Category — Faith

Continuing through Ephesians 6 Paul says in Verse 16, Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. The next piece of the armor I would like to discuss is the Shield of Faith, but before I get to that we need to understand what it’s made to protect against, fiery darts.

Fiery Darts-
What are fiery darts anyway? You may have envisioned a Roman Soldier wrapping an arrow with a cloth, setting the cloth on fire and then shooting the arrow at the enemy. The arrow somehow stays lit sailing through the air at over 30 miles per hour, and then with pinpoint accuracy it happens to hit something flammable, explodes destroying half the enemy army.

However that idea is from Hollywood, Roman soldiers definitely used flaming missiles to destroy their enemies, but they were much more subtle appearing, and more deadly. The “fiery darts” we read about in this passage were made from a hollow reed. One end was plugged then the reed was filled with a flammable liquid, a mixture of alcohol and naphtha for instance. A loosely fitting stopper holding an ignited wick was slipped into the other end of the tube and lit. It was then shot like an arrow, not at a flammable target but at the soldier himself. Since the dart had it’s own fuel source and the wick was protected by the tube, the missile kept burning until it hit its target. When it hit a soldier, the wick popped out, the liquid spilled over the soldier’ s armor and ignited, cooking him in his own armor.

So now we know what a fiery dart is in the physical realm but what spiritual reality was Paul illustrating here. While he doesn’t say exactly what fiery darts are he does tell us they can be defeated by faith. This shows us that these darts are weapons that produce the opposite of faith, unbelief. But what produces unbelief, to best understand this we must understand what faith is, and how it is produced. Faith simply put is rock solid confidence in God. Confidence He exists, He is capable of providing, and protecting us, and that He is bringing about the ultimate good.

Faith is produced by studying, meditating on, and comprehending the Word of God. Romans 10:17 declares this when it says, “…faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The word of God is truth Jesus said, “Thy Word is Truth.” So fiery darts are attacks on God’s truth, commonly called lies. These lies come in many subtle forms, they may come as a thought, a doubt, an unholy idea, an event, a casual comment by a friend. Satan comes to you and offers you a lie contrary to the Word of God that produces unbelief in God’s existence, character, ability, etc.

Let’s illustrate how fiery darts might look in action: a coworker gets a raise, and mentions it to you casually in passing. Satan will then come to you with a lie saying, God doesn’t provide for me, or God doesn’t want to bless you after all you have done wrong. At this point if you accept this lie about God what started as a small comment will consume your meditations like a fire till you are literally cooked in your armor in anger, and bitterness.

Another example of a fiery dart might be an attractive, or flattering coworker he/she might come across your path at a rough spot in your marriage. Inevitably Satan will come to you with a lie such as, “they would make me happier”, or “this might be exciting.” Inevitably if we accept Satan’s lies we will have to accept the consequences of his steal, kill, destroy agenda.

Shield of Faith- What is our defense? Well, this scripture tells us that it is the shield of faith. The Roman shield was as large as a door, and was made of the hardest woods available. The surface of the shield was charred with a torch and then covered with leather. A soldier could hide his entire body behind this shield. The fiery dart could hit the shield, and the liquid spread out, but the charred wood of the shield wouldn’t catch fire so the soldier was safe beneath his shield.

The analogy here is that every time Satan attacks you with lies you can counter with Faith. There are over 7,000 promises in the word of God that attest to God’s goodness, faithfulness, and provision. We must learn these verses, and have them at the ready to hold up as a shield when Satan attacks us. In the desert when Jesus was being tempted by Satan He answered every lie with a Bible verse. If you are struggling with lies about God right now concerning a particular topic, you need to search the Bible for God’s truth on the issue. That way whenever the fiery darts are sailing your way you can hold up the shield of faith.

Paul explains this entire process in 2 Cor. 10:5, Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The Bible says that every thought, every image in our head, every reasoning has to conform to the truth of God. You see you’ll never quench all fiery darts till you start checking every thought. Every thought that comes into your head needs to pass this question, does this line up with the word of God? If they do not they must be rejected as lies from the enemy. So today let us start lifting God’s faith-producing truth against every fiery lie of the devil.

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