The Armor Of God – Faith Series

The Armor of God – Faith – Teaching

(Recap: If someone wasn’t there, encourage them to ask someone for notes.)

Really quickly: Last week we talked about peace sandals. It was an intense topic about peace, forgiveness, offense, and strife. I don’t want to ask anyone to share personal things. So, I’ll just ask if anyone was blessed last week as they made some changes?

These lessons are about bringing you closer to the Lord and helping you to have an effective prayer life. Often times, like remodeling, you have to tear something down to rebuild bigger and better. Be encouraged, because making changes is like growing pains, the process doesn’t feel good, but the end result will be well worth it. If you’ll let the Lord, His grace is always there to see you through. Don’t pull away when you learn that you have to make a change but run to Him. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:6-7 that God corrects those that He loves. The same goes for children. We’ve all seen children that their parents refuse to correct. Makes you want to take off your shoe for them!! What do we think? You don’t care about those kids because they’re playing in the street, throwing things, and mouthing off. Just remember taking correction is the mark of a mature son or daughter.

This week is a much lighter and exciting topic, shield of faith. Next will be the helmet of salvation, and lastly, we’ll cover hopefully everyone’s favorite, the sword which is the Word of God. Keep bringing something to take notes with, we still have important information to remember.

Ephesians 6:16 NKJV

above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

There are two types of shields that a Roman soldier might have been using in Paul’s day. The first is a Scutum, and it covered the entire body. The second type of shield was called a Parma. It was only about 36” wide and was mainly used by the lowest class level of the army, and also for those mounted on a horse. When the army was advancing in a group, they held their Scutum, body shields, side-by-side, and additional rows of men holding Parmas, circular shields, above their heads protected them against an airstrike of arrows or fiery darts. This was called a testudo (tortoise) formation.

I think the depiction of faith using Roman soldiers’ shields is perfect! Is your faith big like the Scutum shield, or is it smaller like the Parma shield? No matter the shields, when we stand together in battle like the testudo (tortoise) formation we become an impenetrable force against the fiery darts of the wicked one.

What is faith? Hebrews 11:1 NKJV defines it as

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Faith is the action of taking the Lord at His Word, believing He’s going to perform what He promised in His Word. I’m sure we’ve all heard faith scriptures many times in church. The bigger problem I notice with people is poisoned faith. That’s really what I want to focus on, before we swing back to strong faith.

The Bible is written on a level every adult can understand. I’ll give you a basic guide, not every scholar will agree with this list, but just to give you an idea of reading difficulty:

3rd grade – New International Reader’s Version

3rd grade – New Century Version

4th grade – The Message Bible

5th grade – God’s Word Translation

6th grade – New Living Translation

7th grade – New King James Version

8th grade – New International Version

10th grade – English Standard Version

11th grade – New American Standard Bible

12th grade – King James Version

The Holy Spirit inspired men to write on such a simple level so that all men, woman, and children through time can understand, educated and uneducated. We can read, understand, and interpret the Bible for ourselves. Often times instead of us interpreting the Bible for ourselves, taking the Word literally, we allow others to put their interpretations on top of God’s Word or worse yet use their life experiences to interpret the Word for us. When we respect the minister, sometimes we automatically accept their view as Biblical truth without putting it on trial against the Word as we should.

(Give an example of someone who destroyed their faith in scripture, and then changed their mind when trouble came. If you need an example, my true story is below.)

---------------

Example:

This is a story from a minster that is perfectly fitting for poisoned faith.

Years ago I had a friend on a mission to make me believe Paul was blind. He wasn’t referring to the light of Christ that shone around him and temporarily made him blind, but the end of Paul’s life. He would point to this scripture and that scripture attempting to convince me with his added commentary. I would jab back how he’s inventing this story. He told me I was willingly blind to this truth, because I had itching ears and only wanted to hear what made me feel good. I won’t discuss this misguided doctrine. All I will share is this conflict did force me study Greek words and look into ancient culture as well which I found clues in the Old Testament. After weeks of this argument with my piles of study notes and him repeating the same unfounded blabber, I let out a very frustrated, “SO WHAT? So what is the point of all this? So what if he was?” After he chuckled in what he believed was my defeat, my friend’s poisoned faith oozed out of his mouth, “So if God wouldn’t heal Paul, what makes you or anyone else think that God will heal them?” John 10:10 came to mind, how the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. My friend’s faith in healing was absolutely poisoned. His conclusion did not line up with scripture.