Taking Up the Shield of Faith
Ephesians 6:16
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In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.
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The message begins at approx. the 30 min mark.
As we come to our text today, you notice that it can be easily divided into two parts. There is, on the one hand, the call to take up the shield of faith. Then, immediately following that, there is a specific reason why you need to take it up. Paul speaks of the imminent danger of these flaming darts. The shield is ever so necessary because of the threat is ever so great.
But before we get into talking about these things, let me quickly show you what we are talking about. There were, of course, lots of different kinds of shields in the Roman armory. The one to which Paul refers would have been the largest one. As a matter of fact, the word that is used for shield is actually the word “door.” And it is because the shield was so big it kind of resembled a door.
It was around 4 feet tall and almost 2 feet wide. It would be big enough that the soldier could easily hide his whole person behind it. It was also useful for when you stood in rank. They could be interlocked with the soldiers beside you to form a wall. Those in back could provide cover overhead by holding their shields up.
You realize that if the arrows were coming down, there would be an unlikely chance of their being hit in this formation. Tactically, it is really quite ingenious.
But as we come to our text today, we want to look at the need for the shield and the nature of the shield. We want to break down our text by looking at the two parts of it, understanding the danger that is posed and the deliverance that is afforded.
And I want us to begin by thinking about the second half of our text first. I think it would be best for us to consider the need for the shield first.
They say that in advertising, you always need to begin with the need for your product before you can sell your product. A lot of phone commercials will start with some sort of scarry scenario where you are left out in the middle of no where without any coverage. That’s because you chose a carrier that doesn’t have enough cell towers.
So the motivation is to show you how much danger you are in. That will then motivate you to switch over to this particular carrier. You’ll then be safe.
Paul’s approach is somewhat similar here in this passage. You’ll notice that he emphasizes the great need for the shield by saying that it has the ability to extinguish the flaming arrows.
I. The need for the shield
The danger of these fiery arrows is intensified that much more by the fact that they are shot by the evil one. That refers of course to Satan. Not that we are fighting against Satan per se, but against the leagues of evil forces that are headed by Satan.
So you must get a sense of the imagery. In ancient times you would have a regiment of bowmen. They would be lined up in their ranks in order to fire their missiles and make a barrage of arrows rain down on their enemies.
Perhaps you’ve seen the movies which have reenactments of this sort of thing. You may have hundreds upon hundreds of arrows flung into the sky. They would then come ripping down upon the opposing armies. The sheer number of the projectiles could inflict heavy damages in and of themselves.
So, Satan is at the head of this evil crowd of demonic foes giving the order to fire at will.
But you notice that these are not just bare arrows that Paul mentions. These are flaming darts. Now, just so you know, there are two ways to think of this. On the one hand, the flaming dart could be poisoned arrows. It’s called a fiery dart because of the fiery sensation that the poison would inflict. If you are pierced, the poison would begin to burn as it seeped through your system.
These arrows, of course, would still be deadly, even though they might not hit their targets directly. If it grazed you, it still had the ability to be fatal; the poison would effect what the arrow did not.
On the other hand, the fiery arrow may simply refer to a literal fire on an arrow. In those days the tips of the arrows could be dipped in some sort of combustible material, such as tar or pitch. Then they would be lit and shot into the air.
These fiery arrows, of course, could do much more damage. Even if they did not hit the flesh of their enemies, they could still inflict a great deal of harm. There are stories of how these arrows would be shot at ships when they were at sea. And the only interest was to have the arrows hit the deck or side of the ship. They really didn’t care if they hit a person or not. The fire that was the real menace. The only design was to start a fire on the ship. If that happened, all was lost. The battle was all but over.
Similarly, if a fiery dart hit someone’s shield. No harm may come to the one holding the shield, but he would be forced to thrown it down because of the flames. It might cause a panic which causes him to toss the shield aside or it may begin to burn the shield. Either way, the solider would be rendered defenseless and more susceptible to being cut down or overtaken.
This is the image to which Paul refers. And once again, we see the idea of temptation being communicated. But we get a better picture of just how dangerous these temptations can be. We should recognize that Satan stands as the head of a legion of demonic forces which are constantly unleashing a bombardment of temptations at us.
You understand, though, the goal of these temptations. They are shot with the hope that we would die, spiritually speaking, of course. Every time there is a temptation, the desire is that it would not merely wound us or trip us up a bit. The hope is that all our spiritual life would be drained out of us. The real objective is that we would not merely just sin against God, but we would defy him altogether and want nothing more to do with him.
Every temptation, mind you, has as its intention a fatality.
I do not doubt the doctrine of the perseverance and preservation of the saints. But we ought not to hide behind that doctrine like nothing else matters. There may be a temptation to think that Satan’s devices are completely meaningless. We might think we are immune to temptation to a great degree and that these are merely toy arrows that cannot do that much to us.
But we should not be so foolish. The imagery is that of a terrible weapon. One that can be quite fatal. And we should not think that the doctrine of perseverance is something to which we can flippantly refer or have some false confidence in.
John Owen, one of the chief Reformed fathers in England, rightly said, “You must be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” By that he meant that sin is never static. It desires to grow and take over. The same is true of temptation. Satan has one aim and desire: He wishes to kill you and so infect your person so terribly that your relationship with God is rent asunder.
Remember what the book of James says. Every desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. You must understand that every temptation and every sin is, literally, a battle for your soul. Satan wants nothing less than you to lose your hold on God and the life of God to be choked out.
Let me give you an example of this. Let’s think about the temptation to be dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction is supposedly a little sin. But it wishes to crawl under your skin and, like a poison, enter into the bloodstream of your soul. Dissatisfaction has the potential to burst into a fire or contaminate the entirety of your heart.
What is dissatisfaction? It starts off small. It is the little feeling that says, “I don’t like that.” That in and of itself, may not be entirely bad. There are things in life that may not appeal to us. We may not like what mom makes for dinner. We may not like a particular song or sermon at the church. We may not like some new policy or project at work. Those are all merely opinions and are not wrong in and of themselves.
However, the temptation may be to wallow in that dissatisfaction; to nurse it a little and not take the kind of attitude that God wants you to. What happens is that you can allow another level of dissatisfaction set in. It can evolve into what we call discontent. Now we are in the realm of sin. Instead of saying, “This is God’s will for my life to endure this” or finding a good way to fix things, we allow the dissatisfaction to begin to eat away at us.
So, dissatisfaction gives birth to discontent. Discontent, if it is nurtured, goes on to breed a grumbling spirit. That is to say, we begin to voice our dissatisfaction. We say things like, “Why does it ALWAYS have to be like this?” When in fact it isn’t always like this. We’ll tell ourselves that this is not fair and that it was always better when (fill in the supposed past utopia that we had).
Mind you that the flames will only begin to spread and become all that much hotter. The grumbling will be fanned into complaining. Grumbling, you might say is a complaint that we offer to ourselves. Complaining is the more public form of grumbling, where we are venting on others around us. We start griping to coworkers. We come home and we bellyache about it to our spouse.
Think about how that one instance of dissatisfaction could then metastasize. We begin to think that everything is unfair at work. We feel some great injustice is being done to us. Which leads us down the trail to envy. Why can’t we have good job like Joe or John? They seem to have it so well off.
It will never be satisfied there either. Sin is never static. It is like a leach that wants more. So, if you give it the chance, will dominate you and eat away at other parts of your life. It’s now a pattern of malcontent. Nothing at work ever goes your way. It’s like your boss has it out for you.
Now, when you come to church, you are not worshipping, you are sulking. Maybe instead of participating in the worship, you begin to be a critic of it. Soon enough, we are like the Israelites who are saying, “God must not care about us. If he did, why would he put me in this miserable place!” In its most grotesque form we actually come to believe that God is opposed to us.
That is what happened to Adam and Eve, mind you. The course of dissatisfaction was just much faster in its development. Satan attempted to insert a little cause for dissatisfaction. God doesn’t want you to have this secret experience of being like him, knowing good and evil. And it didn’t take Eve long to believe that the very God who had created her and lavished great wonders upon her actually had sinister motives.
Do you see? Every temptation, no matter how small, has as its ultimate goal the death of your spiritual life. Every lust would not only become full fledged adultery, it yearns for spiritual adultery and running away with a god who will not hold you accountable for such things.
We must not underestimate the power of sin and temptation. We might talk about them as “small sins.” They are only little white lies or just a few little cheats here and there. And we may indeed recognize that there are degrees of sin. But we must not think that they are by any means trivial.
They are all deadly in their own right. The smallest of arrows and the most minute flame can have ravaging effects upon the soul.
This is why we must heed the call of the Apostle and take up the shield of faith. Which brings us to the second of our points. Now that we’ve seen the need for taking up the shield, let’s talk about the nature of the shield itself and how we take it up.
II. The defense of the shield
I mentioned how big these shields would be, but one thing I did not mention is how these shields were made. They typically made of wood, but they would often be covered with a hide or other such cloth-like material. They then would be dipped in water or anointed with some sort of liquid that would serve as added protection. When the flaming arrow hit the target, the water on the hide would prevent the flame from penetrating and igniting the wood. The flame may be extinguished and the soldier could carry on the fight.
This is what Paul is talking about when he says take up the shield of faith which can extinguish the flaming darts. We extinguish the power of temptation by means of the exercise of our faith. Sin and temptation are overcome by means of our believing.
Of course, the question then becomes: How is faith able to defend us against these horrid attacks of temptation?
Now, recognize that there is nothing special about our faith. Faith is nothing in and of itself. Your faith cannot really do anything to help you. What is important to understand here is that it is the act of believing that is key. It is not so much your faith, but what your faith is in.
Paul is not asking you to whip up some magical thing called faith that will save you from temptation. Paul is calling you to exercise your faith. You are to keep in mind what it is you believe in.
And what exactly do you believe in? Well, we can look at it in a variety of ways. There are different approaches we can take. The best way we can summarize it may be like this: We believe in the Word of God, which contains the Promises of God, which is backed by God himself, and guaranteed by the Son of God.
I once heard that a good definition of faith is “Taking God at his word.” Faith, as defined by our Heidelberg Catechism is believing all that God has revealed in his word.
Let’s start there. Let’s flesh that out a little.
To combat temptation, you must believe in God’s Word. Remember what the Psalmist said, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
Think also of our Lord and how he was tempted. Jesus entered into the wilderness and there he was attacked with several flaming arrows. But each time he was tempted, he replied with a quotation of Scripture. He brought to mind a pertinent section of God’s Word and was able to combat that enticement with the truth.
When he was encouraged to turn stones into bread, he testified to the fact that “man does not live by bread alone.” In other words, my stomach is not the main thing in life. My nourishment and sustenance is second to my obedience to the eternal word of God.
So, at one level, we must put our faith in the Word of God. We must believe what the Scripture says. And, as we do so, it becomes for us a means of defense. We may keep temptation at bay and not fall susceptible to it, by remembering what God has said.
But we may go one step further. It is not just the entire word of God that is useful for warding off temptation. There are certain sections of the Scripture which are particularly useful in extinguishing temptation. That is the promises of God.
When we are being tempted, it is important that we exercise faith in the promises that God has made.
Earlier we mentioned dissatisfaction and how we can be tempted to let that dissatisfaction grow into discontent, envy, and a critical spirit that makes us question God or leads us away from him. Think about how bringing the promises of God to heart could easily nip all that right in the bud.
God has promised to work all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. God promises that everything that happens happens, not merely for a purpose, but for our good. Trials will produce perseverance and character. By means of pains and sorrows, we will be made more holy and more fit to live for God.
So when we have that bit of dissatisfaction, we must believe that promise. We must believe that whatever unfortunate thing we are experiencing is actually part of God’s will for our lives. We may say, “God, I do not particularly like this thing, but I trust that it was sent into my life for a purpose. I believe that even this unhappy experience will be used for something greater in my life.”
With that frame of spirit, you now go to the word of God and find how you must respond. Perhaps you are called to talk to someone in order to fix it. Or maybe you just need to buckle down and do your best to endure it while it lasts.
But what has happened? You have used the promises of God, which are found in the Word of God, to be faithful to God.
Now, let’s take it one step further. We not only have God’s Word, and God’s promises, we also have God himself. Taking up the shield of faith means putting your faith in God. And when you do that, you may extinguish the arrows of temptation.
Let’s take the temptation we might face regarding money. We are coming into tax season here and that may be something on your minds. It is easy to think that we should scrimp when it comes to putting the Lord first in our finances. After all, we only make so much, right? How is it that we will be able to make it with the amount of income we receive. Uncle Sam eats into our pocketbook and we have all these other expenses. How is it that we can really put 10% of our income towards the Lord?
Well, to answer this question you have to think about the Lord and what kind of God it is you believe in. Is God able to support you? Is he sovereign over all that he has created? Is it possible that he can sustain you with the amount that you make? Could he even cause you to abound?
Is it possible that God can confirm what Paul records in Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory.”
Now, I’m not saying you don’t need to adjust your budget. You very well may need to find ways to limit your spending or increase your income. But I do know this: your view of God will directly affect whether or not you give to God. If you believe in the greatness of God, who is able to pour out from heaven all his riches, then you won’t be tempted to hold anything back from him.
However, if you view God much like yourself--someone who is unable to make good on his promises and has no real control over this world, then you are probably not going to be able to give anything. You’ll probably have a lot more financial problems along the way too.
What I am saying is this: Theology is the most practical thing. Understanding who God is and what God can do helps you in the trenches of day to day life. You can put your trust in him and find that certain temptations have no power over you.
You are to put your trust in the word of God, you are to put your trust in the promises of God, and you are to put your trust in God himself. Lastly, you are to put your trust in the Son of God, who’s blood seals the promises and favor of God.
We, of course, know that we are saved by faith. We are saved from sin by trusting in Christ and his one and only sacrifice. And when we are saved from sin’s temptation in the very same way.
1 John 2 says, “I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.” What is he talking about there? He’s talking about our conversion and the great break we have with Satan. Satan has no power over us because we have put our faith in Christ. When we first put our faith in Christ and trusted in his blood, we were delivered from from Satan and his power.
There have been many people who have testified to the immediate deliverance that they had received by virtue of coming to put their faith in Christ and his atoning work. People who were complete addicts, found Christ and wept to know that he died for them.
Upon that very moment, never had a single craving for their liquors again. They walked clean away from their drugs and were never again susceptible to those temptations. In that instantaneous moment, they all those temptations that pulled them into pornography were quenched.
Now, that same dynamic continues to hold true today. As we saw last time, the gospel is not something that we are done with. We continue to grow in faith and trust more deeply in Christ’s sacrifice for us. We continue to preach the gospel to ourselves and strengthen our faith in his atoning work. And as we do, we become more and more immune to temptation.
The greatest thing you can in times of temptation is look to the cross. The more you look to Christ, the most stable your faith will be. The less appeal temptation will have.
Now, if we drill down a little more, we understand why. All temptation flows from the sewers of doubt. It is a doubt that God loves me.
Why am I tempted to be discontent and grumble? It is because I’m being told that God doesn’t love me enough to give me what I want.
Why am I afraid? What is causing me to worry? It is because I believe I will lose something. It means that I do not believe God loves me enough to protect me or take care of me.
Why am I reluctant to give financially to the Lord? It is because I doubt that God will really take care of all my needs.
But all that melts away if you are truly trusting in the Christ who gave his life for you. For there you know and are fully confident that God loves you. There’s no doubting God’s goodness can care because its too apparent.
For after all, we recognize that it is there at the cross that God has protected you from the greatest danger of all; the danger of his own fiery wrath!
So we have every confidence that, having delivered us in the blood of his Son, he will continue to express his love and care in every other circumstance.
Conclusion:
Sometimes we sing that old hymn:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.
That is the very sum and substance of what it means to take up the shield of faith. Trust in God. Believe in the truth of his word. Hold to his promises. Rest in the deliverance that you gain through Christ and him crucified. As you do that, you will find that temptations you face will be extinguished. They will have less and less power.
Know for certain that the faith you put in the Lord is a sure and sturdy defense.