Doves On Distant Oaks

The Shield of Faith

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.–Ephesians 6:14-18

The writer of the Book of Hebrews states, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). In effect, we have faith that we remain protected even when we cannot see what dangers are headed our way. Is there any better explanation for an arrow—a danger headed our way that we cannot see.

Archers in armies over the centuries have been used to fill the skies with arrows in the random hope that they would slip into a space between a soldiers armor and take him down. I'm sure you can recall various movies of heavily armed men, on foot or horseback, charging forward, only to be cut down when a hail of arrows fell. The archers firing those arrows were not aiming at anyone in particular, just in a general direction. The only source of protection was to hold a shield over their body to deflect the arrows.

Our enemy does the same thing. It's called the temptations of the World. Satan and his army of fallen angels will certainly attack us directly, probing our weaknesses, but another way our enemy functions is to fill the world with sinful things, hoping one of those arrows find their way in. We see it all around us: immorality on television and in movies, books and magazine we read, social media, the internet—all meant to distract us with senseless pursuits and hasten the overall degradation of our sensibilities.

We get drawn into those temptations so easily. There is nothing wrong with any of our modern conveniences, but they have the ability to open a door to the temptations of the World. We have very little to protect ourselves from these arrows of sin ... that is, except for our faith in God to protect us.

That faith is the same as a modern soldier has. They no longer carry a shield because the arrows have grown so powerful. Modern arrows like missiles and other weapons of mass destruction not only threaten soldiers, but civilians as well. However, there is protection. A National Missile Defense System can intercept enemy missiles. We have no idea if this system is adequate enough, but we have faith that it is.

We also need faith that God will protect us from the worldly missiles of sin. God doesn't want us to withdraw from the world because that's our battlefield. That's why we fight the enemy, not just for our own sake, but so we can bring the good news of the Kingdom to the rest of the world. So we need to be in the world, but need protection from it so one of those arrows doesn't slip in and bring us down.

How do we keep our faith strong? Through prayer. By asking every day that God provide an umbrella of protection over you, a hedge around you, so that no arrows can get in. By saying what the the man with the sick son said, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).