🛡️ Continuing with Spiritual Warfare: The Defensive Weapons

Hello again!

We’re continuing our study of spiritual warfare, and we are in this section as we look at each of the defensive weapons that God has given us to:

  • Thrive

  • Survive

  • Experience victory in this battle we have against a very real and powerful enemy.

So we are considering each piece of the armor of God.

🛡️ The Visual Overview

I’ve been using this graphic.

  • We’ve talked about the shield of faith, the boots of peace, the belt of truth.

And you know, today, we are going to look at the shield of faith.

📖 Paul’s Words from Ephesians 6

This is Paul’s words from Ephesians chapter 6:

“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, with your feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

  • We’ve looked at all of those.

And then he says:

“In addition to this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

🛡️ The Shield of Faith

Now, when we talk about the shield of faith, there are a couple of different possibilities of what Paul was referring to.

Some think—have thought—this kind of shield:

  • This was the cavalry shield.

  • It’s pretty small, but it was used for, you know, if you’re riding cavalry or on a horse.

  • Anything bigger than that would become clumsy.

Most scholars believe that’s not the shield Paul had in mind.

Rather, he likely had this one in mind.

  • In fact, the word that translates as “shield” has the same root as the word for “door” in the original Greek in which this New Testament was written.

And so the whole idea of a door…

🛡️ A Shield Like a Door

Now, look at everything this shield of faith—or the shield for the Roman soldier—covered:

  • It covers the legs.

  • It covers the center.

  • It covers the breastplate of righteousness.

  • It covers everything except the top of the head and the eyes.

So, a soldier behind that shield was well protected.

🛡️ The Meaning

That’s what it means, then, to take up the shield of faith—that faith can protect us.

A Change in Verb: “Take Up”

Now, just a word to note the change in verb here.

  • The first verb is stand firm:

    • The belt of truth helps you stand firm with that buckled around your waist.

    • You stand firm with the breastplate of righteousness in place.

    • You stand firm with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

But then it changes and says:

“Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation…”

We’re going to look at that in the next section.

🛡️ A Different Kind of Action

Take it.

  • In other words, there’s an action that’s different for the first three to now.

There are moments when a Roman soldier is just, you know, in camp, everything’s fine.

  • You keep those first three ones on you.

  • You stand in those:

    • The belt of truth.

    • The breastplate of righteousness.

    • The boots that help you stand firm in life.

But in addition to that, now—when you’re getting ready for battle—you take up the shield of faith.

In other words:

  • Those first three are things that are with you always—in the time of battle or not, in camp or out.

  • But there are moments when you need to take up the shield of faith.

🛡️ A Shield That Protects Everything

If you went from outside, if you had that shield in place, you were very well protected.

  • But if you dropped it a little bit, or if you set it aside or held it aside, you all of a sudden became vulnerable to attack.

🗡️ David and Goliath: A Classic Example

You know, one of the great Old Testament stories is of David and Goliath.

  • Goliath had a shield like this.

  • Probably was huge for this nine-foot-tall giant.

But we’re told that he saw David coming, and he, you know, he did not consider that this boy—this shepherd boy—was a threat to him.

  • So he moved aside the shield.

And what happened?

Here’s what Scripture says:

“As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.”

And you remember David then who came—you know, David said:

“I don’t come against you with sword and shield and spear. I come against you in the name of the Almighty God, the One who’s the God of the armies of Israel, and He’s going to defeat you.”

So David ends up going, taking Goliath’s own sword—since he didn’t have one—and cutting off his head.

  • And a great victory is won.

🛡️ The Lesson: Stay Behind the Shield

But the point I’m making:

  • If Goliath had stayed behind the shield,

  • If he had had his helmet in place—as we’ll see next time—

  • He wouldn’t have been vulnerable to attack.

But it was in his own pride, in his own belief in his ability to defeat the shepherd boy that he ended up dead.

🎯 The Shield’s Purpose

Now, what does the shield protect?

  • It protects everything, but there was a particular kind of battle implement that it was designed to save you from.

Paul says:

  • With the shield in place, you take it up, you can put out all the fiery darts of the enemy.

🔥 Flaming Arrows: A Real Threat

Now, I use this picture—that’s probably a reference to arrows.

  • What battle armies would do at that time is they would have archers who would dip arrows in pitch, and make sure they’re covered with pitch—which is a tarry-like substance and very flammable.

  • They’d light it on fire.

It was a scary time when the arrows were coming in, and they’re on fire.

  • Because they light things on fire, right?

  • And they can destroy.

🇺🇸 A Story from U.S. History: The Alamo

One of my favorite stories is from United States history: the Battle at the Alamo, this little mission in San Antonio, Texas.

  • When you watch the movie of it—there’s some famous people there, of course—

  • All of a sudden, the army of Santa Anna, the Mexican general, starts shooting the burning arrows into the mission.

  • They hit a cart full of hay—and it leaps on fire.

  • Another one hits a building, and that begins to burn.

Because when it hits, the pitch is thrown away, and so it spreads.

  • And fire is spreading all over, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that.

  • It’s not—you can’t even battle it hardly, right?

  • If you’re standing next to somebody, you can battle them, you can stop their attack.

  • But you can’t stop a flaming dart.

🗡️ An Important Aside: The Nature of the Battle

Now, an aside here, something I didn’t mention earlier, which is really quite important:

  • The word battle here is intimate battle.

  • It’s hand-to-hand combat—men fighting from very close quarters.

We’ll talk about that when we get to the offensive weapons—the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

🎯 Strikes from a Distance

But there are times when, from a distance and seemingly out of nowhere, we’ll be struck with something.

  • We’ll be struck with an illness, and all of a sudden it feels like our life is threatened, and that begins to limit us.

  • We’re struck with a problem at work, and we’ve lost our job.

💔 A Real-Life Example

My wife is serving in our church in the shepherding role at this time.

  • And she’s dealing with one woman who just had surgery to replace her hip.

After that:

  • She’s an older woman, so she’s got some problems.

  • She can’t use a walker really well because she has weakness in one arm.

  • And the last news is she developed COVID.

  • She’s got COVID, and she’s got bronchitis, and so she is feeling miserable.

And it’s like:

  • One thing after another.

  • First of all, the recovery from the surgery, which isn’t going well.

  • Then—boom—there’s the COVID.

  • And then—oh man—there’s the weakness in the arm.

  • And one thing after another, after another, after another.

🛡️ The Day of Evil

I think this is why Paul said at the beginning of this passage:

  • “Take up the armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you might be able to stand your ground.”

And it may be those days when all of a sudden things are coming against you.

🕊️ A Class in the Church

For some people…

  • There’s a class going on in our church right now of people who are learning how to forgive.

  • One woman—betrayed by her husband.

  • Another woman—raped while she was in high school.

🔥 Unpredictable Attacks

Uh, another business partner who cheated, cheated him out of half the business… and on and on and on.

  • There were these things that came out of the blue.

  • There wasn’t really any way to prepare for them.

Well, Paul says:

  • You need the shield of faith at that time.

🛡️ The Roman Shield

Now, the shield that the Romans had, you know, was wood, but it was covered with leather.

  • And so, when these flaming arrows would come, the soldiers would hold up the shield.

  • The arrows would come against it, and because the leather was inflammable, the flame couldn’t find a place to get settled and to get started.

So Paul is saying:

  • The shield of faith can have that effect in those moments when the day of evil comes,

  • When things are really bad, when things seem to be coming right and left—

  • There’s a way to put it out, and it’s called the shield of faith.

🙏 What Is Faith?

Now, to understand this, we really have to understand what faith is.

  • The word “faith” means:

    • To have a firm persuasion. (That’s from the dictionary.)

Here’s the Bible definition:

“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
(Hebrews chapter 11)

📖 Hebrews 11: The Heroes of Faith

If you want a good experience of understanding how faith lives itself out in a time of crisis, you can read the rest of that chapter.

  • It’s called the chapter of the heroes of faith.

  • Men and women, people who are followers of Jesus Christ:

    • Who took risks.

    • Who took great actions.

For example:

  • The parents of Moses, who hid him.

  • Abraham, who decided to stake his life on the whole idea of God loving him and choosing him to establish a line from which the Messiah would come—and to have offspring as many as the stars in the heavens or the seashore sands.

It’s this confidence that allows us to face really challenging situations.

Toward the end of that chapter:

  • It says there were people who… there were people who were sawn in two.

  • There were people who failed to just experience a miraculous rescue.

  • But they still conquered because of their faith.

  • The kingdom of God continued to move forward because there were people of faith.

🌍 A Story of John G. Paton

Now, one of the people I want to share with you is John G. Paton.

  • He was a missionary long, long time ago among South Sea cannibals.

  • He was in the New Hebrides and went there to establish a church.

Marvelous stories about him.

  • He, you know, one time, he went into this area that was inhabited by cannibals, right?

  • Of course, it’s a long time ago.

  • But what faith to do that, right?

And all the challenges of dealing with:

  • People who eat other people.

  • Who have no knowledge of Jesus Christ.

  • In a society which is brutal and violent.

🛡️ A Night of Danger and Faith

And he goes there, and he establishes a little mission.

  • The mission was starting to have some success.

  • So the chief decided that he was going to attack John Paton—kill him and his wife.

John Paton and his wife knew they were coming.

  • They had heard that they were coming.

  • One of the new believers had told him.

So John and his wife are in that mission.

  • And all night they prayed.

  • They were told: “They’re coming tonight.”

  • And so they prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed.

They heard the approach of the cannibals who were going to kill them and eat them.

  • They heard them.

  • And they prayed and prayed.

And they believed that God had sent them there.

  • That’s faith, right?

  • Firm persuasion.

They believed that the kingdom of God was going to be established in that place.

✨ A Miracle: Shining Guards

In the morning, no attack came.

  • They didn’t know what happened.

A year later, the chief of that tribe became a follower of Jesus Christ.

In conversation, John Paton—excuse me, I think you call him Paxton really—John Paton asked him:

“What happened that night? We had heard that you were coming. We heard you outside the mission. What happened?”

And the chief said:

“There were too many guards around.”

  • They had seen these shining guards standing around the mission.

And John said:

“No, it was just me and my wife.”

And we’re going to get into that when we talk toward the end of this class on angels and the resources that God gives us.

🌍 Translating Faith

Anyway, John Paton was trying to translate the New Testament into the language of these people he was reaching for Jesus Christ.

  • And he came to the word faith and thought: “How do you describe faith? What word do you find that would describe what it means to have faith?”

As he was talking, thinking, working through this, one of the new believers came and sat down and said (in English translation):

“Oh, it feels so good to put my entire weight on this chair.”

Now, this isn’t the indigenous language, of course.

  • This is an example of someone trusting that chair totally—without reservation—that it will hold them.

  • That’s faith—the shield of faith.

🛡️ How Do You Take It Up?

Here’s from Romans 10:

“Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”

So the way you take up the shield of faith, to get ready for something coming, is to:

  • Take up the shield of faith,

  • And that means getting into the Word,

  • Getting the Word into me.

That’s important.

🙏 Learning How to Pray

One of the people who taught me how to pray…

  • I was in ministry a long time before I learned how to pray.

  • But I talked to her, and she said that was a chapter in her life where she felt like something was coming and she had to be ready for it.

So she was preparing the shield of faith, and so:

  • She began to learn how to pray.

  • And as a result, she taught dozens of people in our church that skill—including me.

  • And it’s getting that Word, getting into the Word, getting ready with the shield of faith—to believe.

📖 Faith in Action

So, I’m learning the Scriptures.

  • I’m learning what they say,

  • And then God’s Word is getting into me.

James 2 puts it this way:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

Faith means:

  • “I’m going to stake my entire life on Jesus Christ.”

  • And in order to do that, I need to get the Word of God into me,

  • And then I need to be the channel of the Word of God to others.

  • And that’s seen primarily in our deeds.

👀 Faith, Deeds, and Witness

Now, in my society today, people who look at us Christians say several things:

  • “We’re hypocrites.” (In other words, we don’t believe the truth. I’ve shared this with you already.)

  • “We’re not interested in them—we’re interested in notching a belt by getting a convert.”

  • “We’re too concerned about politics.”

  • And on and on and on.

But then, they look at somebody with deeds.

  • The shield of faith is somebody who’s ready to do whatever God calls them to do.

  • And we *take it up in a time when we say, ‘I believe God says, even though whatever happens to me, I believe it.’”

🌅 A Friend’s Example

One of my best friends died of melanoma cancer.

  • I remember visiting him beforehand, and it was a really tough time for him and his family.

  • He had had surgery. Initially diagnosed, he had surgery, and was declared (after five years) free of it.

  • And a year later, it came back—and anyway, he died.

But along the way, what struck me was his faith:

  • His absolute trust in God—that God had this in His hands too.

  • And he was going to believe and trust God.

🛡️ Taking Up the Shield

Yeah. So take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all those fiery darts that the enemy might throw against you.

🙏 Closing Prayer

Join me in prayer:

“Lord, we’ve been looking at this armor now for a while, and the shield of faith is a big one, because the enemy is firing at us, and yeah, that might affect us negatively in a world that says we should always be comfortable. And we say now again, that we have put our entire life in your hands, and we have dedicated our lives to your service. You are our Lord. You are our master. And help us to believe everything you have said, even in those days when the fiery darts come. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

最后修改: 2025年05月29日 星期四 09:23