The Shield of Faith (Ben Roy, 07/06/24)

I'm glad to be with you today. Don't you enjoy Sabbath? That's right. What would we do if

we didn't have a Sabbath? We'd work ourselves to death, wouldn't we? I think so. I'm glad

to be with you today. I don't have a sermon, but I have a talk. So if you want to listen,

that would be great. Let's see what we can come up with. Do you have your Bible? If you

have your Bible, I want to start with some texts, and we're going to research some of

these in order to start. So I think the first is in Psalms. I know it's a quick way to finding

Psalms. You just open your Bible up in the middle, and you're just about in Psalms. So

I'm going to read some of these, and it first starts out with Psalms 5, 5-12. Psalms 5-12.

For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous with favor. You will surround him as with

a shield, as with a shield. Okay. And then in Psalms three and verse three, we read,

For you, O Lord, are a shield for me, thy glory, the one who lifts up my head. Okay.

And then we're still in Psalms. We're going to go to Psalms 18 and verse 30. By my God,

I can leap over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is proven.

He is a shield to all who trust in him. And also in Psalms, Psalms 28 and verse seven,

the Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusteth in him and I am helped. Therefore,

my heart greatly rejoices and with my song, I will praise him. And in Psalms 91, verse

four, he shall cover you with his feathers and under his wings, you shall take refuge.

His truth shall be your shield and buckler. Is there a theme today? I hope you got it.

And in Proverbs, Proverbs 30 and verse five, Proverbs 30 and verse five, every word of

God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him. And in Isaiah, Isaiah

41 and verse 10, Isaiah 41 and verse 10, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for

I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will uphold you. I will uphold you with

my righteous right hand. Then we're going to go all the way back into Ephesians and

Ephesians six and starting with verse 10. And we're going to go all the way through

18 Ephesians six and starting with verse 10. Finally, my brothers, my brethren, be strong

in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may

be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh

and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness

of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up

the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done

all to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your wrists with truth, your waist with truth,

having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation

of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be

able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation

and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer

and supplication for the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication

for all the saints. And then last but not the least, actually there's two more, and

we find this in Philippians four and verse seven, Philippians four and verse seven.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and

minds through Christ Jesus. And the last one, first Peter, first Peter five and verse eight,

first Peter five and verse eight. Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil

walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. I'm sure you've come across

these verses before, which are very interesting. But I want to emphasize something that we

just read in Ephesians, because it says, above all, taking the shield of faith with you will

be able to quench all the fiery darts. And here he's saying above all, above all. So

this is perhaps the most important. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which

you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Interesting. Are we at

war? Say yes. We're at war. Maybe every day we battle. I think we do. I think we do. Every

day we battle. We're in war. I brought some things here with me. I want to thank my son

who collects memorabilia. So these are not. And all of these certain things in common.

And some of you probably recognize some of these things. I don't know. Some of you have

some of this at home. How many of you have some of this at home? Yours is still in your

closet by the way. Okay. All right. Very good. But we have different things. We have different

things. And as far as I know, and I'm not a historian, okay. But we have a helmet. World

War I. World War I helmet. Wow. World War II helmet. Better shape, I think. Interesting.

And we have a full field dress. Wow. And there's a breastplate. There's shields up here. There's

a, this is a sword. That's interesting. I have a shield right here. Anybody recognize

this? Captain America. That's right. You know anything about Captain America? Well, if you

have a comic book collection, you probably know something about Captain America. Captain

America, you know, it started in the 1940s. Okay. Just before I was born actually. And

it was trying to, it was a good propaganda that we had, okay, to rally our troops, rally

our troops. And it really did. Captain America shield. Shields are important, aren't they?

They really are. They really are. And it's interesting that some of you recognize those.

And you know, what are we shielding ourselves against? You know, Satan creates doubt about

God himself. He created doubt in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The way we are

to stand against Satan's attack is to take the shield of faith. And we read some of those

scriptures today. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and allow him to be our confidence. Now I

came across something that was interesting. These are some words from a pastor, not ours,

a pastor who said a lot of the Christians would have been a lot happier if Paul had

written a little bit differently. So listen carefully, see what he says. And he says,

Lay back and relax with a belt of evasion buckled loosely against your waist, with a

breastplate of defensiveness in place and your feet fitted with the pluralism that offends

no one. In addition to all of that, of this, take up the shield of grudges with which you

can hold on, hold on tightly to hurt and to slights. Take the helmet of in entertainment

and the bull and the belligerent of the flesh, which is the word of anger and air what's

been done to you on all occasions with with all kinds of creditness. Wow. And complaints.

Wow. I'm glad Paul didn't write that way. Sometimes we may act that way. What are the

pieces of armor that we should wear? And in the midst of this war against Satan's attacks,

we read that above all, above all, we should we should do what we should have those armaments.

Did you notice that the verse verse 16, it says above all, take the shield of faith.

Faith is the key to our spiritual armor. We've got to have faith. The shield of faith will

quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. The fiery darts shields, you know, you know,

ever since we've been talking about war and people have been in war. I mean, they they

use shields. You know, how many of you ever played with a shield? Oh, come on. That's

right. Well, we didn't have shields like this. But you know what we had? We had garbage can

lids. Have you played with the garbage can lid as a shield? There we go. That's right.

Interesting. But it's supposed to be for the fiery darts. And you know, the Romans and

probably even before the Romans, what did they? Well, they had shields and to protect

themselves against the fiery darts, they would cover those shields with animal skins and

wet them down. And if a fiery dart or an arrow came, it might stick to the shield, but it

wouldn't catch on fire because it was wet. Okay, it was wet. Oh, now that's interesting,

isn't it? Now, shielding is very, very important. Now I have a little experiment that I thought

I would I would do for you this morning. I'll see what we got right here. I have a Oh, I

know it's already I need to plug this in. There we go. So we're gonna hang on. Let's

get all of this taken care of right here. And I'm going to plug this in. Here. See if

we can find a sign find some electricity here. Well, you know, that's not as easy as it looks.

Okay, all right. There we go. Well, how did I do that? Okay, I just disrupted the whole

system up here. That's okay. I have I have a light bulb. These are interesting light

bulbs also have a pair of safety glasses because I want to be safe. So we got all right. That's

okay. We can probably get by without all of that. This is a little light bulb. It's an

incandescent light bulb. And they they work pretty well, but they're very inefficient.

They're inefficient. Now we have LED lights, okay, that are more efficient because this

gives off more heat than light. Okay, it's a 40 watt light bulb. Have you ever wondered

what that 40 watt watt meant? Do you think we get 40 watts of light out of a 40 watt

light bulb? Say no, we don't. That's how much energy it takes to operate a 40 watt light

bulb. It takes 40 watts of energy. So this light bulb will work only if it's shielded.

That filament has to be shielded. If it's not shielded, then the filament will burn

out. The modern day filaments that we have are some of them are made out of tungsten

and other materials. Some of those filaments can get over two to 3000 degrees hot. It's

really, really, really hot. Well, let's see what would happen if we got rid of the shield.

Would it burn out? Oh, well, that's what we're gonna that's what we're about ready to see.

Let's see what we got. In fact, in the in the near future, it's going to be a little

difficult for us to buy incandescent light bulbs because they are inefficient. Okay,

for one. So I'm going to take this light bulb. I have my safety glasses on. Okay, I have

a little steel plate right here because I'm going to break it and I need something hard

so that this will this will break. So I'm going to put this have a towel up here. I'm

gonna lay that towel on top of that right here. And I have a rubber hammer. I'm just

going to hit the light bulb with the rubber hammer and it should break. Let's see if it's

going to break. Let's check this out. Whoa, did that sound like a broke? I don't know.

No. Okay, we're gonna have to hit it harder. Okay, let's try this again. No, I don't think

so. Same sound. Oh, that was it. Did you hear the difference? Okay, good. Your ears are

working. Let's see what we got. Oh, and you know what? I can see the filament and it doesn't

look like it broke. Okay, now, so there's no shielding inside of that glass was a gas

and that gas was an inert gas. Sometimes they could use helium, they can use argon, they

can use nitrogen, which is an inert gas. It doesn't combine chemically with anything else

and that shields that filament from the oxygen in the air. So what what could we what could

we do now? What could we do now? If I turn it on, what's going to happen? It's going

to burn out. Okay, but we don't want it to burn out. So what I'm going to do is we're

going to shield it by using another gas, we're going to we're going to use some nitrogen

gas. And I happen to have some liquid nitrogen here, and of course, some liquid nitrogen

in that beaker in that Erlenmeyer flask. And the liquid nitrogen is a liquid and, and it's

boiling away inside of right here, we can't keep it from boiling away. But when I pour

it into the flask, it's going to produce going to change from a liquid into an air gas. Okay,

so we ought to be able to get a lot of nitrogen gas, okay, not liquid, but air gas coming

out of the flask. Then I'm going to put this down inside and turn the switch on. And we

hope the light bulb will still stay on as long as it shielded as long as it shielded.

Okay, so let's check this out. All right, safety glasses on. Pour this in here, we're

going to make a little cloud. Let's go keep going. There we go. So we're going to cool

the flask down gently. Okay, so we don't get it to crack. Although these are flask guard,

they're built to take temperatures, temperature changes. Let's pour a little more in there.

That's a nice cloud. You know what that the name of that cloud is? Anybody know the names

of clouds? What is it? I heard it. Who said fog? Yes. All right, Julie. All right. It's

fog. So we've got some fog in here. The reason why we're making a cloud is there's a lot

of water molecules in the air that we can't normally see. And so that's what's happening

those water molecules in the air are condensing to form that cloud. Shall we try it? That's

right. I'm going to set this down in here. I have an on off switch right here. Let's

check this. Oh, I just broke it. No, no, no, I didn't. Oh, yes, I did. Oh, no. Well, I

think it is broken. Let's check it out. Oh, it is broken. Okay. All right. So what I'm

going to do is I'm going to try to do this again a little more carefully. Are you all

in a hurry? Okay. All right. Let's try this one more time. All right. I only brought three

bulbs with me, so it's got to work. All right. Let's try this again. I'm going to put this

inside of here. The filaments are so so thin, so fine that sometimes they're hard to see.

Now this doesn't want to screw in. How come it's screwing in at an angle? Oh, but it still

works. All right. Very good. All right. Let's set this down here. Let's hit it with a hammer

again. Oh, I heard that. It has that sound. See what we got. Okay. I think we're good.

I'm going to set it in there very carefully. Okay. Set this over here. All right. Here

we go. Let's try this. All right. See if we can be a little more accurate. Are you ready?

Let's put it down in here. Okay. There we go. Okay. It's working. Look at that. The

filament is shielded and the light still works. Now I'm going to take it out. What's going

to happen? All right. Let's try it. Here we go. On the count. Three, two, one. Here we

go. Three, two, one. And let's take it out. And it burnt out. I didn't turn it off. It

just burnt out. Wow. Is that amazing? That's amazing. Well, that's what happens if we don't

have a shield with a filament. If you and I don't have a shield against Satan's attacks,

he can get the better of us. So what are we to use? What is the shield of faith? What

is that? Have you ever wondered? The shield of faith is the word of God. That's what the

shield of faith really is. The sword of the spirit is the only offensive weapon that we

have. We use the word of God against the devil. Now, if you look at all the things that I

have on this table, the only offensive thing that I have over here that would be a weapon

would be the sword, would be the sword. That's the only offensive weapon that I have on that

on that table. That's interesting. We need an offensive weapon, don't we? Oh, I do. I

certainly do. We find the scripture that deals with the issues that Satan is trying to destroy

us. So we look to the scriptures. We look for the scripture that deals with the issues

that Satan is trying to destroy you and me. So maybe you can think back a little bit.

Maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was this morning. Maybe. What is the devil trying to

get you with? You know, the devil tries to get us all differently. Why? Because we're

different, aren't we? We really, really are. We're much different. We're very much different.

So the only thing that we have to ward ourselves against the attack of the devil is the word

of God. It's the word of God. Now, when Jesus was tempted by Satan, what? Oh, oh, we got

these back, don't we? OK, this is great. Let's check this out. The armor of God. Wow. Look

at the fiery darts. Wow. They could sure destroy us. But if we have a shield, we have a shield.

We have the word of God. That's the shield. It says above all, above all, the shield of

God, the word of God. That's that's for our protection. Wow. That's what I want. That's

what I want. So when the devil tries to tempt me, I should go be able to go into his word,

go back into your memory, all the memory text that you have memorized and then claim that

claim that say no. When Jesus was tempted by by the devil, he said what it says. It

is written. It is written. And that's what we should do as well. It's written. We should

the word. The sword of God is the shield. The shield of God is the sword. The sword is the

word of God, the word of God. How interesting is that? Well, the Holy Bible, that's that's

our that's our shield. It's the word. The word. It says in the beginning was the word

and the word was with God and the word was God and all things was created by him and

all things were created through him and nothing was made that was made that was that he didn't

make. Wow. Think about the light bulb. Think about what happens when we take the shield

away. It burns out. We've got to keep that shield. We've got to keep the word of God

in our mind on our hearts and he will protect us. That's the only that's the only defense

we have. That is our defense and God has made it available for us. And I sure am glad. I

sure am glad.