THE ARMOUR OF GOD THE SHIELD.

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1 Ephesians 6: Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world's rulers, of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore take to yourselves the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Therefore stand, having your loins girded about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, take the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching to this very thing with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. So far in our study we have considered 1. The Belt of Truth. 2. The Breastplate of Righteousness. 3. Having our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. Let me draw your attention to the fact that when considering these three items the text introduces them with the word, Having Having your loins girded Having put on the Breastplate Having your feet shod With the remaining items it doesn t use that word; it changes the word to taking. Is there significance in this change? I think perhaps there is. The first three items are all firmly fixed on the soldier s body with a fastening that was intended to be immovable. These items were put on and kept on. In some senses they were preparatory and foundational items. The Word of God, imputed righteousness and peace with God, which these items represented, are absolutely foundational in our cosmic struggle with the forces of darkness. The taking items are somewhat different. They weren t fixed to the body permanently. They were all readily put on and taken off. At rest the soldier would put down his shield, his sword and would remove his helmet, but the other three items remained in place. The taking items were taken up and put down as the need arose. This thought indicates that there are times of lull in the warfare. It fits with the reality of physical warfare. Don Barry 2010 Page 1

2 There are times of intensity and times of lull. In the trench warfare that marked WWI there were days, weeks and even months when there was little or no actual fighting. Obviously a soldier didn t expose himself to enemy fire you didn t go strolling in no man s land or even stick your head up above the trenches, but there was a relative quiet for quite long periods. Then one side would begin an offensive and all hell would break loose. Trenches were shelled for days on end; they were gassed, machine guns spluttered into life and soldiers charged their enemies positions. In spiritual warfare it seems to be like this as well. There are seasons of lull and seasons of intense struggle. Paul spoke in this passage about standing in an evil day. It seems, from my experience at least, that some days are more evil than others. We endure seasons when evil is very real and it seems to make an all out assault to capture something from us. This can be a struggle over an individual, a family, a church or an entire region. When the offensive begins we need to take up our shield of faith. When Paul says, Above all he didn t mean, most importantly, but rather in addition to, or on top of everything else. What is this shield and when should it be used? In the Greek language and in the Roman world there were basically two kinds of shields. 1. A small circular shaped shield, a bit like a small dustbin lid. It was called a pelte in Greek and a maghen in Latin. It was sometimes referred to as a buckler. 2. A long rectangular shield. It looked like a small door. In fact it was called a thooreos, which came from the word thoorah, the Greek word for door. Paul is talking about the second kind of shield in Ephesians 6. This door-like shield was about 1.5 meters long and nearly a meter wide. It was made, in Roman times, typically of a curved laminate of three layers of wooden strips, overlaid with either leather or a fire-proof metal lining. The edges were bound with rawhide stitched through the wood or occasionally by a bronze binding. They were designed to be used in community, if I can express it that way. The shields were used to create what the Romans called, A Testudo formation. Testudo was the Latin word for tortoise. 27 soldiers would combine to form a Testudo. Don Barry 2010 Page 2

3 There were 6 in the front row of the formation and then 7 soldiers in each of three following rows The soldiers on the outside of the formation would link their shield vertically. The ones on the inside of the formation would lift their shields to form a roof. The composite effect was a virtually impregnable formation that formed a sort of walking tank. The soldiers on the outside of the formation would have spears protruding which made it difficult to get close enough to try and break the formation. It obviously wasn t fast moving, but, a bit like a rolling maul in rugby, it was very difficult to defend against and very hard to stop. They would test these Testudo formations in training by allowing chariots to ride over the top of them. These shields, and the formations they created, weren t used indiscriminately. They weren t usually used in hand to hand combat situations. They could be used in an open field, but it wasn t normal to use the Testudo in this setting. Their use was more specific. They were used most often in a very specific situation; the storming of a fortification or a city wall. Most cities in the ancient world were fortified with high walls and thick gates. Usually cities would be besieged and then at some point when it was felt the defenders were weakened by hunger they were stormed. At this point when break through was being sought, the attacking soldiers were incredibly vulnerable. The defenders had the huge advantage of height. They could and did throw all kinds of things down on the soldiers who were storming the gates. They would rain arrows down upon them. They would pour boiling water or molten metal down. They would drop heavy objects down on them. There is a story in Judges which illustrates this. Judges 9: And Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it, and went hard to the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman threw a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head and crushed his skull. Don Barry 2010 Page 3

4 This incident became proverbial in the tactics of warfare. It is referred to in 2 Samuel 11:25. When the messenger completed his report of the battle, David got angry at Joab. He vented it on the messenger: "Why did you get so close to the city? Didn't you know you'd be attacked from the wall? Didn't you remember how Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth got killed? Wasn't it a woman who dropped a millstone on him from the wall and crushed him at Thebez? Why did you go close to the wall? At the point of breakthrough the battle was at its most intense and dangerous. It was here that the Testudo was used and the thoo-reo-os shield was used. I think there might be some insight we can gain here. How often we decide we are going to really go for God; we are going to press for some breakthrough and we find that instead of the gates simply opening up before us, all hell breaks loose on us. Arrows rain down on us and the spiritual equivalent of boiling water and molten metal is poured on us. I don t know how many times over the years I have heard people complain, I decided to really follow God and my world fell apart; my family descended into turmoil, I lost my job, my health collapsed. I decided to tithe and then my car broke down, my microwave exploded and the bank foreclosed. It is normal that when you are looking for breakthrough the battle intensifies. It will not be a lull period in the conflict. Look at Mark 1:9-11. At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God's Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: "You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life." At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. This passage outlines the pathway of Jesus, the pattern Son. After 30 years of relative obscurity he comes to a breakthrough moment. These 30 years would have had their challenges, without doubt. Lived in poverty. The grief of losing his father at an early age. The added responsibility he must have assumed. The land was under foreign occupation. But at 30 years of age he steps into public ministry. This is a breakthrough moment. Don Barry 2010 Page 4

5 All before this had been preparatory. He is baptized. He is empowered by the Holy Spirit. He is affirmed by the prophetic voice. Immediately after this high point he is in a wilderness and is confronted and challenged by Satan himself. This is the normal, definitive pattern. In the Old Testament we have the story of David being made King. After a long, torturous period of being King-in-waiting, he finally is made King. 2 Samuel 5:17 The Philistines heard that David was now king of Israel, and they came into the hill country to try and capture him. One author, tongue-in-cheek, commented that he thought the evidence for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit wasn t tongues, but it was trouble. I think there is some merit in the observation. We certainly shouldn t be surprised. 1 Peter 4:12 (WNT) Dear friends, do not be surprised at finding that that scorching flame of persecution is raging among you to put you to the test--as though some surprising thing were accidentally happening to you. The fiery trials of 1 Peter are the parallel of Paul s fiery darts. In one sense these periods of fiery trials/darts are a backhanded compliment. They indicate that breakthrough is a near or is at least a real possibility. If you are no threat then the enemy probably isn t going to waste too much firepower on you. Without a shield these fiery dart could cause mayhem. They were arrows that had some kind of flammable material tightly wound around the tip. They were ignited just before they were fired. They would explode on impact and spread fire to all that was nearby. Paul said that these dart were shot at us by the wicked one. We must learn to discern that these attacks aren t simply circumstantial; they aren t just about flesh and blood. I know this can be overdone, but we must beware it isn t underdone either. Don Barry 2010 Page 5

6 Evil isn t simply abstract and impersonal. It is very personal and it is customized especially against you. There are evil days when darts of doubt, depression, despair, anxiety, infirmity, uncleanness, lust seem to explode on us with incredible intensity. In these seasons we must learn to withstand and having done all to stand. It is the shield of faith that is designed to deflect these fiery darts. What is faith in this context? Faith isn t an end in and of itself. At times, in Pentecostal circles at least, we have been whipped up to have faith in faith. There has to be an object or a person in which one places one s faith. I think Romans 4:18-21 furnishes us with a wonderful picture, and a working definition, of what faith is. *MSG+ When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!" Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. In the face of circumstances that didn t answer to God s promise, Abraham chose to look to God rather than the surrounding circumstances. He believed what God had said and he placed his trust in God s character. In spite of reasons for not believing God, he chose to trust God no matter what. This kind of faith is developed and deepened out of the chemistry and dynamic of your relationship with God. It isn t something you drum up, sing up, shout up, praise up or pump us at a rally. When you have lived with a person for a number of years a track record is developed. You know they are credible, trustworthy, reliable, and faithful. God is all of these things we can trust Him. In evil days, we can lift our shield and know that no matter what is raining down on us at this present moment, breakthrough is imminent and assured. Don Barry 2010 Page 6

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