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by Charlie Wolcott

“In addition to all this, take up the Shield of Faith with which you can extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one” Ephesians 6:16.

This piece of the Armor of God is one of my favorites: The Shield of Faith. There is very little that describes what faith is and what it does better than a shield. Every soldier in an army depends on his shield to survive in battle. Today, our soldiers don’t carry shield, but they rely on a variety of types of cover that shields them from a rain of bullets from enemy forces. But in Paul’s time, a Roman soldier’s shield did so much more.

One Roman defense tactic is called “turtling.” What they did is that they would gather their soldiers tight together so that their shields would overlap each other. One row of soldiers would stand side by side with their shields covering the front of the regiment. Then another row of soldiers would stand behind with their shields angled upward, also overlapping the tops of the shields of the soldiers in front of them. This formation made the soldiers impervious to countless arrows. And when they moved forward as a unit, the enemy had a hard time breaking them up until they were in point blank range. One way enemy armies would get around that tactic is by lighting their arrows on fire. Most shields were made with a wood base and coated with bronze. This made the shields lighter and firm so they would not get bent out of shape throughout a battle. But this also made them weak to fire. A fiery arrow would pierce the bronze coating, light the inner wood on fire, and by the time the soldiers engaged sword-to-sword, their shields would be useless. So to counter this, the Romans would wrap their shields in leather and soak the leather in water. Leather retains water for a very long time and during a battle, the water-soaked leather would extinguish the flaming arrows of the enemy.

So that is the historical background to the shield. A shield is often more important to a soldier than a sword. A sword in a hand does no good if the soldier is dead because of no shield. A soldier depends on the shield for his protection. He hides behind a shield because even though he does not know that the shield will hold, he trusts that it will. If he did not trust in that shield to cover him, he would not use the shield to hide behind.

And this is the concept of faith. With every attack a soldier endures, he cannot know in the future that the shield will protect him. But he has the confidence in the shield, in part due to past experience, that it will hold against the attacks he receives. As Christians, we have faith that is not blind or without evidence. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as assurance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen. I will say it again. Faith is not blind. I challenge you to look up how every other religion describes faith and you will find it described very similar to how the Bible describes it. Everyone exercises faith more than they realize. Just by reading this post, you exercised faith. You demonstrated a trust that the computer or phone you are reading this post on would pick the link up and upload this webpage in which you are reading this post. When you go to work or school every day, most people exercise faith that their car will start. You don’t actually know it will, but you have the assurance or confidence that it will. When you sit down on a chair, do you check it out to make sure all the screws are in or that it will hold you? Most don’t. They are exercising faith that the chair will hold them up. If the chair broke, then you have faith that is misplaced. But very few people understand faith in an object as a soldier has with his shield.

Those are very basic examples. But you also have faith in a person. You trust that what they say they will do, they will do. Even though you do not know they will, and that they could change their minds, you trust them to do what they say. Or you trust them to break their word in some cases. And here is a sad reality: many people, including Christians, will demonstrate more faith in Satan than in God. That’s quite a statement, but I find it to be true. Here is what I mean. We have more confidence, more assurance, that Satan will be successful in harming us, in harassing us, in defeating us, than we do in God to protect us, to deliver us, to rescue us, and to guide us to victory. We would rather look at the enemy, toss our shield to the side, and say “Just hit me and get this over with.” Why? One of the reasons is that we think our enemy is bigger than God. I know that sounds silly but how often do we seriously behave like that? I know I have. I’ve had times where I’ve felt that my problem is too big for God to deal with.

But we don’t have to stay that way. As Christians, we serve a God who specializes in the impossible. My life is living testimony of that. I should not have lived to see my first birthday, yet God showed up. I had no reading comprehension until I was 12 and yet now I am a regular blogger for Worldview Warriors and I am an author. (I will share the details of my first book being published when I conclude this series.) I was not expected to graduate from college, let alone attend. The list goes on. My life is living testimony that we serve a God who specializes in doing the impossible. The miracles of Jesus’ ministry? I’ve seen a number of them in action. And I’ve learned that no matter what the odds are, no matter how impossible the situation seems, no matter how big and powerful and numerous the enemy seems to be, when we face impossible odds, that is when we need to be bold and rise up with the war cry Chazak and Amats to prove to the world that our God is faithful. Because in our weaknesses, that is when God demonstrates his strength. Take up the Shield of Faith. Trust in the Lord. He knows what he is doing. And he will never fail.

Next week, I’ll be writing on the Helmet of Salvation.