The Shield of Faith 33:31

Welcome to Gospel and Life. When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit gives us all kinds of resources to face trouble and evil in our lives and in the world. So why does it sometimes feel so hard to stand up against it? Join us today as Tim Keller explores the metaphor of the armor of God and why understanding this idea and applying it to our lives is crucial to the Christian life.

Our subject tonight may not immediately look like it's got to do with missions, but it does, especially if you're involved in missions. We're going to talk tonight about the shield of faith and the fiery darts of the wicked one. You'll know all about that. If you're trying to do anything more important than get ahead in life, you'll know that this is extremely, extremely important because...

You know, let's face it, the enemy attacks at the front line. That's the place where the enemy is. If people who are on the front line are much more likely to go down with a bullet than people who are cowering about five miles behind the lines, like a lot of us do. The front line is the place of mission. The front line is the place where you open your mouth.

and say, "This is what Christ means to me." Your front line is the place where you go out on a limb to do something because you know it'll make a difference in this neighborhood, it'll make a difference in this city. That's the front line. When you go to the front line, there's all sorts of flying missiles, there's all sorts of flying objects.

with your name on it. And that's the reason why we're talking tonight about this part of the armor. We're looking at Ephesians 6, and I'd like you to turn with me. And we're talking about the armor of God. And tonight we come to the next item in the armor, which is called the shield of faith. So let me just read to you what we've been reading all along. We're spending as much time as we need to get through it all. I'll read chapter 6, verses 14 to 18.

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.

and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. So, this is God's Word. And let's remember what the armor means. The Bible says some remarkable things.

about what we have when we become Christians. Do you know it says in Ephesians 1, verse 3, it says, Jesus has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing from heaven. Has, past tense, all, every.

Or in Ephesians 2, verse 6, it doesn't say he will enthrone us in heaven. It says in chapter 2, verse 6, it says, he has already seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Now, you see, the seat at the right hand of the throne, it's not something that means much to us today, but it's the place of the greatest power in the kingdom.

It's the prime minister's place, see? It's the place of the greatest intimacy. You've got the ear of the king. You're at the right hand, the place of favor. And it says, all power, all intimacy, all honor is already ours. You've got 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3, that says, therefore, we have everything necessary for life and godliness. You've got everything necessary for

to live the life you ought to live. The scripture makes all these amazing statements. On the other hand, it also tells us in places like Romans 6, because you have this power over sin, act as if you have this power over sin. Since you have died with Christ, act as if you've died with Christ and so forth, which shows that when you become a Christian, you are furnished with everything necessary to fight every battle of life, but you've got to put it to use.

And so when Paul says, "Put on the armor," he's saying, "Take the various benefits and privileges and resources and powers that you have in the gospel and use them." And that's all we've been talking about for the last few weeks. A quick example, just to remember, we talked about putting on the breastplate of righteousness. Now, what does that mean?

You see, the Bible tells us that Christianity... Oh, this is one of my great, my favorite thoughts. Christianity is not like other religions. Other religions say true religion is living a righteous life and giving it to God. And Christianity says, no, the heart of our religion is that Jesus has come and lived a righteous life and given it to us. Those are completely contradictory beliefs.

Two completely different directions, a head-on collision. Other religions say true religion is us living a righteous life and giving it to God at the end and then being accepted. Christianity says, no, it's God coming down and living a righteous life and giving it to us and therefore we're accepted. Now, if you're a Christian, you know that. You understand that. But are you using that? Everybody else in life can only do one thing with guilt. Guilt is a big deal. Guilt's a problem.

There's a man that is the head of one of the largest mental institutions in Britain that once put down on paper, "If I could guarantee all of my patients forgiveness, two-thirds of them could walk out tomorrow." That's what he said. What do you do with guilt then? Unless you're a Christian, you've only got two things you can do. You can deny it or absorb it. Deny it means you excuse yourself or you blame somebody else. It's the only way you keep it away.

You can say, "Somebody else made me do it," or "I couldn't help it," or "It's not true," or "I have to change my standards." A lot of people come to New York and get rid of religion so they can just get the standards off of themselves. They failed the standards that they were raised with, so we gotta go change the standards. That's denying guilt. The only other thing you do is absorb it. You know, you just take it in. It's got you. It's true. I'm a scum.

All right, so what do you do? You deny it or you absorb it? Well, what do Christians do? They dissolve it. They dissolve it. Why? Because they put on the breastplate of righteousness. Now, you all know, those of you in this room that are Christians, who know that true religion is not giving a righteous life to God, but God giving his righteous life to us. God saying, my son has done it all, and his righteousness now comes into your account when you receive it by faith.

You know that? And yet you too, because I know, because I'm part of it, we spend most of our life either denying guilt or absorbing it instead of dissolving it. What do you do?

with your guilt? What do you do with your defensiveness? What do you do with that? You put on the breastplate of righteousness and you're completely different than other people. You don't have to live in denial, nor do you have to live under the continual, relentless damn spot of Lady Macbeth. Out damn spot, it won't go out. No, no, no. Christians are different. If you use it,

And then we said the same thing about the gospel of peace, and we don't get to go into that. I just spent four weeks on it. What does that mean, the gospel of peace? We said that one of the reasons that all people are unhappy is we all believe basically God is unfair, that if we really obey him, he'll slaughter us, that if we really trust him, he'll let us down. We're all ticked at God, we said. That's what the Bible says. We're all naturally his enemies.

And in the gospel, the gospel shows us it unmasks that lie that's distorting our lives. And that lie is that God's out to get you. That if you really give yourself to God, he'll destroy your happiness. And the gospel unmasks that and shows that if you surrender, you surrender to a friend who has died for you. And when you see that, and when you begin to live in that kind of trust, the peace it brings. So you have to put that on. You know it, but are you putting it on?

Here's a Christian who knows about the righteousness of Christ, but you live in either denial or absorption with guilt. Or here's a Christian that, you know, believes that God is a God who loves you and is a father to you, and yet you live like an orphan. We talked all about that. Thirdly, tonight, we begin to look at one more thing, and that is the shield of faith. Put on the shield of faith that you can deal with all the flaming arrows, the fiery darts of the evil one.

What's that? Well, that's what we have to ask tonight. And the best way to figure that out is to, again, go back to the armor, the illustration of the Roman soldier's armor, and ask ourselves something about what was the role of the shield for the Roman soldier. Well...

A lot of you probably immediately are thinking of, you know, B-grade movies in which you've got, you know, Steve Reeves and Kirk Douglas up there, you know, in their Roman gladiator outfit. And they've got these little round shields, right? And they're up here like this, you know, and they're fighting and then they put up their little shield. And that's what you're thinking of, right? No. No. Wrong. The Roman shield was a door, practically. It was at least two and a half feet wide. It was usually five feet wide.

Tall and it was essentially a door. It was essentially the size of the soldier or practically not quite the whole size would be a little bit too unwieldy, but it was huge. Why? This piece of armor is different than all the other pieces because this is a piece of armor that was only used at a particular point in a military campaign. Every other piece of armor, you know, you have to put on and you keep with you. The helmet and the breastplate and the buckler.

and the shoes, of course, and even the sword is something that you never are without. But the shield was not a shield. It was not used all the time. If you were trying to besiege and take a city, you didn't use the shield in hand-to-hand combat on the way to the capital city.

Nor did you use it once you'd broken into the city and you were now mopping up. You used it as you were besieging the city, as you were actually at the critical moment in which the whole campaign hung in the balance, because as you were actually assaulting the walls, that's the most dangerous place in the whole campaign, because you are unbelievably vulnerable at that point. You might have ten times the soldiers of the enemy

But when you get to the walls of their city, you are absolutely vulnerable because they're up there and you're down there. And what do they do? At that point, we know that they would, this was the most desperate moment in the battle, and therefore they would do everything they possibly could to create alarm and panic and try to create a retreat amongst the Roman soldiers. So what they would do is they would hurl flaming objects down.

And especially the things that Paul uses and talks about are flaming arrows, fiery darts. That is, flaming material on an arrow that was shot. And you see, part of the reason was because they're trying to create a retreat. They're trying to create an alarm. It's one thing to see your comrade next to you go down with an arrow. That's terrible. It's another thing to see him go down in flames.

It's another thing to see his face and his hair and his body on fire. There's nothing more disconcerting and more alarming and more frightening than that. And so the idea was right there, as you were trying to get up into the walls, that was when all these flaming objects would come down. And the whole purpose of the shield was, in a sense, to field them. You might have to move the shield this way and that way. And you were trying to get the fire to burst on your shield directly.

Not on your inner armor, where it could actually burn you and burn you up and consume you. And therefore, it was not something that you always had. The armor was something that was used at a particular time, when the battle was the worst, when the enemy was doing everything possible to completely put you in retreat. Now, what then was Paul meaning? Paul, I believe, is saying here, the shield of faith...

is not actually something that you use constantly, but you use in crises. And then somebody says, "Well, what are the flaming arrows?" There's a lot of people historically, and maybe you've heard this, maybe you haven't, who have seen the flaming arrows, the fiery darts of Satan to be doubts. One of the people who believed this was Martin Luther, because when Martin Luther stood against the entire rest of the church,

And the entire rest of the church was saying that you got to heaven through your own merits and through the merits that you earned through almsgiving and through taking the sacraments and good deeds. And you could also get to heaven through the merits that the Pope could give you if you made contributions. They were called indulgences. And Martin Luther was furious. He was reading Romans and Galatians, and he got up and he said, that really imperils your salvation.

because no one can possibly merit salvation. We are only saved strictly and wholly and completely through reliance on the merits of Christ. And his critics jeered at him and said, how do you know that? How can you stand against the entire church, which essentially he was at the time? And he says, the scripture says so. He says, well, what about all the rest of our professors of Bible? Why don't they say so? And the taunt came at him like this. Are you alone wise and all the ages foolish?

Now, you know, when you're standing against the entire world like that, it's natural that in many times Martin Luther was absolutely assailed with raging doubts.

and flaming accusations in his heart. And he sensed that he was wrestling with the devil. And you know, you can go to the... When he was actually being, not held captive, but when he was actually being protected in the Wartburg Castle, there's a room in which he spent many, many hours and a long time translating the New Testament into German. And I'll show you the stain on the wall where Luther threw the ink pot at the devil.

in one of his battles. And he would always talk about the fact that the devil would come and assail him with doubts. Now listen, I believe that's true. I believe that's possible. I believe that's right. I don't think that's probably, probably what Paul has in mind. Why? Because usually when the word fiery is used in the New Testament,

It has to do with suffering and it has to do with trial. So I'm not saying doubts are out of the picture, but you see in first Peter, for example, Peter says in first Peter chapter four, he says, beloved, do not be surprised when fiery trials come upon you or in revelation, the same word, the same word that's used here on fire. He says, it says the church is like gold purified in the fire.

And it's talking about the sufferings of the saints. And in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah, it says, when you walk through the fire, the flame will not kindle upon you. In the book of Job, we know that there was a place where Satan comes to God and says, have you seen your servant Job? He doesn't really serve you. I'm going to bring into his life all kinds of trials. And he brought sickness into his life. And he brought disaster into his life and tragedy into his life. And that, I'm almost certain,

is what Paul has in mind when he talks about the shield of faith. The shield of faith is not something, therefore, you really use all the time. It's something you pick up. It's something you use for a particular part in the battle. It's for those darkest times. It's for those times in which certain kinds of surprising tragedies and sufferings and amazing disappointments

and disillusioning occurrences seem to be hurled down upon you from nowhere. They surprise you, they shock you, that's their whole purpose. They're there to alarm you. They're there not just to hurt you, but to scare you stiff. They're there to get you to turn around and run. That's when you have to put up the shield of faith.

Success, true love, and the life you've always wanted. Many of us have made these good things into ultimate things. We've put our faith in them when deep down we know that they cannot satisfy our longings. The truth is that we've made lesser gods of good things, gods that can't give us what we really need.

In his book, "Counterfeit Gods," Dr. Keller shows us how a proper understanding of the Bible reveals the truth about societal ideals and our own hearts, and that there is only one God who can wholly satisfy our desires.

Dr. Keller's book is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the power of the gospel. So request your copy of Counterfeit Gods at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, why does the Bible call suffering fire?

Now here, of course, we have to mix our metaphors a little bit because there's more than one way the Bible talks about fire when it comes to trials. Here it's talking about darts, but the Bible also talks in many cases about suffering being a refiner's fire. Here's why the Bible talks about suffering, these great disappointments that many of you have experienced, great tragedies and losses, surprises, things that are unlooked for, things that you could not imagine. Why the Bible calls suffering fire is this.

Think about meat that goes through fire. Or think about gold ore or metal ore that goes through fire. Before the ore or before the raw meat goes through the fire, it's got lots of potential, doesn't it? But until it gets into the fire, it's unusable.

This is the raw meat. Now, you know, we're not talking about all kinds of raw meat, but for now, just think about the kinds. There's lots of raw meat that it looks great, it looks good, but it's got to be cooked or it's not healthy to eat. It's got to be cooked or it doesn't taste good to eat. It's got to be cooked or it's unusable. It's got lots of potential, but until it gets in the fire, it's not useful. Same thing with the ore.

There's lots of gold in there. There's lots of gold in the ore. There's lots of iron or whatever, but until you actually put it into the fire, it's unusable. But once you get into the fire, for the meat and for the ore, it's the moment of crisis. No longer will either of those objects live in a state of potentiality. They'll go one way or the other.

Either the meat will be cooked to perfection, so it's safe to eat and great to eat, or it will be consumed and become inedible, or maybe be absolutely powderized. On the other hand, the ore, if it goes in there and the heat is the proper amount and so on, and it's applied in a certain kind of way, either all the dross, the mixture, the part of the ore which is unuseful,

will be burned away, and what's left will be the pure metal, or else the whole thing will be consumed. You see, when you go into the fire, you've got the potential for being useful, but it's the moment of crisis. You'll go one way or the other. You'll become either far more wonderful and far more useful and far more beautiful and far more salient than you were before, or else you'll be gone. You'll be powderized. You'll be hard. You'll be pulverized. You'll be consumed.

Same thing is true for trials. Same thing is true for suffering. When a Christian goes into suffering, you're in the fire. And you've got to be careful. In some ways, you see all these different analogies. They don't completely line up, but they're getting at the same thing. The heat of suffering. Too much, you're consumed. Too little, and you're not useful. So let's think about two examples. Here's Job. God talks to Job.

pardon me, Satan talks to God about Job and Satan says to God, Job is not your servant. Not really. Job is a hypocrite. That's what Satan is saying to God about Job. Job is a hypocrite. Does Job serve God for nothing? Says Satan. I'll show you that he's really just in it for the blessings. Do you hear this? Satan looks at us and says, I will show that they're hypocrites.

They are only in it for the blessings. You see, a servant enjoys things but serves God. Uses things but serves God. A hypocrite serves things and uses God. And how do you tell the difference? Because they both look religious. The way you tell the difference is you take the things away and then we'll see. See, if you're serving things and using God to get the things, take away the things and you'll curse God. That's what Satan says about Job.

He'll curse you. And God let Satan do it, but only so far. Why would God do that? Because Job and God, Satan and God had two very different purposes for the fire. Satan wanted to bring the fire down to consume Job, and God let Satan bring the fire down to refine Job. And what happened to Job? He almost does it. He almost curses God. You know why? Because

The reason he almost curses God is because Job is, like all of us, a mixture. Is he a hypocrite or does he serve God? And the answer is yes. Yes. Now, it's not quite fair because a hypocrite is someone who's a two-button. You see what I'm trying to get at? It's not quite critical. I'm a hypocrite. But every human, every Christian that gets into the fire realizes there's two of you. There's a part of you that says, I want to serve God. There's a part of you that just wants to use God to get your own ends.

That's what Paul says in Romans 7 when he says, in my inmost self, I delight in the law of God, and yet I see also in my members, not in my heart of hearts, but I still see in me all sorts of sin and selfishness and pride. You know what he's saying? He's saying, you know, downtown I love God, but out in the suburbs of myself, there's an awful lot of other stuff.

And what happened was the fire, what does the fire do? The fire showed Job that there was both in him, both a desire to serve God and a selfishness and a pride. One of those, one of that's the gold and part of that's the dross, see? And what the, see, before the fire, the gold and the dross are able to sort of stick together, but in the fire, you've got to make a choice. Now, which way do I go? And if you, you see, what happened to Job was the dross was he thought he understood history, right?

He thought he knew the way God should work things out. And in the fire, he could have decided he still knew better than God how things should work out and it would have hardened him all the way down. He would have been destroyed. But instead, he repented. He recognized the lie. He recognized the pride in himself. And when he repented, what happened was the dross fell off and he was refined. And he became useful. The fire. Or look at Peter.

Here's the other one, then we're going to have to close for now. Peter, in some ways, is even more relevant to you because of the trial and the suffering that happened to Peter. You see, the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, Peter collapsed. Peter blew it. Why? Peter had a different kind of trial. In Job's case, great things that he had were taken away. In Peter's case, dreams of great things that he was dreaming were taken away.

I think in many cases here in this room, Peter's a little bit more directly relevant. Here's what happened to Peter. Jesus was continually saying to Peter, "Peter, I want you to serve me and we're going to go places together. And I want you to be a partner in my mission in this world, in the extension of my kingdom." And what did Peter think? Peter was excited, you know? When he heard Jesus talk about that, what was he thinking? Stretch limos, you know? A place in the cabinet.

Wipe the floor with the Roman faces. But what Jesus was actually saying is, "Peter, Peter, my kingdom triumph is I'm going to suffer, be tortured, gored, and I'm going to die." And you see, I could go the strong way. I could go the stretch limos way, and we could get rid of the Romans, and we could give the Jewish back their state. And some of us would be happy for a few years if I go the way of strength. But if I go the way of weakness, it's hard for you to understand, but hundreds of thousands and millions of people will have their lives totally transformed if I die.

If I pay their debt, I'm not just after. I'm not just after getting rid of a little bit of oppression, physical and political oppression right here. I'm after the end of death. I'm after the end of evil. And if you follow me, Peter, you will also have to eschew wealth and reputation. And the more you impact the history of the world, the less popularity you will have with the establishment, the less status you will have.

The more you actually impact and change the world, the more rejected and persecuted you will be until eventually you will die the death of a criminal. Peter didn't get that until the night that Jesus was betrayed and he was about to die. All of Peter's dreams died too. Why? Because, see, Peter experienced the grief and the loss of his dreams. And he says, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. This isn't the way you're supposed to make me happy. This isn't the way you're supposed to be helping me.

When he denied Jesus three times, and Jesus, we're told in the book of Luke, looked across the courtyard. And what he was saying is, Satan wanted to sift you like wheat. And he's done it. He wants to burn you with this fiery trial. But I'm going to bring you through it.

He says to Simon before the betrayal, before the denial, he says, Simon, Peter, Peter, Satan wanted to have you and sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. And therefore, when you turn, strengthen the brethren. Do you know what it means, Peter? You're going to come through the fire. And when you're done, you're going to be ready to be a leader. You'll be able to strengthen your brothers. You know what is a great leader? A great leader is someone who's broken, who's seen, just like Job and Peter, what his pride was.

And therefore, he wasn't destroyed, he was refined. Because in the midst of the fire, with Jesus' help, Peter saw the difference between the gold and the dross. He had to choose. Who do I serve now? And he served Christ. And when that happens, what happens? You go through. Now, we haven't talked that much about what it means to exercise the shield of faith. I'll talk to you about that next week. But here's basically what it is. The shield of faith means to look at God instead of yourself.

To look at God, when Peter, listen, this is what Peter did, I think. When you look at your dreamed of glory and you realize it's just tinsel compared to the glory that he's really got ready for you if you obey him. When you see, let me repeat that, when you see the dreams, your dreamed of glory is just tinsel compared to the glory that he's really got ready for you if you obey him. You've put that shield of faith up.

Because you're looking not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the unseen things are eternal. And faith is the substance, the assurance of things not seen. Faith is looking at what Jesus has said. Faith is looking at who God is. That's why at the end of the book of Job, the reason that Job made it was because God showed up and said...

Don't you see, Job, the problem is you think you're wise? Where were you when I stretched out the heavens like the garment? Where were you when I called all the stars into being and named them? And when Job, by faith, saw the greatness of God, he was refined. When Peter saw, by faith, the greatness of God, he was refined. When you see that your dreams are tinsel compared to the glory that he will bring if you obey him, you've raised the shield of faith.

You should never go into battle without your shields up, right, Scotty? Right, Captain. Never go into, never, ever go into battle without your shields up. And when you go in, listen, some of you right now have got the flaming arrows coming down on you. And what are you doing? What are you doing with them? Don't deny Christ. Don't decide that you're smarter than he is, like Job is. Instead, raise the shields. Put the shields up.

and say, "My dreams are tinsel compared to the glory that will be revealed." Let's pray. Father, we ask that in the next couple of weeks you'll continue to show us what it means to deal with suffering in such a way that it doesn't destroy us or consume us, but instead refines us, purifies us, makes our faith like gold.

Teach us what it means to deal with the fiery trials. We ask, Lord, that you would do this because we know that this will glorify you. It's one thing to say, get me a job, Lord. It's another thing to say, get me a husband or a wife, Lord. It's another thing to say, Lord, make me obedient in the fire. Help me to walk by faith in the fire so that instead of it kindling on me,

It will refine me and make me into someone like your son, in whose name we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast. This month's sermons were recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.