[0:00] Well, we continue our study of the armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6. So if you will, go with me to Ephesians 6.
[0:13] I'll begin reading at verse 10. 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.
[0:30] For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
[0:43] 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 and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
[1:03] In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And we'll stop right there because verse 16 will be our focus today.
[1:18] The shield of faith. Now, I want to divide this verse into four parts and I'll deal with each part separately. First, we have the phrase, in all circumstances.
[1:32] Now, your translation may say something else and we'll come to that. Second, we'll consider what it means to take up the shield. What does that mean in the context of a physical battle?
[1:45] Third, what is the shield of faith? What is the practical application of this particular piece of spiritual armor?
[1:56] And fourth, what are the flaming darts of the evil one? From what are we protecting ourselves? So first of all, we have a relatively minor translation issue to deal with.
[2:11] According to the ESV, Paul begins this verse by saying, In all circumstances. According to the NIV, he says, In addition to all this.
[2:25] Then the KJV and a few other translations say, Above all. Again, this is a minor issue, but each translation seems to give Paul's words a slightly different meaning.
[2:37] So what's going on here? Well, in Paul's original letter, this first part of verse 16 is just two words.
[2:48] First, he uses a very simple preposition, and then he uses a word that can be translated into all or everything. And the challenge lies with the preposition, because it can be translated in numerous ways, as we see.
[3:05] This phrase could be in all or in everything. It could be among all, or it could be above all.
[3:16] And frankly, I'll tell you up front, that we can't be certain which one Paul intended. So let's just briefly consider all three. Now obviously, this phrase marks a transition of some kind.
[3:30] Paul is listing the various pieces of the armor of God, and he's mentioned the belt and the breastplate and the shoes. And now he's moving on to the other half, the shield, the helmet, and the sword.
[3:43] And right in the middle, we have this subtle transition of sorts. So one possibility is that Paul means among all. And this is how the NIV translates it, in saying, in addition to all this.
[4:00] In other words, Paul is saying as a Christian, in spiritual battle, you need a belt, a breastplate, and shoes, but I'm not finished just yet.
[4:11] Among these things, you also need a shield, a helmet, and a sword. And if that's what he means, well, that's a relatively unimportant transition.
[4:24] It doesn't bear much weight on the text other than to say, don't stop reading yet. There's more armor you need to know about. The second possibility is that Paul means in all.
[4:38] And that's how the ESV and a few others translate it, saying, in all circumstances. Now, that potential meaning gives the phrase a bit more significance.
[4:50] That would be Paul saying, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, you need the shield of faith. Don't go anywhere without the shield. It's also possible that this phrase could have a connection to the helmet and the sword as well, of course.
[5:05] But regardless, this would be Paul emphasizing to us that we need to always be on guard. In our spiritual battle against evil forces, there is no such thing as an off-duty soldier.
[5:22] And this is something we might expect Paul to say, right? You'll remember that Peter describes the devil as a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He said, be sober-minded, be watchful.
[5:35] Why? Because the threat is always present. We're never that far removed from evil and temptations. In fact, James writes, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
[5:51] Temptations rise up from within us. So it isn't surprising that, first of all, the Bible warns us to be on guard, to be watchful. And it says this over and over again.
[6:05] And second, it isn't surprising that Paul might say to us, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith. If the flaming darts can come at any moment, then we should be ready at every moment.
[6:19] Now, the third possibility is that Paul means above all. In other words, as vital as the belt and the breastplate and the shoes are, the shield and perhaps the helmet and the sword are even more critical in spiritual battles.
[6:38] Now, that may seem strange to hear. How could truth, righteousness, and the gospel be any less important than faith, salvation, and the word of God?
[6:50] Well, it's not that Paul necessarily means any part of this armor is more or less important. As we've talked about, every piece is absolutely essential. But he might be adding emphasis to these last three pieces because there's a sense in which they require an extra level of vigilance, we might say.
[7:13] Think about it this way. Let's say you're in a physical battle, but there's a break in the fighting. So maybe you find a rock to sit on and you rest a little while.
[7:25] Now, chances are, you're still in the battle, even though the fighting is not taking place at this present moment, so you won't go to all of the trouble of taking off your belt or your breastplate or your shoes.
[7:38] But in all likelihood, you might slip off that helmet and lay it aside, and you most certainly will lay down your shield and your sword. So if Paul does mean above all, then he might just be reminding us that these latter things, the shield, the helmet, and the sword, are things that we might very well get complacent about.
[8:01] It might be Paul's way of saying, okay, Christian soldier, you may feel that you can rest at times. The battle may not always seem quite so intense, but don't get complacent.
[8:13] Don't forget about faith. Don't forget about your salvation. And don't forget about the Word of God. You need these things, and you better keep them close to you. In fact, you'll notice Paul changes his verb as he moves into the latter half of this armor.
[8:31] Regarding the first half, he says, having fastened on the belt, having put on the breastplate, having put on the shoes. Then regarding the latter half, he says, take up the shield.
[8:44] Take the helmet and the sword. So, returning to my illustration, it's as though Paul is speaking to soldiers who are currently sitting on that rock.
[8:55] They already have half their armor on, and he's telling them to get up and grab the rest of it. Take it up. It's time to fight. Again, we can't know with certainty which translation is correct, but it's really a minor issue because all of these translations make sense.
[9:13] In short, either Paul wants us to wear the armor of God always, or he doesn't want us to become complacent with only half of the armor on, and in the end, both are true, regardless of what Paul really intended here.
[9:33] So next, let's consider what it means to take up the shield. What is this shield? How is it used by soldiers in the first century? Now, I assume that Paul is thinking about Roman armor when he writes this letter.
[9:49] He's a Roman citizen. He's writing to believers in the city of Ephesus, which was under the control of the Roman Empire, and frankly, most of the known world was under the control of the Roman Empire.
[10:02] So, the very mention of battle armor would cause most people during this time to immediately think of Roman armor. Now, in my research into Roman armor, I discovered that the Romans used at least two types of shields.
[10:19] The first was a smaller round shield. It would be strapped to the forearm, and it would allow soldiers to protect themselves in hand-to-hand combat.
[10:30] They could easily move it enough that they could protect themselves against the attacks of knives and swords and that kind of thing. As for the second kind of shield, it was a long, squarish, cumbersome shield.
[10:45] It stood almost as tall as a grown man. A soldier would essentially plant it in the ground, duck down behind it, and it would protect him and possibly the men behind him from arrows and from long-range projectiles.
[11:03] So, typically, they would use these shields across the front line while the enemy is still far enough away that no one's yet engaged in any kind of hand-to-hand combat.
[11:15] So, both sides, they're trying to take out as many men as they can before they get close enough for that hand-to-hand combat. They're firing arrows across the field from one another, and these long shields were used to protect them from those arrows or from anything that happened to be flying their way.
[11:34] Now, that's not the most important thing here, but I suspect that Paul had these long, cumbersome shields in mind when he writes verse 16 because he says, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts or the flaming arrows of the evil one.
[11:55] Now, you'll notice Paul uses the word extinguish, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts. Now, that word implies that the shield does more than stop the arrows.
[12:07] It implies that the shield can actually put the fire out. When the enemy launches these arrows that are intended to cause widespread destruction with fire rather than merely pierce the body of one man, Paul says this shield can extinguish the fire on that arrow.
[12:28] And I thought this was interesting. So, the common practice of the day was to use a ball of cotton or some kind of material on the end of the arrow, soak it in some sort of flammable tar, and then light it on fire.
[12:43] So, when the arrow landed, the tar and consequently the fire would splatter. You'd have fire going everywhere. So, the Romans, they would then wrap these long, front-line shields in some sort of animal hide.
[13:02] And they would soak it in water. And what that did was it allowed the shield to be just soft enough to prevent some of that splatter from taking place, as maybe it otherwise would.
[13:14] And it was wet enough that it would extinguish most of the fire. So, it was this really simple yet clever solution to the problem. And I think that's what Paul has in mind here. That's what he's thinking about.
[13:25] So, with that imagery in mind, let's consider what Paul is really teaching us here. Obviously, he's not teaching us about the proper use of Roman armor or how to fight in a physical battle.
[13:41] The armor here is little more than an illustration. Be sure, it's a vivid illustration. It gives us a real sense of the intensity by which our spiritual battles are fought.
[13:52] Paul compares it to going to war, essentially. The illustration is certainly meant to get our attention, but the illustration is, of course, only an illustration. Paul has something better to teach here.
[14:05] For now, let's skip over the third part of this verse and focus on the flaming darts of the evil one. First, who is the evil one?
[14:17] Well, Paul has told us back in verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. In fact, the devil is called the evil one throughout Scripture.
[14:33] And I'll give you a few examples. Matthew 6.13. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus instructs his disciples how to pray, and he says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[14:49] And many translations render this as deliver us from the evil one. Matthew 13.19. In the parable of the sower, Jesus explains, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.
[15:10] John 17.15. In his high priestly prayer, Jesus prays for his disciples, saying, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
[15:27] Then the apostle John, he uses this name for Satan, the evil one, at least five times in his first epistle. 1 John 3.12. John makes this contrast between the children of God and the children of the devil, stating, we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
[15:52] And in that case, he very clearly shows us in the fuller passage that the devil is the so-called evil one. So we understand that the devil is our primary enemy, but the question remains, what are the flaming darts?
[16:09] What are the weapons he uses against us? How exactly does the devil attack us? Obviously, Paul doesn't really tell us here. So we'll have to think outside of Ephesians 6 for the answer.
[16:23] Now, I made a list of 12 tactics, 12 weapons, if you will, the devil uses against us, and I'll move through these relatively quickly and in no particular order.
[16:36] So number one, temptation to sin. Temptation to sin. Satan often entices us to commit sin by appealing to our own fleshly desires, our own weaknesses.
[16:55] We see that when Jesus is fasting in the wilderness for 40 days. Jesus is hungry, and the devil comes along and says, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.
[17:09] The tempter is trying to take advantage of Jesus' weakness in that moment, his hunger, namely. Now, maybe I should pause here to address a potential elephant in the room.
[17:24] I remember talking with someone about this a few years ago, and out of the blue, he said to me, you know, I've never seen the devil. I've never heard the devil. To which I replied, well, me neither, but what makes you say that?
[17:39] And he said, I can't figure out how the devil can possibly tempt me if I've never seen him and I've never heard him. That's a fair point.
[17:49] That's a good question. How does the devil tempt us? In the case of Adam and Eve and possibly Jesus in the wilderness, the devil appeared in physical form.
[18:01] They literally heard him speak, but if you and I have never seen him, we've never heard him, how exactly does he tempt us? Well, I believe we have clues in Scripture to help us understand this.
[18:16] Listen to what John 13.2 says. During supper, when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot.
[18:29] And of course, it goes on to talk about Judas' plan to betray Jesus. The devil didn't have to literally whisper into Judas' ear. He put the temptation right into Judas' heart.
[18:43] Now, to be clear, Judas, he was a greedy man. We read that in John chapter 12, before Satan put the temptation into Judas' heart.
[18:54] So it's not as though the devil is working contrary to our nature. It's not as though he's taking a good man and forcing him to do evil against his will.
[19:06] It's not that. No, we might say that he's utilizing what's already within us. Again, James says each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
[19:20] We might say that the devil just comes along and he adds fuel to the present fire, makes it stronger. Ananias and Sapphira, they provide another example of how the devil works.
[19:33] This is Acts 5, verse 3. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?
[19:46] Satan filled his heart. He filled it so that there wasn't room for any other thought or desire. All he could think about was, I'm going to keep back part of the price of this land for myself despite any promise or vow I made.
[19:58] So the devil doesn't have to audibly speak to us to have influence. He doesn't have to appear before us physically. Most of us would run from him. And that's why Paul reminds us we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.
[20:15] This is a spiritual battle. It's a very real battle. It can be a very intense battle at times, but it's a spiritual battle, not a physical battle. So first, the devil uses temptations to sin.
[20:30] Number two, deception and lies. In John 8, Jesus describes Satan as the father of lies.
[20:41] He distorts the truth and he spreads falsehoods to lead us astray, namely from God's word. Number three, accusations and guilt.
[20:59] Accusations and guilt. Revelation 12.10 calls the devil the accuser of our brothers. What does that mean? Well, he tries his best to undermine the confidence of Christians.
[21:12] He continually reminds us of our past sins and our past failures. He wants to discourage us. Do you remember that scene in the Pilgrim's Progress when Christian is in the valley of humiliation?
[21:27] Apollyon comes to him and says, look at all the things you've done wrong. You don't care about the king. You don't love the king. He was trying to convince Christian to give up.
[21:40] To run back home to the city of destruction. And that's precisely what the devil does with us. He wants us to forget about God's promises. He wants us to forget about God's abundant grace and focus entirely on our sins and our guilt and our failures and so on.
[21:58] Number four, doubt and unbelief. Doubt and unbelief. Satan loves to sow seeds of doubt in our minds.
[22:10] Again, causing us to question God's promises and his goodness and his faithfulness. What if God doesn't really love me? Or what if Jesus wasn't really raised from the dead?
[22:22] Or what if Jesus isn't coming back? What if he can't save me? What if he isn't as good as I thought he was? Satan would love nothing more than to destroy our faith by causing us to believe lies about God.
[22:38] Number five, persecution and opposition. 2 Timothy 3.12, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
[22:52] persecuted. The devil led Cain to kill his brother. He led the Jewish leaders in the first century to crucify Jesus and to persecute his disciples.
[23:07] And as terrible as it is to physically suffer under persecution, the greater threat is how it can discourage us. Think of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.
[23:20] some of the very people who heard the word and were told received it with joy fell away. When? Why? Well, they fell away when persecution came.
[23:33] When times got tough, they gave up. Number six, fear and anxiety. Satan exploits circumstances to incite fear and anxiety in us, causing us to lose trust in God's sovereignty, in His provision.
[23:57] Think of Peter when he walked on water. Satan distracted him from Christ and drew his attention to the wind and the waves and Peter became fearful and he began to panic and he began to sink and what did Jesus say to him after the fact?
[24:14] Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? So just remember that when you read the news. Number seven, distraction and busyness.
[24:29] It was also in the parable of the sower that one group heard the word but were told the cares of this world choked it out.
[24:43] Now, these people may have never been genuine believers but the cares of this world can certainly have a similar effect on those of us who are genuine believers. I mean, even Jesus sought rest during His ministry.
[24:56] Even He wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle at times. God gave us a weekly Sabbath for a reason. We need to be careful about all of the distractions and the busyness that we face in this world.
[25:15] Number eight, isolation and loneliness. You know what Hebrews 10 says. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some is, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
[25:44] I've often said that Christianity is very dangerous when practiced alone. It's not meant to be that way. Frankly, it ceases to be biblical Christianity when it is practiced alone.
[25:59] I suppose it's theoretically possible for someone to be a Christian without being involved in the church, but it goes against everything the Bible teaches us about our faith. Everything it teaches about this thing we call Christianity.
[26:11] We need the church. Primarily because isolation is spiritually dangerous. We're not meant to go it alone. Number nine, pride and self-reliance.
[26:27] Pride and self-reliance. As you know, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Jesus himself said, whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
[26:46] We can't be saved by relying on ourselves, can we? And we can't expect to remain safe from the devil's attacks by relying on ourselves. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.
[27:00] Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Number ten, discouragement and despair.
[27:15] Galatians 6, 9 says, let us not grow weary of well-doing for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. Paul says this, of course, because seasons of discouragement are practically inevitable and Paul should know.
[27:33] He told the Corinthians, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. And when he pleaded with the Lord over and over to be relieved of this burden, God said no.
[27:52] It had a purpose. Of course, Paul understood that purpose and he refused to grow weary, relying instead on the strength of Christ rather than slipping into despair.
[28:06] Number eleven, false teaching and heresy. Second Peter 2, 1 warns, there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies.
[28:24] Notice that word secretly. Like their father the devil, false teachers can be incredibly subtle, making them all the more dangerous. And in 2 Peter 3, Peter gives us an example of this.
[28:40] He writes, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets in the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
[29:02] They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.
[29:15] Now these scoffers are by implication false teachers, but not in the traditional sense, not in the way we might think. In this case, they don't take the prophecies of Scripture and twist them to try and make some kind of weird case against Christ's second coming or anything like that.
[29:33] instead, they simply cast doubts on his second coming by asking some questions. Right? Where is he? They ask. It's been a while.
[29:45] He's still not here. The world's been around for an awfully long time. Do you really think the world, as we know it, will actually come to an end? Do you see how subtle that kind of deception can be?
[29:59] It's not always a matter of blatantly teaching something that is clearly false. Sometimes the devil just fuels those little doubts about the truthfulness of God and His Word.
[30:16] Lastly, number 12, apathy and lukewarmness. I am confident that the devil loves our spiritual apathy.
[30:28] Just listen to what Christ said to the lukewarm church in Laodicea. I know your works, you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.
[30:46] For you say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing. Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
[30:58] He could have very easily said that to those of us living in the United States of America in the 21st century. Well, with that, let's turn our attention to our defense against these attacks, these schemes of Satan.
[31:16] Paul calls it the shield of faith. Now, that's an interesting phrase because the Old Testament frequently refers to our shield, our primary defense, as God himself.
[31:32] In Genesis 15, God says to Abraham, fear not, for I am your shield. Proverbs 30, verse 5, every word of God proves true.
[31:47] He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Psalm 3, 3, but you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head.
[32:02] Psalm 28, 7, the Lord is my strength and my shield. Now, unless I miscounted, the Old Testament refers to God as the shield of his people on 18 separate occasions, and perhaps unsurprisingly, most of them are found in the Psalms.
[32:21] The New Testament, however, never refers to the Lord as our shield, not explicitly, anyhow, not in those terms.
[32:32] Instead, the only time it refers to any kind of spiritual shield we find it here in Ephesians 6. And again, Paul calls it the shield of faith.
[32:44] He doesn't say the Lord is our shield. He says, essentially, faith is our shield. So what does he mean by that? Well, let's define our terms.
[32:56] What is faith? According to Hebrews 11, 1, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
[33:07] So faith is a confident expectation of those things God has promised. It is trusting in him and trusting in what he has said.
[33:18] And ultimately, it's trusting in things we can't see with our natural eyes, something we haven't seen come to fruition yet. I like what Oswald Chambers once said.
[33:29] He said, faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time. In other words, faith is not, number one, mental assent, and number two, wishful thinking.
[33:49] Genuine, biblical faith is not someone saying, I know the promises of God. And it's not someone saying, you know, I hope the promises of God prove true.
[34:01] No, it is knowing the promises of God, but it's not merely knowing the promises of God, and it doesn't wish for his promises to be fulfilled. It is a confident expectation.
[34:14] It knows they will be fulfilled. Think of it this way. Let's say I perform one of those trust exercises with my kids.
[34:25] Maybe I tell them to jump into my arms and I promise to catch them. Well, they know I can catch them. I'm sure they wish I would catch them, but until they jump, they haven't really shown any evidence that they truly have faith in me.
[34:41] Of course, this illustration falls short because I'm not God. I'm fallible and, frankly, I very well could drop one of my kids, despite all of my promises.
[34:54] But here's the underlying point. Faith always has an object. Again, it is more than mental assent. It is more than wishful thinking.
[35:06] It is a deep trust which raises a very logical question. In what or whom are we trusting? Faith must have an object.
[35:17] We must put our faith in something or someone. Maybe you've noticed this, but the secular world loves to talk about faith. Have faith, people say.
[35:30] Have faith. Well, faith in what exactly? What do you mean by that? What am I putting my trust in? How confident can I be if I don't even know the object of my faith?
[35:42] People also love to say, just believe. Or, worse yet, believe in yourself. Well, I happen to know from 42 years of personal experience that that's a terrible idea.
[35:57] Trust in me? I don't think so. Faith, for faith's sake, is meaningless. You see, the only reason faith can be our defense in spiritual warfare is because God is the object of our faith.
[36:16] We are putting our trust in Him as we fight these spiritual battles. Isn't that what Paul says here, verse 10? Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
[36:28] Put on the whole armor of God, that is, put on His armor, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. So, there's a very real sense in which Paul's shield of faith is really no different than when the Old Testament says the Lord is our shield.
[36:49] to take up the shield of faith is to put our trust in God who is, as Proverbs says, a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
[37:01] To take up the shield of faith is to run to God for refuge. Ian Duguid offers a helpful illustration that I'll borrow from and just build upon.
[37:14] Let's say you're drowning and someone throws you a rope. Well, first of all, in this situation, you have to believe in the rope. You have to trust that the rope can support your weight.
[37:26] Second, you have to believe in the person on the other side of the rope. You have to trust that number one, he's capable of pulling you up, and number two, he's actually willing to pull you up. You have to trust that he is powerful enough and loving enough to save you.
[37:41] And finally, you have to actually grab the rope, right? You have to cling to your only hope for salvation in this case. And that's why Paul can take the spiritual shield of the Old Testament, God himself, and reframe it as a shield of faith.
[38:02] God remains our shield. He is our only defense against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
[38:19] But, we must take refuge in him through faith. Specifically, faith in Jesus Christ. Again, Paul says, take it up.
[38:33] It requires deliberate action, if you will. Better yet, it requires ongoing, continual action. Remember that Paul is writing here to believers.
[38:44] believers. In the first chapter, he said, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, or had faith in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.
[39:02] So, Paul is writing to believers. He's writing to those who trust in Christ for salvation, and yet, he says to them, in all circumstances, above all, if you will, take up the shield of faith.
[39:18] Continue to trust in Christ. Continue to believe in his truth, believe in his power, be confident of his promises, and pray that your faith may grow stronger yet, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
[39:37] So, on the one hand, Paul says believers are sealed with the Spirit. the Lord is and will always be our refuge as his people. The devil can only do so much damage to us.
[39:48] He cannot snatch us out of the Father's hand. On the other hand, the Lord does permit Satan to harass us. So, this armor, the shield of faith in particular, is meant to be something very practical for us.
[40:05] It's something that we carry with us daily for safety, for salvation. we don't trust in the Lord only once in our lives and then abandon our faith returning to our lives as they once were.
[40:17] No, we cling to Christ in all circumstances, all the time, everywhere, in everything, and every day we trust in Christ.
[40:30] Christ alone to be our defense as we stand against the schemes of the devil. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time in your word, and I pray that all of us as Christian soldiers fighting in a very real spiritual battle against evil forces will daily take up this shield of faith that you have provided us.
[41:00] That we will put our trust in you and in your son and in your spirit to be with us, to guard us, to defend us, to protect us. Lord, we have trusted in you for salvation as believers, and we trust in you to fulfill your promises, to carry out your word, and to protect us.
[41:23] May you see to completion the work that you began in us. We know that you will. We have a confident expectation of seeing all fulfilled that you have promised.
[41:35] But Lord, it is a struggle. we ask for your help, even in not doubting, even in turning to you with complete trust.
[41:46] We thank you, Lord, and we ask that you would bless our worship to follow here this morning, bless our fellowship. In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[41:56] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.