Good
morning! John did a pretty comprehensive
review of our study last week, so I don’t think I need to do that. But I will put up a picture just to remind us
of what our soldier has been dressed in up to this point.
Let’s
pray, then we’ll look at the shield of faith.
Lord,
teach us today how we are to use the great shield of faith you have given
us. Thank you for providing all that we
need to withstand the attack of the enemy.
…in addition to all,
taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the
flaming arrows of the evil one…—Ephesians 6:16 (NASB)
When
I started preparing for this teaching, I noticed that there were some
conflicting opinions about what the first few words of this verse mean. Some said that it means “in addition to
everything already mentioned, take the shield.”
Others said that it means “more importantly than those already
mentioned, take the shield.” So I
decided to go straight to the original Greek and see exactly what was written there. I relied on others who have spent many more
years studying Greek than I’ve been alive to explain the meaning of the
original wording. But my inquisitive
mind couldn’t stop with just the first two words. I created a spreadsheet with the English word
(or words) that each Greek word was translated to in the KJV as compared with
the definition of the Greek word. When I
was finished, I had my own translation of the verse. I found some interesting points that I don’t
think are completely conveyed through our English translations. So I want to walk through the verse slowly to
look at the deeper meanings.
Let’s
go back to the first couple of words that started this all. Some translations such as the KJV and NKJV
say, “above all;” the ESV says “in all circumstances,” or as in the case of the
NIV or NASB, “in addition to.” I believe
that the translations of “In addition to” and “Above all” are the most accurate
translations of the Greek based on what I found, but I understand where “in all
circumstances” comes from. The Greek word
translated “in addition to” has the idea of on,
at, over, by, or against. Thus it could have been translated, “on or over
all of this (the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, and the shoes
of the gospel of peace),” take up the shield.
The shield was a reliable defense weapon, but occasionally a blow from a
sword or a stray arrow got around the shield, and the breastplate would protect
the soldier. We can’t just take the
shield and forget the other three items.
It is to be used along with all the other parts.
The
word Paul used for “taking up” has the idea of not just holding something, but
“to take up so as to carry or use.” Paul
doesn’t just want us to hold the shield by its edge. We are to actively carry it in the ready
position. We can’t put this armor on in
any old way we feel like. I’ve seen
people try to run from police officers with the waistline of their pants around
their knees and their shoes untied. That
usually wasn’t a very long chase. The
officers would jog along behind the sprinting suspect and wait for the extra
fabric and untied shoes to do the inevitable. Once that happened, they’d pick the guy up out
of the ditch, and he’d get a pair of matching silver bracelets and a free night
in the Gray Bar Inn. It’s obvious that
having the breastplate strapped on our feet, or our shoes dangling by their
laces around our necks, or our belt worn like a sash across our chest won’t work. But all too often we have our shield hanging
on our back like Captain America. That
isn’t a very effective place to have it when our enemy could attack at any time
from any direction. Paul said to carry
it so as to use it.
There
were two Greek words Paul could have used for shield. The word he did use actually comes from the
root word meaning “door.” It means a
large, oblong, four-cornered shield (as opposed to a smaller, round
shield). A Roman shield was a large
rectangle about 4’ tall and close to 30” wide.
The shield was held in front of the body by the non-dominant arm of the
soldier. It had a loop to go around the
forearm and then a handle to hold onto, so the shield was braced against the
length of the soldier’s forearm. Because
of its size, soldiers could actually brace their shield against their shoulder
and leg to put their whole weight behind it to push back against an attacker,
or quickly strike the attacker and stun him.
Like
I said, we can’t just carry it by the corner and expect it to be
effective. When I was in a training
class as a young officer learning to use the batons that we would carry, I was
holding the padded shield while my partner was striking with his baton. He was supposed to be striking as though he was
hitting me on the upper arm and then my other upper arm, then holding the baton
with both hands to push against me. But
all of his strikes were focused on hitting just the pad, not acting like he was
hitting me. So, I quit moving the pad
and started watching what others in the room were doing and not paying any
attention to him. Eventually, he
corrected his strikes; and the small, round tip of his baton came around the
edge of the padded shield and hit me in the soft part of my elbow. It stung for a minute, but it taught me to
pay attention and use my shield if I didn’t want my fingers to go numb again.
The
next word is the most complicated of this verse. Simply put, faith is “a trust, conviction, or
belief.” Or, we could also say it this
way: “faith is a trust, conviction, confidence, or belief in God as the Creator
of the universe, Ruler of all, the Provider and Bestower of eternal salvation
through Jesus Christ.”
All
of you have faith right not that the chair your sitting on is going to hold you
up. We have faith that someone is going
to do something that they promised. But
chairs age and occasionally dump their poor unsuspecting occupants in the floor,
and people are sinful humans and often forget their promises. However, the faith that Paul is referring to points
back to verse 10 of Ephesians 6:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
–Ephesians 6:10 (NASB)
Remember
that power from Ephesians 1 that both Carl and I have mentioned already? The same power that raised Jesus from the
grave is available to us to help us live our lives. The Greek work translated “surpassing” or
“immeasurable” or “exceeding” in Ephesians 1:19 is the word from which we get
our English word “hyperbole.” The “hyperbole of God’s power” is available to us. We
aren’t just hoping that someone somewhere will maybe do what they told us they
were going to do. We are trusting in a
holy God, who is completely faithful and all-powerful to sustain us.
Trust in the LORD forever,
For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock. –Isaiah 26:4 (NASB)
William
Gurnall, in the introduction to his book The
Christian in Complete Armour, says that the Christian is to “make use of
God’s almighty power, as freely as if it were his own, whenever assaulted by
Satan. … It should be the Christian’s great care and endeavor in all
temptations and trials to strengthen his faith on the almighty power of God.”
In
Deuteronomy 1, Moses was exhorting the Israelites by reminding them of what
happened 40 years prior when the 12 spies had returned from the Promised Land.
"I said to you,
'You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the LORD our God is
about to give us. See, the LORD your God
has placed the land before you; go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of
your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.' Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let
us send men before us, that they may search out the land for us, and bring back
to us word of the way by which we should go up and the cities which we shall
enter.' The thing pleased me and I took
twelve of your men, one man for each tribe.
They turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of
Eshcol and spied it out. Then they took
some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and
they brought us back a report and said, 'It is a good land which the LORD our
God is about to give us.' Yet you were
not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God;
and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has
brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites
to destroy us. Where can we go up? Our
brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, "The people are bigger and
taller than we; the cities are large and fortified to heaven. And besides, we
saw the sons of the Anakim there."' –Deuteronomy 1:20-28 (NASB)
The
Anakim were a race of Giants, some speculate that they were the ancestors of
Goliath. The people were terrified, but
Moses tried to point them back to God.
He tells the people in verses 29 through 31 what he had told their
fathers 40 years earlier:
"Then I said to
you, 'Do not be shocked, nor fear them. The
LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He
did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how
the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way
which you have walked until you came to this place.'—Deuteronomy 1:29-31 (NASB)
Moses
tried to tell them to trust in God. He
had proven Himself in Egypt and the desert by providing for them and protecting
them from the Egyptians at the Red Sea and others who decided to try to prey on
them in the desert. But they didn’t
listen. I often scoff at the Israelites,
and say “How did you not trust that God would conquer for you?” (Please, somebody tell me I’m not the only
one?) But in my own life, I do the same
thing over and over again, refusing to trust God.
The
writer of Hebrews thousands of years after Deuteronomy, wrote to remind the
Jews of the same thing:
Make sure that your
character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for
He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE
YOU," so that we confidently say, "THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT
BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?"—Hebrews 13:5-6 (NASB)
I’d
be remiss if I didn’t at least touch on Hebrews 11 – the great Hall of Faith –
while we are talking about faith. Often
the best way to explain something is by looking at examples. And our faith is often strengthened by the
faith of others. So, let’s look at
several examples of the people in Hebrews 11 who showed great faith. For sake of time, I won’t read the entire
chapter, but I would encourage you to take a look on your own. Read what the writer of Hebrews has to say,
and then go back and read the story of each person’s life and see exactly what
happened that they would be commended for their faith so much later.
Hebrews
11 starts with a definition of faith so that we understand what the author meant
when he started each new section with “by faith.”
Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained
approval. By faith we understand that
the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made
out of things which are visible.—Hebrews 11:1-3 (NASB)
Faith
is being sure of things that aren’t seen.
It is the evidence of things hoped for.
Jesus told Thomas in John 20 that those who have not seen and yet
believe are blessed. We gain approval
for heaven through faith, much like Esther going into the King to foil the plot
to kill the Jews. She had faith that he
would raise the scepter to her. We have
faith that because of Jesus Christ, we can enter the throne room of the very
Creator of heaven and earth.
Abel
was just a second generation human, and the first to be persecuted for his
faith.
By
faith, Enoch was taken from the earth and did not die; God just took him
because he pleased God. The writer of
Hebrews in verse 6 tells us that
Without faith it is
impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and
that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.—Hebrews 11:6 (NASB)
By
faith, Noah went against all of humanity and built an ark, but the Bible says
that he became an heir of righteousness for his actions.
By
faith, Abraham stepped out of his comfort zone, trusting in a promise he never
saw fulfilled – a nation of his descendants living in the land he currently
dwelled in tents on – and left his family for some strange land. He didn’t even know where he was going. God just said “Follow me, and I’ll show you.”
Sarah,
by faith, conceived at an age well past child bearing years. I often have a negative view of Sarah because
of her response when Abraham was told that they would have children, but
Scripture says that by faith she conceived.
She still believed.
Abraham,
by faith, was willing to sacrifice that child borne well past his and Sarah’s
biological child bearing years. He
trusted that God could raise him from the dead because God had promised that
Abraham would have descendants as numerous as the stars.
Isaac
was so certain of God and His character that he invoked future blessings on his
children.
Jacob,
by faith, blessed his grandchildren, much like his father had blessed him.
Joseph,
by faith, foretold of the Exodus. He
seemed to understand that after his death, his family would be enslaved, but he
knew God’s promise to his great-grandfather about the land that they were to
inhabit, and he knew it wasn’t Egypt.
Moses’
very life was evidence of his parents’ faith in God’s protection. By faith, Moses left Pharaoh’s house choosing
to be mistreated with God’s people that to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of
sin. He looked past this lift to the
lift to come through Christ. He left
Egypt leading millions of slaves, unafraid of Pharaoh’s wrath, by seeing Him
who is invisible. Moses kept the
Passover, trusting God to keep His word to free His people.
The
Jews, by faith, walked across dry land to cross the Red Sea, while the
Egyptians were drowned. It would take
great faith on my part to go walking across some body of water with huge walls
of water on either side of me just waiting to crash down on me. But they did, and those walls crashed down on
their enemies.
The
walls of the great city of Jericho collapsed after the Jews, by faith, walked
around them for 7 days.
By
faith, Rahab helped the spies escape, and she became an ancestor of David and
Jesus.
As
the writer of Hebrews says in verse 32, time won’t permit me to talk about
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, or the prophets. Go home and take a look at verses 32-38. Kingdoms were conquered, dead were raised,
and the power of fire was quenched. Then
it’s almost like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
was paraphrased with people dying for their faith.
But,
none of these listed in Hebrews 11 saw what was promised to them (verses
39-40). They were all, by faith, looking
forward to the Messiah who would conquer all.
We however, by the same faith, look back at the cross for our victory.
For whatever is born of
God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world--our faith.—I John 5:4 (NASB)
Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us
to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will
not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of
God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now
for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is
perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory
and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him,
you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you
greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the
outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.—I Peter 1:3-9 (NASB)
On
to the rest of the verse, then we will get into some practical
applications. Paul goes on to say that
with this shield of faith we would be capable of, or have the power and ability
to, extinguish all the flaming darts from the Evil One. Earlier, I skipped the word for “all.” Anyone know what the Greek word for “all”
means? All means all, and that’s all
that all means. Every. Last. Fiery
dart. Not some. Not a few.
ALL!!!
The
Roman shields were made of wood with a leather front. Many of the Roman enemies would light their
arrows on fire to inflict more damage and possibly even ruin a few
shields. But the Romans would simply
soak their shields in water, and the fiery darts were rendered useless. Satan does the same with us. His darts are designed to inflict the most
damage possible. He wants to separate us
from other believers and the render us useless.
As
John mentioned last week, the Romans military was a well-trained army that was
a formidable foe in close quarter combat.
No other military could stand with them in hand to hand combat. To avoid this, other armies started firing arrows
from a distance to try to deplete the Roman numbers before encountering them in
hand to hand combat. The Romans would counter
by forming a testudo, a “tortoise,” around
their ranks with their shields. The
troops on the edge of the formation would hold their shields vertically to
protect the front and sides, while the middle troops held their shields above
their heads protecting from the arrows raining down. If one man lowered his shield, the whole
group was in danger. The church is very
much like this. We are to stand together
in God’s strength protecting each other from sin.
I
want to go back and put this all back together in my own translation.
On, over, or against
all of this, take up (so as to carry or use) a large, oblong, four cornered,
door-like shield, characteristic of a trust, conviction, confidence, or belief
in God as the Creator of the universe, the Ruler over all, the Provider and
Bestower of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ; by which, you have the
ability, strength, and power to extinguish or put out all the burning, fiery
darts of the Evil One.
I
for one am glad I’m not a translator. I
once made a comment about the length of the Amplified Bible, but my translation
ended up being longer that the Amplified Version’s. Christian, use your shield. Don’t sling it over your back like Captain
America. Put it on your arm. Carry it ready to defend. Satan won’t just attack from the front. He prefers guerilla warfare. He wants to ambush, so we need to be ready at
all times.
In
conclusion, let’s look at some practical applications. I’m sure I missed several. These were just what came to mind.
1)
How
do we grow our faith? Romans 10:17:
Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of God. The only way to grow our faith is through
Bible study and time in and under the Word.
2)
This
next one was especially convicting to me. Hebrews 13:7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and
considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. As saints, we should be imitating the faith
of our leaders as they follow Christ.
Leaders, is your faith worth imitating?
3)
This
is a fight to the death. Yes, the war is
already won, but Satan is doing his absolute best to render us as Christians
useless and to take us off the battle field.
4)
If
someone was going to try to harm my wife or my daughter, they’d have to go
through me first. I would defend them to
my own death. But, am I that way about
the spiritual forces trying to attack my family? Am I the same way about sin that is trying to
destroy my family? What shield do I need
to put up to protect a weak area that Satan has been targeting to drive a wedge
between my spouse and I? (Or any other
family member for that matter.) Do I
need to change my route to work to avoid a sign that causes me to stumble? Do I need to install internet filters and
give someone else the administrative password?
Do I need to find a friend to start a buddy system when I go
somewhere? Do I need to add an
accountability partner as a check and balance system? (Guys with guys, ladies with ladies [Titus
2:3-4].) Do I perhaps need to destroy
something that is being used to allow Satan’s fiery darts in, like the scene in
Fireproof?
5)
What
relationships do I need to forsake or cut off?
Just backing off won’t necessarily work.
I may have to remove myself from a relationship in order for me to avoid
all appearance of evil and take away that avenue of attack from Satan. What relationships do I need to pursue so
that I have a helper to stand with me when I’m getting weak? Who do I need to ask to help hold a shield
over my head while I protect my front?
6)
Simply
because my shield is out, someone is going to test it. People are going to realize the changes that
we’ve made and tried to attack us. That’s
just human nature. But keep it up. It’s there for a reason. When I worked in law enforcement, we used to
test rookies to make sure they had their shields up. We’d hit them in the chest to make sure they
had on their ballistic vest. If not, it
hurt for a few minutes; and most of them remembered after the first time or
two. But if they forgot to wear it, they
could have been in a lot more pain for a lot longer, or worse.
Remember, we are in a
war. Keep your head on a swivel, and
stay alert.
Thank you, Lord, for
the ways in which you protect and defend us.
Help us to carry our great shield of faith so that we may use it in the
way in which it is intended. Give us
strength to take steps of faith as You show them to us. Amen.
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