THE ARMOR OF GOD AND THE LIES OF THE ENEMY
Shield of Faith: God is Not Really Good
Ephesians 6:10-18
#armorofGod
STORY SEGMENT 1 (p)
There once was a traveler named Yort Goodseeker. Yort left home one day and was bound and determined that he would experience the world and meet God Who is good. He had always been taught that God is good all the time and all the time God is good. He had always been taught God is good always. He wanted to see this for himself and was excited to meet such a good God.
He did not get far from home, in fact he was still on the street with his home, when he came upon a family sitting in their front yard. Behind them, their home was a smoking ruin. In the night, their home had caught fire because they were shooting off fireworks and now the family was homeless and all their worldly possessions were either burned to a crispy crisp or covered in soot and smoke. They greeted him. He greeted them. “Where are you off to?” they asked. “I am going to meet the God Who is good.” “If God is good, they asked, why did our house burn down?” Yort did not have a ready answer for that.
Yort Goodseeker kept walking and he passed a local church. There were several people outside who looked like they wanted to go in, but did not. They would take a few steps toward the door and then would back up with their heads down. They greeted him. He greeted them. “Where are you off to?” they asked. “I am going to meet the God Who is good.” “If God is good, they asked, why are we afraid of God? We are so afraid we don’t even want to go in and worship because we are sinners and we are afraid of what will happen if we come before Him.” Yort did not have a ready answer for that.
He walked on and came to the outskirts of town where there was an orphanage. He looked at the grounds surrounding the orphanage and the yard was full of children with no parents. Children in shabby clothes and dirty faces and no parents. The matron of the orphanage watched over the orphans and saw him walking by. She greeted him. He greeted her. “Where are you off to?” she asked. “I am going to meet the God Who is good.” “If God is good, she asked, why are there so many orphans without parents?” Yort did not have a ready answer for that.
As he walked out of town into the countryside, he began to wonder if he would in fact meet God Who is good. He had always been taught that God is good all the time and all the time God is good, but if that is truth… How could God be good if disasters happen or God was supposed to be feared or innocent children suffer? Was God good? The Bible says God is good, but is that really true? Is God good?
SERIES REMINDER
We continue today to look at the Apostle Paul’s metaphor of the armor of God and look at the shield of faith in verse 16. We have looked at the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and the footwear of the Gospel of peace each for two weeks and uncovered the schemes and attacks that the devil sends our way. Yes, we are talking about the Armor of God, but more importantly we are looking at how Satan attacks us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We will begin to look at the shield of faith today and will soon dig into the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul is teaching us about spiritually preparing to live out our faith in our world and society in Ephesians 6… and church… we need preparation! Verses 10-13 make it very clear that we have an enemy that wars against us and that we need to stand firm against all his schemes which often come to us as lies, deception, false beliefs, worldly philosophies, and even beliefs from other religions.
Before we dig a little further into verse 16 and the shield of faith, I want you to notice how many times we are commanded to be ready both offensively and defensively. This passage is all about spiritual preparation, but also notice how much of the passage is dedicated to our foundation and remaining firm in the Lord and the struggle we face:
Verse 10: “be strong in the Lord”
Verse 11: “stand against the schemes of the devil”
Verse 12” “wrestle”
Verse 13: “withstand in the evil day”
Verse 14: “stand”
Verse 18: “keep alert”
READ EPHESIANS 6:10-18 (ESV) [read verse 16 bold together]
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…”
THE SHIELD
Verse 16 is all about the shield… the shield of faith.
ILLUSTRATION… Deadliest Warrior (p)
In 2009-2011, believe it or not, Kelly and I had a favorite TV show that we would watch together weekly. Kelly and I never agree about anything, but she really seemed to get into it was completely surprising to me. The show was on SpikeTV and it was called ‘Deadliest Warrior.’ The show episodes begin with the introduction of either two types of historical or contemporary warriors or two historical individuals. The history, culture, and general fighting philosophies of each are explained and those explanations are accompanied by segments showing actors performing dramatized scenes that are meant to depict the daily lives of the actual fighters. Two teams of experts (of either the history or martial abilities of the warriors) are brought onto the show to test weapons spotlighted as being used by each of the warriors. Then they would run computer simulations to find out who would win.
I learned one very important specific piece of truth from the historical-documentary-fictional-mashup that was ‘Deadliest Warrior’: Shields are important. Shields would often make or break a battle in a simulation. Shields are also both a defensive weapon and an offensive weapon in the right hands which would often turn the tide of a battle.
Roman soldiers had at their disposal different kinds of shields, but mainly used two different kinds. First, there was the smaller frisbee looking shield called a ‘parma’ or ‘parmula’ which was basically used to parry blows of the enemy so that one could quickly counter strike. This was a shield used for hand-to-hand combat and close quarters fighting. That is not the kind of shield the Apostle Paul is talking about.
The Apostle Paul was talking about the second kind. There was a tall 4.5 x 2.5 feet tall shield made out of a thick plank of wood. This shield is called a ‘thureon’ and was designed for head to toe protection. In addition, the outside of the shield was often covered with metal or even heavy leather. From my reading, heavy leather was preferred because the soldiers could soak their shields in water and would be able to extinguish flaming arrows that were shot at them by enemies. Verse 16 describes such a tactic and is exactly what Paul is talking about. The large shields of the Roman soldiers were a movable wall that provided head to toe protection in battle.
STORY SEGMENT 2 (p)
There once was a traveler named Yort Goodseeker. Yort left home one day and was determined that he would experience and see some of the world and would meet God Who is good. He had always been taught that God is good all the time and all the time God is good. He had always been taught God is good always. He wanted to see this for himself and was excited to meet such a good God.
After he left his town, he was out and about in the country and came to an intersection. The road split north, south, east, and west. At each one of the parts of the road, people sat begging. Now when I say begging, I mean these people were on the ground and hungry and begging for money and food from anyone who passed by. They all greeted him. He greeted them. “Where are you off to?” they asked. “I am going to meet the God Who is good.” “If God is good, they asked, why are we all sitting her begging and hungry and sick and poor?” Yort did not have a ready answer for that.
Yort walked on further and he was on the outskirts of a different town. As he walked towards the town, he noticed a sign: “God worshippers will be punished.” Just past the sign were large hanging cages like big bird cages, but birds were not in the cages, people were. He walked up to the nearest cage and talked with the man inside it. “Why are you in there?” he asked. “I am a believer in God and they put me in prison for believing in God,” the man in the cage answered. Yort looked at the man in shock and asked: “If God is good, why is His follower in prison and suffering?” The man in the cage did not answer.
Yort Goodseeker was shaken to his core. He turned from the hanging cage and ran as fast as he could all the way home. His mind was swirling with so many questions that seemed to have no answers:
How can God be good when He sees pain and suffering and doesn’t seem to do anything about it?
How can God be good when disasters and hunger and sickness exist?
How can God be good when He is all powerful and yet good people suffer?
How can God be good when innocent babies are born blind, sick, and suffer?
Yort then began to think about the Bible as he ran faster and faster home:
How can God be good and yet He sent 10 plagues into Egypt and even killed babies?
How can God be good and yet He let the prophet Elisha maul people with bears?
How can God be good when He let righteous good Job suffer horribly on purpose?
Yort Goodseeker ran all the way home and did not stop until he reached his house, ran to his bed, and hid under the covers.
THE SHIELD OF FAITH
The Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 6:16, uses the word picture of the shield and calls it the ‘shield of faith.’ The shield Paul envisions is not made of a wooden plank, but is constructed of faith. The word faith is one of those words that has as many different definitions as people who are asked to define it. We could say “belief” or “trust in something not seen” or “complete trust in someone or something” or “strong beliefs in a religion” or “a strongly held belief.” I would like to offer a Biblical definition to keep in mind: “believing loyalty.” Faith is “believing loyalty.”
CONTENT/ILLUSTRATION… M Heiser, Naked Bible Podcast #350 adapted]
One of my favorite Bible teachers uses this definition to drill down to what faith and our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is really about and I like it. “Believing loyalty,” how we relate to God generally and also through Christ in faith, “means we need to be loyal to what we believe. We need to be loyal to the Savior in Whom we believe.” This means we are loyal to the God Who enacted the plan of salvation. We follow in Christ. “We have faith in God and we have believing loyalty so we don’t choose another way of faith. We keep on believing. We don’t throw our loyalty—align our faith and our loyalty—with anything else because there is no other way of salvation.” That is “believing loyalty.” That is faith.
ILLUSTRATION… M Heiser, The Unseen Realm [adapted]
So, when we put this all together, “Salvation means believing loyalty to Christ, who was and is the visible [God]. There is no salvation in any other name (Acts 4:12), and [our] faith must remain intact [in Him] (Rom 11:17–24; Heb 3:19; 10:22, 38–39).”
Our shield as Christians is our faith.
Our shield as Christians is our belief in God.
Our shield as Christians is our believing loyalty to God in Christ by the power of the Spirit.
Our shield is that we are in the Kingdom of God and we live like it and believe like it.
Our shield is that we are citizens of Heaven and as such, we have certain beliefs.
This shield allows us to “be strong in the Lord” (verse 10), “stand against the schemes of the devil” (verse 11), “wrestle” (verse 12), “withstand in the evil day” (verse 13), “stand” (verse 14), “keep alert” (verse 18) and more than anything to “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (verse 16). It is our believing loyalty to God that allows us to be sharp on the offense and on defense.
TRANSITION
As we have talked about in previous weeks, there are schemes and flaming arrows by the devil coming our way. There are attacks that are meant to draw us away from God and for us to be vulnerable to spiritual attack. The further we are from God and the less we have on our armor the easier it is for Satan to get a foothold in our lives and strike.
What are one of those attacks?
What are one of those attacks as it relates to faith?
One of those arrows is definitely the thought: God is not really good.
SCHEME OF THE DEVIL: GOD IS NOT REALLY GOOD
Satan absolutely wins when we drop our shield of faith and believe that God is not good. Believing that God is not really good is the very first lie and the temptation that Satan started with in the Garden of Eden. He tempted Adam and Eve by making them doubt God’s goodness.
READ GENESIS 3:1 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Translation: If God was really good, would He put you in a garden and then tell you not to do something? Why would God do that? A good God would want you happy and healthy and to enjoy every part of His creation. A good God would not restrict you.
READ GENESIS 3:4-5 (ESV)
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Translation: A good God would not keep you from experiences and knowledge and blessing and a well-rounded life. A good God would not exaggerate the consequences of sin. A good God would not keep knowledge or normal experiences from you. A good God would not keep you from living life.
Satan is all about making us doubt the goodness of God because when we doubt the goodness of God we drop our shield of faith and start down a path of self-destruction. This attack comes to us as we live our lives and observe the world and talk with people. We hear in church that God is good and yet the evidence in the world or perhaps our own experience would tell us otherwise. Just listening to the nightly news, we hear of innocent people suffering and unfair wars and murder and chaos and it seems like God is sitting by doing nothing. We also hear in other parts of the world and even in our own country how people of Christian faith are persecuted or sidelined, and yet, God seems to do nothing.
I tried to highlight this tension in the two-part story about Yort Goodseeker, earlier. This flaming arrow comes at us and it is a doozy. There are many different ways our “believing loyalty” in the goodness of God is stomped on and attacked and questioned. We observe unfairness and hunger and sickness and death and persecution and suffering and good people hurting and bad people prospering and sometimes we end up with the thought that God is good inside the church, but out in the world… He is not. If God is good, such things would not be a reality.
What happens if we believe that God is not good?
When we do not believe God is good:
… we will trust wrong thoughts or false teaching about God
… we will think He is a sadistic entity that enjoys toying with people’s lives
… we will conclude that He did not create this world because it is so bad and evil
… we will believe in our heart of hearts that we don’t need Him or His Way
… we will conclude that Gods way of life is restricting and prudish and crude and backwards
… we will believe God sent Jesus to the cross to torture Him and it was pointless
… we will eventually doubt the holiness, justice, mercy, grace, and character of God
… we will eventually not have any believing loyalty to God or to His Son Jesus Christ
… we will eventually not believe in God
TRANSITION
So, what do we do with this attack?
How do we keep our shield of faith at the ready?
APPLICATION
We need to have correct belief about God. We need to lean into our “believing loyalty” about God that He is good. Here is our key tought: Bad things in the permissive will of God do not diminish His goodness. Repeat: Bad things in the permissive will of God do not diminish His goodness.
* Our world is broken because Satan is the Prince of this world and he runs it and ruins it.
(John 12:32, 14:30, 16:11, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2)
* Our world is filled with suffering and sickness because of sin, not because of God.
(Romans 6:23, 5:12, Psalm 38:3)
* Our lives are filled with unfairness and chaos because of sin, not because of God.
(Isaiah 59:2, Proverbs 14:12, 1 John 3:4)
* Our society is damaged and revels in self-centeredness because of sin, not because of God.
(Galatians 6:6-8, Jude 1:7, 1 John 2:11)
God does not cause the brokenness that we see around us, but He does work in it and through it and in spite of it. God does allow bad things to happen, but He also redeems, restores, and gives grace that is sufficient. The shield we use gives us hope because the tragedies all around us are not all there is… God is good and has so much more for us.
Now, it is true that God is sovereign over all. God is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and is the Creator of all that exists. That King of Kings and Lord of Lords gives us free will which we all use for sin and for evil. God giving us free will is part of the tension we feel when we look around us and try to reconcile a good God with an evil world. Our sin broke His creation. Our sin continues to break His creation (Romans 8:22). Sin creates ripples of chaos and unfairness and consequences which He did not cause.
As an important side note: God did not cause the brokenness, but because He is good, He sent Jesus to fix the brokenness. Because God is good, He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish from sin, but have eternal life. God is good and He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. God is good and because of His goodness whoever believes in Him becomes part of the Kingdom of God and has life and a way of life through the chaos of sin.
It is also true that God has what is called His ‘permissive will’ which means we all live and breathe and do good and do bad under His watchful eye. Everything happens under His “permissive will” even if it is not in His eternal will. This creates tension for us. His permissive will is tied to our free will. God does watch us and allows us to make mistakes and to cause harm. God does allow bad things, but He does not cause them and at times, neither does He prevent them. These are true statements. God is good and He remains good in the midst of evil. In fact, Jesus Christ says in Luke 18:
READ LUKE 18:19 (ESV) // MATTHEW 19:17
No one is good except God alone.
The Bible teaches us that God is good.
READ PSALM 34:8 (ESV)
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
READ PSALM 100:5 (ESV)
For the LORD is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.
READ Psalm 145:9 (ESV)
The LORD is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made.
READ NAHUM 1:7 (ESV)
The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.
READ ROMANS 8:28 (ESV)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.
Repeat: Bad things in the permissive will of God do not diminish His goodness.
CONCLUSION
So, do not run home and hide under the covers.
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil which includes tempting us to think that God is not good. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. Hold onto your “believing loyalty” to God and allow faith to shield you against attacks that would draw you away from our good God.
PRAYER
INVITATION
God sent Jesus to fix the brokenness in us. Because God is good, He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish from sin, but have eternal life. God is good and He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. God is good and because of His goodness whoever believes in Him becomes part of the Kingdom of God and has life and a way of life through the chaos of sin.
