The Armor We Must Wear Part 2

Let's pray and let's ask God to show us. The answers to the questions that we ask. Lord God, we We are living in downtown Baghdad every day, evil from without, soldiers from within waging war against our soul. It is so easy to lose our footing, to lose our traction.

It is easy to have limited mobility in our warfare. It is easy to find flames burning within, Lord, that have been put there, the very flames of hell. Burning in our own persons because we did not have our shield up. But you've made this very simple for us, Lord, just wrap ourselves in a mindfulness of the gospel and take it with us wherever we go.

And if we do that, we will experience the protection, the safety, and the victory. That you want us to experience in Christ. Teach us as we continue to work our way through this text, Lord, and help us in the days of this week to fully apply what we are learning. And we ask these things in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Let me invite you guys to turn in your Bibles. To Ephesians chapter 6. For those of you that are visiting with us, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of Ephesians. And as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 15.

And my goal, this morning is to cover verses 15 and 16 as we continue to look at the topic of the armor that we must wear. The armor that we must wear. Last week, we looked at verse 14 and we learned about the truth that we should have our loins girded with and also the breastplate of righteousness. And today we're going to focus on the shoes that we're supposed to wear in our spiritual battle.

and also the shield of faith that God has called us to take up, in, in this battle. As I was preparing the message for this morning, I kept recalling to my mind an incident that happened when I was 19 years of age. I had just prior to then, given my life to the Lord a few months earlier and, I was growing, spiritually and memorizing scripture like the Romans chapter 6 and chapter 8 and learning some gospel chapters that I had been encouraged by, some people in our church to memorize and to bring that to bear during times of temptation.

And I remember one incident where I was, in my parents' home, by myself, and it was in the afternoon and all through the morning and the early afternoon, I felt, oppressed by temptation, by evil that was without and also evil that was inside of me.

I had just crazy wicked thoughts going through my head and, and, and I, tried to, say no to those temptations and was able successfully to do so. But by mid-afternoon, though I had been victorious up to that point, I was spiritually exhausted. Has that ever happened to you to where you're victorious, but you feel like You're fading fast and you're not going to make it another half hour before just giving in and letting evil have its way. Well, I felt so oppressed and so exhausted that I found myself lying face down on the floor in our living room.

I was in the house by myself, so I could do that. and, and felt like I didn't even have the strength to get up off the floor. I felt like a weight was on my chest. just crushing my chest, and I didn't even want to get up because I was just afraid of what I might do.

just the oppression of the temptation was so strong. As I lay there just pressed against the floor, I looked to my left and I find a copy of my mom's, Bible, right beside a chair that she would sit in. And so I reached over and I grabbed the Bible. And I began to read Romans 6.

I opened it up to Romans 6, began to read Romans 6 out loud to myself. And when I got done with Romans 6, I went into Romans 8, reading Romans 8 out loud, and was so strengthened by rehearsing those gospel truths and those two chapters aloud that this will probably seem corny to you guys, but, in 10 minutes' time, I went from being pressed against the floor, too exhausted to even get up off the floor, to 10 minutes later, not only standing, but I was standing on my mother's piano bench.

She wasn't home, so she wasn't there to, to get on me, but I was standing on her piano bench with her Bible in my hand, and I was just bringing it. I was just reading Romans 6 and Romans 8 just out loud, just to myself.

And I could not believe the difference that that 10 minutes made. I was not only victorious 10 minutes into that, but it felt like the temptation itself had been extinguished to a significant degree, and I felt like I had an unusual amount of energy suddenly for whatever else the devil might want to throw at me. I was 19 years old at the time, and it was one of my earliest experiences. Of the power of the gospel and the power of the armor that we're learning about in this text in Ephesians chapter 6.

I didn't even understand all the mechanics of really why those chapters were especially powerful, on that occasion like I might understand it now, but I'm telling you guys, Paul is a seasoned warrior. He's not sitting in an ivory tower. This guy has fought thousands of battles. And has the scars to show for it.

And this man who sits in prison chained to a Roman soldier, as a seasoned veteran of the faith sits down and he's basically saying, let me tell you how I fight and what I do. And so in the trenches of real life warfare, this is a man giving us real counsel that provides answers to questions that we ask every day as we are in our quest for spiritual victory. And we've learned about having our loins girded with truth and the breastplate of righteousness. Today, we're going to talk about the shoes we wear, the gospel of peace, the shield of the faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit.

We're going to learn about all of those things. Those are all pieces of armor that God and weapons that God has given to us so that we can be victorious. And I want to reiterate something that we had talked about last week. And that is the fact that the purpose of the armor that God has given to us is not merely to protect us on those occasions when we must take a blow.

All right. The purpose of our helmet of salvation is not so that whenever we take a blow to our head, the helmet's there to protect us. That's part of the purpose. But the purpose of our armor goes beyond that, and its intent, and that is also to just make us a braver and more aggressive warrior at all times.

And our aggressiveness comes from knowing that no real harm can come to us while we are wearing our armor. And as Mike mentioned earlier in our worship service, that makes us more aggressive because we can just throw ourselves into the battle knowing that our armor is going to protect us. I was thinking this week also about when I was a kid, I played football, padded football for 6 years and, and the first couple of years that I played football, just being a scrawny little kid, I was afraid to hit people because I was afraid of what would happen to me.

I wasn't afraid to hurt anybody.

I was afraid of getting hurt. So I tended to be just very skittish and defensive. And if I were a defensive lineman, as soon as the ball was hiked, rather than just running into the offensive lineman, I would stand there and let him hit me and then I'd just try to get around them. But by then, the play was pretty much over.

and so that's the way I was the first couple of years, and I remember my coach who was anything but a Christian, but who knew I was a Christian, said to me one day, is it against your religion to hit people and to hustle? And I felt, I felt rebuked by that, but, nonetheless, during one of the practices, my coach did something that totally changed the way I played football from that day on. What happened was I was playing defensive tackle and was lined up. And they snapped the ball and I didn't know this, but my coach had positioned himself right behind me and as soon as the ball was hiked, my coach picked me up.

And threw me into the offensive lineman. When I got picked up and was flying through the air, I thought, I'm dead. I am so dead. But I came crashing into that offensive lineman and what, it was like an aha moment for me.

It actually felt good. It, it didn't hurt. I survived it. It even felt good.

And I realized, what, I got these pads on, and so I can just go crazy out here and I'm not going to get hurt. And so from that day on I was more aggressive as a player and I trusted the armor and I just, just every play, I didn't always take a hit in the shoulders or on the head, but even though I didn't experience that every play, it did affect every single play that I played, and that is I was able to be more aggressive knowing that the protection was there and that's what God wants from all of us.

He's basically saying this. Armor I'm giving you, it is totally trustworthy.

It is dependable. It is reliable. It will protect you from any real injury, and so just knowing that that protection is given to you by me, I have fashioned this armor perfectly for this warfare that you're engaged in. Just throw yourself into the battle and be confident in the victory that you're going to accomplish.

Be confident in the protection. that this armor is going to provide you. All of us, if, if we could come to Paul, we would say, Paul, show me a way that I can stand firm against the schemes of the devil that are so good and deceptive that it's easy to fall prey to them. Show me a way that I can resist in the evil day, even in the evil seasons of my life where temptation is especially strong, and that I resist so well that even after the long battle is done, I'm still standing.

With more to give, show me a way that I will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one that come at me. Paul would say, I'll show you how you can be successful in all of this, and that is by wearing the armor that I identify for you. Well, here's the armor we've already looked at, verse 14, we are to put on the belt of truth, and we learned last week that is the, gospel truth that he's talking about, the gospel of our salvation. We are to wrap the gospel tightly, around our midsection.

And then we learned last week about the second piece of armor, and that is the breastplate. Of the righteousness. And as I said last week, and I didn't make this entirely clear because there was a question or two about this, in the Greek text, literally this reads the breastplate of the righteousness. Now I said that, that it's the righteousness last week, but I didn't identify that that actually comes from the Greek text.

So it's the righteousness, not just a righteousness, and of course if it's talking about the righteousness, it's talking about the righteousness of God, the righteousness of Jesus, and another way of saying that, in fact, this very Greek word is translated elsewhere in the New Testament as the justification. All right. And the doctrine of our justification is that God has declared us not guilty of our own sins. And this is so crazy to me.

He has declared us righteous with the very righteousness of Jesus. So all of our mountainous millions of sins were declared not guilty. And then God declares us righteous with the very righteousness of Jesus. And as a result of that, we now always enjoy gracious, favored status with God.

This justification affects our standing with God. In Romans 5, Paul says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we appease with God. Justification is not some useless doctrine that's good to know about, but it doesn't really have direct bearing upon your relationship with God. No, because we're justified, regardless of our performance from day to day, we every single day are continually having peace with God.

We are always under the good, the undeserved, and the gracious favor of God. Please believe that and let that sink in to you. Prior to 2001, I would have told people very passionately that I am a justified one and I believe in the doctrine of justification. But I tended to treat that doctrine like it was some legal fiction, just some legalese that's in the Bible, and that it didn't have direct bearing upon the way God related to me and what his countenance towards me was from day to day.

I, I guess, would have imagined God saying, yeah, Milton, technically, you're legally justified, but I'm picked at you for what you did earlier today. And I'm angry. But what Paul teaches us is that our justification totally revolutionized the way that God goes about relating to us. We are always under his gracious favor on our good days, and on our bad days, because of the work that Jesus did on the cross and because of the work he does every day as our advocate before the Father, as he maintains our justified status before God.

He says through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exalt, we exalt, we exult. Paul didn't agitate over his standing before God. He exulted in it. And if we could just get into the practice of just knowing Jesus did this, he purchased it for me, he maintains it, and we rejoiced in it rather than agitating over it, if we, Rested in it rather than wrestled for it and over it, it would make a huge difference in our lives.

So much of our energy that should be spent in ministry and in our sanctification is often consumed by us agitating over our standing with God. And I don't, I can't explain to you guys the mechanics of why this makes a difference in my heart, but, if, if I read even the Bible and there's threats in the Bible that says don't do this or this will happen, this bad thing will happen, I know that's true, but that doesn't change my heart. It doesn't change my heart. Just reading a command does not dispose my heart to want to do that.

But when I stop and contemplate gospel truth that I am a justified one, and no matter what, I'm under God's good favor. Good days, bad days. I don't know, that does something to my heart where it's like, well, I want to love and obey God. And that is so not me.

But that's the effect that the gospel has. In fact, there have been many times in the midst of temptation, where I've enjoyed saying, what, I can commit this sin. And what will happen is that God's grace will abound to me all the more as he graciously maintains my justified status. But then I'll say, and for that exact reason, I don't want to do that anymore.

And I turn and do the right things with laughter in my heart. And I don't know, I don't know why it has that effect, but guys, gospel truth will turn your heart away from sin and toward holiness. So put it on, put it on. Don't leave the gospel aside and say, I'm saved now.

Thank you, Lord, for the gospel. And now it's on the discipleship. No, discipleship is discipleship in the gospel. God says you take this gospel that has saved you, and you put it around your loins and you put it around your chest, and you wear it wherever you go.

And you'll see the difference and the protection that it renders in your life. In fact, speaking of gospel truth, we come to the third piece of armor, and that is the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace, which is actually armor that we are to wear. It's not just some addendum.

Well, soldier's got to wear shoes. So, let's say something about the shoes. Now, as you learn about the shoes that the Roman soldiers would wear, you would realize that this actually was not just something for the soldiers' protection, but it actually, the shoes of a Roman soldier were genuinely a weapon that they would use in battle. In fact, Josephus, understand this about the shoes that a Roman soldier would wear.

Typically, from the ankle, they would look like normal sandals, but they were strapped around the ankle pretty tight so that they're firmly in place. The toes actually were left exposed in the front of the, the, the shoe that the Roman soldier would wear, but there was a thick sole to the shoes, and then there were literally cleats, studs on the bottom of the soles, and Josephus, I was reading him this week. Not doing pleasure reading, but preparing the sermon, and he was describing when the Roman army came against Jerusalem, against the Jews, and he was describing the Roman soldiers and he says every one of the soldiers had shoes all full of thick and sharp nails, talking about the bottom of them, the cleats that they had on the bottom of their shoes, and we'll come back to talking about the cleats in just a moment here.

OK.

But I just want you to get that visual, that these are actually some pretty mean looking shoes that Paul is telling us to put on. we wear cleats when we engage in athletic activities. probably a better analogy would be like the metal cleats that people used to wear. I don't even know that people are allowed to wear them anymore.

When we played on the church softball team, they said you can wear cleats, but no metal cleats. When I was a kid, there was a guy on another team that slid. Our church was playing against another team in softball, and a guy was wearing metal cleats, and he slid into second base and cut halfway through a guy's finger. And so it's, I'm not surprised that they say you can't wear those anymore, but what, you can wear them in battle, OK?

You can wear them in battle. and so put on the shoes of the gospel of peace. Look at what he says in verse 15, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Now let's talk about what the shoes consist of that we are supposed to wear, and then we'll come full circle with this particular piece of armor.

We are to put on the gospel of peace. First of all, he says the preparation of the gospel of peace, this is a notoriously difficult word to translate. In verse 15, I'm still not entirely sure what to do with it. Some say this word means the foundation of the gospel of peace.

Some say the equipment of the gospel of peace. Some say a readiness in the gospel of peace. and the new American Standard says the preparation of the gospel of peace. I'm not even sure what to do.

with all of that, but at the very least, it's speaking of the foundation. All right, the shoes serve as the foundation. And the foundation upon which we stand, the foundation that we put upon our feet is the gospel of peace. All right.

Now, the word gospel Gospel literally in English, gospel means good news, and that's exactly what the Greek word that is translated gospel means. It's the prefix you that means good, and then geon that means message, so it's the good message or good news, and it speaks of news that is not only good, but the effect that it has upon those who hear it is enormously good. And so Paul is saying, put on these shoes. It's the shoes of the good news, and look at how he describes this, the good news of peace.

The good news of peace. In the midst of war, put on these shoes. That tell of the good news of peace. It's an interesting combination of ideas.

We're in the thick of battle and we wear the shoes of the good news of peace. What peace is he talking about? Well, if we just went no further than Ephesians and looked at what Paul taught. us already about peace, we would realize that he's talking about the good news of peace with God.

Before we were saved, everyone in sin is at enmity with God. We were an enemy of God, and yet through the shed blood of Jesus, we were reconciled to God, and now there is peace with God. this is also the good news of peace with one another. There used to be a lot that divided us from each other ethnic distinctions, racial distinctions, the color of our skin, socioeconomic distinctions, histories, ethnic histories, and so forth.

around the world serves to divide peoples, but in the church there is the goodness. News that through the blood of Christ that was shed on the cross, he has obliterated the hostilities that once divided us outside of Christ. So this is the good news of peace with God, the good news of peace with each other so that we now enjoy unity. And in that unity, we now fight together rather than against one another.

And we're stronger because we are fighting in force, in formation with one another rather than fighting in isolation from each other. And then lastly, the word gospel and peace together, also clues us into the fact that Paul is speaking about the good news or the gospel of victory over the enemy of peace. The gospel or the good news of victory over the enemy of peace. The number one enemy of peace in all the universe is the devil and then all of his demonic intelligences that do his bidding.

And so there really could be no legitimate talk of peace if God did not do something to deal with the enemy of peace, and that is the devil and all those who follow him. And we've already been given the good news. Of this victory over the enemy of peace. In Ephesians 1, we learn how God ascended Jesus above all rule and authority, and that speaks of evil rule and authority, principalities and powers, and he says, and God put all things in subjection under Christ's feet.

And so in a sense, the victory. Has already been won. God has subjugated all evil powers underneath the feet of Jesus. And not only that, not only has the victory already been won, but we're all aware that though the victory has been won, there is a vicious, violent insurgency that continues to rage, but We can read the book of Revelation as we already did this morning in our worship and read how this cosmic war is going to end and who's going to win in the end.

The Lord Jesus Christ, we're on the winning side. We're not waiting to hear the good news, like, well, sure hope we win this in the end. No, we've already gotten that news report. Imagine soldiers in battle who get an advanced report that, hey, here's the news report, you're going to win, and here's how you're going to win.

Here's the day it's even going to happen. We've already received that good news, and that should change the way we battle, change the way we fight. In fact, in Romans 1620, Paul says, and the God of peace will soon crush Satan. That's a promise, and the promise of God is sure.

Imagine wearing that on your cleats. The God of peace will soon crush Satan. We'll come back to that verse in just a minute, but look at how all this ties together. In Ephesians 2, Paul speaks of Christ and how he abolished in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Christ himself, he might make the two Jew and Gentile into one new man, thus establishing peace between Jew and Gentile, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross by it having put to death the enmity.

So there's peace between Jew and Gentile. And peace with God. And now look at verse 17. Jesus did all this, but we needed to hear about it, right?

And so look what Jesus did. And he came and your English translation say and preached peace. But technically in the Greek it's, he came and preached the gospel of peace. It's that word that we get our word evangelized from.

He came and evangelized peace. He told us the good news. He preached the good news of peace to us who are far away, that's the Gentiles. And peace to those who were near, that's the Jews.

And so this is a gospel of peace that we enjoy in Christ. And Paul says, this gospel of peace, put it on your feet, put it on your feet, strap it on and think about that. That means that every step we take is to be a gospel step. Amen.

Just, imagine you go through your day, every step is a gospel step, every step. Your feet are shod. With the gospel. Now, if we walk this way to where every step is a gospel step, and we're wearing the shoes of the gospel of peace.

What benefits come to us in battle? Well, in the first place, we have a little more endurance, do we not? A soldier can march further with shoes on than without shoes on, right? studies show that if you've got shoes on, you can walk further than you can without shoes on.

Also, wearing these shoes of the gospel of peace that are cleated on the bottom provides necessary traction in battle, do they not? is it not the devil's intention when engaging in hand to hand combat with us to do everything he can to knock us off our feet? That's what any warrior wants to do, because once you're knocked off your feet, you're easily done for. And so that's all the devil often tries to do is to get us knocked off of our feet.

in fact, my wife and I are reading through a book on Psalm 73 right now, and ASAP, the psalmist says in Psalm 732, He says, as for me, my feet came close to stumbling. My steps had almost slipped. He almost just stumbled and was left flat and whatever consequences of that would have ensued. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Be very careful that you do not fall. When we fall, we are extremely vulnerable. That's why the righteous man falls 7 times, but what does he do? He gets back up.

You get on your feet. We are supposed to be on our feet and so we need traction in battle so that we are not easily knocked off our feet and slipping and sliding around and the cleats of the gospel of peace provide traction for us. We are much harder. In fact, we are impossible to take down if we are wearing these cleats of the gospel.

Also, wearing these studded shoes of the gospel of peace increases our agility and our mobility. Think about this, guys. athletes wear cleats when they're playing, in their respective sports. When you're wearing studded shoes or cleats, it increases your ability to play the game.

There are things that you can do with those cleats on than you would ever be able to do without those cleats on. You understand what I'm saying? just as an example, about 3 weeks ago, I was about to go to work. I had gotten dressed.

And was fully dressed to go to work, but, except for, I was wearing some house slippers, which I'm half ashamed to tell you guys that because I always swore I would never wear them. They seemed sissy to me, but. my son got a pair, started wearing them. He looked cool in them, so I thought, well, I'll try them, and I got some for Christmas, and I've been wearing them since then.

They fit very loosely. I can step out of them in an instant if I wanted to. There's a very thin rubber sole. Normally supposed to wear them inside.

Occasionally I'll go out and take out the trash or whatever with them. But I was about to go to work and I was fully dressed except for wearing these house slippers, and Benjamin and Bree said to me before I left, they said, Dad, can you play a soccer game with us up to 5 in the backyard before you go to work? And I eventually told them, OK, I'll do that real quick. And normally I beat them.

when we play soccer up to 5, but on this occasion I thought, should I go upstairs and put my shoes on before I play, or will I just play them in my house slippers? I decided to play them in my house slippers because I thought I had game and I could take them. but it wasn't long before I realized that my mobility and agility was extremely hampered. just to stay in the shoes was trouble enough, and then they were very slick.

The rubber soles were very slick. And so there were things that I knew I just could not do that I could do on other occasions. And there was one time where the three of us were going for a ball. I got to the ball just before they did, and I planted my left foot, to stop all of a sudden and to kick the ball.

I slid right out of my slippers. And landed on my back and of course the kids found that hilarious. But even after that, we continued to play and they destroyed me. and there were things it's like that I would normally do and it's like I can't do that because I'm gonna, my feet are going to go right out from under me and it limited my game.

when I'm playing football in the backyard with my boys, and like Brendan, my son is covering me and Benjamin's throwing the passes, they're just things I know I can't do because I'm not wearing cleats. I've noticed my son Brendan, when we play a lot of times, we'll go into the house and he'll put my cleats on. And he'll play against me in the cleats, and so he's got game. There are things he can do that I can't do because the cleats make a difference.

They broaden your ability to move around and to make cuts with traction more so than you would be able to do otherwise. And so wearing these shoes that are studded on the bottom, these shoes of the gospel of peace, increase not only our traction in battle to where we can remain stationary and the of battle, but also it increases our agility and our mobility. And so Paul is saying, man, if you wear these shoes, there are things you're going to be able to do that you would never be able to do if you didn't have shoes on or if you were wearing any other shoes on your feet.

Also, guys, and this doesn't get a lot of press when people are looking at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 15, but also understand that these cleats of the gospel of peace, That are studded with sharp nails are also a weapon.

They can inflict injury upon our enemy. They don't just give us traction, but they can turn into a pretty mean and vicious weapon. And I love the contrast here of the collision of thoughts because Paul is like, put on the shoes of the gospel of peace. And to us, it is peace, right?

We love the gospel of peace. But when the devil looks at those pair of shoes, he doesn't like the way they look. They're sharp. They can cut.

They make them bleed. They can inflict injury. They're, they're things he doesn't want to have in his face. And Roman soldiers, when they engaged in battle, they had a dagger, they had a sword, they had a shield.

They had their fists, and they would use all of those things as weapons, but they also had studded cleats that were studded with sharp, thick nails that would often be driven right into the face. Of their opponent or some other part of the body of their opponent, and the shoes were as much a weapon for a Roman soldier as perhaps anything else that he had as a weapon. And so we use the shoes of the gospel of peace as a weapon. And just thinking of an analogy, the gospel in a sense is like a mother bear, that you see a mother bear with her cub, and she's so gentle and loving and protective.

And it's just, it's the thing you like to watch on a nature show. Just, well, look at that. That's just so lovely. But if anyone encroaches into that bear's territory and that mother bear thinks that her cub is being threatened at all, she will tear that threat to shreds.

What the mother bear is to the cub, that's what the gospel is to us. Just, it's a message of peace for us, but brings injury and bloodletting to our opponents, the evil principalities and powers that seek to do battle against us. So, put on your cleats and make every step you take a gospel step in your life. Also, with these shoes on, we can more effectively crush Satan's head.

Crushed the head of Satan. And that might seem like a strange thought to some of you to imagine yourself crushing the head of Satan. And you might say, well, just a few minutes ago, we read, Romans 16:20, we're, we're told that the God of peace will soon crush Satan. So doesn't God do that?

Well, if you look at the rest of the verse, Paul says the God of peace will soon crush Satan under whose feet? Under your feet. That's why you need your cleats on, because you can crush Satan with the studded cleats of the gospel more effectively. Our life is to be a life wherein we are trampling.

We are trampling the evil one. Who is under our feet because the evil one is under Christ's feet, and we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. And so that is to be what our life is like. And so Paul says, listen, if you want to be victorious in spiritual battle, wrap your loins tightly with gospel truth, put on the breastplate of the gospel doctrine of your justification and consequent peace with God, and wrap tightly on your feet.

The cleats of the gospel of peace. So, we've got the gospel around our loins, around our chest, covering our back and also on our feet. And the last piece of armor that we'll take time to look at today is the shield of faith. We are to take up the shield of faith.

Look at what he says in verse 16. In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the, the evil one. And let me just explain something, read from this commentator on what the shield of a Roman soldier looked like, so you can get a visual. The shield referred to is not the small round one which left most of the body unprotected, but the large shield carried by Roman soldiers which covered the whole person.

It measured 4 ft by 2.5 ft and was shaped like a door. it was usually made of wood and covered with canvas and calf skin. It was reinforced with metal at the top and at the bottom. So this is a huge shield, and it's not so much the shield that a Roman soldier often would like be holding while he's engaging in battle, although they would often do that.

But the shield that Paul is talking about is the kind that when a hail of fiery arrows are just flying. across no man's land and coming upon the Roman army, they would take that shield that was as large as a door practically and crouch behind it. All right, crouching behind that, they're not engaging in hand to hand combat at that moment. They're just crouching behind that so that the shield could take the arrows rather than their own body taking those arrows.

And Paul is saying you need the shield. To have this protection, you need something on those occasions when you need to crouch behind something and just have full body protection from the flaming arrows of your enemy. You say, OK, I need a shield like that. What is the shield?

Well, look at what he says in verse. 16. In addition to all taking up the shield of faith, literally in the Greek text, it's the shield of the faith. And it's very important that you stick the word the in there.

One common misunderstanding of verse 16 is for people to look at the shield of faith and think that's talking about our own subjective faith that we have in our heart. and so, I, I, I've got to have faith so that I can be protected. Well, if we go with that, then what do we do on those occasions when we're fighting to have faith? What shield do we use on those occasions?

Most commentators say that especially with the the in front of the word faith, Paul is not talking about our subjective faith in our hearts. He's talking about the faith. And when you think of the faith, biblically, there are at least 3 things that come to mind. When Paul uses the expression, the faith in his writings, often he is speaking of the body of gospel truth that we believe in.

When he says to Timothy, I have kept the faith, what he's saying is, I have done what I have commanded you to do. I have told you to guard the deposit that God has entrusted to you. And I want you to know that I've reached near the end of my life and I have kept, I have guarded The faith, I have guarded the gospel from all of the enemies of the gospel. He's not saying I've, I, I've kept my own subjective faith and held on to it.

Although that was true. He's saying I have guarded successfully, this gospel that has been entrusted to me. And so when Paul says use and take up the shield of the faith, he's saying, take up the body of gospel truth that you believe in as a Christian, that gospel will protect you. In fact, another thing that is implied by calling gospel truth, the faith is that Paul is speaking of gospel truth that is trustworthy.

It's not just what we believe in, but there's a reason we believe in it, and that is because it's believable, it's trustworthy, it's reliable, it's dependable. And so it's dependable truth. And so we believe in it and that's the way Paul speaks in various passages like 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul says, it is a trustworthy statement, uses the same root here, worthy of all acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. The gospel is something we believe in, And so it's called the faith, but it's also called the faith because the gospel is the faithful.

It is the truthful. It is the trustworthy, and that nuance is being brought out in Paul's choice of terms. In Titus 190 speaks of elders who are holding fast. faithful word and the word he's speaking of is the word of the gospel and the elders hold fast and hold forth that gospel word that is faithful.

It is faithful, it is dependable. It is worthy of our trust. And the glorious reality that is implied here, guys, is that whatever God says the gospel can do, it can do. You can depend on it to accomplish that.

If God says take up the shield of the faith, which is the gospel, that you might be protected by it, and the flaming arrows of the evil one can be extinguished by it, you can bet your bottom dollar that that shield will be reliable and doing exactly what God says that he has. Give it to you to accomplish so that you are protected by it. It will never happen that in the midst of warfare, you're like, man, right now, I can't even engage in hand to hand combat. I am so weak and there's so many arrows just coming at me.

All I really know to do right now is just crouch behind the shield and just let the shield take the blows. It'll never happen that you're doing that. And an arrow punctures the shield and hits you, to where you're like, the shield didn't work. It didn't work.

Guys, we live in a fallen world where we're buying stuff all the time that doesn't work, right? We buy it, it's like, oh, this is going to be great, we bring it home and it malfunctions and we realize that this was not dependable. The claims that were made about this were not dependable. we bought a DVD player about a year ago and probably 4 or 5 months into having it.

it started malfunctioning, still malfunctions, hardly usable today, and I'm just kicking myself because I didn't buy the service agreement., they, they buy you this brand new thing, it looks like it's going to work, and they're like, you want to buy this service agreement? And I'm thinking, if I need a service agreement, then it's, this isn't worth buying. that was my logic then and started breaking down, and now I don't have a service agreement to cover that. We all have those experiences where we buy things, claims are made, we bring it home, set it up, and it's not reliable or dependable.

We have this assurance, God will never, ever. be unreliable to us. The gospel will always, always be reliable, trustworthy. It will do exactly every time what God says He's given it to us, to enable us to do.

The gospel is called the faith because it's the body of truth we believe in. It's called the faith because it is worthy of that trust. But let me throw one other thing at you that doesn't get talked about a lot, but I think it's worth thinking about, and that is that the gospel is called the faith because it is that with which we've been entrusted, and we're now looking at this backwards. you can actually translate this in addition to all taking up the shield of the trust, the trust.

What is a trust? It's something that you've been entrusted with. And do you realize that in the moment you placed your faith in Jesus and the gospel was imparted to you and all of its saving work, you realize you were not the only person exercising trust in that moment? Do you realize God was exercising trust as he took his precious gospel and he said, here, take this.

Take this. And he entrusted the gospel over to us. 1 Timothy 1:11, Paul speaks of the glorious gospel with which I have been entrusted. God has taken this gospel, and he handed it to me, and that's a trust.

Paul says that I want to be faithful to. Imagine the heart of God. At the moment that he hands, His gospel over to you. Just think of his heart.

How precious is the gospel to God? the gospel is the story of God giving up His Son to die, shed His blood, be abandoned by the Father. For our salvation and the forgiveness of our sins, the gospel is the story of God sacrificing everything. Paying the ultimate price that we might be saved.

You think the gospel is precious to you? It's very precious to God. And Jesus even said, don't cast your pearls before swine. Don't give what's holy to the dogs.

We were swine. We were dogs, but God's spirit began to work in us. And quicken us and awaken us to where we have faith to believe. And then God took his precious gospel.

And entrusted it to us. I was standing as one of the groomsmen at a wedding yesterday along with Mike, and I got to see a father walk down the aisle with his daughter that he's poured his life into love's. And when he got down to the end of the aisle with his daughter, the pastor asked that father a question that every father dreads. Who gives this woman to be married to this man?

My father said, her mother and I do. And the groom walked up and he took her. From the father and the father put their arms together. And sent them up front.

What was going through his heart and his mind. As he handed over one of the most precious things in the world to him. And trusting her. To this man.

If you can capture that and if you as a dad have ever even been there, You can maybe capture the heart of God. When he takes his pearl of great price. He takes his precious gospel, and at the moment that you were saved. He handed it to you.

And entrusted it to you. And he teaches you in his word, what I've given to you is a trust. I care very deeply about how you treat this. It's a trust.

Paul is saying this is the shield of the faith, it's what we believe in. It's the shield of the faithful. It's completely reliable. It is the shield of the trust that we've been given.

And how are you doing with that trust? How must the father feel who did all this to give you this trust? How must he feel when he sees you day after day being attacked and defeated with hardly a fight? When the trust that he gave you is sitting in your closet.

The trust that he paid the ultimate price to give you is sitting on your shelf, completely ignored day after day, hardly glanced at, and certainly not used in battle. As you look at your shield. Just realize this is, this is the trust, the ultimate trust that I've been given. It's completely reliable.

And it's the gospel that I believe in. And I will use it in battle. Look at how he closes with this. He says, in addition to all taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one, extinguish.

Does this surprise you? I would have expected Paul to say with which you might be able to block. The flaming arrows of the evil one, but instead he says extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. So, the picture is not of you standing there with your shield and taking blow after blow after blow nonstop without rest day and night, and it's just taking all of those for you.

The picture is that when those flaming arrows strike the shield, they don't penetrate, number one, but in addition to that, that shield extinguishes the flame. It takes the flame away. Roman soldiers would often dip their, soak their shields in water. So that they would not be flammable because some of the material naturally would be flammable.

The goal was that if any pitch from any of the arrows struck the shield or an arrow struck the shield, the arrow would bounce off, but any, anything that remained of the pitch or whatever that, that is now burning, that the, the wetness of the shield would extinguish that, and the shield would not catch on fire and be rendered useless. And so Paul is saying that with this shield, you won't just be able to block, but you will have an extinguishing effect. The gospel is a fire extinguisher.

The flame of guilt that the devil wants you burning with, the gospel quenches that flame.

The flame of lust that the devil wants you burning with, the gospel quenches that flame. Eyes do not rove when governed by a heart that is fat with the love of Jesus inside the gospel. The devil wants you burning with anger and with bitterness. The gospel quenches that.

Do you understand how that happens? You're angry with someone, maybe, maybe some of you in here are angry with another person, your spouse or someone else in your life or a parent, and you're just burning with anger inside, being consumed by that anger. The gospel can extinguish that flame. It really can.

If you just stop and wrap yourself in a mindfulness of the gospel and remind yourself of the hell that you deserve for your sins, and you're thinking all the sins I've committed, And here's what I've done. Here's the hell, the lake of fire that I deserve for all of my sins. And yet God sent Jesus into the world to die and shed his blood that I might be forgiven. The debt that I owe to God is $1.5 million.

And it's been completely erased because of the cross. And I walk in this amazing grace every single day. You start thinking about that, and then you look back at the person who owes you $15 by way of comparison. You will find that your anger is quenched.

It is diminished, and the gospel extinguishes those flames of anger. I'm telling you folks, I, to a degree, I've experienced this stuff in my own life. I cannot, I cannot believe sometimes the power of the gospel to quench the flames that burn within. Whether it be anger, bitterness, rage, lust, condemnation, guilt, if we will just take up the gospel, hold it up, and apply it, it quenches the flames that afflict us so.

What victory do you guys want? Victory in Christ looks like this. It means choosing what's right because we want to, saying no to what's wrong because simply we want to do what's right. Victory means enjoying God and a relationship with Him, even though the devil does everything he can to alienate us from God.

Victory means stepping out of our comfort zone and making an impact that's going to resonate through eternity and being used of God to tear down strongholds. That's what victory looks like. Do you want that in your life? Do you want that in your life?

A seasoned veteran of the faith, a warrior, sitting in prison, is telling us this is what I do. This is what I put on, wrap your loins with gospel truth, put on the breastplate of gospel truth. Put on the shoes of the gospel of peace. And take the shield of the gospel.

We're going to see next week, put on the helmet of the gospel of your salvation and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, which is another synonym for the gospel. Be clothed with the gospel from head to toe, which means practically wrap yourself in a constant mindfulness of gospel realities to where every step you take is a gospel step. If you do that, you will experience the power of the gospel in your life and be victorious. Let me ask you to bow your heads.

My fear is that we will go through this passage, and some of you will not see the answers that are here. That meets your own soul's needs.