Alba 7-30-2023
THE ARMOR OF GOD: THE SHIELD OF FAITH
Ephesians 6:16
Among Gary Larsen’s “The Far Side” cartoons was one where two deer were standing upright in the forest. One deer is looking at his buddy who clearly has a target on his chest. And the one deer is saying, “Bummer of a birthmark, Hal!”
I think all of us have felt like Hal the deer at times. It seems like there’s a target on our chest and its hunting season. And the devil takes advantage of it. That's why we need the protection of the armor of God.
Each part of the armor adds another layer of protection in the spiritual battles we face each day. To win these battles we need the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness and feet grounded in the gospel of peace.
But the devil is clever and has ways of throwing things our way that can do serious damage. So Ephesians 6:16 says we should, “above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”
Scripture continues to use the armor that Roman soldiers used and compares it to our use as Christian soldiers. So what was the shield like that the Romans carried? Well, it was big!
One of the most dominating things you would see when you looked at a Roman soldier was the big shield that he carried. It was about the size of a door and it even resembled a door. There were smaller shields that were round and were used for parades. But our text does not use the word for that small shield. It uses the word that refers to the large shield used by a soldier in battle.
Their shield had a wood frame that had layers of leather that was pulled very tight over the frame. The soldier had the daily responsibility to anoint his shield with oil. The reason that he did this was so the leather would remain supple. A shield that had been neglected would deteriorate and the soldier could very easily lose his life because of it.
The soldier would also soak the leather with water. Because in those times armies would take their arrows, dip them in pitch, set them on fire and shoot them at their enemies. The wet leather would quench the fiery darts sent their way.
Armies had another tactic to try to defeat their foes. Sometimes they would dip the arrow in a poisonous fluid of some type so that it would poison the soldier that it hit. So the shield was a necessity.
The example of how battles were fought in those times gives us a clue how the devil works. And his attacks can be just as deadly. That's why temptations can be so hard to overcome.
The devil sends temptations that have a fiery quality about them. He will send temptations that try to draw us in his web.
There are things in each of us which the fiery darts target. There are desires, appetites, passions, lusts, which war against the soul, and which need only a touch of fire to ignite.
Our whole being is capable of being set on fire of hell.
Every day the devil is shooting arrows at us. These arrows that are shot by the devil have a wounding and killing nature to them. The devil hates us! We need to be aware that the devil trying to destroy us.
Do you ever feel under attack? The devil has a well-stocked arsenal of weapons to choose from--to wage war on us--and at times we feel bombarded, under siege. Then when we’re most vulnerable, we’re tempted to feel bitterness, despair, apathy, or self-pity.
That's when Satan whispers in our ears, evil thoughts, accusations, doubts (ever have any of these?). It is said that opportunity may knock once, but temptations and doubts seem to bang on our door forever.
Satan is the author of confusion; he aims to distract us from sound thinking. Without a shield, we will falter on the battlefield. With the shield of faith we can ward off attacks. Don’t let your shield down; it receives the blows meant for you.
If any sinner or backslider could ever understand that this world and the flesh does not love them, it would change the nature of the battle.
The only good thing about temptation is that it can drive us to our knees in prayer so that we may gain strength from the Lord in the midst of our spiritual battles. Temptations lose their power when Jesus is involved.
There is value that comes from being in the battle! We don't enjoy it when it bears down on us, but after the fact we may understand that God was working out things in our life to make us stronger as we continue to use the protection of the shield of faith.
Remember, when Jesus was tempted by the devil, He fought the battle and won. He put upt the shield of faith with verses of scripture that took the power of the temptation away.
Still, the darts of the devil are terrible to contend with. We need to be on guard against the way the devil works. Because he does more than try to get us to do the things we should not do. He will use his wiles and methods to destroy whatever he can. You see the arrows and darts that the enemy hurls in our direction aren’t just normal arrows.
Remember how verse 12 tells us that, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Let me give an example of how the devil can use such powers to turn people away from God.
In California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on October 8, 2021 making it the first state to require all students to complete a semester-long course in ethnic studies to earn a high school diploma.
The mandate will take effect starting with the graduating class of 2029-2030, although high schools must start to offer courses starting in the 2025-2026 school year. Hundreds of California high schools already have such courses.
There can be some value in learning the contributions of people with various ethnic backgrounds. But opponents argue that it only adds to the divide between people and therefore encourages racism in the name of anti-racism. But the worst of it is as follows.
An excerpt from a National Review report quoted by Glenn Beck describing a section of the curriculum says that: “Students are to be taught that white Christian settlers committed “theocide” against indigenous tribes when they arrived in the New World by murdering Native American gods and replacing them with the Christian God.
According to the curriculum, student will learn that they have the power and the responsibility to build a social order defined by “countergenocide.” which will eventually supplant the last vestiges of colonial Christianity and pave the way for the “regeneration of indigenous epistemic and cultural futurity.”
Students first clap and chant to the god Texkatlipoka – whom the Aztecs tradtionally worshiped with human sacrifice and cannibalism – asking him for the power to be “warriors” for “social justice.”
Next, the students chant to the gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek, seeking “healing epistemologies” and “a revolutionary spirit.” Huitzilopochtli, in particular, is the Aztec deity of war who inspired hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices during Aztec rule.
The Aztec's worship was known for human sacrifice by the tens of thousands, cannibalism, and the severe and prolonged torture and sacrifice of children. Those are the gods that they (the Board of Education in California) think really need to be worshiped and brought back in our understanding.
(Information taken from CNN, FOX News, The Blaze Media and EdSource.org)
This is from the devil himself! Fiery darts being thrown at our children. Children, many of whom do not have a shield of faith to protect them. We need to be vigilant because the devil is doing his best to devour our culture.
Besides, I thought that we have been told that religion has no place in the schools. It is amazing that the only religion that seems to be excluded is Christianity. Once again, it proves that the devil hates the one religion that is pure and true.
We cannot lose faith. We have a God who is stronger than the devil and any false gods he may try to erect. We have a God who loves us, not one who expects us to kill our children in order to appease Him.
We must make known the message of God's love, mercy and grace. And we need to increase our trust in the Lord so that our shield of faith will be our strong defense against the devil's attacks.
Let down that shield of faith and you open yourself to danger. The apostle Peter had a time of weakness and he opened himself to attack. He denied even knowing Jesus.
But before it happened, Jesus knowing what was coming said in Luke 22:31-32, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
Our Lord wants us to be strong. He wants our faith to be strong. He wants us to succeed in our walk with Him. But He also knows that we must be prepared for battle.
Faith never guarantees a life of ease, rather it is there to shield us when attacks come, whether through temptations or trials, so that we might be able to overcome and not be overwhelmed.
The shield of faith is something we must all use if we are going to survive. Why? Because it says in II Timothy 3:12, “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
The apostle Paul understood this. So it says in Acts 14:21-22, “And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”
The shield of faith must be included in our armor and effectively used so that we can have the victory that God intends to be ours. There are too many stories of people saying they tried, and it did not seem to work. People have fallen away from church because they felt that God did not come to their aid when they believed He would.
Instead of questioning God and His ways, we need to examine our own faith and ask the hard questions. Are we willing to trust God no matter what. We do not need to condemn ourselves or belittle what faith we do have.
But instead of feeling as if we have been abandoned by God, we need to fully examine where our faith is placed so that we can increase our effectiveness as His soldiers.
Problems are not the result of God’s failure to comply to our wishes, but most likely a result of our failure to discern and know God completely. An understanding of what it means to fully trust God will help us exercise better discernment and deal with the problems caused when our faith gets off track.
We need the armor of God. We need the shield of faith.
What kind of faith? Well, it all begins with saving faith, an obedient faith in Jesus, and what He has done for us by going to the cross so that our sins can be forgiven.
But there is also the daily, practical faith in our everyday lives. Daily faith for the believer is the assurance that God is with us, and His Word is true. It is reliance and confidence!
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The substance is the reality of God's continuing care for us through our lives. The evidence is contained in the knowledge that we have a Savior. Jesus came into this world and offered Himself on that cross taking the penalty for our sins upon Himself.
Our faith is built upon the fact of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection! We are not people whose faith is just wishful thinking. It is solid, and it shields us from attempts to hit us with the lies of the devil that try to make us feel that our battle is lost.
We need to place our faith in facts, not feelings. There is a poem that says,
“Feelings come and feelings go,
for feelings are deceiving.
My trust is in the Word of God,
naught else is worth believing."
And here is another poem that says it well:
Three men were walking on a wall,
Feeling, Faith and Fact.
When Feeling took an awful fall,
And Faith was taken back,
So close was Faith to Feeling,
He stumbled and fell too.
But Fact remained,
And pulled Faith back,
And Faith brought feeling too.
~Author Unknown
Our faith is built on the fact of God's love for us in Christ Jesus. The devil may have put a target on us, but the shield of faith is our protection.
It is when we hold that shield of faith firmly in our hands that the devil can throw his worst at us, and we will still be protected by the armor of God.
CLOSE:
Robert Leroe, who previous to his ministry was a chaplain in the military, told this story:
As part of my Chaplain's Basic Training, I paid a visit to the tear gas chamber. Wearing my gas mask, I filed in with a dozen other chaplains, and we listened to an NCO give a briefing on the importance of trusting our equipment.
It was obvious that our masks worked, because we weren’t bothered by the tear gas. We could see the gas, but were unaffected. All was well.
But then, to prove the point, we were told to remove our masks, then recite our name, rank, and home-town before making a hasty exit.
We certainly learned to put trust in our masks…and to appreciate fresh air! In the same way, we need to trust the shield of faith issued us by God. It works.
When properly placed, the shield of faith will quench ALL the fiery darts of Satan. The devil has no strategy, tactic, or device, that the shield of faith which God has given us will not defeat!
We are in a spiritual war. but we have assurance that our Commander is unbeatable and will bring us to victory.
Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
