to the Psalmist in this regard in Ps 27:1-6. Please read together with me, Ps 27:1-6. The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident. One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to meditate in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock. And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me; And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. 
	Throughout the Psalms, there is the declaration of the fact that our strength rests, with the every aspect of what is involved in resting, in the Lord. We are completely dependent upon Him in our lives from our conception in our mother’s womb to our being gathered into the arms of the Lord at our last breath. As the people of God, our lives are to show forth this wondrous and mighty working power of God as our entire focus of life on this earth. 
Ps 28:7-9, The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him. The Lord is their strength, And He is a saving defense to His anointed. Save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance; Be their shepherd also, and carry them forever. 
	It is wonderful to consider the truth of the Lord’s great provision to be our all in all, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, year after year, decade upon decade. This is something in which we can take great comfort and elation. Ps 59:16+17, But as for me, I shall sing of Thy strength; Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Thy lovingkindness in the morning, For Thou hast been my stronghold, And a refuge in the day of my distress. O my strength, I will sing praises to Thee; For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness. 
	This is one of the most loving and kind realties of our living relationship with the Lord God Almighty. He so cares for and provides for us that He, Himself, is the strength by Whom we function as His emissaries and ambassadors on this earth. We are not tasked with anything other than what He makes Himself to be in and unto us. In His love and His mercy and His grace, we are brought into the fuller measure of how our lives function to His glory and His praise and His adoration. 
	As an outgrowth of this truth, we become more and more grounded in the fact that we cannot make it through a single day without Him. We are utterly reliant upon His strength and His wisdom and His power to deal with even those daily tasks which this world thrusts our way. The inhabitants of this realm, who know not the heart of God as the very source of strength and salvation, muddle through life, deceived by what this realm offers as rationale and substance for making a name and a reputation and a walk of fame with the resources at hand. The lie of this age is that we deserve to be honored and praised because our self-esteem demands it. The teaching of the world is that man is to be self-reliant and able to forge ahead for the limited time of life on earth. Their claim is that there is nothing else to know or experience than what is part of this current physical life. 
	The truth, however, is that eternity lies before us. Those who have responded to the salvation of God and called upon the name of Jesus have an everlasting life of joy and peace and glory and blessing ahead of us. We learn to live our lives with a view to that which honors and pleases the One Who holds us for all of that eternity. Ps 62:5-8, My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah. 
	In the magnitude of this certainty, our view of God is changed. We do not see Him as One Who imposes His will and His way on some helpless beings, forcing them to obey or else. Rather, we see the truth that we were the ones who turned away from Him and forsook His love and His grace and His joy to seek after our own self-delusions and arrogant lusts. We submitted ourselves to the cesspools and quagmires of this defiled realm with abandonment and careless consideration of the consequences. He saw our strife, our entrapment, our iniquity, and our righteous deserving of death in our debasement and corruption. Yet He chose to save us unto Himself. Despite our treachery and our faithlessness, He made Himself to be all that would bring life and salvation into and unto us. He made Himself to be Our everything because He so loved us and reached out to us and saved us by the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son.
	Please rejoice in this truth as we read together Ps 118:14-24. Ps 118:14-24, The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation. The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but live, And tell of the works of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, But He has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness; I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; The righteous will enter through it. I shall give thanks to Thee, for Thou hast answered me; And Thou hast become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone. This is the Lord's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. 
	This is not to say that we will have a rosy and carefree sojourn through our walk on this earth. Rather, we will face even more trial and tribulation as we learn to count on the Lord to be our living source of deliverance and rescue. He will prove Himself through the greatest means of our delivery and release. The Prophet Habakkuk knew this truth as we read in Hab 3:17-19a, Though the fig tree should not blossom, And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail, And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places. 
	Many well-meaning Christians fail to recognize that to know the Lord in such an intimate manner requires and even more forcefully demands that we face the very worst dilemmas and distresses and tribulations in the learned assurance that no matter what is before us, God has it all well in hand! He is our exact source of what is needed to deal with the very worst of this realm’s evils. As so encourgaged by the Prophet …Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places. 
	We are also encouraged with this truth in very simple and basic reality throughout the New Testament. We will end with one of the most phenomenal encouragements in this great provision of God being our strength as written to the Church at Philippi, by the Apostle Paul. Phil 4:13, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Note that we can do all things through Christ Jesus! He is the One Who strengthens us! He is Our might and ability and source of endurance in the every endeavor that He puts before us. Nothing is too difficult or too beyond His glorious ability to overcome. He is the One Who has done away with the curse of sin, death, for us. And He is the One Who sees us through each daily opportunity to prove His glory and His might and His strength and His sovereignty over all the powers and elements and issues and storms of this realm. 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 Ps 119:49+50. Remember the word to Thy servant, In which Thou hast made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, That Thy word has revived me. Amen.