"Know Your Armor, Part 2" Ephesians 6:10-17
- This message was preached by Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison on July 9, 2015.
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Audio Transcript
Thank you.
Thank you, Ann, for bringing that update. We appreciate you doing that. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Ephesians, chapter six as we continue our study on spiritual warfare. We’re looking at Know youw armor, part two. We’re in Ephesians 6, 10, 17.
Now my mic’s on. Thank you again, Anne, for sharing that today. We appreciate that. We begin reading with me in verse 10. Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against. Against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day. And having prepared everything to take your stand.
Stand therefore with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. May we pray. Heavenly Father, as we continue to look at your equipment that you have given us to live in this world, Father, and fight the spiritual battles that are continually going on.
We thank you that you’ve provided everything that we need. We thank you that it’s sufficient. We thank you that it’s wonderful. We thank you most, Father, for the great price that you paid to do this for us by sending your son into the world, that he might die on the cross, be buried and raised from the dead for our sins, that we might receive healing and salvation and eternal life with you. It’s in his precious name that we pray.
Amen. Okay, as review, here’s your test. Know your enemy. Who is your enemy?
Know your source of strength, who is that? God. And know your armor. We looked at last week, the belt of truth. We looked at the breastplate, plate of righteousness and the shoes or the sandals of the Gospel.
Today we’re going to be looking at the shield of Faith. In verse 16 of the text, it says, in every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take up the shield, not in some situations, but take up the shield in every situation, this shield of faith. Now, when Paul was writing this, there was a certain image that came up in everybody’s mind of what a shield would look like. And we don’t have shields marching up and down our streets every day.
So we need to find out what is it that they were picturing. And actually, there were three different types of shields that the Romans used during this time. There was one that was round or oval. It was the Parma or the clipius. These were 36 inches, the round ones across.
They were made with an iron frame, so they were heavy and they were used by soldiers who were on horseback. So they were having to ride on a horse with a 36 inch shield that was round to defend off what other weapons were being used against them. And there was also a larger one and they made it more lightweight. They constructed it out of vertical boards that were glued together and then they covered that with leather and they painted it. But this smaller shield that they could use with a weapon in their hand is not the shield that Paul was talking about here during this day.
It wasn’t this round shield that you can see on the next picture where they had to put their arm through and hold onto it firmly. But instead it was a tall shield. And the word that is used in the Latin was scutum, but thurios is the Greek word that Paul used. That word thurios means a door. And it spoke of this shield because it wasn’t round.
It wasn’t a shield that was meant to be small that you could do a sword fight with. It wasn’t meant to ride on a horse. This shield was tall enough so that if you set it on the ground and you kneel down on one knee, it would cover you from head all the way down. So when we’re talking about the Shield of Faith, it’s not a small shield. It’s this one that covers the entire body.
37 to 42 inches tall, 24 to 33 inches wide, weighing about 22 pounds. You’ll see that there’s a hole in the middle of this one because they’ve lost what was called a bossus. And it would have been like a cup there that would have kept arrows and things from going through this. But this is an actual shield. It’s the only one that we know of.
And it’s at the Yale University Art Gallery. So we know exactly what Paul was talking about. This type of shield was used for a particular style of fighting, or it could be used by part of the army. It wasn’t used with swords. Like, we’ll talk later about the Sword of the Spirit.
It was used for a different type of battle. If we go to the next slide, we can show actually how they used it. The Romans would form this formation called a testudo, and they would march onto the battlefield, and this whole group of men, some of them were holding these shields over, some were holding them in front. But the whole idea was that if people shot arrows at them, if they threw spears at them or javelins, whatever, they would all be deflected by this type of shield. It wasn’t meant to dodge back and forth.
This is the shield that Paul was referring to that would cover the entire body. Here, once again, we see a reenactment of how that it was used. Now, there are some spiritual principles that we can draw from this particular type of shield. But first we need to talk about what is actually faith, because it is the shield of faith. It’s not the shield that’s most important here.
It’s that we understand what faith is according by definition. In the Greek, the word faith, or pistis, means to be won over. It means to be firmly persuaded. It means that you have placed your faith or your belief in what you know is the truth. It’s not just wishful thinking.
It’s not just a light hope that you know, well, maybe the tooth fairy still exists. This is one that you have confidence about. If we go to Hebrews 11:1, we read a definition here. The writer tells us faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. Let’s just talk briefly about those three words.
What does it mean reality here? The reality. The word here in the Greek means it’s the foundation under what is apparent. The foundation under what is apparent. So my example here is if you go down to Chicago and you see a huge skyscraper, you only see the building down to what, to ground level, but you know what’s underneath that?
There’s a foundation. You don’t have to see that foundation to know that that building is standing and it is on a foundation. And therefore, even though you can’t see the foundation, it’s still like a reality to you. It gives you the faith that you can do what you can walk into that building and you can do whatever you need to do. So faith isn’t only just the reality.
This foundation that we can’t see, but we know it’s there. But it’s also something that’s hoped for. And what we’re meaning here in the Greek is something that we’re expecting with great desire. It’s like a special loved one says, I’m going to Take you to your favorite restaurant for your birthday. You hope for that.
You have this expectation, you have faith in that person, that, yes, this person loves me. They’ve always been consistent with what they say. They’re going to take me to that restaurant, and therefore I’m expecting it with the desire. The third word there is also. It’s the proof of what is not seen.
And this word proof means that we just have this deep conviction. It’s a certain persuasion that goes beyond just mentally seeing something. It goes beyond just understanding it intellectually. We know in our heart that it’s true. And when we have faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into our life and he is there as a constant reminder.
He gives us this proof that what we are believing in is actually going to come about. David Jeremiah gives this definition, which I thought is very good. Faith treats the things hoped for as a fact and places confidence today in what has been promised for the future. It is an absolute conviction based on the assurance of God’s unchangeable and perfect character that God’s promises will be fulfilled. For the unbeliever, someone who doesn’t have faith, to them, seeing is believing.
In other words, that’s somebody they’d have to make. You dig away at that building in Chicago. They want to see that foundation before they walk into it. But for the believer, believing is seen. The believer looks at Jesus Christ and says, I understand this and I believe it.
Therefore, faith treats the things once again hoped for as a fact. We treat the coming of Jesus Christ, we treat our salvation as it is a fact. And we’re actually placing confidence today in something that we don’t literally see, but we’re placing confidence because it’s been promised. And the key here is in the middle there. It’s an absolute conviction because it’s not based on what people say to us.
It’s not based on what government says to us. It’s based on the assurance of the fact that God is unchangeable and God is perfect in his character. God is unchangeable, meaning if he says something is going to happen, he’s not going to change his word about that and the fact that he’s perfect in character. We know that whatever he promises, it’s going to be the best ever, it’s going to be complete, it’s going to be everything we need. We don’t have to worry that we’re only going to be 90% saved or 75 or even 99% saved, because God is perfect and therefore we have faith that our salvation will be Perfect also.
Hebrews 11:3. The writer gives us an example of what faith looks like. He says, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. The writer is giving us an example that relates to everyone. Because when I think about creation, I was not there were any of y’ all old enough to be at creation.
No one exists today that was at creation. Nobody saw it. Nobody that Paul was writing to saw creation actually happen. But they had faith and they understood that God had created the universe, not because they saw him creating it, but now they see the building, they see all of creation, and they say, well, it’s obvious this had to happen, and so is our faith. We don’t have to understand it completely, but we have calm assurance.
We have faith that God created the universe and the reality of what we see. Even though it’s made from stuff that we don’t see, we still know that it is real. Hebrews 11:6 goes on to explain even further. It says, now without faith, it is impossible to please please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. When we have true faith in God, we know without a doubt that he exists.
But we also know that he’s going to reward those that live their life according to his plan by placing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ. We’re going to go back now to that picture of these soldiers and look at some of the spiritual principles that we can draw from this. The shield of faith first protects us individually. Once we have it, it is there for us all the time.
Therefore, we are each commanded to take it up daily ourselves. And the first thing that this type of shield does, it shows that our faith covers us in every situation that we have. Our faith covers us. Number two, our faith is a defensive weapon. Now we have the sword of the spirit.
That’s an offensive weapon. But here we have a defensive weapon. We don’t do anything with it. We just have to stand firm and be there, and we have to continue to move forward. Our faith is something that covers us.
Our faith is a defensive weapon. But our faith only helps us also when we face our enemy. Because if all those soldiers turn around there, what’s going to be exposed? Their backside. Our faith is something we’re supposed to keep in front of us as we’re moving forward.
We’re not supposed to run from Satan. We’re supposed to face him as he is trying to destroy us, because it’s not going to protect us if we run. So we can see that the shield of faith protects us individually, but the shield of faith also protects us corporately. Just with these soldiers here, they’re not going to have the same protection if they’re alone. They’re going to have the protection above and in front of them and on the sides, because they are all working together in unison.
And so it is that our faith within the body of Christ, it helps us most when we use it in combination with other believers, because there is strength in numbers. How do we show our faith? How do we hold out this shield of faith? Corporately? We do it by reciting creeds like the Apostles Creed.
We do it by sharing testimonies of what God has done for us. We do it by coming together in worship and singing praises, spending time together in prayer. All of these things we are expressing verbally and outwardly that we have faith. And when we come together and we do it together as a corporate body, we have greater defenses against Satan. The Roman historian Dio gave an account of this testudo formation, how it was put to use by Mark Antony when he was on a campaign in Armenia.
This is what he wrote. One day when they fell into an ambush and were being struck by dense showers of arrows, the legionnaires suddenly formed the testudo by joining their shields and rested their left knees on the ground. The barbarians, seeing this, threw aside their bows and they leapt from their horses. They drew their daggers and they came up close to put an end to the legionnaires. But they made a mistake because they had the advantage when they were on horses.
But now, once they were on the ground, the legionnaires broke up and they were able to defend themselves, confront the foe, and destroy them. Our faith helps us most when we use it in combination by doing these things. And one thing it says in Mark Anthony’s escapade there, not only did they join their shields, but they rested their knee on the ground. That’s a great picture of that, coming together in prayer. Jesus said, where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst.
There is power in corporate prayer, much more so than we do it alone. Acts, chapter 2, verse 42, 47. Right on. In the early church, they were practicing this togetherness. And I just want to read how they were demonstrating their faith.
Day by day, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders. And signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and they distributed the proceeds to all as any had need.
Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. The early church had a great strength in their faith because they were practicing it together. And how often does it say they did it?
They did it every single day, whether they were meeting in small groups or large. We come to Hebrews, chapter 10. Unfortunately, the early church didn’t continue to meet together as often. Some people started to back off away from that. And we read here that the writer of Hebrews a number of years later wrote, let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good words, not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other.
And all the more as you see the day approaching. I’m not saying we need to meet together as a church every single day. The early church did that. But by the time we get to Hebrews, there were some that were just neglecting to gather together at all. They weren’t practicing their faith as a corporate body, and they had gotten into the habit of being that way.
When I was growing up, three times a week at church was normal attendance. And then it went down to two weeks. I mean, two times a week. And then people started coming just one time a week. Now we live in a world where some people come regularly to them is twice a year at Easter and Christmas.
For other people, it’s just once a month. But what the writer of Hebrews is telling us, we’re not supposed to meet less and less, we’re supposed to meet what. All the more, it’s even more important that we meet together more as corporate believers as we see the world becoming more and more evil, and we anticipate more and more Jesus Christ coming back to set things all right, going back again once to the picture of the shield. Our faith covers us. Our faith is a defensive weapon.
Our faith only helps us when we face our enemy, and our faith helps us most when we use it in combination with other believers. And the fifth thing that we’re not going to talk so much about today is that the faith, our faith is not the only piece of armor. It’s not the only weapon that we have or that we need. We’ve already Talked about three parts of the armor. We’ll be talking more about the sword of the spirit.
But faith is part of what God has done for us. We go back to the text now in verse 16. Just want to emphasize it’s in every situation we’re supposed to take up the shield of faith. Faith isn’t something that we just hold forward and express on Sundays. It’s supposed to be there all the time.
We should be expressing faith in our home. We should be relying upon faith when we go to work, during the day, when we’re with our friends, in whatever situation. Our faith is something we are to be carrying with us because we never know when Satan is going to try to attack us. Therefore it’s important that we always have have this shield. And then in every situation we’re supposed to take up the shield of faith because it’s with it that we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
The Roman soldiers, they would take that shield with the leather on it and they would soak it in water. It had wood underneath and the water and the leather would get soaked so that when they shot arrows at them, not only did the the shield keep the arrow from going through, but part of the enemy’s weapon often was they would dip their arrows in tar and then they would light them on fire. So they’re shooting fiery arrows and that’s what the picture is here. So that if the arrow doesn’t quite pierce you, if it just touches your clothes, what’s going to happen, you’re going to ignite in the fire and that creates chaos and confusion in the army. So this shield of faith, it extinguishes these flames of the evil one.
The hoplites were a regiment of Greek soldiers and they used their shields in this manner. They would hold the shields up in the formation and then they would just wait patiently on the battlefield as arrow after arrow and dart and javelin came at them. And then after the enemy had sent all of their arrows and, and all of their javelins and didn’t have anything more to send, then they would put those shields down and they would rush in and they would destroy the army. Sometimes it’s that way with our faith. Satan is continually trying to get us with his fiery darts and we just need to be still and wait till all of those are gone and he can’t bombard us anymore.
We don’t turn and run. We don’t take up a fight. We just merely wait in our faith until we’re able to withstand Satan There’s a picture of this in the Old Testament, how Satan does this to God’s people. Zechariah, 3 verses 1 through 5. We have Zechariah having a vision here about Joshua, the high priest.
This is what we read. Then he showed me the high priest, Joshua, standing before the angel of the Lord. He was in a great position, but there also, standing beside him at his right side, was Satan. And he was accusing him. And what we’re going to see here is he’s accusing Joshua, saying he’s wearing dirty clothes.
In other words, he’s sinful and he’s not worthy. Satan does that to us. He tells us, you’re not worthy of salvation. You’re not worthy of God’s love. You haven’t done enough good things.
But this was the Lord’s answer to Satan. He said, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Isn’t this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? Meaning, yes, he was on fire and he was about to be burnt up.
But God stepped in and he snatched that stick out and he put out the fire to save Joshua. But Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood there before the angel. So the angel of the Lord spoke to those standing before him and said, take off his filthy clothes. And then he said to him, see, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will put clothes and I will clothe you with festive robes. And then I said, let them put a clean turban on his head.
So a clean turban was placed. Placed on his head. And they clothed him in garments while the angel of the Lord was standing nearby. So the picture here is that God saved the high priest from the fire, but then he made him beautiful. He took away even all the smell of smoke.
He took away any of the ashes and he clothed him. And so it is that Satan tries to accuse us. And he’ll say, you know, you are not worthy of God’s love. You got so much baggage. He wants to make you feel guilty.
He wants to make you feel ashamed. You always know when Satan is doing it, because when you have these thoughts of sin and unworthiness and guilt and shame, if it’s leading you to despair, it’s from Satan. Whereas God has us feel these things and think them sometimes, leading us to repentance and forgiveness and. And restoration. In those cases, we know it’s from the spirit.
But when Satan stands before God and he says, this person’s guilty, he’s filthy like the priest was, our answer should be no. I am justified by grace through faith and I have the shield of faith that God has given to me. I’m not going to listen to what you say. This isn’t the only type of dart that Satan throws at people. He also twists the word of God, tries to make it say things that it does not say.
And often people will say things to us. Well, the Bible says, this Bible maybe doesn’t say that you need to know the word of God. So you say, no, that’s not what it says there. Satan also can disguise himself as a false prophet. He can be very convincing.
In the end days, he’s going to convince all of the world to follow him. He’s also very good at imitating the works of God. Something can look like God working in someone’s life, but if it’s not leading those people to the Lord, but away, then we know it’s from Satan. He can also place counterfeits among us in our midst, placing people that are unbelievers in the church. They look awesome, they look great because he’s made such a good counterfeit of what Christianity looks like.
But that person is there to lead others astray and to cause confusion according to God’s word. Satan steals the word of God from us, so we don’t remember it, we don’t think about it when we need to. He can even stir up anger in individuals to kill someone, as he did in the case of Cain and Abel. He afflicts people, he oppresses them through demonic influence. He blinds people from understanding the truth of God’s word.
And he can even hinder us from doing things that we’re supposed to do. We find that in first Thessalonians that Paul was hindered by Satan from going in to see the Thessalonicans. All these things, all these different darts and arrows and javelins are different ways that Satan uses to try to destroy us. We need to hold up that shield of faith. Stay behind it, keep going forward.
Don’t run from him. Our shield of faith is not something that we create ourselves, but we need to thank God for it because it is a gift from God. Romans 12:3 says, for by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. God gives us the faith.
He gives us the shield of faith through Jesus Christ. And Satan may tell you you don’t have enough faith, but Your answer should be, you know, God gave me the faith that I have. And if God gave it to me, what he gave me, he knows that it is sufficient. Now it says that there’s a measure of faith here. Some people have small faith, some people have great faith.
But Jesus said, even the mustard seed faith, that which is the smallest, was still able to accomplish great things. Because the key is not really the faith, it’s what you place your faith in. Then you had the centurion at Capernaum. He told Jesus, you don’t even have to come to my house. Just speak the word and my servant will be healed.
So it is that man had great faith, because that was how much God had given him. Great faith, small faith, whatever you have, it’s sufficient to fight against the works of Satan. 2nd Peter 1:1 Just to have this emphasized. Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who have received a faith equal to ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The faith that we have comes from God. Therefore we can know that it is sufficient to achieve what God wants it to. The shield of faith. The word literally means a door of faith. And it’s interesting that in John 10, verses 7 through 10 that Jesus used a word that’s related to describe himself, but instead he here referring to it as a shield or a door.
But he’s referring to himself as a gate. Jesus said, truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate.
Here again is that word. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. Before we can have a shield of faith, we have to get behind the real shield.
And that is Jesus Christ. We have to enter the fold by the way of Him. He’s the one that died on the cross for our sins, that we might have eternal life. And if we try to get in by any other means, if we don’t go by through the door that he has provided, we don’t have true faith. And then once we are within his fold, once we were within the family of God, he continues to be that gate of protection for us.
And he’s also given us the shield that we can work to protect ourself. All of this should give us great assurance that there is no foe. There’s nothing that can separate us from love the love of God. And no matter how powerful or how deceiving Satan is, we still have what is sufficient in our faith and in Jesus Christ to withstand anything that he is hurling against us. May we pray?
Heavenly Father, we thank you that what you have given us is sufficient. We thank you for warning us of what Satan is out to do to destroy us. Father, help us to learn how to appropriate our shield and have it ready at all times so that even when we’re not suspecting Satan to hurl something at us that we will be ready to deflect it so that it won’t catch us on fire and it won’t harm us. We thank you that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins that we might have this protection in our life. Let us ever praise and appreciate him for the great sacrifice that he made and it’s in his name that we pray.
Amen.