When The Arrows Fly

If you have your Bible, church is a great place to bring that with you.

We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Ephesians 6, as we continue on in our spiritual warfare series.

An arrow can wound you.

A flaming arrow can burn everything to the ground, even if it doesn't hit a vital organ or a place or somewhere else.

We think about how we are good at destroying things.

Why is it that we as people are so good at inventing ways to destroy other things and to destroy other people?

As if arrows weren't bad enough.

What if we set them on fire so that way whatever we hit would be damaged even more, even if we weren't the marksman that we wish that we were?

Now, arrows don't just have to simply penetrate their target to become effective.

You know, a well-placed one in the head or in the heart is going to take you out.

But one in the arm or one in a shield, even if it catches that, or one into a structure with fire, even if it didn't hit in a vital place, could send destruction all around.

The attack could continue after impact.

But what if you didn't just have three arrows aimed at you with fire in them?

What if you had an whole army of arrows pointed at you ready for battle?

That's the image that Paul is thinking about, that he has in the front of his mind as he's talking to the church, as he's wrapping up his letter to them and to us in Ephesians chapter 6, talking about how we stand firm in the face of evil, in the face of our enemies, in the face of things that are trying to destroy us, because some attacks hit us when they hurt, but we can step off, we can pull that arrow out, or we can clean that wound, and we can allow that to heal.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

But other times they keep burning and they keep infecting us with destruction.

Because, see, a strategically placed arrow can kill you even without the fire.

But even in a non-fatal location, a flaming one causes all sorts of problems after it hits.

Set clothing on fire, wooden defenches, seeds siege equipment, and even the shield himself, even if we had David's shield up here that his friend made for him, it's made to deflect the arrow and not to burn.

Think about it like a contaminated needle.

If you're gonna use a needle for something, you want it to be clean, and that's why it's a one-time use and you get rid of it.

A clean needle will puncture you.

But an infected, contaminated needle can carry some dangers behind it that you didn't know were there that are working behind the surface, causing all kinds of destruction.

That's what the flaming arrow does.

That's what the flaming arrows of our enemies do for us.

See, the impact doesn't become the end of the attack.

It's trying to destroy everything.

The enemy shoots an arrow of fear at us, and that initial fear hurts.

But then it starts to burn when we start thinking things like, well, God must not be with me.

God must not care about me as much as he cares about other people.

I can't trust him.

Something terrible is going to happen.

I'm just going to wait.

Or that arrow of temptation hits and then it spreads with the fire when we say, it's not that serious.

I don't just I deserve this.

Or it's not really a problem.

I have it under control this time.

Nobody will know I can stop whenever I want.

Or that accusation hits us where we failed.

And there are times in our life where we do fail, and it doesn't help us any to pretend like that's not true.

But the accusation of failure hits us, and then that fire spreads where it says, Not only did you fail, but because you failed, you are what you did, and you are a failure.

And because you're a failure, God is finished with you.

He doesn't want anything to do with you.

And for that matter, why would other people even care if you are around?

There's no point in you coming back or showing your face.

You see, the arrow hits one place, but that incendiary arrow that has fire behind it, that has destruction attached to it, continues to burn in other places and continues to spread.

You see, very often what I find is that the attack is obvious and we see the attack, but we don't see the additional attacks that come behind there as often.

We don't recognize that that arrow was flaming with something else until it already begins to spread.

As we've been going through this passage of scripture, the end of Ephesians, we've been looking at the different comparts, we've been looking at the different components, we've been seeing what we are called to do as people who are followers of Jesus, who have the Holy Spirit of God in us and how we're supposed to live and how we are called to live differently.

We're told to stand strong in the Lord.

He's told us to take everything that God provides us.

We've talked about truth and we've talked about righteousness and we've talked about having our feet firmly planted on the ground and standing and being ready to move because the gospel of peace, the gospel message of Jesus is a gospel message of movement.

God calls us to action, not just to be stationary.

And now Paul pictures this attack coming for us.

Two verses.

Verses 16 and 17 of Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

It says, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

And take up the helmet of salvation, the sword and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

These arrows are flying.

They are coming at us.

They're coming at us in any way that our enemy, the devil, can come after us.

And we have to be ready.

We need a faith that's going to be able to hold.

We need a faith that's going to function like Paul tells us here, that's going to serve as a field, as a shield.

Not a generic faith and believe whatever you want, but a faith in God, the Almighty Creator of everything who spoke, and everything that we see came into existence.

This powerful, almighty one God that has no equals, that had a plan for us to fix our sin problem, and the only solution was to send and to sacrifice himself and his son for us.

A faith in anything outside of that is weak and will not last.

We're to have faith in God, the Almighty Provider, Warrior God.

And we need to have a faith that holds when the arrows fly.

A faith that holds when the arrows fly, because the reality is the arrows are always flying.

You know that, don't you?

We feel that.

The attacks of the enemy are always coming at us, and sometimes we see him coming, and other times it sneaks up on us.

But he is making every attempt that he can.

The attack never stops.

And that is why we are called to be ready and to be armed with a power that is greater than the power of the one who is ruling this world.

As the Bible tells us, greater is he who is in me, in us, than he who is in the world.

So while the attacks never stop coming, and we need a faith that holds when the arrows fly, because sometimes the arrows miss, but sometimes they are right on target.

And we need to have a faith that's going to protect us from that.

Notice it's not Paul says he's lived long enough, just like all of us have.

He doesn't say if the arrows come.

He says when.

They are coming for us.

These flaming darts are coming.

He knows that there's going to be opposition.

He knows it firsthand.

This is one of those themes that's running through this series in this part of the Bible that we are taking time to study together because following Jesus doesn't remove us from spiritual conflict.

In fact, what we will experience is that will heighten the spiritual conflict.

Because Satan is going to come after the things that he doesn't have under his power.

He's going to come after us and try to attack us and to bring us over to his side and to make sure that we're not following after Jesus.

He wants to make sure that we put our faith in something that is lesser instead of putting our faith and our action and our behavior in something that is greater, in something that will last.

There's an enemy, and one of his strategies is to attack what we believe.

The flaming arrows that come from Satan might sound like this.

It might sound like God has forgotten you.

That arrow could be a belief, whether from other people or just inside your head, that says something like, Why do you even try to get rid of that sin in your life?

You will never change.

It's not really a big deal.

Nobody would know.

You've already messed up so badly and everybody knows it.

Nobody's ever going to believe that you are following after Jesus.

Or those arrows sound like if God really loved you, none of this stuff would be happening in your life.

You are on your own.

Sometimes the arrow that the enemy fires at us is temptation.

Sometimes it's an accusation, sometimes it is fear, other times it is doubt.

Other times it becomes discouragement.

But notice how quickly one arrow can become fire.

I failed.

When we're just in our heads all the time, can easily become I am a failure.

I'm afraid becomes God, cannot be trusted.

I am struggling becomes God must be finished with me.

I'm always going to struggle.

And that is why Paul tells us that those things are not true.

And those are lies that come from the pit of hell and from the devil.

And we need to be ready to defend ourselves and at time to use that field of that shield of faith to defend other people, to take up this shield.

And Paul reminds us that what was pictured is not a decorative little shield that we're going to put on our kids' Halloween costumes if they're running around as a knight.

It is something that was big and that is powerful and that we could hold up and it could protect us and block those arrows, be designed not to catch fire, not to be penetrated, so that when those attacks come and they hit, they don't cause any more damage.

You see, a soldier expects something to come at him, and that shield stands between them and the attack, and that is what our faith does.

And God reminds us here in his word that faith isn't just positive thinking.

It's not convincing yourself that everything will work out exactly like you wish that it would.

It's not pretending that the arrow did not hurt.

Biblical faith has an object.

Faith trusts in the one who gave that to us.

Faith trusts in God.

Faith will tell us that I don't know everything that is happening, but I can know who God is.

Faith says I don't get everything that's going on right now, but I know God can understand.

And I know that God wants to provide.

Faith is, my feelings are real, but they're not permanent.

And they don't have to have the final word.

That's what the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 30, verse 5, it says, every word of God proves true.

Proverbs 30:5

He is a shield to those that take refuge in hell.

God wants to serve as our shield because his word proves true.

That's why we sing God of promises, you're faithful to the end.

Allowing him to protect you.

Faith doesn't mean that the enemy stops shooting, and faith doesn't mean that, but what faith does mean is that every arrow doesn't get access to our vital organs in our heart.

We protect the things that matter the most.

But when an arrow comes, it can enter through your mind.

A temptation presents itself, a fear starts rising, a pattern of behavior that you thought you had kicked comes back at you.

And what do you do?

How do you hold up to know what is true and what is a lie?

That is why it's so important for us to know God.

And the best way for us to know God is to spend time in his word, the Bible.

He's provided that for us so that we can know what he has taught, so that we can know what he has done, so that we can know who we are, created in his image.

And as we study God's word, we start to know his voice, and when we know his voice, we won't be tricked by an imposter.

Somebody who's pretending to be God.

When the arrow says God has abandoned you, faith says, He has promised never to leave me.

When the lies of the arrow say, you were defined by the worst thing that you have done, what faith tells us there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When the arrow says, this temptation will satisfy you, it will feel good, you deserve this.

Faith says, God is the one that gives life, and I know that his way is better.

When the arrow, the lie comes at us and it says, you cannot make it through this, what faith does, it sharpens us and it says, My strength is not in me, my strength comes from the Lord.

So may we be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, not ours.

The shield is not faith in my faithfulness.

The shield of faith is faith in God's faithfulness.

That is where the power comes from.

And that is so important for us because there are days in our faith, in our spiritual journey where we feel spiritually and physically strong.

Where we know I don't care what Satan throws at me today, I am not falling for that.

I am read up, I am prayed up, I am surrounded by a community of other believers who will help to hold me accountable, and I'm doing pretty good today, and yet there are other days where we know that even the slightest hiccup, send us spinning, cause us to do something that has implications not on us, but on our family and those that we love the most.

The strength of the shield is not confident, it's not just based on how confident we are when we wake up in the morning.

The strength of our faith is in the one in whom we are trusting.

It is the object of our faith.

And that is why we put our faith in a faithful God, because he has called us to live with him and to live together with other people, and he did not design us to live alone.

When we isolate ourselves from other people and other believers in Christian community, the Satan, Satan wants to come and to pick us off like an animal that is falling back from the pack, looking at us as weak, vulnerable, and an easy mark.

But we there are moments in our life where when our faith is strong, and when our faith is strong, we need our Christian friends in our lives when they aren't as strong.

The strength of our faith can help to protect them.

And then the opposite of that is also true in the moments where we are more weak, and if we have other believers around us who are strong and their faith is in the Lord, they can encourage us and show what that means.

We need people in our life to say, Joel, God never said that.

That doesn't sound like his character at all.

You don't need to believe that.

We need other believers to pray for us, to be there with us.

Those times where we need God's word spoken to us to speak truth into the fire and to extinguish those arrows before that death spread.

You do not need to prove how spiritually tough you are by going at it alone.

Let me say that again.

You do not need to prove how spiritually tough you are by going at it alone.

That is a recipe for disaster.

And we know that to be true because we've all lived that.

We need other believers in our lives.

We need to take up the shield, and sometimes we need others that are close to us to take up their shield of faith to help us.

Paul not only talks about this shield here, but he also talks about the helmet of salvation.

Helmets become a pretty big deal.

We want to protect our head because apparently our brain is pretty important to the function of the rest of our bodies.

You guys go to medical school like me, did you learn that?

Our brain is the control center of everything that we have.

And we have to protect it.

We want to make sure that it's not getting hurt.

We find ourselves in football season.

Have you seen the football players running around with the gigantic anti-concussion helmets on?

They look like bobbleheads running around on the field.

Like they look ridiculous, but I 100% understand why they wear those because the studies are showing us just how dangerous this repeated concussions and blows to our head become.

Football has learned some hard lessons about what happens when our brain is damaged, when our head is not adequately protected.

But what if the thing that was you were wearing that you had that was designed to protect you had something hidden inside of it that was going to cause problems for you, and that happened to a football player in Arkansas just a few months ago.

In practice, he wore his helmet for an hour and he felt something in his helmet, so he took his helmet off and he looked in it, and you can't really see in there, but there was a cotton mouth snake in his football helmet, and they couldn't get it out.

The picture on your right, they had to submerge it in water, and there's a video, you can go online and you can see this, that once the head, the snake popped its head out of there after they held it underwater, they grabbed it with some big tongs and pulled it up, and it was a big old nasty, fat body cotton mouth.

They said it was about two feet long, and it was in that kid's helmet.

That was supposed to protect him.

No, it didn't bite him, he was fine.

But I wonder how often the things that we think are going to protect us have something that is slithered inside that is just waiting for a moment to get us, to attack and to come after us.

This is one of those stories.

You check the helmet twice, you check under the bed again to make sure there's nothing there, you make sure that it's all clear and none of those evil things are around us.

And that is the picture that God gives us here through Paul's words.

Some attacks come flying at you, they're trying to get in your head.

So he says, take on this helmet of salvation because the enemy loves to attack our mind.

Sometimes, if he can't get us to misbehave physically in our bodies, in our actions, he will go into our brains and try to take those over.

He will try to reroute the way that we think and the way that we process and the way that we understand God's word and truth, and he will come at us.

What Satan does is that he attacks our identity, he attacks our hope, and he wants to get in our minds.

That is why Scripture tells us to take, make every thought captive and turn it over to Jesus.

Take every thought and turn that over to Jesus.

When we're believing things that we know aren't true, say, God, I don't want to believe this anymore.

Take this from me.

Show me what is right and show me what is true.

Our enemy, the devil, takes failure and he whispers, see, I told you, you were never gonna get this right.

You were never gonna change.

He takes a season of suffering and he whispers to us, I told you, God really just doesn't care about you.

Maybe he cares about other people, but he he clearly doesn't care about you.

He takes a struggle and he says, You're never getting out of this, you may as well stop.

And this is where Paul tells us, this is why it's so important for us, what he said both here and previously in this relatively short letter.

I encourage you sometime, if you've never sat down and read an entire Bible book, read the whole book of Ephesians.

Take it 20, 30, 40 minutes, maybe an hour, I don't know.

It's not that long, it's six chapters.

Read the whole thing.

And what you'll see as he's writing his this letter to this people in this church that he was so well connected with and that he knew them well, he is telling them that they have redemption through the blood of Jesus and through the blood.

Of Jesus alone.

He has told them that they have been forgiven, that they have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

He has told them that salvation is a gift that comes from God, so that when he says, put on the helmet of salvation, he's not telling them that they are to save themselves by putting this on.

He's reminding them of what we as believers have access to.

And how we're to live and how we can have confident standing in what God has told us and how we're supposed to live.

He's telling them to live protected by what Jesus has already secured in their life.

There's a tremendous difference between fighting for salvation and standing in our salvation.

God has done the work for us to have our sin forgiven, to have our broken relationship with him healed.

We don't fight hoping Jesus will eventually do enough for us.

We stand because Jesus already went to the cross and he came back victorious.

He paid the price for sin.

He rose from the grave.

Salvation is not based on how well you handle every arrow this week.

Salvation rests in Jesus alone.

And that is the confidence that we can have.

It's not in what we do or don't do, but it's in everything that God has done and has made available to us when we surrender our life to Jesus and we say, God, it's not me anymore, it's about you.

Let me be buried in baptism and have my sins washed clean.

An arrow hits.

We need to be ready because they're always flying.

We'll replay a failure, we'll replay a fear, we'll replay an accusation, we'll replay a worst-case scenario, which let's just be honest with ourselves, okay?

Rarely happens.

Okay?

Some of us need to give permission to yell at ourselves and go, Joel, stop that.

That is highly unlikely, if not impossible or improbable.

So let's not go there.

Let's not waste that brain energy going down there all the time.

The helmet of salvation tells us, stop, reminds us, and it teaches us and it encourages us to stop letting the enemy tell us who we are.

If we're in Jesus, our identity doesn't begin with our worst day, it begins with Jesus.

That is not an excuse for us to sin or to mess up or even to in justification for that.

But when we confess that, we turn it around and we run from it.

Conviction comes from the Holy Spirit and it moves us to Jesus.

Condemnation tells us to run away from Jesus, but there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So if you are believing that you are too far gone, that is just not true.

And that's why God has taught us that over and over and over again in His Word.

Because we need to have the shield of faith ready for us, because rarely do we get in an advanced notice.

We go, hey, Joel, at 2.17 this Tuesday, make sure you have your shield up because there's some stuff coming at you, bro.

We don't know when that is going to happen, not just when life feels spiritual, not just on Sunday, not just in our groups, not when we know the attack is coming, but in the very beginning of verse chapter 16, it says, in all circumstances.

And you do not need a Bible college degree or word study to understand what that means, do you?

In fact, you need professional help to misinterpret this verse, right?

You'd have to try really hard to get this one wrong.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith because that is our only viable defense.

That is the only thing that is going to keep us protected.

We are to be prepared before the arrows fly, or maybe to clean that up a little bit, as the arrows are flying, because we never know where they're coming from.

But you know who does?

God does.

He knows all the plans of the enemy.

Satan doesn't ever trick God.

So this would be something very simple that you could do is identify one of those arrows that keeps coming at you.

Identify one of those ways that Satan continues to try to attack you and your family and name it.

And say what it is: fear, temptation, shame, the thought that you are not enough, is it anger?

Is it discouragement?

Name it.

Then find a truth in Scripture that tells you that that is not who you are.

And you know what?

If you can't find one or one doesn't come to mind, Google it.

Look it up.

Say, tell me what God's Word says about his children and about strength, and about who God has created us to be.

And then once you name that arrow that keeps coming at you, and then you focus on the truth that God has given you in his word, it will make a difference.

And once you have that scripture, memorize it.

Write it down, put it as the lock screen on your phone, put it wherever you can and commit that to memory in your heart and in your mind so that you know what is true when those lies come from our enemy.

Don't wait until the arrow is already burning or gets right there.

We need to raise the shield of faith.

Paul never promises us that following Jesus means that the arrows stop flying.

He promises us that God has not and will not leave us defenseless.

There's truth all around us, righteousness guards us, the gospel gives us footing to stand and to stand strong, and faith becomes a shield, and salvation protects our minds so that we can take those thoughts and turn them over to Jesus.

Next week, as we wrap up our series, we'll see another weapon that Paul puts into our hand.

But today, before we move forward, hear this: the arrow doesn't have to become a fire and burn everything down.

The temptation does not have to control you.

The accusation does not define you.

Fear does not have to own you, and doubt does not have to drive you away from God, but you can let it.

And that is not the outcome that God wants for us.

So let us take up the shield.

Let us trust in what God has said.

Let us remember what Jesus has done.

Let us protect our mind with the salvation that God has given us, sharpening our minds with one another through God's word, helping one another along the way.

Because when those arrows come, we will stand and we will have this shield of faith with us, and we will have a faith that holds when arrows fly.

And that is how we can stand and live with confidence, not in what we have done, but in everything that God has done for you.

Let's pray.

Father God, thank you for the defenses that you have given us.

God, for knowing the schemes of the enemy so well and how he is going to attack.

God, whenever we open up your word, when we read the Bible, help us to understand who you are and what you're trying to teach us.

God, may we be transformed by you and by your word.

God, give us this desire to know you and to want to study your word, not just for an academic pursuit, so that we can answer the right questions, so that your word, your truth will penetrate very deep inside of us and change who we are.

Father, may everything that we do give you glory.

God, help us to reflect your truth.

And God, thank you for the protection we have and the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith that comes from you and you alone.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.