The Shield of Faith

shields

Ephesians 6:10–16 CSB

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

The pieces of the armor of God we have talked about so far are a little different. The belt and the breastplate are both designed to protect the individual but the Roman shield is somewhat different. It is designed to work with others shields to form a part of a whole.

The shield that Paul and his audience would have been most familiar with was the Roman shield. This was a device that was about three and a half feet wide and four and a half feet tall. It was slightly curved so that the sides of the shield curved a little toward the bearer of the shield.

The Roman shield was much larger than most other armies shields and it was made that way for a particular purpose and strategy. You see the Romans were not known for their Calvary or their archers but for their infantry.

When advancing toward the enemy the Romans would march side by side with their shields almost touching each other with the shields covering the soldiers from their shins to their eyes.

the second row of soldiers balanced their shields on top of their helmets and over the heads of the first row of soldiers to protect from arrows and other missile weapons as did each row behind them. When necessary the sides turned and faced outwards and the back row turned and faced outwards just like the front row providing for a square block of nothing but shields presented to the enemy.

This formation was called the tortoise formation because it was slow and almost impenetrable. If a soldier was killed or wounded the formation closed in over him and reestablished the shield wall. With this formation the Romans were able to withstand all challengers.

The darts spoken of here were not like the ones you might throw at a dart board but looked somewhat like arrows with a ball of lead just behind the arrowhead. These were thrown into the air by soldiers and the lead ball made sure that the arrowhead pointed down and so struck the enemy from above after coming straight down and were almost impossible to see coming unless you looked straight up instead of in front of you.

Sometimes the darts had flammable material wrapped around the shaft to be set afire so that when they struck they could set things on fire. There was even a version using a hollow reed as a shaft filled with oil with a lit fuse so that the reed broke when it hit scattering oil and fire over as small area.

In the ancient world not much was more destructive than fire. Most of their clothing and building materials were flammable and fire could be devastating.

The idea here is that Satan is tossing out these fiery projectiles to cause damage and confusion among the church and we need to protect ourselves from it. Many of the attacks of the evil one are like fire themselves, they are designed to attack a weak point and spread hatred or confusion or depression or some of other destructive thing from person to person like a fire burning out of control.

You know how it happens. One person is a church or a family gets upset about something or mad about something and the first think you know they are telling their friends looking for support or sympathy, if it continues the next step is for some part of the church or family to get upset with the first group because they disagree and then people start dividing up into groups dividing up one side against the other until it becomes a much worse problem than it had to be, it starts slow and then spreads through the body like a fire through a dry field causing damage and destruction wherever it goes

So how do we protect ourselves against this type of attack. You know we are all vulnerable. Any one of us can get depressed, get our feelings hurt, have a bad day or just get overstressed. All of us have times when we are more vulnerable to these attacks than we normally are and the enemy knows exactly when and where he can do the most damage.

Even when we are strong we can’t protect against everything and if we are honest with ourselves there are times when we are not strong and so we are even more vulnerable, so what do we do, how do we protect ourselves. The answer is that we can’t. Not one of us is strong enough to stand alone.

Enter the body of Christ. This is where the shield of faith of comes in. Faith has to do with believing God, believing what he says and following it. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was he said to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your strength but he did not stop there, Jesus said that the second was like unto it that you should love your neighbor as yourself.

In other words Jesus linked up loving God and loving your neighbor. The bible is full of statements about what we are to do toward one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples that you have love for one another, lift one another up, bear one another’s burdens, confess your sins one to another and many others.

It is clear that God made us to be in community and not to stand alone or stand apart. Our faith, our belief in God and our willingness to do what God tells us to do is important not just as individuals but as a church as well. We are to be there for each other, ready to love and support and help each other.

Our faith should form a shield wall like the tortoise of the Roman Legions with my faith supporting you and your faith supporting me and the faith of body of christ supporting all of us together.

When the Romans formed their shield wall the arrows and the darts and rocks and other missiles of their enemies bounced off the shields because each soldier did his part and each shield was in place so that each man protected both himself and his fellow soldiers and no one had to worry about who had his back or who would help him out if he fell because everyone watched out for everyone else and each mans safety depended on the man next to him, beside him or behind him. They knew that and so each man was his brother’s keeper, each man looked out for the ones around him and expected them to look out for him. They were a unit, they had a common purpose and a common goal, they worked together to accomplish that goal and they protected each other even in the most dangerous situations.

That’s what a church should look like. Each one of us should be watching out for those around us. Whenever we are involved in ministry we are subject to attack by the enemy. We have an enemy who wants to disrupt and destroy every effort we make to serve God and to spread the gospel. In that sense we are soldiers in a war. We have a common purpose and a common goal, we all serve under one leader, Jesus Christ. We should be working together, we should be watching each others backs.

When we are serving God and serving others Satan would like nothing better than to attack us with his fiery darts and disrupt what we are doing, to destroy our common purpose, to break us apart and disrupt our formation, to isolate us so that we are alone and without support, to cut us off and pick us off one by one.

So how do you protect yourself against those kinds of attacks, how do you keep yourself safe? You become part of a shield wall. You become part of a team where you can look out for others and others can look out for you. You join a new testament church, you become part of that church. You build friendships within that church. You find some people who are trying to follow Jesus and do his will and his work and you become part of their lives, you let them become part of your life and you grow together.

They won’t be perfect, sometimes they will stumble and some of them may fall but that is what the shield wall is about. Not only does your faith keep you going but your faith has an impact on the lives of the people that are a part of your life, and their faith has an impact on your life, you support each other and help each other and if one stumbles then there is someone right beside them to help pick them up. If you are not part of such a group what happens when hard times come, what happens when you stumble, according to Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 CSB

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up.

Part of what a church is supposed to do is to lift each other up and help each other along. Part of what a church is for is to lean on one another and so that all of us together can be more than any of us could be alone.

A christian should worship and praise God and a church should do so together so that we can not only enjoy worshiping God but we can enjoy the sounds and atmosphere of others worshiping God with us, in a way we feed off of each other and keep each other going so that each one of us is more when we are together than we are by ourselves and the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

A christian should study God’s word, attempt to understand and obey what God has told us and a church should do so together. We can learn from each other and allow iron to sharpen iron so that each one of us gets more out of our study than we would have on our own and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

A christian should spread the gospel and live a life of service but a lot of things that we can do together are too much for one person or even one family to do alone, by using each other’s strengths and covering for each other’s weaknesses we can accomplish the will of God together, after all He made us that way. God made us to live and work and serve together. When God first created man he said that it is not good for man to be alone and that has never changed. We need each other, we need others to join their shield to our shield, their faith to our faith and work together to serve our God. We need to cooperate with like minded people who guard our backs and who help us up when we stumble, we need each other.

We here at East End Baptist church need to form a shield wall of faith to support and protect each other and go forth with a common purpose to accomplish God’s will. We need to work together, each one playing his or her part and each one serving in his or her role.

Like the Roman Legion sometimes you may be on the front line and your shield of faith may take a beating and sometimes you may be protecting others from sneak attacks from above, sometimes you may be in the rear protecting everyone back or you may be on the sides watching out for a flank attack but everyone has a place, everyone has a purpose, everyone is part of the shield wall. Find your place, serve your purpose, join with others who are willing to do the same and you will be amazed by what we can accomplish together under the command of Jesus Christ.