Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Reverend Eric Alexander: Those of you who have been with us in recent Sunday evenings will recollect that this is the third Sunday evening in which we have been considering the theme of Christian warfare from this most famous passage in Ephesians 6 from verse 10. On the first night that we were considering the subject, we looked in a general way at the fact of this spiritual warfare in which we are engaged and found it in the apostle's teaching to be a universal fact of genuine Christian experience.

The Christian life, when it is real, has to be lived out in the teeth of the fiercest opposition from all the powers of darkness ranged together against the believer. Satan uses all his wiles to seek to bring the ransomed, redeemed believer again into his clutches and into his captivity. That opposition that we face is clearly defined for us by the apostle in a personal way. It is the opposition not just of evil in a general sense, but of the evil one in a personal sense.

He is given some very impressive titles in Scripture. He is described as the god of this world, as the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world. The strong man is how Jesus describes him, or just the enemy. Throughout Scripture, there are all kinds of pictures that the apostles and others draw upon to try to bring home to us the fierce reality of this malignant power of the devil which the believer faces. He is like a roaring lion. He is like a fiery dragon. He is like a wily serpent. There are all these metaphors that are used to describe him.

He is the deceiver, the liar, appearing sometimes as an angel of light, the accuser of the brethren who accuses them before God day and night. He has dominion, the apostle tells us, over the spiritual hosts of wickedness, as Paul speaks of them in verse 12 of chapter 6 of Ephesians. But in this particular passage, he wants not just to make us conscious of the devil's existence and of his wiles and power, which is an explanation of so much of our Christian experience.

I want to say to you again this evening that I know of nothing for the sake of practical Christian living which is more important than an acquaintance with this teaching. But it's not just an acquaintance with the devil, a consciousness of his wiles that Paul is concerned with. What he is concerned with is to make us conquerors over him, to enable us to live as those who are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. With that in view, he sets down the armor that we need to be clad in if we are going to overcome the evil one.

Now, we considered the first three elements in that armor last Sunday: the belt or girdle of truth of which the apostle speaks in verse 14, and the breastplate of righteousness, and the shoes or boots of the gospel of peace to give us both a stability and a mobility in the service of God and in the conflict we have with Satan. And now, we turn this evening to the first of these remaining three pieces of armor. Now, you will notice that there are two groups of three.

First of all, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and the boots or shoes of the gospel of peace. And then there is another group of three: the shield of faith in verse 16, and the helmet of salvation in verse 17, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God at the end of verse 17. Now, I want us this evening to look particularly at the first of this second group. Some people have suggested that there is something of a difference, that the first three are three pieces of armor that you have on all the time.

And so, the apostle speaks in verse 14 of having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace. And then in verse 16, he speaks of taking up the shield of faith, taking up the helmet of salvation, taking up the sword of the spirit. And it may be that there is this distinction the apostle is speaking of. If the soldier is involved in battle, then he may, when he is resting and is not in the teeth of the conflict, he may be able to stand aside wearing the girdle, the belt of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace.

But when the battle alarm sounds and he goes out into the battle, then he takes up. He takes up the shield of faith. He takes up the helmet of salvation, and he takes up the sword of the spirit. And I want us to look at the shield of faith this evening. There is so much for us to learn in this that we will only have time to deal with that this evening. I want us to think of this rather special piece of armor, as it seems to be.

The shield of faith is special for several reasons, partly because the apostle introduces it with the words, do you notice in verse 16, "Besides all these," or in the Authorized Version, "Above all, taking the shield of faith." It seems that that probably means in addition to all or as an indispensable addition. Now, there is a possibility that he is speaking about something which is of special importance. And the shield probably was of special importance by its very size, indeed.

The size of the shield was not the ordinary shield that we speak about. It was the size of a huge door, and indeed the word means a door. Probably the apostle was speaking about something which was of supreme importance because it was greater than all the others. Partly, he is also speaking of it as being important because it's the one whose function is particularly described. Do you notice? It is to ward off the fiery darts of the evil one.

Now, obviously, the two things that we need to think about in connection with this piece of armor is what these fiery darts are which are fired at us by the evil one, and in the second place, in what way faith is a shield to defend us and quench them. And these are the two things that I want to think with you about this evening. But before we turn to the first of them, I think I ought to say to my dear friends who are dealing with the loudspeakers that we do need them down a bit, don't we? Because I reckon your ears are being blasted a little bit.

If I should get at all excited, they will get blasted even worse. So, I think we'll have them down just a little bit more, and that's a great help. What then are these fiery darts of which the apostle speaks? Well, of course, that's a reference to this ancient form of warfare in which a dart or an arrow had wound around its tip some kind of combustible material, possibly pitch or something of the kind. It was the earliest form of the petrol bomb, I suppose.

Before it was launched at the enemy, it was set on fire and when it reached the enemy, it not only pierced them, as an ordinary arrow did, it set the whole of the object into which it was fired aflame. Now, here is the apostle's picture, and it's a very vivid picture of Satan's attack. It comes so swiftly that you can scarcely tell where it is that it's coming from, but before you know what has happened, your whole being begins to burn with a fire that has been lit by the devil.

Now, that's a very vivid picture of the reality of this kind of satanic attack. Men who have studied the ways in which the devil assaults the human soul have found that precisely this happens to them. John Bunyan, in his classic description of pilgrimage in this world—and more of us ought to read *Pilgrim's Progress*, let me say to you—far more of us ought to be acquainted with this amazing compendium in the way God deals with men in their spiritual pilgrimage. He speaks of how Apollyon comes and fires these fiery darts upon him, so that Pilgrim is altogether put about because he doesn't know where they have come from.

He begins to think that this has arisen from his own heart, that he actually wished this kind of thing to be there. No sooner has he begun to turn from the real origin of it than the conflagration is burning in his spirit, and he discovers that the devil has set his soul on fire, ignited from hell. Now, it's a very interesting thing that we actually speak in this way about things burning within us, don't we? Mainly, perhaps, of our passions. We speak about people burning with anger. We know what that means, don't we?

It's like a fire that kindles in our soul. I'm talking about Christian people. We know what it is for this fire to be set going in our spirits when we are actually burning with anger against someone. We know what it is to burn with jealousy. That's a fire that's set agoing in our spirits. We know what it is to burn with lust, or to burn with hatred. These are all ways in which the fiery darts of the devil come to us. You can suddenly find this kind of conflagration in your spirit or in your mind or in your imagination set on fire from hell.

Before you really know what has happened, there is an inferno burning within you. Very often it takes place in the whole world of our thoughts and imaginations, and the devil delights to stir up a fire in our imagination. Are you aware of this all the time? With the purpose to destroy. Because you see, the essence of fire is that it consumes and destroys. It's not there ultimately to make you feel warm and pleasurable. Its effect is to destroy, and the evil one sends this arrow into your soul with the single purpose of destruction.

And so, he wants to set our imaginations aflame, and he does it in all sorts of ways and can set that flame going in our mind and in our imagination which has been given to us by God. But the devil can set it on fire from hell, and it can become the most destructive thing. Sometimes these attacks—and I'm speaking still in a general way—sometimes these attacks can come in waves. Just as in ordinary warfare, you can learn a great deal from the patterns of ordinary warfare if you're to understand spiritual warfare.

In ordinary warfare, sometimes there are lulls in the battle. Sometimes the enemy is not there in full force, and the soldiers retreat, as it were, to their trenches and they wait there, and it seems as if the enemy has gone quiet. But then quite suddenly another attack will be launched, and the conflict becomes fierce again. He pours all the artillery that he has upon you. Now, this is a pattern, you see. Something comparable to that happens in the spiritual realm.

The fact that you have had a period of great blessing, the fact that you have had a period of great freedom from this kind of attack, is never a signal that the devil has resigned. It is simply a lull in the warfare. Quite suddenly these darts can be launched against you again. Sometimes not singly to fire your imagination or to produce this burning lust or jealousy or hatred or whatever, but sometimes in a great series of blows. It may be in terms of sudden doubts.

I don't know how many people I know in the Lord's service who have been afflicted with this kind of thing right in the midst of serving God, sometimes when they have been conscious of God's grace and goodness to them, sometimes just after great blessing. I remember one of the godliest missionaries I have ever known who served God in North Africa for something like 25 to 30 years and who during that time went through the mill in an extraordinary way.

I remember him telling us about an occasion when they had just been through a period, a conference of missionaries. They had gathered together, they had enjoyed fellowship, they had had the ministry of the word, and God had drawn near to them. He said it was as though heaven had come down to touch them. And then he was left alone. They had met in his town, all the missionaries had gone, and he went out into the street one day in the morning. Here was this great host of people, a vast company of these men and women, the streets teeming with them.

He said quite suddenly, as it seemed out of the blue, he was assaulted by this appalling sense that they were all right and he was the one who was wrong. "Can it be," he said, "that all these people are wrong and I'm the only one that's right?" Now, where did that come from, and what was it? Well, there is no question where it came from. That fire that burned in the man's soul to destruction, as the devil meant it, was set on fire from hell.

That great spirit of doubt that overwhelmed him is one of the fiery darts of the evil one. It comes sometimes in other forms. When you are in the midst of days of trial, for example, and you may have thought that this was not the kind of thing that would ever come to you, but then suddenly there is this attack. "Is God really like what He says? Why has He left you in this kind of situation? How can you possibly trust all that He has said about Himself, all that you previously believed?" That kind of arrow of doubt comes searing into your spirit, and it's a very real thing, you see.

Or he may come in this way. "Oh, yes, there was a time when you thought you knew the grace of God at work in your life. There was a time when you believed yourself converted. There was a time when you believed in the power of God and the redeeming work of Christ. But all that was your imagination." It is repeated again and again and again, that nagging way the devil has of taking one of God's children in his hand, as it were, and searing them with these burning arrows.

Now, I don't know how many people have spoken to me about that kind of experience. It may be in terms of blasphemous thoughts. I remember Billy Graham when he was here in 1955 and I was just a student, telling a company of ministers that he had never in his whole life experienced such an inroad of blasphemy into his mind as he did as he was about to begin the Glasgow Kelvin Hall Crusade. Where did that come from?

These are the fiery darts of the evil one. It may be denials, denials of all that you have come to understand of God. Do you remember how the serpent came to Eve and began to insinuate with fiery darts these denials into her mind and thinking? "Has God said?" he says. "You will not surely die. All that God wants is that you shouldn't be gods. He doesn't want you to achieve all that you are in this world to achieve," says the serpent.

The fiery dart began to take hold in her mind, you see. But there may also be a reference here to what Peter calls the fiery ordeal in 1 Peter 4 verse 12. "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you." And then in chapter 5 of the same epistle, Peter says, "Be sober and watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around, resist him firm in faith." Now, there is the need for the shield of faith because of the fiery ordeal that you may go through with the evil one releasing these fiery darts to inflame your imagination, to set on fire your spirit with something that is wholly of the devil, to begin to cast doubt on the very character of God and on the nature of the work of grace that has been accomplished in you.

These are the fiery darts of the evil one, and they're enormously real. He makes it possible for us to be vulnerable to them by all sorts of different means, of course, by manipulating mainly his two media of the world and the flesh. It's a very important thing for us to recognize that we have a companion duty, as it were, that we should be mortifying the flesh, that is, not allowing it sway in our lives, and that we should be recognizing the call to be distinctive from the world because these are the ways in which the evil one manipulates his two main means of bringing the fiery darts to attack us.

Now, the second main question is in what sense is faith a shield against these attacks? Well, let me say at once that faith acts as a shield against the fiery darts of the evil one principally because the essence of faith is that it points away from self to God, to all that He is in Himself and to all that He has done in Jesus Christ, His Son. That is the function of faith.

The function of faith is not to draw attention to itself, and this is a crucial area. The function of faith is to open the eyes of our understanding that we may see the glory of all that God is to the believer and that we might grasp the wonders of all that He has done for us in Jesus. Now, the reason that that's very crucial is that even Christian people speak about faith in ways that are really quite unbiblical.

To many, having faith is just a Christian form of optimism. People will say, "Oh, I wish I had faith like somebody," or, "I wish I had more faith," or, "I wish I could exercise faith like him." The attempt is clearly implied of working up something in ourselves that we call faith. But you see, the concentration of the Bible is not on faith itself but upon the object of faith, which is God.

Perhaps the most notable example of this misunderstanding of faith is in the writings of a man you may know, Norman Vincent Peale, whose book *The Power of Positive Thinking* has had a very wide influence on many people. I am interested in the number of Christian people on whose bookshelves I have seen *The Power of Positive Thinking*. Now, if I visit you, don't put away *The Power of Positive Thinking* because there are many sensible things in his book.

What he is speaking about is a certain attitude, a certain approach to problems and difficulties and to life in general with all its trials. And of course, it is a good thing to think positively rather than negatively. But Peale actually refers to this whole idea of the shield of faith, and I have seen him quoted in various places. I want to clarify for you where he is wrong. He refers to it in this way: "When the Bible refers to the shield of faith," he says, "it is teaching a spiritual power technique, namely faith, belief, positive thinking, faith in God, faith in other people, faith in yourself, faith in life. This is the technique," he says.

His worry-breaking formula is that every morning when you get up, you should say aloud "I believe" three times. One of his disciples, Clement Stone, actually suggests that you need to look in the mirror every morning and say, "I am a beautiful gift to the world today. I feel terrific." Now, frankly, if I wanted encouragement first thing in the morning, the very last place I would want to look is in the mirror. But you see, it's a very significant thing, I think, that it's in the mirror that you are to look instead of in your Bible, for example.

This kind of exercise of what he calls faith is simply faith in yourself or faith in life. In other words, the object of faith is not really very important so long as you have this mysterious kind of psychological quality. You look into the mirror and say, "I am a great guy. This is going to be a great day. I am God's beautiful gift to the world."

But you see, in the Bible, the all-important thing is the object of faith, where you place your trust, where you put your confidence. This is what Paul is speaking of when he speaks of the shield of faith. It is the Lord who is the shield of His people, and faith brings us to repose our confidence in Him. Now, that may be why Adlai Stevenson is reputed to have said, having read this book, "I find Paul appealing and Peale appalling."

But you see for Paul, the only object of faith is God, as He has revealed Himself in Jesus. Faith focuses upon God's unchanging character and upon God's mighty works, chiefly in Jesus Christ and principally in His death on the cross. Now, the significance of faith is that it hides in that. It hides in God as the Rock of Ages. It hides in Christ as the sufficient Savior of those who trust Him.

Therefore, the devil's arrows in all their forms are turned away because God is a refuge to me, a very present help in trouble. I will hide myself in Thee. Christ is a Savior and a rock to me. Whenever the accusing darts of the devil are coming to my soul, I hide me, Jesus, in Thy name. That's what the apostle is speaking about. The whole idea of faith in Scripture is resting, taking refuge in God.

You remember the great illustration of this in the Old Testament in Abraham's experience in Genesis 15. Just after a fierce battle, in which interestingly God had given him a unique victory, although Abraham was not a warrior by trade, but God gave him a mighty victory over these confederate kings. But then in chapter 15, the beginning of the chapter after the battle, Abraham has clearly been struck by the arrows, the burning arrows of the evil one.

He is in the midst of a period of great fear, great uncertainty, great trembling, great anxiety, great doubt even about God and about His promises. And the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, "Fear not, Abraham. I am your shield." There's the shield of faith. "I am your shield, your reward shall be very great." But Abraham said, "Oh Lord God, what wilt Thou give me? For I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus."

Did God really mean what He was saying? That was what he is troubled about. Is God faithful to His promise? Was it all my imagination that God was there with me in this battle and wrought this victory for me? Abraham said, "Behold, Thou hast given me no offspring and a slave born in my house will be my heir." And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, "This man shall not be your heir. Your own son shall be your heir." And He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. So shall your descendants be."

And Abraham believed the Lord. He held the shield of faith up to all his doubts and anxieties and fears and unbelief. The Lord took him on. He said with Charles Wesley, "All my trust on thee stayed, all my help from thee I bring, cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing." Now, what Abraham was doing, you see, was lifting the shield of faith. Sometimes, my Christian friends, we need to do this quite suddenly when this assault is sudden.

We need to exercise what the Psalmist called calling on the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. Now, we have to call on the name of the Lord. You find the Psalmist doing this with a sense of urgency. I'm sure that behind so many of these Psalms where there is a sudden cry, there is the experience of this fiery dart of the evil one and the man is experiencing what it is to be assaulted in his soul. Suddenly he cries out as in Psalm 12, "Help, Lord!" or as in Psalm 16, "Preserve me, oh Lord, for in thee I take refuge," or in Psalm 54, "Save me, oh God," or in Psalm 120, "In my distress I cried to the Lord, deliver me."

Now, these Psalms, which are so rich in an understanding of the ways of God with His people, they are speaking of this kind of warfare, you see, and of men who have learned to call on the name of the Lord and to use the shield of faith. What that means is taking refuge in the unchanging character of God. But beloved, before you can do that, you've got to know God, you see. You can't take refuge in a God you don't know. You've got to know Him.

This is why it is so utterly vital for us to be addressing ourselves in a consistent way to Holy Scripture in order that here we may come to know God and that when we are under assault, we may flee to the God of the Bible and put our trust in Him. I remember thinking that I saw a great picture of this when I was at the Keswick Speakers' Prayer Conference, which is held as you may know in the month of May each year down in a building called Mabledon near Tonbridge in Kent.

It's a very old building belonged to one of these old wealthy Christian bankers who gave it to the Church Pastoral Aid Society, I think, eventually. We have gone there year after year. We went this year that I happened to be there. We were outside for the arch ordeal of all Keswick conferences, and that was the group photograph. There we were with the skies beginning to cloud over. As I looked up, there was a great sense of humidity and dullness and darkness, and the photographer was wondering if he had enough light even for the photograph.

Quite suddenly, there was a mighty thunder in the skies and the heavens opened and hailstones and rain and everything else came tumbling down upon us. I guarantee you I hadn't been praying for it, but it came in tremendous force. All these Keswick speakers—it was a fascinating sight—there they all rushed as fast as they could, leaving the poor photographer with his camera, they rushed as fast as they could into the house.

I remember it was then for the first time that I saw round the tower of that house what had been carved in stone on it from the Book of Proverbs: "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe." Well, I thought there is a lesson for the beleaguered believer on whom the powers of darkness are letting loose all their shafts and arrows. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe.

Do you know what it is to have that utter confidence that though all men be liars, God is true and God is faithful? But we also need to learn to use the shield of faith in the sense of confidence in the absolute sufficiency of Christ's death for our salvation, because this is where some of the devil's fiery darts are let loose at their fiercest: to disturb the believer's assurance, to assault the very ground on which we stand as Christian people.

If you will forgive a personal reference, I recollect very vividly an occasion when I was an assistant in a church in Knightswood and I was going to preach there one Sunday evening. I had tried to do my preparation and I was as I thought ready for the occasion. I got off the bus on the main road. Cars were a luxury in those days. I walked along Lonefoot Avenue. I remember just as I was getting along the road a few yards off the bus, suddenly the most appalling spirit of blackness came on my spirit.

It was just like a fiery dart of the evil one, particularly relating to an incident that had happened many, many years ago. I had really forgotten about it. I wasn't even thinking about that period in my life at all. I had forgotten about it altogether. Suddenly, it had been thrust right into the forefront of my mind and thinking, and I couldn't get rid of anything else. I could scarcely see other people who were walking along the road.

The thing that began to nag away in my mind was "How can someone like you go and preach to people like these? How can you possibly go and stand in a pulpit?" Now, theoretically, I knew that the blood of Jesus Christ had cleansed me. I knew that Jesus in His grace had taken my sin away. But I tell you, I was under a great cloud. As I walked along the road, scarcely wondering whether I could go into the church or not, there was a group of Salvation Army people who were at the corner of the next road.

There was a girl amongst them—there weren't very many of them—but there was a girl singing. She wasn't, may I say, and I hope she's not here tonight, she wasn't a very good singer. But I shall be eternally grateful to her for singing that night. Do you know what she was singing as I recognized the words and came alongside them? She was singing, "Calvary covers it all. Calvary covers it all."

I was able to go, turning a shield of faith to the evil one and saying, "Jesus thy blood and righteousness my beauty are, my kingly dress. Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed with joy shall I lift up my head. Bold shall I stand in that great day, and who ought to my charge shall lay? Fully absolved by thee I am from sin and fear, from guilt and shame." Do you know what it is to hide in Jesus as a sufficient Savior for all your sin?

We need to shelter in the fact of Christ's death, not only in His death as the one who covers by His dying all our transgression, but in the one who by His dying has defeated the powers of darkness and made an open show of them and destroyed him who has the power of death, that is the devil. This is what the Bible tells us about Jesus' death. It's not only related to us in terms of our pardon and peace with God and to God in terms of turning away His wrath.

It is related to the devil in terms of his conquest. The glorious fact is, you see, that our Savior takes that victory which He has won and He gives it to us. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That victory is obtained when we turn the shield of faith against all the fiery darts of the evil one. May God give us grace that we may learn so to fight.

Mark Daniels: You're listening to *Hear the Word of God*, the online and broadcast teaching ministry of the Reverend Eric Alexander. Alexander has been a minister in the Church of Scotland for over 50 years. To access more Bible teaching from Reverend Alexander, visit hearthewordofgod.org. Your generous contribution will help us sustain and grow this ministry. That's hearthewordofgod.org. You could choose instead to mail a check to 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601, or call 1-800-488-1888. This program is a presentation of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I'm Mark Daniels. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next time for Eric Alexander and Hear the Word of God.