A shield is only as strong as what it’s made of, and faith gets its strength from knowing God’s word. You can’t hold up a promise you don’t know. The woman who’s spent time in Scripture has a shield ready when the fire comes, because she knows what God said and she can raise it fast. The woman who doesn’t is standing in the open, catching every flaming thing thrown at her. This is why we soak in His word before the battle. You’re building the shield you’ll need later.

We’ve covered the belt, the breastplate, and the shoes. Today Paul hands us the piece that moves, the one you pick up and hold out in front of you. The shield of faith.

The Roman shield wasn’t a little round buckler. It was a full door of a thing, big enough to hide your whole body behind. Soldiers would soak them in water before battle, because the enemy shot arrows wrapped in pitch and set on fire. A dry shield might crack. A soaked one swallowed the flame and put it out.

Paul says your faith is that shield, and he’s specific about what it stops.

Bottom Line Up Front

“The enemy doesn’t fight fair. He shoots flaming lies to catch you when you’re down. Faith is the shield you raise, and it puts the fire out before it ever lands on you.”

Scripture

“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.”

Ephesians 6:16 (ESV)

The Lesson

Notice Paul doesn’t call them arrows. He calls them flaming darts. There’s a burn to them. These aren’t just stray bad thoughts. They’re the fiery ones, the ones aimed to catch and spread, thrown right when you’re already worn thin and easy to set alight.

You know the ones. God’s forgotten you. You’re all alone in this. They come in fast and they come in hot, and if you’ve got nothing raised up in front of you, they land and they burn.

The thing that puts the fire out is faith. And I want to be careful about what faith means here, because a lot of us get it wrong. Faith isn’t a feeling. It’s not talking yourself into being optimistic. Faith is holding up what God has said as truer than what the enemy just threw at you.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)

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