Lesson 19: The Shield of Faith, part 3

Ephesians 6:16 - In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;

When you put up this shield of faith, in the midst of your battle, Christian, every single time, not maybe, not might, but you WILL be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. In other words, there is no reason to whine or complain, and you do not need to endlessly talk about it. Just put up the shield of faith. And if you are on fire the fault is yours for not "raising your shields."

It is not just a matter of raising your shield, it is making sure you are raising the shield of faith. it is the shield of faith not just the shield that you raise up to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Remember, the Roman soldier dipped his shield in water to make it fire-resistant. The water is what was needed to extinguish the flaming arrows and missiles coming at him. The shield did not stop the arrows from coming at him, the shield that was dipped in water extinguished the arrows when they did come! This tells us it is not enough to just have a shield and raise it when the arrows come. The question is, “Have you soaked your shield in water?" This is important because this is where our faith comes from. The water is God's Word.


Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” If our shield is going to be dipped in water to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, like the Roman soldier, it must be dipped in the water through the word. This is how we keep our shield wet – dipped and ready to extinguish anything that comes our way.

Once again, the Bible, the Belt of Truth, is what holds all the rest of the armor in place! It is what ties everything together including the shield of faith! How often do we think our time is too crowded to spend time reading the Bible every day? We think we know what it says, so we can raise our shield and fight in the strength of what we learned last time. The problem is that, just as the soldier’s shield would dry out and soon be unable to withstand fiery arrows, so our faith that is not regularly watered in the Bible will dry out – we forget what we have read, we forget who we really are (James 1:23-24). Satan knows our weaknesses better than we do! We cannot afford to enter battle without our armor ready and securely in place! Every single day he is not just out to harm you but kill you, Christian! He wants to destroy you, extinguish your effectiveness for Jesus Christ, and Paul says he does the daily flaming arrow attacks! More about this in our next lesson.