What verse is the Lord is my strength?

Ex. 15:2. Jah is my strength and song,

Isa. 12:2. For Jah Jehovah is my strength and song;

We feel that this is as it should be. Deliverance should be followed by thanksgiving to the Deliverer. When we have been helped in the moment of difficulty and doubt, when we have realised that the everlasting God has given power to the faint, and increased strength to them that had no might, assuredly our hearts will break out in songs of praise. Three times in Scripture we find the people of God singing of the Lord as their strength and their song. — Ex. 15:2; Ps. 118:14; Isa. 12:2. Compare also Hab. 3:18-19.

Observe the way their soul's vision is filled that resurrection morn: "The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation" (Ex. 15:2). I think, beloved friends, that some of us will have to put it this way: "The Lord was my strength and song, but now I am so weak." Israel says here, "The Lord is my strength and song." Is there not refreshing vigour about that note of the song? Do you think that as you and I get older, we are to get colder? As we go on are we to become feebler? Away with such unbelief. Let me show you an old convert. Four years in a prison, cut off from everything, and all Asia turned away from him, listen to what he says, "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4:4). It was Paul the saint. He writes as a saint, not an apostle there. What can keep a saint right? The company of Christ.

We too must learn to say, “The Lord is my strength and song” (Psalm 118:14).

It is in the Old Testament we read: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." And have we less reason to 'rejoice in the Lord' than the saints in Old Testament days? We who have seen the very image of the good things, and not the 'shadows' only? Some of you will have read an old book that begins by telling us of those who say: "You Christians seem to have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a man with a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but it hurts him to keep it. You cannot expect outsiders to seek very earnestly for anything so uncomfortable." Shame on us! Shame, that such a thing can be said: and, I grieve to say, said with some truth of those who should rejoice in the Lord alway: those who should be the happiest people in the world. But, perhaps, you say: You do not know all the trouble and sorrow I have, or you would not expect me to rejoice. They tell us that a better translation of our verse reads this way: "Rejoice in the Lord on all occasions." And I suppose this takes in all our troubles and sorrows. Our beloved Lord was 'The Man of Sorrows', and yet He tells us of 'My joy.' And His servant could write: "As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing." (2 Cor. 6:10). The Scriptures are clear that our Joy is one that is not affected by adversity: we rejoice always, on all occasions, in dark days, as well as bright: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labour of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no meat; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Jehovah, the Lord, is my strength, And He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, And He will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the Chief Singer on my stringed instruments." (Hab. 3:17-19: See New Translation)

How is that? “The Lord is my strength. He … will make me walk on my high places.” That is the secret of it all. “Because I live ye shall live also.”

The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

It may be thought that the time is inappropriate to be speaking of joy, in days when the ruin of the church presses more and more upon our hearts. But they were not bright days in Nehemiah's time, when God first enunciated the principle, in His grace, that "The joy of the Lord is your strength." (Neh. 8:10) They had opened brightly with a returned remnant, seeking out the original ground of their calling. But the early energy of faith needed to maintain it had already declined and there was grave departure. In the last days we find ourselves most surely: the principles of ruin, begun even in apostolic times, have been fearfully developed, and even in a returned remnant, once more seeking out the original ground of a very different calling, the worst failure has been manifested. Is there any ground for discouragement? There is the deepest ground for humiliation, but no ground for losing heart. No epistle is so full of courage as 2 Timothy, which depicts for us the ruin in which we are. "The joy of the Lord is your strength."

Rather than weeping, the people were told to "Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength" (v. 10). This is not mere natural joy, but the joy of the Lord, which is strength for doing good, such as providing for others who do not have the same advantages as we.