Ex 14:14, The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." We have considered this passage in terms of the Children of Israel as they were caught between the Red Sea and the advancing army of the Egyptian chariots, sent by Pharaoh to bring them back into slavery. The people were in panic mode and in dire distress over the circumstances that they saw as utterly impossible. They were either going to drown, or die, or come under the vengeful retribution of their former captors. There was not much else possible in their limited view of what was to befall them. 
That is when Moses so encouraged them with this tremendous passage. It should serve to calm our nerves and our anxiety and our fear and our frustration in every sense each time we are so hopeless and facing the direst of situations. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent…
We need to keep in mind that we belong to the Lord, as did the Children of Israel. He had been the One to work everything to their complete release from the slavery under which they had been born. Through His miraculous intervention on their behalf, they had been sent forth from Egypt with all the treasures that they could carry and they were being led by the very hand of God going before them.
The same is precisely true of you and me in Jesus Christ. In Him, we have been freed, completely and utterly and joyfully freed from the curse and the penalty of sin and death. Through His miraculous intervention for our sake, we have been released from slavery to our old nature and are now free for all of eternity in Him. We possess all the treasury of Heaven, becoming incorporated into the very family of God, fellow heirs with Christ Jesus. As well, through the abiding grace of the Holy Spirit as He opens and makes alive in us the Word of God, we are guided and kept and sustained throughout our walk on this earth. Nothing comes our way that does not first come through the plan and the purpose of God to bring forth His glory in our lives. That is why it is so vital that we hold to the reality that The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent…
We must never allow our fears and our anxieties and our limited view of events to mask and to dissuade us from the truth that God has us well in hand. We are secure forever in the power of His might and His wisdom and His abiding presence as He goes before us and makes a way where we cannot see a way. As we will continually learn, as the Angel of the Lord so encouraged Mary at the announcement of the conception of the Christ in Luke 1:34, "For nothing will be impossible with God." 
    	We pick up this consideration with the Prophet Isaiah as we read concerning the Lord’s intervention in another utterly impossible situation as detailed in Isa 7:1-4. Please open to it as we will read it together. Isa 7:1-4, Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it. When it was reported to the house of David, saying, "The Arameans have camped in Ephraim," his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field, and say to him,' Take care, and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah. 
	In order to detail the fact that God would absolutely honor His promise to King David, Isaiah so encouraged King Ahaz with the prophesy of the Christ to come as we read just a few verses later, verses 14-16. "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. "He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. "For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. 
	The Lord had far more in mind than just the salvation of the city of Jerusalem. This was the prophecy of the full salvation of those who would eventually believe in and know His Only Begotten Son by Whom eternal salvation would be opened to every nation and people. That could not come into place if the House of David were eliminated as was the fear of Ahaz and the people.
	The Prophet Isaiah is also the one who records for us a most wonderful and comforting reality of the power of God in operation for those who will trust in Him and believe that He is the Lord Who does all things to perfection and fulfillment. It is a passage that we would do well to know and to mark and to read over and over again so that we can believe and hold to it, unlike those faithless ones to whom it was spoken. Isa 30:15, For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, In repentance and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength." But you were not willing… In quietness and trust is your strength… 
	This is one of the great secrets to our life in Christ Jesus! It is something that we do well to hold to in the midst of all those trials and tribulations and storms and gales and crises and dilemmas that so frequently assail us. Whenever we are so troubled and battered by the brute forces of doubt and hopelessness and frustration and animosity, we can find that our quiet trust in the fact of the supremacy of God is our strength to face everything! Please note that is it our trust in God and not in ourselves. 
	We can never, ever rely on ourselves for anything in this realm. Our every hope and salvation is from God and unto God. It is in Him that we have that quiet confidence that He has all things well in hand. It is as we are completely trusting in His ruling and overruling that we will see Him manifest His grace and His mercy and His sovereignty over the every force arrayed against us. The reason for this assurance is that He is working for His glory in our lives. We are the living testimony of what it means to be alive in Jesus Christ.  
	This in nowise means that we can do anything we want, regardless of the consequences. May it never be! We are talking about how our lives present Christ, Alive, to those in our spheres of influence. This means that we want them to see how a Christian lives in obedience and in consecration to the Lord. It is not a matter of us getting our way, but of our lives reflecting the One Who now indwells us. On that basis, every time we face the battering rams of life, we will know what the Apostle Paul proclaims in Rom 8:37-39, But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
	There is a peace and a rest that is ours as we rely on God to make known His perfect plan of our salvation and safe-keeping and deliverance in the midst of every dilemma and situation. There is nothing too great, as in the deliverance of the nation of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, to the smallest detail of our daily walk on this earth. Nothing is outside the mighty working of God for those who love and trust Him and count on Him to deal effectively and fully in our lives. As such, we will learn to know Him in quietness and trust. 
	There is a place of rest in God that supersedes everything else that surrounds us. As the Writer to the Hebrews details it in Heb 4:3-9, For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, "As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest," although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; and again in this passage, "They shall not enter My rest." Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts." For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 
We walk in the peace and the security and the rest of God knowing that as He lives now and forevermore, so are we kept and guarded and saved by His awesome and glorious power, moment by moment, day-by day, month by month, year by year, and decade by decade. Nothing can thwart His mighty work in operation in the death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
	Continuing this truth, the Prophet Isaiah again reemphasizes it in Isa 32:17+18, And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places… There is no anxiety or frustration or fear or restlessness apparent in those who have their confidence in the mighty and wondrous and awesome hands of God. They are at peace and serenity in the every manner in which God will prove Himself. Theirs is a habitation of confident assurance that the One in Whom they trust will evidence His faithfulness and His lovingkindness and His gracious and merciful salvation no matter what forces are assailing His Beloved people. Those whom He called unto Himself are secure and resting in undisturbed confidence in His every provision and safety. 
	Again Isaiah establishes this truth as He declares the powerful and potent Word of the Lord to His people. Isa 41:1-4, "Coastlands, listen to Me in silence, And let the peoples gain new strength; Let them come forward, then let them speak; Let us come together for judgment. "Who has aroused one from the east Whom He calls in righteousness to His feet? He delivers up nations before him, And subdues kings. He makes them like dust with his sword, As the wind-driven chaff with his bow. "He pursues them, passing on in safety, By a way he had not been traversing with his feet. "Who has performed and accomplished it, Calling forth the generations from the beginning? 'I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.'" 
	Be not dissuaded from the fact that we are involved in a spiritual battle, a warfare that is testing the metal of our spiritual growth in Jesus Christ. We are assailed on all sides in this fiery trial of our faith. The key, however, is that we are to stand in the strength and the victory of Christ Jesus! He has already won the battle. The forces of darkness have been defeated in the triumphant resurrection of Our Lord and Savior. We are to stand firm in the confident rest and guarantee that all is well in Him. He is the Lord, the first and the last. No power arrayed against Him can do anything to besmirch or lessen the reality of His glorious conquest. Therefore we find our peace and comfort and rest in Him and His finished work no matter how hectic and charged with energy the atmosphere surrounding us. Our rest and peace is in Him always!
	This is the truth because we are the recipients of the knowledge that God is the One in charge of our lives. He is at work to will and to do all that is necessary to show forth Himself as the focal reality of all of His creation. Who we are and how we live forth life on this earth is completely centered in and governed by Him. 
	We rest in the truth of our last passage of the morning, Isa 45:5-9. "I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these. "Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the Lord, have created it. "Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker — An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands'? 
	This is the truth of the creation of heaven and earth. So many times, we, the created ones, try to usurp His righteous place as the Creator. We try to fix things and to make things operate according to our thoughts and our ideas and our finite minds. The fact is that everything functions according to His plan and His purpose and His ordinances. Who we are and what we do and how much we accomplish is all set in place for all of eternity by the One by Whom life came into being and through Whom all things exist. We cannot tell Him what to do and how to do it. We must learn to simply rest in the fact that He is in charge and that He has all things well in hand. As that is our settled place in Him, so will our hearts and minds find rest and peace and comfort and quietness in all that He is doing, now and forever. So be it!
The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Isa 41:10. 'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' Amen.