THE SHIELD OF FAITH
Thursday – May 4, 2017
Greetings from Patti and me at The Three Minute Word publication.
Notice: Our snail mail address has changed to: 3 Rosswood Green Lane, Unit Two, Oakland, Maine 04963.
We are so pleased that you have chosen to join our Bible Study from the Book of Ephesians. We are studying the whole armour of God and which is key for us to stand in the evil day (temptation, circumstances) against the wiles of the devil. Now to our primary text.
Ephesians 6:13-18 (KJV)
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Today I will be focusing on verse sixteen, sixteen is the number of love, which is the shield of faith. Notice right off that faith, the shield of faith, is the mechanism by which we quench (extinguish) the fiery darts (thoughts contrary to the Word of God) of the wicked (unsaved persons and evil spirits). These fiery darts are meant to penetrate our defenses and render harm to us. Remember Jesus was very clear that the thief (devil) comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants you and me dead, out of the game. If he cannot get permission to kill us we wants us to be zero or a minus witness for the Kingdom of God. The most common way the devils gets to us is in the Church through wrong doctrine, the doctrines of demons.
A very prevalent and pervasive lie in the Church is that God is in everything and is in control of everything. This leads people to be passive about financial situations, sickness, ministry, or family situations. God is not orchestrating anything bad in your life or mine for some purpose that is known only to Him. That is so perverse to think this way, I can just imagine tears welling up in the eyes of our God. How would we think if we knew our children thought that everything bad in their lives was caused by us (the parents) to work out something for our purposes in their lives? That is called child abuse, it is perverse and of the devil.
The only role that God plays in anything bad in our lives is to provide the authority and the power to remove it. We chose. We chose to let the bad in and we chose when we are ready to throw it out. Wrong doctrine no matter how well-meaning leads to destruction in our lives and all the while we think we are walking with God and we are hand in hand with the devil. We fail to study, we fail to be diligent to prove the Word of God and destruction lies before us. God is not purifying us, the devil is trying to take us out if not out out, at least making us useless to God. There are many sacred cows in the Church, identify them and cast them down, they are high places supplanting the Word of God.
Let’s talk about faith for a moment. A shield is a protective device that is interposed between us and the enemy, it is protective, prevents harm of any kind. However, the shield must be in place and actively interposed between us and the incoming fiery darts which are ideas of the enemy designed to enflame us, to cause damage. At best they are distracting, at worst they lead to our total destruction. Our spiritual shield is faith. There are different types of faith and levels of faith. All people have natural faith for example in their car, an airplane, even their favorite chair. They may have more faith in their favorite chair for example than an airplane indicating different levels of faith even in the natural. There are some people we have total faith in and others that we are not as sure about. Natural people, those not born again, may even have faith concerning spiritual issues. There are all kinds of ideas about demons, ghosts, and witchcraft and levels of beliefs concerning those and other things.
For the born again believer, the faith we are talking about is faith or belief in God. Each person will have a different level of faith and perhaps one will have more faith in one aspect of God than another. One may be able to believe and receive from God in the financial area but not for their bodies or family. This is in spite of wonderful promises of all that we might need or want in the life. You may recall that a little while back I made the point that faith does not just come to us, faith is built.
Romans 10:17 (KJV)
17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Remember that I pointed out that the word ‘cometh’ is in italics meaning it was inserted by the translators, not being in the oldest texts used as the source. The more we know about something, the more we hear about something, the more faith we have that what we have heard is true or not true. When we know the Truth we are able to identify the lie and no amount of information or repetition should cause us to deviate from our knowledge of the Truth (Word of God). We build our faith by choosing to receive the Word (think and speak) and do the Word. You see there are those of us who speak the Word of God but do not think the Word of God therefore what they are saying does not manifest in their lives. Two more Scriptures and we will move on.
Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith in the Bible sense is to believe God. The word ‘substance’ above means foundation. So what we believe about God, about the Scripture, about ourselves and our role in the situation is the foundation that brings about the thing hoped for. What if our beliefs about God, our understanding of Scripture, or our understanding of our role in the situation are wrong? Short story we do not receive the hoped for thing. The evidence before the manifestation of the hoped for thing is our confession, our decree. Bible hope when activated has a certainty of manifestation. We can talk a good game but the talk is not really who we are for as a person thinks so are they.
Hebrews 11:6 (KJV)
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
We must not only believe that God is or that God can but that He will because we diligently seek Him making the reward is certain. I hope this is helpful to propel us all into the abundance that Jesus died for. Tomorrow we will talk about the helmet of salvation.
Please receive the Blessing by faith. Grab it, it is yours, confess it in the first person in the name of Jesus.
Numbers 6:24-26 (KJV)
24 The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
25 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
Say: The Lord enables me, strengthens me and guards around about me, His face is shining upon me because I submit to Him, and O He is so gracious to me. He is looking upon me as a glowing Father and I am one with Him in Jesus name.
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
