Ephesians 6:10-16
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
I have a baggy here and I put a broken necklace in it. Don’t worry Kathy. It’s one of Maddie’s. She broke it and asked me to fix it. The beads and string are all in there together. I want to fix this necklace, string the beads in the right order and tie the clasps back on so Maddie can wear it again. What if I were to claim that all I have to do is shake the baggy? Would you believe it’s possible? If I shake it long enough, can’t I just have faith that as things bounce around in there the end of the string will eventually get caught in the holes of the first bead and thread through, and do it again with the next beads and all the rest and then knots will automatically bounce into the clasps and tie them on just because I’m shaking the bag? I mean, it could happen, could it?
You don’t think so, do you? Not in a million years. Not in six billion years either. I couldn’t even get Maddie to believe that! That’s why people say things like “it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a Christian.” A necklace is such a simple thing compared to the universe. But evolutionists believe “by faith” that a random, chaos creating explosion that happened six billion years ago, put me together, started my heart and keeps me healthy? That takes a lot of faith!
Except, “Faith” in that scenario is being defined as making a claim that has no observable basis in reality and regarding it as true in spite of all scientific evidence to the contrary. And that’s what some think faith is, belief without evidence. Truth with no support. Confidence for no reason. We’re going to talk about that. And you know I should say that evolutionists do believe they’re looking at evidence of evolution. But they don’t have enough evidence to really come to the conclusions that they come to.
Paul mentions six pieces of armor all together in the passage we’re studying, that we must be wearing to protect ourselves from Satan's attacks. The first three, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace are established by our position in Christ. Having put those on by believing in Jesus, the rest we must regularly “take up.” They are the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. These last three help us continue to win the battle.
Today we talk about the shield of faith. It is important for us to understand exactly what faith is, as well as how it works in our lives. Those will be my two focal points today. What is faith, and how does it work like a shield?
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Does that sound like the same thing as belief without evidence? Trust with no support. Confidence for no reason. It doesn’t really to me. Faith IS the evidence so that we have assurance about the good things to come. Faith is the confidence we have in God based on the evidence of what we already know about him.
Let me tell you what I mean. Think of the Israelites at the shore of the Red Sea. The Egyptians are coming! They’re trapped against the sea and they have every reason to believe that their gonna get killed. So, they look at Moses and say, “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt? Isn’t there enough room to bury us there, instead of here?” They had no faith in God, right? Their scientific intellect kept them from believing that God was going to part the Red Sea, right? You get it don’t you? They had no reason to believe that they were going to be okay.
But wait. They DID have plenty of evidence that God was concerned about them and was separating them out from the Egyptians for a grand purpose, way better than just letting them die by the sea. They had just seen the 10 plagues. They were mighty miracles of the God who came to save them. They were also powerful acts of judgment against the people that had oppressed them for 400 years. So, because of that they knew at least two things about God. He’s powerful! He can do anything! And He came to save them and make them into a new nation that he would call His own. Besides that. The pillar of fire was standing right there for all to see!
They should have had faith in God to keep on rescuing them because they had plenty of evidence that he had already done so, powerfully and miraculously. They may not have known exactly how he was going to do it. But they should have trusted that he would. They could have lifted that faith and held it up like a shield. Confidence in God, based on the evidence they had just lived through, would have shielded them against the despair the devil threw at them when he told them how they ought to feel about the approaching Egyptian army.
Contrary to popular perception, there is nothing mystical about faith. It’s not a power or ability you have to believe what seems impossible. Biblical faith is simply what you believe about God and His Word, based on the evidence we have. The more you know about God and His Word, the more faith you will have. The less you know, the smaller your shield will be and the easier it will be for one of Satan's fiery darts to reach its target. If you want your shield of faith to grow large and protective, your knowledge of God and His Word must increase (Romans 10:17). And your experience with God as you trust him also helps with that.
I looked up every time Jesus said, “little faith.” There are 6 Bible verses, 5 in Matthew and one in Luke. But the Lukan one is a repeat of the time in Matthew when Jesus said it to people who worry. It was during the Sermon on the Mount. That’s significant because if people would just remember to count their blessings and to remember to count their blessings, and to remember who God is and how well he cares for all creatures great and small, they could put their faith in that knowledge and evidence about God and never worry about anything.
The remaining four times that Jesus said, “little faith,” he was talking to his disciples, as they were showing that they were slow in learning their lessons and trusting Jesus. These were in the later chapters of Matthew too, so, we know that enough time had gone by that Jesus could say they should have known better. They were the disciples! They were closest to Jesus and knew him best! They knew what he could do. They had the least excuse to act like they had no idea he could take care of them. But they did have one excuse. They did not yet have the Holy Spirit helping them the way he helps us today! Ok, so, we have no excuse!
When Paul talked about the value of the shield of faith he said, “you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” The flaming arrows from Satan are nothing more than smoldering lies, burning accusations, and fiery temptations bombarding our minds. It’s always truth against lies. The devil’s lies are designed to ruin faith by denying the evidence. That’s exactly what he did in the garden of Eden in the very first time. “Did God really say…?” Always deceptive lies. And they are always enflaming or natural desires so that we sin, or playing with our emotions, provoking dread, fear or discouragement, like what happened on the shore of the Red Sea.
When a deceptive thought, accusation, or temptation enters your mind, you can deflect it and put it out if you meet it head-on with what you know to be true about God and His Word. How did Jesus deflect the missiles of Satan's temptation? By shielding Himself with statements from the Word of God. Every time you memorize a Bible verse, listen to a sermon, or participate in a Bible study, you increase your knowledge of God and enlarge your shield of faith. We all struggle with tempting and accusing thoughts. If you are a healthy and mature Christian, they will bounce right off your shield of faith.
So, let’s talk more about how the shield of faith works for us. With the imagery of a Roman soldier before him, Paul used the soldier’s shield to illustrate the shield of faith that God has provided for you and me. The word translated “shield” is the Greek word “thureos,” which was used by the Greeks and Romans to depict a door, an oblong door that was wide in width and long in length. The reason Roman soldiers used this word to describe their battle shields was that their shields were actually door-shaped! They were wide in width and long in length, just like the door of a house.
Also, the shield was thick and made of hard wood covered with several layers of hide so that flaming arrows, which were real weapons shot at Roman troops, would just stick in the shield and go out. These shields were fire extinguishers! If the shields were metal, those flaming darts would bounce off, but then their trajectory change might have them flying up or sideways without putting out the fire fueled by the burning tar the arrows had been dipped in, and some of them might slip past the shields, causing trouble for the soldiers. So, the design was ingenious. They wanted to stop those darts and catch them, to prevent any unpredictable ricochet or splattered burning tar.
Because it was wide and long, this shield completely covered the Roman soldier! You could hide behind it from head to toe. This is why the Holy Spirit chose to use the word thureos as the illustration of faith. He is telling us that God has given us enough faith to make certain we are completely covered for every situation.
Just like the shield that completely covered a Roman soldier, God has given you enough faith to cover you from head to toe and protect every inch of you! So, the shield of faith is your first line of defense. You wear the breastplate of righteousness too, that protects your vital organs. That means that just in case any of satan’s fiery darts happens to get past your shield of faith, it won’t get past the breastplate of righteousness. Your heart will still be right with God. If you don’t hold up your shield of faith, you might sin and that would hurt you, but you are still God’s beloved child.
You might end up out of action for a bit. But the belt of truth will eventually lead you to confession and repentance so that you can raise the shield of faith again and march forward with the gospel. When your shield of faith is properly employed you are fully protected. All the rest of you plus your vital areas are first protected by the shield of faith. An important piece of info about this kind of shield is the way it was used by troops grouped together. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Roman phalanx. It was a battle formation of troops that stayed close together, a tight knit group, with their thureos shields overlapping to present an impenetrable barrier like a walking armored tank.
To me this illustration is also a demonstration of the importance of our Christian fellowship and our mutual dependence upon each other. What do you suppose could happen is one of those guys was in the formation but didn’t have his shield? Unthinkable right? He becomes the weak link and makes the whole formation more vulnerable and therefore less effective.
This also made me think about the twelve spies Moses sent ahead to the Promised Land. Only two of those twelve held up a shield of faith and gave a good report when they got back to the tribes of Israel. So, picture it, twelve guys standing there, and only two shields. How strong of a formation is that? No wonder the rest of the community caved in. They didn’t believe the evidence to support faith in God brought by Caleb and Joshua because the other ten failed to support. We have to stand together in mutual support.
Let each Christian, as an individual, keep his shield of faith up, so that we can all stand together as the Church and faithfully advance the Kingdom! By the way, advance is the right word, because even though the shield of faith is a defensive weapon, it is a portable defensive weapon. It is what enabled the Roman phalanx to advance against an enemy fearlessly and confidently, as in this picture where they are assaulting a walled fortress under the protection of their shields. Even a log is rolling off that sloped roof that they made with their shields over their heads.
And Paul would encourage us in this view with these words from 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, (The Truth is on our side.) and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Faith is not just us trying hard to believe God faith is what we believe about God based on the evidence he has already given us, in his Word, in history, and in our lives.
In Romans 12:3, Paul wrote, “…God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” How much faith has God given you? He has given you enough faith to make sure you are covered for any event that comes along in your life! You can resist the devil and any temptation or discouragement because you have the shield of faith. He has given you faith to put out fires of doubt. He has given you faith to stand together with your brothers and sisters in the Lord and believe that God will use us to share the gospel and make new disciples.
Listen Link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
I have a baggy here and I put a broken necklace in it. Don’t worry Kathy. It’s one of Maddie’s. She broke it and asked me to fix it. The beads and string are all in there together. I want to fix this necklace, string the beads in the right order and tie the clasps back on so Maddie can wear it again. What if I were to claim that all I have to do is shake the baggy? Would you believe it’s possible? If I shake it long enough, can’t I just have faith that as things bounce around in there the end of the string will eventually get caught in the holes of the first bead and thread through, and do it again with the next beads and all the rest and then knots will automatically bounce into the clasps and tie them on just because I’m shaking the bag? I mean, it could happen, could it?
You don’t think so, do you? Not in a million years. Not in six billion years either. I couldn’t even get Maddie to believe that! That’s why people say things like “it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a Christian.” A necklace is such a simple thing compared to the universe. But evolutionists believe “by faith” that a random, chaos creating explosion that happened six billion years ago, put me together, started my heart and keeps me healthy? That takes a lot of faith!
Except, “Faith” in that scenario is being defined as making a claim that has no observable basis in reality and regarding it as true in spite of all scientific evidence to the contrary. And that’s what some think faith is, belief without evidence. Truth with no support. Confidence for no reason. We’re going to talk about that. And you know I should say that evolutionists do believe they’re looking at evidence of evolution. But they don’t have enough evidence to really come to the conclusions that they come to.
Paul mentions six pieces of armor all together in the passage we’re studying, that we must be wearing to protect ourselves from Satan's attacks. The first three, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace are established by our position in Christ. Having put those on by believing in Jesus, the rest we must regularly “take up.” They are the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. These last three help us continue to win the battle.
Today we talk about the shield of faith. It is important for us to understand exactly what faith is, as well as how it works in our lives. Those will be my two focal points today. What is faith, and how does it work like a shield?
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Does that sound like the same thing as belief without evidence? Trust with no support. Confidence for no reason. It doesn’t really to me. Faith IS the evidence so that we have assurance about the good things to come. Faith is the confidence we have in God based on the evidence of what we already know about him.
Let me tell you what I mean. Think of the Israelites at the shore of the Red Sea. The Egyptians are coming! They’re trapped against the sea and they have every reason to believe that their gonna get killed. So, they look at Moses and say, “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt? Isn’t there enough room to bury us there, instead of here?” They had no faith in God, right? Their scientific intellect kept them from believing that God was going to part the Red Sea, right? You get it don’t you? They had no reason to believe that they were going to be okay.
But wait. They DID have plenty of evidence that God was concerned about them and was separating them out from the Egyptians for a grand purpose, way better than just letting them die by the sea. They had just seen the 10 plagues. They were mighty miracles of the God who came to save them. They were also powerful acts of judgment against the people that had oppressed them for 400 years. So, because of that they knew at least two things about God. He’s powerful! He can do anything! And He came to save them and make them into a new nation that he would call His own. Besides that. The pillar of fire was standing right there for all to see!
They should have had faith in God to keep on rescuing them because they had plenty of evidence that he had already done so, powerfully and miraculously. They may not have known exactly how he was going to do it. But they should have trusted that he would. They could have lifted that faith and held it up like a shield. Confidence in God, based on the evidence they had just lived through, would have shielded them against the despair the devil threw at them when he told them how they ought to feel about the approaching Egyptian army.
Contrary to popular perception, there is nothing mystical about faith. It’s not a power or ability you have to believe what seems impossible. Biblical faith is simply what you believe about God and His Word, based on the evidence we have. The more you know about God and His Word, the more faith you will have. The less you know, the smaller your shield will be and the easier it will be for one of Satan's fiery darts to reach its target. If you want your shield of faith to grow large and protective, your knowledge of God and His Word must increase (Romans 10:17). And your experience with God as you trust him also helps with that.
I looked up every time Jesus said, “little faith.” There are 6 Bible verses, 5 in Matthew and one in Luke. But the Lukan one is a repeat of the time in Matthew when Jesus said it to people who worry. It was during the Sermon on the Mount. That’s significant because if people would just remember to count their blessings and to remember to count their blessings, and to remember who God is and how well he cares for all creatures great and small, they could put their faith in that knowledge and evidence about God and never worry about anything.
The remaining four times that Jesus said, “little faith,” he was talking to his disciples, as they were showing that they were slow in learning their lessons and trusting Jesus. These were in the later chapters of Matthew too, so, we know that enough time had gone by that Jesus could say they should have known better. They were the disciples! They were closest to Jesus and knew him best! They knew what he could do. They had the least excuse to act like they had no idea he could take care of them. But they did have one excuse. They did not yet have the Holy Spirit helping them the way he helps us today! Ok, so, we have no excuse!
When Paul talked about the value of the shield of faith he said, “you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” The flaming arrows from Satan are nothing more than smoldering lies, burning accusations, and fiery temptations bombarding our minds. It’s always truth against lies. The devil’s lies are designed to ruin faith by denying the evidence. That’s exactly what he did in the garden of Eden in the very first time. “Did God really say…?” Always deceptive lies. And they are always enflaming or natural desires so that we sin, or playing with our emotions, provoking dread, fear or discouragement, like what happened on the shore of the Red Sea.
When a deceptive thought, accusation, or temptation enters your mind, you can deflect it and put it out if you meet it head-on with what you know to be true about God and His Word. How did Jesus deflect the missiles of Satan's temptation? By shielding Himself with statements from the Word of God. Every time you memorize a Bible verse, listen to a sermon, or participate in a Bible study, you increase your knowledge of God and enlarge your shield of faith. We all struggle with tempting and accusing thoughts. If you are a healthy and mature Christian, they will bounce right off your shield of faith.
So, let’s talk more about how the shield of faith works for us. With the imagery of a Roman soldier before him, Paul used the soldier’s shield to illustrate the shield of faith that God has provided for you and me. The word translated “shield” is the Greek word “thureos,” which was used by the Greeks and Romans to depict a door, an oblong door that was wide in width and long in length. The reason Roman soldiers used this word to describe their battle shields was that their shields were actually door-shaped! They were wide in width and long in length, just like the door of a house.
Also, the shield was thick and made of hard wood covered with several layers of hide so that flaming arrows, which were real weapons shot at Roman troops, would just stick in the shield and go out. These shields were fire extinguishers! If the shields were metal, those flaming darts would bounce off, but then their trajectory change might have them flying up or sideways without putting out the fire fueled by the burning tar the arrows had been dipped in, and some of them might slip past the shields, causing trouble for the soldiers. So, the design was ingenious. They wanted to stop those darts and catch them, to prevent any unpredictable ricochet or splattered burning tar.
Because it was wide and long, this shield completely covered the Roman soldier! You could hide behind it from head to toe. This is why the Holy Spirit chose to use the word thureos as the illustration of faith. He is telling us that God has given us enough faith to make certain we are completely covered for every situation.
Just like the shield that completely covered a Roman soldier, God has given you enough faith to cover you from head to toe and protect every inch of you! So, the shield of faith is your first line of defense. You wear the breastplate of righteousness too, that protects your vital organs. That means that just in case any of satan’s fiery darts happens to get past your shield of faith, it won’t get past the breastplate of righteousness. Your heart will still be right with God. If you don’t hold up your shield of faith, you might sin and that would hurt you, but you are still God’s beloved child.
You might end up out of action for a bit. But the belt of truth will eventually lead you to confession and repentance so that you can raise the shield of faith again and march forward with the gospel. When your shield of faith is properly employed you are fully protected. All the rest of you plus your vital areas are first protected by the shield of faith. An important piece of info about this kind of shield is the way it was used by troops grouped together. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Roman phalanx. It was a battle formation of troops that stayed close together, a tight knit group, with their thureos shields overlapping to present an impenetrable barrier like a walking armored tank.
To me this illustration is also a demonstration of the importance of our Christian fellowship and our mutual dependence upon each other. What do you suppose could happen is one of those guys was in the formation but didn’t have his shield? Unthinkable right? He becomes the weak link and makes the whole formation more vulnerable and therefore less effective.
This also made me think about the twelve spies Moses sent ahead to the Promised Land. Only two of those twelve held up a shield of faith and gave a good report when they got back to the tribes of Israel. So, picture it, twelve guys standing there, and only two shields. How strong of a formation is that? No wonder the rest of the community caved in. They didn’t believe the evidence to support faith in God brought by Caleb and Joshua because the other ten failed to support. We have to stand together in mutual support.
Let each Christian, as an individual, keep his shield of faith up, so that we can all stand together as the Church and faithfully advance the Kingdom! By the way, advance is the right word, because even though the shield of faith is a defensive weapon, it is a portable defensive weapon. It is what enabled the Roman phalanx to advance against an enemy fearlessly and confidently, as in this picture where they are assaulting a walled fortress under the protection of their shields. Even a log is rolling off that sloped roof that they made with their shields over their heads.
And Paul would encourage us in this view with these words from 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, (The Truth is on our side.) and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Faith is not just us trying hard to believe God faith is what we believe about God based on the evidence he has already given us, in his Word, in history, and in our lives.
In Romans 12:3, Paul wrote, “…God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” How much faith has God given you? He has given you enough faith to make sure you are covered for any event that comes along in your life! You can resist the devil and any temptation or discouragement because you have the shield of faith. He has given you faith to put out fires of doubt. He has given you faith to stand together with your brothers and sisters in the Lord and believe that God will use us to share the gospel and make new disciples.
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