"Armed for Battle: Faith that Can Save You" Ephesians 6:16 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

We're going through the spiritual armor.

I'm going to read starting in verse 10.

We're only going to look at verse 16 today, but I want to read starting in verse 10 down to verse 16 to set us where we're going.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God.

That you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil 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 firm.

Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and his shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take on the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

This is the word of the Lord, and I pray that God would seal it into your hearts as you yourselves take up the shield of faith, which is what we're commanded to do in this passage this morning.

The shield of faith here is a uh the word for shield is a descriptor of the large shield the Roman soldiers had.

Don't picture a uh dainty little kind of decorative shield that some soldiers might have as they stand guard.

Don't even picture those kind of shields that knights of armor have in the hallway of haunted houses or whatnot.

I think of the one at Disneyland that's gonna fall on you.

Not that kind of shield.

If you start thinking more of along the lines of the shields of uh riot or SWAT police, you're getting closer.

This is the kind of shield that maybe a bomb squad person might have as he approaches a place where there might be landmines.

That kind of shield is what we're talking about.

This is a shield that is, most of these that have been discovered are about four feet tall and about two feet wide.

So these things are massive, they're very difficult to hold.

They have bars built on the inside of them so they could be lifted up, and as the soldiers, as the Roman uh phalanx walked into battle, they would come in two rows.

The first two soldiers would be in two rows, and the first row would have the shields uh vertically, the second row would have the shields kind of like at a 45-degree angle, and so it makes a wall, and then the rest of the soldiers are lined up behind, pushing forward.

That's this kind of shield.

It's very difficult to hold, it's very difficult to elevate.

You can't hold this kind of shield if you're in hand-to-hand combat.

If you are fighting with your sword, you can't hold this shield.

And so the Romans would sometimes have a second shield that they'd have uh carry strapped to their back, and so they ditch the big shield if they were going into hand-to-hand combat and lift up the secondary shields.

But this word here is that big shield.

Those shields were, in addition to being four feet tall, two, three feet wide.

There's one in the British Museum that's three feet wide.

Um these things are heavy.

They're made of like oak and thick wood.

There the one in the British Museum is three and a half inches thick.

So, I mean, we're talking hefty.

And then it's wrapped in leather.

So this thing is a machine.

That's what Paul commands you to take up.

This is not the kind of shield you would buy for a Halloween costume at the dollar store.

Um, probably noteworthy here that the first pieces of armor we looked at were things the Roman soldiers would keep on all the time.

Uh they show up to duty, they have their shoe on.

They show up to duty, they have their belt tied.

Remember, the belt is not necessarily simply a belt, but it speaks to the fastening of your robes around you so that you can move uh freely.

You put on the breastplate.

This is what Roman soldiers wore all the time they were on duty.

Doesn't matter if they're in the jails, doesn't matter if they're behind a desk, doesn't matter if they're standing gate, uh guard at a gate, doesn't matter if they're putting down a riot, if they're going to war, at all times they're wearing those pieces of their armor.

If they were to take a nap, they would keep on those pieces of armor.

But the next pieces of armor are not like that.

The next things we're reading about, beginning with the shield of faith, it's not something the guy has all the time.

The guy on jail duty is not lugging this thing around the jail.

The guy in desk duty has it in an armor locker somewhere.

He doesn't have it at the desk with him.

The guy even at the door doesn't have this.

This shield is what the Roman soldiers would take out when they were going into battle, when they were advancing against their enemy, and they were concerned about crossfire, or they were concerned about an attack.

Some of these arrows can hit from 30 yards away.

Well, some of the arrows could come from across the valley, but there was a specific kind of javelin that a lot of uh people in the Roman Empire used that was, you know, several feet long, and you could launch that thing from 30 yards away.

You'd light it on fire and it would hit the enemy.

And so the soldiers, when they were dispersing a crowd, would have these shields up because they don't want the javelins that are on fire to rain down on them.

Those javelins, by the way, the core would often be hollowed out and filled with uh a substance that was flammable.

The tip could be wrapped in flammable cloth, the material lit on fire, that thing hits you.

What would happen, it was it would hit in the shield and it would stay in the shield and burn, and eventually the idea is that it would get down into the shield and catch the shield on fire.

But regardless of it actually caught the shield on fire, if you're lugging one of those massive shields around and you've got a three-foot javelin hanging out the other end of it, it's not very manageable.

And what are you gonna do with the shield?

If you just set it on the ground, now you have a flaming pile of wood in the middle of your line.

So that's the dynamic that's at play here.

The arrows could also be lit on fire and they could be raining down from anywhere.

And even if the arrow misses you, I mean, the point of a flaming arrow isn't that it necessarily hits you, the point of a flaming arrow is it lands in the middle of all of the people that are going to war, and now you've got fire all around your feet.

That's the dynamic here.

So Paul says, when you're going to battle, when you're going to battle against the evil one, put on the protection that comes through faith.

Put on the protection of this shield.

Now, I think these pieces of armor are specific to what they correspond to.

For example, the belt of truth.

It's not the shield of truth, it's the belt of truth because truth is what robes you together and makes you uh move freely in this world, is your knowledge of truth.

Righteousness is your defense against accusations.

Righteousness validates your testimony.

That's why it's the breastplate.

It shows that you're dressed for duty, it's the most easily identifiable part of you.

The shoes, you're bringing the shoes, correspond to readiness, you're bringing the gospel in the world with evangelism.

So these things are not interchangeable, is my point.

It's not the shoes of righteousness and the breastplate of evangelism.

They correspond, I think, particularly to their substance.

And the same is true with the shield.

The shield corresponds to faith.

And I'm going to give you six reasons why this morning.

Normally I like three-point outlines, but you get two for the price of one.

Six reasons why faith is an impenetrable shield.

And I'm going to walk you through this metaphor, and I'm not just inventing these six reasons.

All six of these reasons are drawn from the book of Ephesians.

Uh, you'll notice that faith is a theme in the book of Ephesians.

So that Paul's not just saying, put on the shield of faith, he's saying there's specific teaching about faith that makes it appropriate for the shield.

Now, before we start going through this outline, just let me just draw your attention to a few things in verse 16.

First, it starts within all circumstances.

So, as I mentioned, with the Roman shield, this was not something they held all the time.

This was something they only brought out when they were expecting that kind of conflict.

But Paul is telling the believers here with this imagery, you've got to have the shield with you.

There's never a time where you can check your faith in the locker room and go about the rest of your day.

You don't take your faith off when you go to lunch, which the Roman soldiers would.

They would put the shield away when they went to lunch.

They'd put it away when they were doing their other work.

You can't lug this thing around.

But Paul is telling you as a Christian, you have to always be on the guard because you don't know when the errors are going to come down.

You might be minding your own business at work.

You're not expecting an ambush, and yet the devil might have other plans for you.

And so you have to be ready in all circumstances, he says.

At all times, you're ready for this.

So, first, first reason Paul uses faith here is because faith has an object.

Faith has an object.

We're introduced to the concept of faith, and uh your fingers are going to do the walking here back to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15.

Ephesians 1:15

A few pages to the left, Paul says, for this reason, because I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love towards all the saints, I don't cease to give thanks to you, remembering you at all times in my prayer.

So Paul begins this book by telling the Ephesians, I'm giving thanks for you for this reason.

A particular reason Paul has a bond with the Ephesians.

That reason is that they have faith.

Now, this faith is not amorphous, it's not ambiguous, it's not faith in themselves, it's not, you know, I read a story from one of our persons of the year this year in USA Today this week, uh, where uh this person was asked what the most important lesson you have for young people is in the world, and they said, just have faith in yourself and yowzers.

That's not this kind of faith.

This is the kind of faith that is faith in an object external to yourself.

You don't need to have faith in yourself.

This is not a self-esteem war, and this is not faith to believe in yourself or faith to have enough courage in yourself.

This is faith in an external source.

That's the nature of a shield.

A shield, what makes a shield strong is not the breastplate.

If you're trusting the breastplate, then ditch the shield.

The shield is there because it's external to yourself, it's what you're putting forward as your defense.

The arrows are reining in.

You have this that you put forward.

So it's external to yourself.

It is in an object, it is not merely faith in you as a good person.

It's not faith in the human race or faith in politics or the future of our country, it's not faith in prosperity or faith in your retirement fund.

It is faith very particularly in Jesus Christ.

That's what it says in chapter 1, verse 15.

I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus.

Your faith, the word in there, it's uh, you know, it's the word for it's spherical.

You have your faith placed inside of something else.

So it's external to yourself.

Faith is not in you.

And it's confusing.

In English we use prepositions, they get confusing, you know.

I'm preaching the sermon this morning is in Ephesians 3, it's on Ephesians 3, it's about Ephesians 3, it's around Ephesians 3, it's through Ephesians 3.

I mean, you know, it's our six, whatever.

But you recognize the main point is that prepositions are very flexible.

In, out, around, among, through, about, amongst, betwixt, they all mean basically the same thing.

Not true in Greek.

They're spherically identified here, spatially related, here.

Your faith is inside.

It's not out, it's not around, it's in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Your faith is in something external to yourself.

Not just faith that Jesus existed, your faith is inside of him as a historical person.

He did exist, but more than that.

And your faith is in Jesus, who is the Lord, it says in chapter 1, verse 15.

He's identified as the Lord of the world, the Lord of the universe.

This is the Jesus that is prophesied in the Old Testament.

It's not anyone named named Jesus, not anyone named Jesus, is your faith in.

Your faith is very particularly in the person prophesied in the Old Testament.

I harp on this, you know, Jesus is not a common English name, but it's a very common name around the globe.

This is specifically identified.

Your faith is in the Lord Jesus, the one prophesied in the Old Testament.

The scriptures point towards him.

The one who was born to a virgin in Bethlehem.

Nobody else fits that bill.

The one who fled to Egypt after his birth, the one who returned and was raised in Nazareth, the one who was baptized by John in the river, the one who the voice from heaven proclaimed, This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

Listen to him.

That's the Jesus.

The one who commissioned the disciples and sent them into the world to turn the world upside down.

The one who raised the dead and healed the lame and caused the blind to see and the drove leprosy out of out of people.

That's the Jesus that we're talking about.

That's who your faith is in.

Not somebody who's just the object of good stories or a good moral lesson, but the person who did those things.

The one who confounded the scribes and silenced the Herodians, who totally embarrassed the Pharisees, the one who's betrayed by Judas, tried by Caiaphas, executed by Pilate, buried, anointed, had his body anointed by the ladies, put into the grave, stone in front, guarded by soldiers, descended to the grave, down in Sheol, leads, gives liberty to the captives, then resurrects from the grave, proclaims the kingdom of God for 40 days, and then ascends into heaven.

That's the Jesus that your faith is in.

Your faith is in that person who accomplished those things.

You place your faith in him.

Not just that he existed, but that he did those things, that he was beyond doing those things, that he was innocent, that throughout his life he never sinned, that he completely fulfilled the law, that he obeyed everything God commanded him to do, he fulfilled all scripture appointed to him, it was about him, and he fulfilled those things.

And yet, despite his holiness and his sinlessness, that he became sin on the cross for our transgressions, that our sin was taken from us and given to him.

So that he suffered on the cross, condemned by Pilate wrongly, but condemned by God justly because he was suffering for our sins.

That's what you place your faith in.

You put your faith in him because your sins were born by him.

That's why it's the only faith that can save.

It's a common question: can other religions outside of Christianity lead to salvation?

What if I put my faith in Jesus as a good person?

What if I put my faith in Muhammad as a prophet?

What if I put my faith in the merit of the saints?

What if I put my faith in the Baha'u'adhita?

What if I put my faith in reincarnation?

I have sincere faith in all those other things, but you understand none of those other things can save.

I mean, none of the saints bore your sins on the tree.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ bears your sins as a substitute.

And so the only faith that's even conceptually possible to be saving faith is faith that finds its resting place in Jesus Christ.

He is the object of your faith.

Any other shield is like Swiss cheese, it doesn't work.

But only Jesus Christ as a shield can defend you.

Secondly, your faith has an impact.

The impact of your faith is salvation.

That's described in chapter 2, verse 8.

It's not just that you have faith and it, you know, it's a nice thing to add to your repertoire.

You know, put it on your CV, graduated from this school and you know, had this job, and also put your faith in Jesus.

It's not one thing among many.

This is a faith that actually has an internal effect on you.

It changes you from the inside out.

This is the doctrine of salvation.

Chapter 2 of Ephesians verse 8 for by grace you have been saved through faith.

When the arrow of faith hits you, it changes you, it transforms you.

Faith is the channel by which God protects you.

So you're at war in the world, the devil's arrows are coming at you, you place your faith in Jesus Christ, and the result of that is that you are saved.

Something happens to you.

So the rest of the armor is kind of flowing from this.

Your salvation is what enables you to have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of eagerness for the gospel.

All those things come with your faith.

Your faith is the channel by which God gives you the rest of your armor.

And says back in Ephesians 2, verse 8, that salvation is by grace, but through faith.

Ephesians 2:8

Grace and faith are always paired.

Grace is the door and faith is the hallway of salvation.

I've heard it said that way, that grace and faith continually go hand in glove.

It's not that they're necessarily even they're two different things, it's that they accompany each other.

You're saved by faith, but faith is not your own doing.

You're saved by faith, but that faith is given to you as a gift by grace, so that nobody can boast.

If your faith was your own contrivance, if you invented your own faith, if you were responsible for your own faith, if your faith had its ultimate source in yourself, then you would be able to boast.

And it would not be of grace, salvation would be of works.

It would be you made a shield that was good enough to withstand against the devil.

But that's not how this goes down.

You didn't make your own shield, your shield was given to you by grace.

It was a grace gift, which is even redundant.

Grace means gift, gift means grace.

It was something that God gives you, and he gives it to you through faith that he himself gives to you.

Romans 3 verse 24 says you are justified by his grace.

Romans 3:24

Grace justifies.

But Romans 3.28, a whole four verses later, we are justified by faith.

That's what I mean.

They're often paired in the scriptures.

Romans 5 verse 1, you're justified not by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1

Philippians 3, verse 9, I want to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that righteousness which comes through faith in Christ.

Philippians 3:9

So notice the contrast.

Some people try to defend themselves based upon their own works, based upon their own faith.

They think they can stand before God on their own two feet.

They think they can find their own way to God, their shield is their own contrivance.

Not so with the spiritual armor.

With the spiritual armor, your shield is given to you through faith by grace.

Faith is the channel in which you receive your armor.

You're not working to be a good soldier.

You are made a good soldier and issued your armament from the Lord himself.

That's critical because faith is a gift.

And it's even a gift in the spiritual armor.

So Paul says, in all circumstances, pick up the shield.

You recognize that that shield is a gift.

The arm you're holding the shield with is a gift.

The whole thing is a gift.

It's all by grace.

It's all by grace.

And the impact of that grace is your salvation.

You're saved through faith.

Thirdly, faith has an effect on you.

It has an effect.

So it doesn't merely save you.

That's not where the story of faith ends in the book of Ephesians.

Notice this is all progressive.

It's really masterfully done how Paul writes the book of Ephesians.

It's almost like it was divinely inspired.

But the progress here is incredible, isn't it?

Like it starts with you're putting your faith in Jesus Christ.

That results in yourself.

You're just tracing the word faith through Ephesians.

The third thing that happens is it makes you bold.

Hey, if you're going to be a soldier in war, you need to be bold.

You need to be bold.

Don't go curl up in the foxhole.

Get out there and fight.

I mean, that's the imagery here.

And faith has that effect on you in Ephesians 3, verse 12.

Ephesians 3:12

In him we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

Your faith makes you bold.

You're not bold in and of yourself.

You're the meek little mouse in and of yourself, but through your faith in Jesus Christ, the salvation that comes through him, and you place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that has the effect of giving you boldness.

I mean, you need this.

You need this if you are going to battle.

You need confidence that when you call for backup, backup's coming.

You know, that's a basic principle in law enforcement.

The morale and a law enforcement department crumbles and is gone when people don't respond.

You know, the people will stop.

Police officers will stop going on patrol.

They'll stop arresting bad guys if they have the doubt in them that when they call for help, nobody is going to respond.

And everybody knows that.

That's why, you know, when police officer asks for help, everybody comes, you know, from like 17 precincts away.

Because it's so fundamental to the way that operates that you have to have confidence that when you are in danger, you will call for help and help is coming.

That's what happens to you as a Christian.

Through your faith, you have boldness to stand against the devil because you know that when you plead to God for help, he will send it.

You have confidence in your appeals to him.

You know he hears your prayers.

It's probably a good time to talk about these arrows again.

I mentioned to you that some.

Some of them were closer to javelins, you know, three feet tall.

Some of them were shorter.

The javelins might have the core that could be lit on fire, but the shorter ones would be wrapped in flammable fabric, of course, and they make the fields dangerous.

And most of the soldiers would, in addition to having two shields, would also have two swords, you know, the longer sword that oftentimes they would even use to hold up the shield, and then a shorter sword that would be more prone to fight.

So what would happen is that a javelin hits the shield, you can't wield the shield, you ditch the shields.

You also ditch your bigger sword, probably, and take out your smaller sword, reach for the smaller shield, and that's the more hand-to-hand kind of combat here.

So that's the devil's approach here.

Play this analogy out.

The devil's approach is to strike you in some way through temptations, the desire for worldliness, the desire for conformity, cowardice, whatever the particular temptation in your circumstance is.

So a temptation that's the arrow.

The arrows come and you're tempted to sin.

This is why you need to have the shield of faith up, because you don't know when the temptation is going to come, you don't know from what angle it's going to come.

Temptation comes in an unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

If you get hit by it, what happens?

You cave into your sin, you give into your sin.

Well, what often happens to people that fall into sin is they ditch the shield of faith and they try to fight on their own.

They're ashamed to go before God, they're ashamed to pray to God, they're ashamed to confess their sins to God, they just don't, their prayer life suffers.

I mean, that's normally in people's experience.

The first thing that goes when they're dealing with sin like that, when they're struck by the arrows of sin, is their prayer life.

I mean, it's very unusual to find somebody who says, Yeah, I'm dealing with this life-besetting sin, but my prayer life's awesome.

Normally the two are to are connected.

So the arrow hits you, you ditch your faith, you're you're vanquished by prayer.

So notice how Paul's reminding you here that when you're struck by these arrows, this is where you need to prop up the shield of faith.

You recognize that you can plead to God for help.

You can call to him for help, and he hears you.

That should make you bold to stand against sin and temptation.

That should make you bold to bring the gospel into the world because nothing is going to take you out of this war.

It should produce a boldness in you.

Sin lies to you.

Sin lies about the pleasure it will give you, sin lies about what it can deliver, sin's goal is to kill you, so it has to lie.

I mean, sin doesn't want what's good for you, so it lies to make you think it wants what's good for you.

It tells you this will be fun, this will be pleasurable, this will have benefit that is eclipses or greater than the benefit of sanctification.

So sin lies to you.

Sin tells Adam and Eve it's good to eat the fruit, you know, then you'll be like God, whatever.

Every temptation falls along those lines.

And faith says, I have the boldness to stand against those lies.

Fourthly.

Faith has a strength to it.

Faith has a strength to it.

In addition to boldness, faith comes with a strength.

This is chapter 3, verse 17.

Isaiah 3:17

Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, such you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and the knowledge of God that surpasses understanding.

So notice here that not only does backup come, but to keep the word picture going here, backup comes and stays and fights with you.

Backup doesn't just come and check in on you.

Hey, how's the war going?

Heard you call for help.

How's it going out there?

No, Christ comes and dwells in your heart.

This is speaking of the internal dwelling of the Holy Spirit who abides with you.

He convicts you of sin.

So he's backing up the shield.

He's energizing the shield.

The energy for you to hold the shield.

The shield, of course, is a gift of grace and is faith that itself is from God.

But now do you see the boldness as you're going into battle and the strength that is propping up your arms and giving you the affections here to love Jesus and trust Jesus?

That itself is the spiritual work of Christ dwelling in your heart.

That makes you strong.

And that comes, it says in Ephesians 3, verse 17, through faith.

Ephesians 3:17

The source of your strength is Christ who dwells in your heart through faith.

I mentioned the Romans would have the two lines of the soldiers out there, the first with the shield vertically, the second at like a 45-degree angle, and then other lines of soldiers behind.

And those dudes behind would even have their own kind of riot bars, their own uh like nights or batons or whatever the right word is, and they would use them to push the other soldiers forward.

These shields would be very difficult to see through, so the soldiers that are in the front lines don't really know where they're going.

But they are being pushed forward by the force behind them.

So that's what's happening here.

The strength of their advance, if they were left to their own physical strength to advance in the battlefield, their advance might be a little bit slower.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like my kids at bedtime, you know.

They're working on it, they'll get there.

But that's not what's happening here.

There's a strength behind you.

That strength is the Lord Jesus who is pushing you, and he's pushing you from the inside out.

The analogy is breakdown at some point, right?

He's not physically behind you, pushing you.

This is a spiritual battle, not physical arrows, man, not physical shields.

It's all all spiritualized here.

But the point here is that the strength of your advancement is coming from your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That fuels you as you advance in the battlefields.

That's what happens through your faith.

It pushes you forward.

This is why when you see people in the Bible with radical faith, they often take radical risks for God.

You think of Moses and all that he put on the line, and he abandoned Pharaoh's household to go live in the wilderness, then he comes back to go toe-to-toe with Pharaoh, and then he runs again with plundering the Egyptians, walks through the sea and eats manna for 40 years, and just does incredible things because of his faith.

Faith was energizing that.

You know, in the very next narrative after that, you have Rahab, who, like, you know, like Moses, puts his faith, puts her faith in the surpassing value of God, puts her faith that Yahweh is going to defend his people.

So I would rather be in a city that collapses and on Yahweh's side than withstand God's people.

And of course, her faith saves her.

I mean, you can think of ten other examples, at least from the Old Testament.

Faith energizes you and makes you strong.

Number five, faith has a unifying effect, has a unity to it.

You know, there's power in numbers here that give you just more strength in battle.

Ephesians 4, verse 5.

Ephesians 4:5

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

So here, notice that Paul's describing the unity that comes from this faith.

We're all united in this.

Faith is not individualized.

And this is hard in our Western world to understand.

We individualize faith.

You know, it's my faith.

We speak of it as my faith.

And of course, in a sense that's true, you're saved as an individual.

God, in that sense, gives you your faith.

He doesn't give your faith to your family, he gives your faith to you.

Even children have to possess their own faith that is itself a gift from the Lord.

But there's limits to that kind of word picture.

The truth is that we all have our own faith, but our faith is the same faith because the object is the same.

There's a unity that comes through having this.

That's what Paul means by one Lord.

There's only one object of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's only one content of the faith, as Jude describes, the faith that was delivered once for all to the saints.

There's a systematic body of teaching, namely the New Testament, that describes truths about God that is delivered to the saints.

And we have unity inside of that.

One baptism.

You know, you weren't all baptized together, but you were baptized one at a time in the same water, making the same proclamation, having it be declared that you're being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Every Christian has that testimony.

It doesn't end there if you jog your eyes down to verse 13 of Ephesians 4.

We all attained to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood.

So that faith makes you strong.

You're united in that faith.

It's called unity of faith in verse, uh, the verse I just read, verse 13, and that makes you strong.

You know, the Roman shields would clip together sometimes.

They have latches together.

You don't want any arrow, I mean, the whole point of that phalanx breaks down if there's gaps between the shields, right?

If the arrow gets through into the group of people, that's almost worse than not being there at all.

So the shields have to, they can't let daylight through.

They gotta be locked together.

Some of them would have latches on, um, where they would clip together, and then the guys behind are on, you know, all up on the shoulders of the person in front of them.

There's, and they would step in march.

Uh they would march in in step, they would go in line, step, step, step.

Very intimidating.

I I mean, some stories about this describe uh enemies as fleeing, just as the sight of them marching, the sound of them.

The people behind even stomp their spears or their swords in the ground, while the people in front march in unison.

The whole it makes like these things are bright red too, and it makes like this impressive red wall coming at you.

That's the unity that comes through faith.

That's the image Paul's going for here.

As a Christian, you're united to other Christians in faith.

In faith.

A soldier can't, this shield would be pointless if a soldier was holding it up by himself in the battle.

So imagine a guy breaks away from the fold.

He's like, I don't like the strategy.

I don't want to walk northeast, I want to walk northwest.

And so he veers off with his big shield.

That shield is worthless at that point.

I mean, it's not a cocoon, it's not a bubble.

It's in front of him.

But as he walks off, he has no protection on his sides, he has no protection above him.

I mean, he's gonna get mowed down.

The first thing that hits a shield, he'll probably drop it, and now he's out exposed in the open.

I mean, the shield only works, it's only effective when you have your brothers and sisters in the Lord around you.

There should be no solo lobo Christians, no lone wolf Christians.

No Christians that wander off by them themselves.

And this is how cults always prey on people, you know.

Excuse me, do you have a few minutes?

Can I tell you the truth about Jesus Christ?

And you're like, of course I want to hear the truth about Jesus Christ.

Who doesn't want to hear that?

You're like, so tell me more.

Okay, so what your church always says is wrong, what you need to know the real truth is this.

And you're like, oh, who else believes it?

Well, me and six of my friends believe this.

So they're peeling you off one at a time.

Jehovah's Witnesses roll that way, Mormons roll that way.

You know, they tell you just go up to your room and pray and wait for the kind of the warm feeling inside of you that tells you that the Book of Mormon is the book of from God and it peels you off.

It peels all like the Korean cults, the George Mason and the schools around here, that's how they all roll.

They approach you, and you know, the mother God kind of cults that are all over the place here.

That's how they pray on college students.

They peel you away from the church.

How do you know that what your church says is true?

Why don't you question this doctrine or that doctrine?

They start to peel you away.

And it's not that any church's doctrinal statement is infallible or uh is not open to critique, of course not, but it's that the key elements of the Christian faith have been passed down for 2,000 years.

They're somewhat relatively refined, I would say.

Beyond a conversation at Starbucks with somebody saying, Hey, how do you know that Jesus isn't a Korean woman that was born 40 years ago?

Can you prove otherwise?

How do you know that Jesus actually is God or is the Lord?

There's a strength in unity to stand against those kind of attacks.

In number six.

Faith produces a peace.

The book ends, Ephesians 6, with a peace.

I mean, the whole point of the spiritual armor, we've talked about this a few times, is not to perpetually fight.

There is peace at the end of this.

The gospel is the gospel of peace.

And you see this in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 23.

Ephesians 6:23

Peace be to all the brothers with love and faith from God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ.

So if you are armed impressively enough, that has the effect of producing peace.

There's a million cultural examples right now that play into that.

You recognize that the presentation of force is in itself a deterrent.

And that's what's happening with the spiritual warfare.

That you put on this armor, it doesn't mean the devil's not going to attack you.

But it does mean that at some point your heart gets settled in the war.

Your heart gets settled that you are believing the gospel of peace, you're leaving the life of peace.

Temptations still come, but your plane has landed at the right airport.

You know?

Temptations come and you've settled this in your heart.

I'm on the Lord's side here.

That's the reality of this war.

I'm on the Lord's side.

Jesus, you gotta defend me here.

You gotta defend me.

I can't do all, I can't lift this shield by myself, Lord.

You've got to help.

So he's energizing your faith, he's feeling your faith.

And so you just get settled.

You know, people bring false accusations against you, you fall back and you rest in the sovereignty of God.

Temptations come and you give into them, you confess your sins, and you fall back and rest in the sovereignty of God.

You're if you don't have that kind of faith, your foray into battle will be short-lived, won't it?

You'll walk out in a battle, the first arrow hits you, and you run for the hills.

But if you have this kind of peaceful faith, it just settles you.

Just settles you.

You know what?

I am, I am the Lord's.

You know, he has adopted me.

I'm part of his family.

My faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is where the battle lines are drawn.

Of course the devil's gonna shoot arrows.

I get that.

And then no, I mean, he lost the battle, but I don't know if he's fully been informed of that yet.

You know, he operates otherwise.

It's just always struck me that Jesus tells Peter, the devil is roaming around, he wants to sift you, he wants to go after you.

I mean, that conversation is happening after the crucifixion and resurrection, you know?

And the devil hasn't learned.

Nor will he learn until he's bound up and cast into hell.

But your heart just gets settled.

You say, you know what, this is the battle.

It belongs to the Lord's, I'm his, he's given me the shield, I can stand against the evil one, not by my own strength, that's silliness, but through faith in him.

And ultimately you understand, of course, that the devil can't do anything to you that the Lord has not permitted him to do, including temptations.

No temptation has overcome you except that which is common to all people.

And with every temptation, the Lord gives you a door so that you can escape.

So temptations come to try you and to refine you.

But if you have the shield of faith up, they're not going to harm you.

This is what the hymn writer means when he writes, When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie, my grace all-sufficient will be your supply.

The flames will not hurt you.

Every time I sing that song, I just pause there, like, what in the world?

The flames won't hurt you?

I don't know much about flames.

But if I like grab a spatula that was too close to the stove, that hurts me.

The flames won't hurt you?

And the next line God has a design in the flames, your dross to consume and your gold to refine.

That's what's happening in the war.

Sometimes the arrows get through, sometimes they hit, sometimes you give in to temptation, sometimes it lands on the ground next to you and burns, but you recognize this is all under the sovereign watch of the Lord.

And nothing's happening to me that he doesn't design for my good and for his glory.

All this faith comes back together in verse 16.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith.

Take up the shield of faith.

Approach your spiritual war with this mindset.

God, we're grateful that you have given us faith in Jesus Christ.

The faith is yours, the gospel is yours.

All the spiritual armament is yours.

This all belongs to you.

You've checked it out to us for this battle.

And uh we long for the day where you return and take us home to yourself, and we won't need these weapons anymore.

Where our faith will become sight and we see you face to face.

We know, as John says, that when we see you, we will be made like you completely.

And uh everything will be transformed.

So we long for that day.

In the meantime, Lord, give us the strength to hold our shield up, to have faith, to overcome the evil one.

We're grateful for that faith, and it's in the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.