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    Jun 05, 2011

    Repelling Enemy Firepower

    Passage: Ephesians 6:16

    Preacher: John Repsold

    Series: Dressed to Conquer

    Category: Dressed to Conquer

    Keywords: deception, the devil, attacks, truth, faith, shield

    Summary:

    Deception is Satan's chief language and weapon against God's children. Faith in God and what He says is true is the only thing that can overcome Satan's work against us. This message seeks to help people identify some of the arenas of life where the deceptive arrows of the Enemy are working to undo us

    Detail:

    Repelling Enemy Firepower

    Ephesians 6:16—The Shield of Faith

    June 5, 2011

    INTRO:  How important is armor when it comes to war?  Well, ask any of these troops in the pictures whether wearing armor is worth the effort and I know what their response will be.  Our troops in the field today would never think of venturing out on patrol without putting on all the protective body armor available.  Our casualty count in Iraq and Afghanistan are as low as they are due in large part to the improvements in body armor our troops wear.  

    ILL:  This chap is Lance Corporal Matt Croucher.  He’s up for the Victoria Cross which is the Royal Marine’s highest award for gallantry.  He’s holding a backpack that saved his life.  (Must be why we send our kids to school every day with backpacks!)

    During a night mission, a tripwire booby-trap was stepped on which released a live hand-grenade. Matt shouted “grenade” and as his friends dove for cover, he lay down on top of the grenade with his back to the grenade. One of the men in his squad threw himself to the ground while another man got behind a wall.  But one marine buddy had frozen and was still standing when the grenade detonated.

                With fuses that can last several seconds the men waited for what “felt like a lifetime” before the grenade blew up.  Croucher, defying all odds, survived the incident, saying “I felt one of the lads giving me a top to toe check. My head was ringing. Blood was streaming from my nose. It took 30 seconds before I realized I was definitely not dead.”  He had simply lain back and used his day sack to blunt the force of the explosion.


    Well, the piece of armor we’re looking at today is not a backpack but a front shield, “the shield of faith” found in Ephesians 6:16.  Since modern warfare doesn’t often use hand-held shields, this is one where understanding the nature of the item Paul is talking about helps to understand the meaning of the metaphor. 

          When Paul says, “…take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one,” he didn’t have in mind the small round shield that soldiers often wore on their forearm in battle to blunt the blows of an enemy’s sword in hand-to-hand combat.  There was a different Greek word for that kind. 

          This shield is the Roman scutum or, in Greek, thureos. This shield was about 2.5 feet wide and 4.5 feet high. It was made of two layers of laminated wood, covered first with linen and then with hide, and then bound top and bottom with iron, with an iron ornament decorating the front of it. It was designed to protect the entire body of the soldier. 

          Soldiers actually stood on the front line, side-by-side, with their shields touching to form a virtual wall between them and the enemy’s arrows.  Sometimes this would form huge phalanxes extending as long as a mile or more.  

          In essence, this piece of armor was meant to be the first line of defense that covered every other piece of armor.  This shield was to cover a soldier from head to toe, if necessary. 

    Paul even goes so far as to mention the kinds of opposing weaponry it was designed to combat.  “Fiery darts” (NKJV), “flaming arrows” (NIV/ASV).  These were arrows that were dipped in pitch that would then be lit just before firing.  Upon impact either on an enemy’s shield or person, the burning pitch would splatter, igniting clothing and burning skin…sort of your ancient napalm. 

    So there are two parts to our study today:  one concerns the “shield of faith” while the other concerns “the fiery arrows/darts of the evil one.” 

    When it comes to the FAITH talked about here as a shield, it is not the use of the word “faith” that refers to the body of Christian beliefs by which we are Christians.  The Bible does often use the term “faith” in that sense.  Paul even did so just a couple of chapters earlier in Ephesians 4:13 when he wrote about gifted people God gave to his church to build us all as the body of Christ “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  But not here. 

          Here in Ephesians 6:16, the “faith” referred to is that faith of total trust in God, His word and his ways.  It’s the faith that believes God is true and every man a liar, if need be.  It is the faith Habakkuk talked about in Hab. 2:4 and reaffirmed by Paul in Romans 1:17 & Gal. 3:11 when they declared, “the righteous will live by (his) faith.”

          It’s not about whether you are “saved” in the eternal sense of the word.  It is about whether you and I will experience salvation from the enemy of our souls on a daily basis by believing and putting our faith in the Living God rather than a host of other things from ideas to people to things. 

    But what kind of faith?  Faith in what? 

    We all live by faith every day in virtually every move we make.  We put our faith in things, in other people (some of whom we don’t even know), in ideas, in God, in ourselves.  From taking medicine to driving down the street, we are constantly exercising faith in people and things.  We are ordering our lives according to what we perceive to be reasonable expectations of behavior, of reward, of cause-and-effect.  

    ILL: 

    • Driving down the street, in who or what am I exercising faith?  [Other drivers, the makers of cars, the behavior of pedestrians, my own perceptions of reality, etc.]
    • In developing friendships, who and what am I exercising faith in?  [The other person’s ability to be a friend, to guard confidences, to be kind instead of mean, thoughtful instead of selfish, faith that they will be the same basic person and personality from day to day.]
    • Eating food?  [Faith in the farmer that he didn’t use chemicals that will harm me, in the pickers and packers, in the shippers and sellers, in the chef or food-handler.]

    So the faith Paul is talking about here is obviously a certain kind of faith…or at least faith about God and His declarations about life that may be very different from what other people are telling us or what our own mind or emotions are telling us. 

    In essence, every decision we make has the potential to be a “fiery” encounter with the flaming arrows of the enemy of our souls OR a step forward in the battle for Christ-likeness in our lives.

    ILL:  Just think about your last 24 hours. 

    Yesterday morning: 

    • What time did you get up?  Well, that depends on a number of factors.  If you had to work yesterday, I’m guessing it was a set time—6AM, 7AM, etc.  When you chose to wake up by the alarm at a certain time in order to go to work at a certain hour, you were exercising faith in God’s declarations about work. 

          What has God said about work?  That it is good, necessary for the Christian, it can provide for my daily needs and even allow me to give more to others.  That if I don’t work, I don’t have a right to eat.  That work is one of God’s means for taking care of me, etc. 

          Now, if you don’t believe God, then you might have slept in yesterday, lost your job, expected someone else to pay for the food you eat, stayed home and watched TV or gone out biking and enjoying the beautiful day when you should have been working.  Any number of things. 

          If yesterday was your “day off”, a day of rest, then sleeping in, getting more rest, not going to the office or the job site or doing another day of “work” was an act of faith.  By not working 1 day out of 7 you were choosing to believe God when he talks about the Sabbath being made for you, not work.  You were believing God when he said that time with Him and your family and friends was more important than making another sale or another $100 dollars, etc.

    What happens to a soldier who gets hit by a burning projectile or splattered with burning pitch or napalm or white phosphorus?  Do they keep pressing forward in battle? Are they able to ignore the fire burning their clothing and their skin? 

          No, it turns their focus from one of taking new territory to one of treating new wounds.  It renders a soldier completely ineffective in terms of the battle.  Whereas before they could fight the good fight by pouring their attention and energies into the battle, now the care of their own person overwhelms them.  The pain of injury is all-consuming.

    Part of being prepared for this battle is knowing where the arrows are coming from and just what those arrows are in YOUR own life and experience.  Satan will usually use a combination of attacks designed to render us ineffective in this battle that come from several arenas of our lives:

    1.)    Our thought life—what we think. 

    2.)    Our emotions—what we feel.

    3.)    Our actions—what we do

    Now we know that all 3 of these are inter-connected, right?    

    So here is what I would like us to do for the next few minutes.  Get acquainted with some people around you (preferably not family…assuming you already know them somewhat) and spend about 3 or 4 minutes listing out as many different “fiery arrows” you can think of that Satan can, does and will use in those 3 areas of human experience:  thoughts, emotions, actions.

    THOUGHTS:  (statements you hear yourself thinking or saying that are not true according to God)

    • You must have ________ to be happy.
    • You’re a failure as a person if you don’t….
    • You’ll never amount to anything.
    • Do more ___________ and you’ll feel good about yourself.
    • You’ll never be able to…
    • You always screw up things.
    • God doesn’t care about you or you wouldn’t have to struggle with…
    • You don’t need to obey God on this thing….

    EMOTIONS:

    • Feelings of shame
    • Feelings of unrighteous anger—anger that tries to control others, comes because I feel slighted, is self-focused rather than arises because of injustices done to others.
    • Depression
    • Hatred
    • Romance

    ACTIONS:  (behaviors/actions that we engage in that are not righteous, holy, good or godly)

    • Food—over-eating, under-eating, poor nutrition, excessive preoccupation with food, etc.
    • Sex:  outside of marriage, self-focused (all about me, self-pleasure, demanding in marriage), used for self-gratification (physical, emotional, relational) rather than to bond me in marriage, to bring children into the world, to find delight in my spouse, etc.
    • Illness/health--
    • Sleep—too little or too much
    • Exercise/slothfulness/laziness:  over-care or under-care of our body
    • Physique/looks:  it doesn’t matter how I look OR I’m only as valuable as I am beautiful/handsome.  Preoccupation with looks or total disregard for care of one’s body.

    Let’s take each of these 3 areas of life where Satan loves to launch his fiery arrows and zero in on each for just a moment.

    What about THOUGHTS?  Oh boy, this is an area that will take a lifetime.  Let’s just take a couple of the “fiery arrows” of the thought life that faith will extinguish. 

    • Romans 12:2 forms the foundation for this battlefield when it says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world [the world’s way of thinking], but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what is God’s will…” 
    • So how about “God’s will” when it comes to how I view myself?  The next verse, Romans 12:3, gives God’s heart on that:  “…I say to every one of you:  Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”  And he goes on to talk about how everyone in the body of Christ has an important role to play but a role that is different from those around us.
    • James has a bit to say about my “self-image” as well.  My fallen, sinful self thinks first and foremost about ME, MYSELF & I.  Even when I pray, says James, I have a tendency to pray selfishly.  Speaking about interpersonal conflict between people, even praying people, James 4:3 says, “When you ask [pray for something], you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 

          Vs. 6 goes on to say, “...Scripture says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” [Interesting how the devil is involved with my selfishness!]  Come near to God and he will come near to you.”  Vs. 10—“Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” 

          Bottom line:  much of the relational conflict we find ourselves in is because of our pride.  Our pride gets wounded…we think we’re always right…we think the other person doesn’t know as much as we do…we want to be ‘in charge’ or ‘in control.’ 

          God says, “No, you need to learn submission.  Submission is one of the few ways you can choose humility rather than pride.  It’s one of the ways you can humble yourself rather than have God or someone else humble you.  It’s also one of the ways we get grace from God to handle life He sends our way. 

    • Frankly, many of the Bible studies and group studies we have at Mosaic are designed to extinguish the fiery arrows of Satan’s lies against our lives in one way or another.
      • The Bait of Satan—works on the lies about offenses and being offended, about true forgiveness, about grievances, etc.
      • The Gardens of God summer study with Mike Mann.  Mike, give us one fiery lie of Satan this study seeks to counter.
      • Search for Significance—This is an interactive book/workbook I think all of us should regularly work through. 

    In speaking about what true repentance is, Robert McGee says in The Search for Significance that the first step in repentance is to discern and reject the false beliefs that have lead us to engage in sinful thought or actions.  The second part of repentance is “the replacement of false beliefs with the truth of God’s Word.  By affirming God’s truth about our worth, we will lodge it deep within our hearts and minds and begin to reshape our thinking, feelings, and behavior. Then, the process of having the truth modeled to us, affirmed in us, taught to us, and applied by us over time will enable us to increasingly experience freedom in different areas of our lives.” [The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee, p. 158, 1990.] 

    He goes on.  “Affirming God’s truth is a weapon of great spiritual value.”  Isn’t that what “taking up the shield of faith” is—affirming that who God is and what He says in the Bible about all of life IS true and what I will order my life around???

    McGee says, “Through this process, we state God’s truth as our own perspective.  Continual affirmation gradually produces beliefs which result in correct thinking, which then results in godly responses.  Affirming the truths of God’s Word enables us to overcome the deception of the enemy (Rev. 12:10).”  Then he illustrates that process with this diagram:  Diagram p. 159

    He admits that in practice, our experience won’t be quite so neat and precise.  “Our emotions, beliefs, and behavior are the product of years of experiences and relationships.  They can be very strong, very confusing and very difficult to understand.”

    He then goes on to talk about “Stewart” a good friend of his and how this very process looks in real life.  (See pp. 160-161.)

    What about EMOTIONS?

    ANGER:

    • Ephesians 4:26ff—“In your anger do not sin:  do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”  Once again, improper use or handling of emotions can be directly tied with giving the Enemy of our souls a foothold or advantage over us.
    • James 1:19ff—“My dear brothers, take note of this:  Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” 

    DEPRESSION/OVERWHELMING DISCOURAGEMENT:

    • Psalm 42:3ff—“My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”  Vs. 5—“Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan….”
    • James 5:13ff—“Is any one of you in trouble?  He should pray.  Is anyone happy?  Let him sing songs of praise.  Is an one of you sick [at heart OR physically]?  He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.  Vs. 16—“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

    ACTIONS: 

    • Paul tells us in I Thessalonians 4:3ff that, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified [set apart to God in body, soul and spirit; in the use of our lives]; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.”  So this one deals with sex, right?

          So sex outside of marriage is a fiery arrow of Satan.  But so is lack of sex inside marriage.  Listen to Paul in I Cor. 7:2ff.  “…since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.  The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.”  Vs. 5—“Do not deprive each other [of sex]except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.  Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”  Can I say this in the church:  good sex in a Christian marriage is God’s calling for his children!  The interesting thing is that, in studies done over the past couple of decades regarding types/groups of sexually active people, the people who find sex most fulfilling are not the college co-eds or the experimenting teens.  It isn’t the swing’en singles or the unfaithful married men or women.  It isn’t the lesbians or gays.  It is those faithful, monogamous, heterosexual, married, Christian/religious couples.  God’s answer to sexual drives is a great sex-life in marriage!  (You heard it here!)     

    • How about food?  Romans 14:15ff—“Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died.  Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil.  For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit….”  Vs. 19—“Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.  Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.” (This would cover not only drinking or eating that may cause another to violate their conscience but also overeating/undereating that would destroy or degrade my own body.)

    CLOSE:

    1.)  How many of us could do that process all alone without the help of other believers?  Few if any.  Remember the image of the Roman shield that was interlocking with and meant to be used side-by-side with other soldiers?  So the shield of faith.  If I’m not in meaningful, ongoing and spiritually challenging relationships with others, Satan’s fiery arrows are going to get me far more often.  I’m going to be sidelined, distracted and defeated.  I need you!  We need each other!  Sometimes it’s just for a word of reminder or instruction:  “Don’t swallow that lie!  Don’t give up that piece of ground!  Lift up your faith!  Believe God when he says this or that about you or life!” 

          If you’re not in this kind of side-by-side protective, spiritual and accountable relationship with other believers on a regular, frequent basis, you’re a sitting duck…and it’s only a matter of time until you get hit by a flaming arrow of Satan that will take you down for a period of time.  Don’t believe the lie that you can live the Christian life in isolation.  That’s a flaming arrow in itself. 

    2.)  In which of the 3 areas we talked about (body, mind, emotions) is Satan giving you the greatest challenge?  Now, what will you do about it?  What is your plan to identify the false beliefs, reject them and replace them with God’s truth??? 

    • If sex is your waterloo, what’s the false belief behind your behavior?  Have you identified it and chose to reject it as a lie?  What are you replacing that false belief with in terms of truth?  What truth about sex from God’s word do you need to make your belief? 
    • If self-defeating thoughts is your waterloo, what are the false beliefs you embrace when you get down?  Have you journaled your thought patterns?  Have you looked at them objectively with other believers?  Have you identified the lies?  Have you repented of holding onto those lies?  Have you found the truths that God wants to replace those lies about yourself with?  Have you embraced them consciously?  If not, why not?  Do you love wallowing in sin more than working out your salvation from those sins? 

    ILL:  Replacing the bad outlet in the kitchen this week.  It took me about 45 minutes and at least 15 different trips to the circuit breaker in the basement to do what should have taken 5 minutes and about 3 trips…if I had read the instructions first!  J  It was late one evening.  I was tired and getting more tired by the minute.  I began to get angry—with myself for not reading the instructions, with myself for not knowing something that, had I done once, I would have know.  I began to go down the road of, “You’re really an idiot.  You can’t even change out a simple wall outlet.” 

          But then the Spirit of God caught me and began to speak truth.  “How should you know if you’ve never done this before?  If your dad or no other man has shown you how to do this, why should you “know” how this is done?  No, just keep plugging away, follow the directions, don’t grab the wrong wires before switching off the breaker…and you will get this.  You are competent enough to read, follow directions and figure this out.  It may just take you longer this time.”  And sure enough, I calmed down, followed the directions…and didn’t get electrocuted.  J  I also got the outlet fixed!  

    Satan is always there to throw flaming arrows.  Faith in God, in who his Word says he is and in what his Word says about life IS the only real “shield of faith with which we will be able to extinguish the fiery arrows of the evil one.”  Let’s do it!