Shield of Faith
Category: Faith & Trusting God
Speaker: Paul Chisgar
Date: March 16, 2025
Thank the Lord for just a great Sunday morning. And what a blessing. Had two people raise their hands that they had prayed and asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Savior. Praise a little for that.
Our bus ministry and the kids, and some of our a little bit older kids, went to the skating rink this afternoon. And praise the Lord, no one seriously hurt. That’s a good thing. I mean, I even heard that Brother Adam and Brother Bill, and even Miss Kim was out there skating, and they’re still walking, all of them. I mean, that’s pretty good. That’s key.
Now, there was a question a little bit about whether they were really skating, some of them or not, you know, or just staying on their feet. But they had a good time. Nobody hurt. Praise a little for that. Just a good day. I appreciate everyone that worked hard to bring visitors today.
That was just awesome. Had 224 all together today. And praise the Lord for that. We got a visitor tonight, Raphael, one of Miss Tammy’s co-workers at the hospital. He said he came a little late this morning, and it’s full. So he said, “I’ll just come back at 6 tonight.” So we’re honored to have him tonight. Thank you for being with us. That’s great.
And Raphael asked the Lord Jesus to be a Savior a little while back at work. And we’re just thrilled here tonight. Glad to have them with us tonight. And that’s awesome. Just good to appreciate everybody that makes it happen.
We had workers, a few workers out sick this morning. Someone came and said, “Hey, my worker just called this morning, can’t be here. You know, who do you think?” And I said, “Well, try this.” I already tried them. “Try this.” I already tried it. And praise the Lord, Ms. Kim McCord filled in, just people filling in here, there, and yonder making it happen.
It takes a lot of people. I appreciate all the work, all the different people—music, and children’s ministries, and bus ministry, Sunday school, nursery. And we only lost three babies in the nursery this morning. That’s not too bad, you know, for a big day. And just praise the Lord for his goodness, God working in hearts and life. And that’s just awesome. Appreciate all your hard work for the Lord. And that’s great.
Some may be bobbing for apples. I’m talking about the middle of the messes tonight. They’ve been working hard today. And so that’s good. We appreciate it.
Friday night, ladies’ bunk all night. You’ll have a good time, ladies. Sign up for that. Come out, 6 o’clock on Friday. And bring some little desserts, refreshment with you. That would be wonderful.
Saturday, teen rally. Pray that God will bless that. They’ll go down and play laser tag and whatnot, and then head over to Temple Baptist Church. I’ll be preaching that. Pray God will bless that. God will work in young people’s hearts and lives in a great way on Saturday.
And next Sunday, Foundation’s class starts right down front here. Be in your place. It’s a 13-week series. I encourage you to go through that if you haven’t been through it. I know some have guests kind of lined up that are going to come with them. They’re planning on going through that for them, but the main thing is to get those guests in there. And that’s great. That’s awesome. And praise the Lord for it. It’s a good, good thing. So don’t forget about that. Make a note of that. That would be great.
Ushers come for the offering. Keep praying for Brother Frankie; he is back home. I think most of you know that. Pray for them, Frankie and Wanda both. Brother Allen is back home. Keep praying for him. Pray that he’ll get his energy and strength, and that he’ll wait. I was talking to him yesterday, I believe it was, and he said, “When do you plan on going back to work?” And he said, “Monday.” And I was like, “Man, brother, just take it easy there. You might need some rest.”
Oh, Brother Robert, he’s doing good. He just died to get on that mow where he got the doctor’s permission for back surgery. And but he got doctors. And so he cut. And it wasn’t here. I said, “Oh, no.” Remember Steve Payson? He messed up, but he’s fine. But he’s got the bug now and been sick. Brother Kevin’s out sick, and pray for them.
Brother John Sharp is still in the hospital. Pray for him that he’ll get well. They did some cultures, whatnot, found out he has bacterial—not bacterial meningitis, we don’t want to say that—it’s bacterial pneumonia. And they think he had it when he was in there a month or two ago, never got all the way over it. So pray that he’ll get all the way well, get his breathing back, and that would be great.
Then, Brother Glenn has a little good report. The doctors think they found what it is. It really had to do with some of the medicines they’re giving him. You know how it is. They’ll give you one medicine to take care of a problem, but it creates ten more, you know. And so pray that’ll be it, and he’ll be able to get his strength back. Ms. Nancy is out sick. And so pray for these folks that are sick, if you would. They’ll get through this thing real quickly, and they won’t get bad on them. And, of course, Brother Frankie and Ms. Wanda, pray for those, if you would, please, on that. And we appreciate your prayers for those folks.
Praise the Lord for young people serving the Lord. Brother Joel over there, he has gotten really good at getting third through sixth-grade boys in headlocks and making them listen, you know, while Brother David is teaching there. You know, I’m teasing, of course, but I appreciate him being involved and helping out in that boys’ class. That’s just great, a good thing.
It’s good to have young people not just here, but working in the ministry. That’s the key. Praise the Lord. What a blessing it is. Brother Joel, would you lead us in order for the offering, please, brother? Let’s all stand once more. We’ll turn to number 239, 239. We’ll sing all three of those verses: “Saved by His power divine, saved to new life sublime.” We’ll sing all three of those.
It was the first time for that one? First time? All right. Very good. All right, let’s see if we can do it again. Second verse. Here we go. Ready. He saves me. You may be seated.
Ephesians chapter number six. And we have been covering the armor, the spiritual armor of a Christian. And Ephesians six lists six pieces of armor. How many of you say, “I feel like I know what it is to be in spiritual warfare”? Anybody know to talk about that?
Yeah, if you live in this world, you’re going through it, to be honest with you. And lost people experience it. Now, they don’t have weapons like you and I, but Satan attacks them too. And praise the Lord, we’re on the winning side, we think about it. But they experience it, and they’re on the losing side. And that’s a sad, sad thing. Help me out. Help me out.
We’ve got these pieces of armor. We’ll read them below just a minute here. But we got the helmet of what? Salvation. That’s a big soldier right there wearing that thing. I tell you what, now, you know, that is a real humble guy. He doesn’t have a big head now, you know. I don’t know.
And we haven’t covered this one yet, but we got the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Good. We covered the breastplate of righteousness. Good. We covered that a couple weeks ago, I believe it was. And the first one he lists is the loins girdle about with truth. That’s so very, very important.
And then tonight, in just a minute here, we’re going to get to the shield of faith. Shield of Faith. We’re going to get to that. He’s writing to Christians. It’s a church. Christians are born again. They’re saved. And Ephesus.
We talked a little bit about the city of Ephesus because I want you to—sometimes we just think, at least I have thought, you know, these Bible places are small, little bit of places. But Ephesus was kind of like the capital city of there, of a Roman province, and has an amphitheater there that can seat—you might remember how many that amphitheater can seat? Anybody remember how many it can seat? 50,000 people. So you’re not talking about—I mean, that’s not quite the size of the Titan Stadium, but it’s getting there, you know. And 50,000 people can sit in there. So you talk about a large place.
Have the Temple of Diana, remember that? One of the seven wonders of the world. And that’s where they dragged some of Paul’s companions in there and chanted for two hours, “Great is Diana of Ephesus.” Can you imagine how intimidating that would be? And all this is going on, a lot of demonic activity. Acts 19 had revival, and they brought all the witchcraft books in, and it totaled up to thousands and thousands and thousands of millions. I can’t remember, just tons of money. So it shows how much demonic activity was going on. And in the midst of that, you know there’s spiritual warfare going on.
By the way, isn’t it amazing? We have a big day. There’s always spiritual warfare leading up to a big day. Satan often tries to divide God’s people leading up to a big day. I’ve seen that so many times. It’s amazing to see it happen. And he’s after that. There’s spiritual warfare going on. It’s just part of it. But we have weapons that we can put on.
We’ve talked about the very first thing that he lists: the loins girdle about with truth. How important just honesty is. It’s the part—they say often, and by the way, I appreciate Ms. Busho letting us borrow her armor, and we can kind of joke a little bit about it. This is for a child, if you will, but I ain’t got anything better, so it’s working, amen, you know.
They say the truth—it’s almost like you see these weightlifters or maybe a heavyweight boxing champion; he has this big belt that’s kind of like the loins girdle, that kind of type belt it would be. And often other pieces of their armor were attached to it, and they would tighten it, cinch it up. And if you didn’t have that on and on properly, really, you’ve got a good chance you’re not going to be able to fight very well in the battle, and a good chance you can’t run. You can’t really go very far for the Lord, if you will.
And honesty is just so crucial. Honest about ourselves. Honest about what we are and who we are and why we are. All that’s just crucial. And if we’re not honest, you know, we can justify just about anything, including murder. And sad thing, honesty is so very, very important. We talked about that: loins gird about with truth, and the breastplate of righteousness.
And I think it’s just kind of where righteousness becomes a little bit of your DNA. Always my mind goes back to that Sunday morning. We were preaching about one of our people that had been sick, saying, “Man, we’re out of church, we just didn’t feel right.” And they’ve been in church a couple years now, and they say it’s to the point now when we’re not in church, something’s missing. And my mind went to, they’re putting on the breastplate of righteousness. They’re just kind of in the habit of doing the right thing. Now that’ll keep the enemy’s shots from going down all the way into your heart. It protects your vital organs, your heart specifically.
Breastplate’s last week we talked about. Oh, my goodness. Where did my shin guards go? Amen. We missed them. Where are we at here? Oh, there they are. There they are. Feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
The Roman soldiers’ shoes were very important because if you slip in battle, maybe your life. And often they say the Roman soldiers’ shoes had little metal knobby cleats—the first cleats ever were coming out. I remember back in soccer, we used to have screwing cleats. You know, anybody know what—I don’t know what to talk about. And well, they checked those and make sure there weren’t sharp edges on the whatnot. And the Roman soldiers had cleats, if you will. That’s so important.
Now, the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It helps you keep your feet from getting dirty when you’re all about witnessing. You want to live right. I mean, the best thing you can do at work is go witness the first day you get there. Because the pressure’s on, man, you got to do right, you know, and trying to witness to the family members. You want to be right there, be a good testimony to them. And going out on the gospel represents that. And then it really helps you from getting hurt quite so bad. You can still get hurt. But I remember we read that Jerry, Johnny Erickson taught it at the end, and she had that diving accident, broke her neck. But she says, you know, so many people have heard the gospel through this, and so it kind of makes it worthwhile. And that’s a little bit your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You’re prepared. You’re ready. You’re trying to get the gospel out, and that adds so much to your Christian life.
We’re in chapter 6 and verse number 10 of God’s Word tonight. And would you please stand to keep a couple of our bus workers from falling to sleep? Amen. That’s what that’s about right there. No, I’m teasing. But chapter 6, verse number 10: He says, “Finally, he’s finishing this whole book of the Bible, finally, my brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” He’s going to shoot at you, friend. I don’t care where you are yet. He’s going to shoot at you. He came to steal, kill, and destroy.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins gird about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Here’s our verse for tonight: Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”
We’ll just stop there tonight. Would you pray with me? God, I pray you to make this thing about our shield of faith. Lord, would you make it very real for your people? Lord, help me to say everything you want me to say. Lord, if I miss something, remind me of it, Lord. And, Lord, if everybody’s tired, Lord, if you don’t want me to cover something, tell me that. Would you work? Father, help us to be better about taking the shield of faith because of tonight. And we’ll thank you, Lord, for what you do. It’s in Jesus’ name we ask. Amen. Thank you so much for standing. You may be seated.
Notice what he says right there in that verse number 16: “Above all.” Now, some more question: Does that mean it’s the first place? I’m not sure that it means that, but if you will, overall.
These shields that they had, they had typically two different types of shields. They had a smaller shield, like Roman soldiers had, and it was sometimes almost a little bit for show, but it’s a smaller shield, maybe a little bit more like this. Of course, this is a child’s shield, we understand that. But then they had a larger shield. The Greek word used here really kind of shows us it’s a larger shield. It was a shield that would be taller. It would be a lot longer and fairly wide. And actually, that shield was so big the Roman soldiers would carry it that they could pretty much get in behind that shield and kind of get their whole body behind it, and they would be protected in this.
Sometimes you see these movies where they’re going to attack a city and people are shooting arrows off the walls of that city. And they can get behind those shields. That’s the type of shield that’s talking about here, a larger type shield. And Roman soldiers carried that; typically, these are the soldiers within the front lines. They’re carrying these larger type shields, see, and maybe attacking cities and whatnot. And that’s what’s talking about here. And he says this, he says, “Above all, taking the shield of faith that can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”
Now, notice he says the shield of faith. Now, several different ways we can get our faith, but one of the main ways, what is it said in Romans 10:17? “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” We get our faith from the Word of God. We get our faith from the Word of God. We have a hearing from the Word of God, and we get faith from that verse which speaks to it.
So here’s the thing. When the arrows start coming at you from the devil, let’s just take this. We’ll say that the devil is shooting at you an arrow of finances. Well, there’s more bills than there is money to pay. You know what I’m saying there? And you’re like, man, when are we ever going to get ahead? I’m so tired of barely keeping our heads above water. And this shot of finances—anybody ever been through that? The rest of you can be honest, raising hands two there. You know, all of us have been around through that. Well, of course, I know Brother Adam, his dad was a billionaire, but besides that, the rest of us, you know.
But yeah, now what do you do when finances, and the devil just seems like he’s attacking your finances? Instead of you just letting those arrows come in and hit you, you get you some Bible verses that build your faith. Philippians, or Philippians chapter number four, where Paul is talking about how you’ve taken care of me, the missionary, the preacher there—missionary specifically Paul—and he says, then he says that verse number 19, Philippians 4:19: “But my God shall supply all your need according to His glory, which is in Christ Jesus.”
And you say, “Wait a second, that verse—we’ve been given that God wants us to.” And I have a verse, and I’m going to put that verse out there because the devil’s shooting at me, and you’ve got a verse to claim. Maybe it’s Malachi 3:10, where he’s talking about, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, but I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that you cannot receive.” That blessing might not be necessarily that you’re wealthy; all kinds of blessings God opens up when you give to you. But you say, “Now wait, you said about tithe, you’ll take care of me,” and you put that Bible verse out there. See? That’s what we’re talking about.
Maybe it’s Matthew 6:33 that kind of builds your faith in finances: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” But you get your Bible verse, and instead of those arrows coming all the way into your mind and your heart—and that’s what they’re trying to get into your mind and to your heart—you say, “No, I’m going to put the shield up.” And the way you do that often is through the Bible, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Not only that, but you’re sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Over there in Galatians, he gives the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, and one of those pieces, part of the fruit of the Spirit, is faith. You know, it’s amazing how the Holy Spirit can guide you to the right verse. Anybody ever been there this week? Yeah, that verse—the Lord, I don’t know, maybe a month ago, let me have that verse. Man, it’s been such a blessing to me. We preached on it last Sunday morning. And he said, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.”
And so when Satan’s attacking you, you put those Bible verses up. The Holy Spirit leads you to the right verse for that dart that Satan’s shooting at you. See? But you get behind that. You don’t say, “Well, I’m strong enough. Hey, I can handle that.” You’re going to get shot right in the head, right between the eyes, amen. No. You get that big shield out there, and you let that shield, the shield of faith, work.
Now, here’s the interesting thing about the shields. Sometimes a Roman soldier—you got that picture, Brother Patrick, you got that picture there? We’ll get this picture up. Sometimes the Roman soldiers—there are different pictures for it—sometimes as they’re attacking… But sometimes the Roman soldiers would get all their shields together. See how they’re doing there? And they would kind of interlock. And maybe they’re coming close to a city, and all of a sudden they’re shooting their arrows. And the group of the soldiers would get together and form a line like that. Man, it’s hard to get an arrow in there because all those—according to here—Christians are together and they’re linking their shields of faith together. See? That’s why church is so important.
And that’s why there’s something about strength in numbers. Not a verse where we ought to be, but we’re all trying to live for the Lord. And you see so-and-so standing by faith, and you say, “Well, you know, I think I’ll put my shield of faith up too.” And maybe you’re sharing a verse or receiving a verse from a brother that builds your faith. We were talking the other day with someone, and we were talking about that verse, “We do not sorrow as others who have no hope.” We said, “Oh, we got some hope. We don’t have no hope.” And boy, someone said, “Man, that verse, that truth has been an encouragement to me.” And that’s part of linking the shields together, strengthening that.
Hey, this morning, how many of you invited—you’ve been working and trying to get a friend to come today to church and they didn’t come? Anybody like that? Yeah, yeah. You know, I was there personally. I had a couple of them; it all fell apart. But you know what? Brother Michael McNeil had someone come. Steve Goldforth had someone come in. I mean, oh, look around here and see who all had visitors. We got a visitor here tonight that came. Hey, you know what? That’s encouraging me. My visitors didn’t come, but Brother Marlin had a visitor this morning, a co-worker. That’s encouraging, and it helps my faith stay strong.
We go out soul-winning, and a lot of times we’ll take a bus. You know why we do that? Because there’s strength in numbers. We get back on that bus after it’s all said and done, “Well, I didn’t get anybody to say…” “That’s all right, Brother Chip did. Sister so-and-so did.” A man, like, “Whoa, that’s encouraging.” And it’s part of our shields of faith being linked together. You need that, friend.
Well, the devil shoots at our day and time. He’s shooting all over the place. But the strength, when you put those shields—the Roman soldiers, they were trained how to put those shields together to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. That’s just gold.
And so, please ask these four—verse 9: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls, for he hath not another to help him. Again, if two lie together, they have warmth, but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand; and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.” Will the shield of faith?
Now go back and look at this thing. What does he say there? Look back verse number 16. Y’all back there, verse number 16? Amen, you there? This side’s there. Is this side there? They’re a little slower because some of them were working today. But, you know, they’re working over here too. But anyway, here we go. Verse number 16: “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to what? To quench all the fiery…”
Often, often when they would attack, they would put a flammable tar-type substance on the arrow, and they would light it, and then they would shoot it. And notice what it says: wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. There are different types, and you’ll read all kind of things about it. Sometimes metal, they’ll say, but sometimes they say often it was wooden, the shields—the longer shields—and they were covered with layers of leather. And they would really have to anoint that leather or oil it up often to keep it in good shape. You don’t want to get brittle or to break off. So these flaming arrows would come, and sometimes they may even stick in there a little bit, but that shield—after a while, that arrow’s going to burn out. We are having to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Now, a couple thoughts about that. When you get shot—and by the way, if you live for the Lord very long, you will get shot with a flaming arrow. That’s just part of it. Let me word that differently: That’s not accurate. Even if you’re not living for the Lord, you’re going to get shot with a flaming arrow. That’s the truth, too. Remember years ago we had a young Christian, and she thought, “Man, if I live for the Lord, I’m going to get attacked more.” You’re going to get attacked no matter what you do, for he came to steal, kill, and destroy. I don’t want to represent that wrongly. The problem is, you know, if you live with the Lord, you get hit a whole lot worse, you know. It goes in a lot deeper.
But here’s what I’m getting at: When you get shot with that fiery arrow, and it’s maybe burning a little bit, notice “quench.” Sometimes it takes a while for it to be quenched. Sometimes those arrows have got to burn out. Don’t panic. It might get a little hot. You might go, “Oh no, it’s all right.” What does it say with him, Peter? He said, “My brother, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.” Don’t say, “Whoa, what are we going to do?” Stand. Keep your faith up. I know it’s burning. It’s getting a little hot. But he said it’ll quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. What is that? Don’t panic. I got shot. It’s at my shield. It’s burning. That’s all right. And it’s going to be hard sometimes to keep your faith up.
You know, here’s something interesting. You just quoted the verse from 1st Peter. Here’s another verse from 1 Peter 1:7: “That the trial of your faith, watch that, the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” You know, fire purifies.
Job, he was going through that trial, and boy, you can guarantee you there were some flaming arrows being shot at Job. You know what it did? It purified him.
Don’t panic. Ah, what am I going to do? Keep your shield up. Shield of faith. Keep choosing to have faith. Stand. Don’t turn around or run. By the way, interestingly, these armors are not really for the backside. If you turn around and run, that’s when you’re going to get shot. Boom. You’re going to get nailed that way. No, just hang on. Stay behind that shield—the Word of God, the faith that it brings.
How many have had a wayward child? Hurts like nothing. Oh, it feels like about a million pounds on your shoulders. You wake up with it, you go to sleep with it. In the middle of the night, you got it. I mean, just all the time. And get you that. Keep holding on that verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” And keep your faith up. Keep your faith up. And it’s going to hurt. Keep your faith up.
It would quench all. I like that. Quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. That’s a wonderful promise. All of them. Just keep it up. Don’t be shocked about it. Don’t panic. Satan cannot shoot something at you that the shield of faith cannot quench—all the fiery darts. Keep it up. Keep it up.
It’s a shield of faith. You know, there’s an element of decision with faith. Sometimes we think, well, it’s just feeling. It’s more than the feeling because feelings are up or down, fickle, you know. I mean, you feel bad in the morning because you ate pizza the night before—you know, Brother Chip says amen to that—or too much ice cream the night before. Come on now, some of us there.
But faith is more… What’s that over in Hebrews 11? “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.” All right, you’ve been hoping for Uncle Joe to get saved. What’s the substance you witnessed to? It took faith to do that. “The evidence of things not seen.” What’s the evidence? You’ve been praying for Uncle Joe to get saved for 20 years? That’s the substance, that’s the evidence. It takes faith to do that. It’s more than just feeling.
And faith—what was it said in 2 Corinthians? “For we walk by faith and not by sight.” It’s a decision. I’m deciding to walk by faith, not by sight. So I’m saying, choose faith. The devil wants you to choose fear. You walk in fear. People get so fearful in this day and time. The news—boy, if you listen to the news 24/7, you’re probably going to be worried about everything. Our news—we know any problem around the world. We don’t know about it because they keep hidden the things they want to keep hidden about. But they’ll tell you about any problem around the world about problems. And if you’re not careful, you’ll live in fear. No, I don’t want to live in fear. I want to live in faith. Choose to live by faith. There’s a decision there. I’m choosing to walk by faith, not by sight. Decide it. No, I’m not going to dwell on that all day long. I’m not going to let the arrow come all the way in there. I’m going to put the shield of faith up. So I’m going to choose to think on that Word of God that brings faith to me. It’s a battle.
And let me say this. You know, a shield—now, this one was not bad, amen. It’s a child’s shield. It’s plastic. But you know those Roman soldiers, the shields, they were typically pretty long. These ones used in battle often were for front-line soldiers. The ones like this here, this is fairly realistic from what I can understand. You know, after you carry that thing for a couple of hours, it gets heavy.
They say typically they’re right-handed, praise the Lord, there are a couple people that are in the right mind. The left-handed people, though, you know—amen, we got a couple of those. I see those left-handed people saying amen there, you know. But they say typically they’re right-handed, and so they would carry it in their left hand. So what I’m saying, typically they would be carrying that shield with their nondominant hand. And after a while, you’re carrying that big old shield; it gets heavy. And after a while, you’re like, “Man, I want to let go of that shield. My arm’s about to fall off. Pretty soon my, you know, a couple feet long arm is going to be ten feet long, dragging the ground.”
You know, you can get a little weary of taking the shield of faith. “Above all, take it.” Can I just encourage you? I understand, man, your arms get tired of carrying it. But keep holding on to it. Don’t let it go. I’m going to keep that shield up. It’s getting a little weary, a little heavy. Hang on.
You know, here’s a neat thing: There’s the ebb and flow, ebb and tide, offense, defense, in battles. I was watching yesterday when Tennessee won in basketball. Notice I said yesterday when Tennessee won in basketball. Today wasn’t so good, friend, you know. But anyway, and I don’t watch today. But yesterday, I watched just the last part of the game. And at the end, they interviewed the coach, I think it was that one, and the coach said, “Well, you know, basketball is a game of runs,” and it is so much so. And so I knew they’re going to get the run here, but we’d get our run, and back and forth. And battles are like that. So often when you got your shield up and you’re there and you’re standing and Satan’s shooting at you, hey, here’s a good thought: Hang on there. Don’t let it down. I know it gets heavy. But typically, after their offense, your offense is about to come.
Jesus was in the wilderness, remember that in Matthew 4 and Luke 4? And Satan’s attacking him. You know what it says right after that in Luke 4:14? “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.” He had his shield up. Right after that, boy, Jesus said, “All right, man, now we’re on the offense.” Often after an attack of Satan, praise the Lord, now we’re about to go on the attack through the power of God and gain some ground for the Lord. Keep that shield up. Keep that shield up. Don’t get heavy. Keep it up. Keep it up. “Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Heads about eyes are closed? Maybe you’re here tonight. You say, “Preacher, Lord, help me to keep my shield of faith up.” I’m asking the Lord. Lord, would you help me to keep my shield of faith up? Yes, there are arrows for everyone. Lord, would you help me keep my shield of faith up? Maybe that’s your heart tonight. That’s your heart tonight. That’s you. You slip up your hand. “Help me, Lord, to keep my shield of faith up. Help me to keep it up.” God bless you. God bless you. Many, many hands. Many, many hands.
Maybe you’re here tonight. Maybe you’re here tonight and you say, “Hey, Lord, I’ve kind of let it down a little bit. Help me to lift it back up. I need to get that shield of faith back on. Satan’s shooting at me. I need to get that shield back up. I’ve kind of dropped it. Lord, enable me. Would you help me? Empower me to get my shield back up, shield of faith back up.” Maybe that’s you tonight. You slip your hand. I appreciate it. “That’s me.” God bless you. God bless you. Several. God bless you. That’s good.
Let’s do our best to get it back up. Would you please stand? We’ll have a word of prayer. Would you just be obedient to the Lord? Father, thank you that you direct us how to have our armor. Lord, would you make this shield of faith so real to us? Every individual. Lord, keep it strong, keep it high for you. We’ll thank you for what you do. Jesus, let me pray.
Would you just be obedient as the Lord guides you? Spend some time, Lord, having to keep this shield up. If you have to lift it back up high above all—oh, how vital it is. Maybe go to the Holy Spirit: “I need your direction. Give me a good verse for this battle right here.” Maybe it’s a new angle that Satan’s trying to shoot from. Holy Spirit, what verse do I need for them? He has every promise in the world that you need in that book to give you the faith you need.
“Quench all the fiery darts.” I like that—all the fiery darts, every one of them. Quench it. It might take a little while. He’ll quench them, though. Don’t panic.
Hey, we’re going to be finished covering the different pieces of the armor pretty soon. It’s coming. We’ve got a couple more left. But the helmet of salvation and talking to a saved person—so we’ll talk about that next Sunday night. Amen. We’ll go home and get some little rest right now. Amen. But praise the Lord for a good day. And just God’s people working. And Brother Bill—where’s he at? There he is right there. He’s still walking. Wow. And I heard he was going at least three miles an hour on those skates today. I’m teasing. He did better than I do, I guarantee you that. And we’re honored to have Raphael. Thank you for coming with us tonight. We appreciate that. That’s great. Glad to have water. But don’t forget next Sunday, Foundation’s class starting up, and we’re excited about that. And just God bless you. School—my goodness, it’s just only a couple months left of school. Wow. And things are just moving along. Amen. Excited about God working. August 24th is going to be here before we know it, and looking forward to that. That’s going to be a great, great day. Praise the Lord for Brother One for our fan. Would you dismiss us in a word of prayer, please, brother?
Original File: Pastor Paul Chisgar ＂Shield of Faith＂ - Sunday PM 03⧸16⧸2025 [3xTJj5SWHxY]