Shield of Faith

 

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    As a young girl in Pennsylvania where my family lived for a short time, I can remember building a snow fortress in the winter.  My siblings and I, along with the neighborhood children would pick teams and each build the best snow wall we could before engaging in an epic snowball fight.  As long as I was hunkered down close to that snow wall, the snowballs would sail past me or hit the front of the wall and I was safe from the missiles that could sting just a little before splattering to the ground.  I imagine the shield of faith to be something like that snow wall that sheltered me from the onslaught.  

    In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Ephesians 6:16

    This next piece of armor in our study is the more mobile piece.  In other words, a soldier was free to move his shield around as he faced the attacks of the enemy.  These large shields were big enough that the soldier's whole body was protected.   With this he could prevent those arrows from slipping through any cracks or gaps in the armor on his body.  Being made of metal, the shield protected from the flaming arrows coming at him.  They simply bounced off.  

    Our shield is that of faith.  Faith is a given to us by God.  See Romans 12:3, Acts 3:16, and Ephesians 2:8-9.  It is given to us by grace.  As Dr. John MacArthur puts it so beautifully, "Faith is simply breathing the breath that God’s grace supplies..." As we grow in our walk with Christ, this faith grows stronger as well.  

    Often we picture arrows with flaming tips flying at the soldiers of Ancient Rome.  In actuality, these arrows appeared much like a typical arrow, but had much more devastating results.  These arrows were hollow and filled with a flammable liquid. Through some kind of engineering that goes beyond my complete understanding, these arrows would slip into a crack in a soldier's armor and a loosely fitted stopper would fall off allowing the liquid to pour out.  The liquid would ignite, causing the soldier to be burned alive from inside his armor.  

    These "flaming" arrows did not immediately look worse than any other arrow.  In fact, during the night or dusk hours, they might not have even been visible at all! 

  Some of the darts the evil one tries to aim at the cracks in our armor are doubt, fear, pride, and bitterness.  These may come through comments, accusations, events, or other typical happenings of life.  All of these can smolder or even burst into flames in our hearts, under our armor.  The pain and destruction these darts cause are intense and devastating.  

    Praise Jesus for his gift of faith.  As we use this shield we can prevent these darts from finding a crevice to begin their evil work in the first place.  This allows us to stand and confidently face whatever attacks may come our way.  

    Paul, in the book of  Second Timothy chapter 3 tells Timothy to continue in the Scriptures and what he had been taught as this would thoroughly equip him for every good work.  Paul had just told Timothy about the persecutions he, himself had suffered.  False doctrines, persecutions, even physical suffering were experienced by Paul.  The equipping of Timothy to face all of these same trials and attacks from the evil one came through the study of the Word of God.  

    I pray each of you is encouraged to grow in the grace and faith or our Lord.  Stand strong with your shield of faith ready to protect you from each and every attack that comes your way.  

💓Heather Sparks💓