I will hold!

Read Ephesians 6:10-18

Some days you wake up and are just singing about how good life is.  Some days, not so much.

Some days you are wrestling with your human—sinful nature, and other days you just seem totally in sync with our new nature.  Some days it is as if God’s Spirit is at the wheel and we are enjoying the ride.

Some days we wrestle with evil—sometimes in the physical world and sometimes, mostly in the spirit realm.  It is perhaps not a daily event for most, but we are called to readiness on a daily basis.

We are counseled to put on the full armor of God.  We are charged to stand our ground against the evil one and told when the dust settles, we will still be standing.

There’s a quote familiar to most Marines from the 19^th Commandant of the Marine Corps.  Long before he was a general, Clifton B. Cates was a company commander in WWI.  He sent the following situation report to his commander.

"From Co. "H" -- Date: July 19. Hour 10:45A.M. To: Lt. Col Lee. "I am in an old abandoned French trench bordering on the road leading out of your command post and 350 yards from an old mill. I have only two men out of my company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try and get it here as we are swept by machine-gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I WILL HOLD."

I will hold! We are almost completely out of good guys here, but nobody is taking what we have.  I will hold! 

We as Christians are invading a pagan—a godless world—with the news of the one true and very much a loving God who wants all to know that they can repent of their sinful lives and come to him.  The blood of Jesus has made a way where there was no way.

We are invading a godless world with good news, but sometimes you just have to hunker down and hold on to what you have.  To use the words of Jesus as he gave them to the churches via John the Apostle in his revelation on Patmos:  Strengthen what remains.

Your work here is not finished.  Hold on.  Reinforce where you can.  Stay strong to the end.  We may have to just hold on to what we have.  We should be ready for intense spiritual warfare.

Paul begins with the Belt of Truth to be wrapped around the warrior’s waist.  We are equipped with truth in this age of falsehood.

Next comes the breast plate—I’ll go 21^st century here and say the flak vest of righteousness.  Remember, this is not righteousness of our own making, but it is ours now.  God has done this for us.

Feet are fitted with footwear representing the gospel of peace.  Now if you were brought up in the way you should go—a credit to your parents, and their parents were brought up in the way they should go, then your grandmother did wear combat boots.

She was outfitted with the Gospel of Peace footwear—Gospel of Peace combat boots.  Ready to do battle shod in the Gospel of Peace.

We put on the Helmet of Salvation.  I’m thinking better than next generation Kevlar. Here is the thing.  We go into battle knowing that we might lose this life in this physical body but our eternal life is secure.

And we are armed with the Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.  I think of the word of God being living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, capable of separating soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Now, I skipped over one component of our battle gear.  I did not mention the Shield of Faith because we  continue our exploration of faith, so we return to what should be a very familiar defining verse from the King James Version.

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

We take up the shield of faith with which we can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.  We may not engage in spiritual warfare with the evil one every day, but every day we dress for battle with every component.

So, understanding the armor of God is to be worn as a battle system—the full armor of God—not just a component put on here and there, we will look at just one component this morning.

Let’s look at the shield of faith.  We have talked about healing and moving mountains when we think of faith.  We think of the paradigm believing is seeing.

We want to walk by faith and not by sight, knowing that we still teach our kids to look both ways when they cross the street.  We understand what it is to have a life governed by faith.  We may still struggle with leading with our faith, but we are still following Christ in our faith.

It’s a growing process, but today we talk about battle.  We consider direct confrontation with Satan and the forces of evil and we are told that our shield of faith will extinguish his flaming arrows.  We have exactly what we need.

Conventional tactics would say shoot the people shooting the arrows at you.  If you get them, they can’t shoot you anymore.  It’s also our human nature to retaliate. Remember Lex Talionis?  The Law of Retaliation was given as an improvement to the Law of Escalation, but the human heart desires to retaliate.

But we are told to take up the shield of faith.  When we are under attack by evil in any form, we must defend ourselves and our loved ones by faith.  Faith must be first. 

Now if ISIS or the Taliban or some other group set on the destruction of our country comes into Burns Flat looking to do us harm, call me.  I’ll get on my roof and pick them off before they hit the city limits. They’re not even going to have to close Rudy’s.

Don’t send me a Facebook message.  I might not see it for several hours.  Call me.  I will still have my shield of faith but I will have my AR 15 as well.

But the battles that I am talking about are less about terrorists and sworn enemies of our country. These battles are more about the evil that operates in the spiritual realm.

We are not equipped to fight evil with our flesh and blood minds and bodies.  We must understand that we are fighting a different sort of enemy.  We will not flank them or envelope them.  We won’t succeed with an ambush.

Human tactics fall short against evil in the spiritual realm.  We must strengthen our faith, not at the moment of attack, but on every day preceding it. 

Paul reminds the Ephesians and us that the shield of faith will extinguish the flaming arrows of the enemy. 

We are not to see if we can outsmart evil.  We stand strong in our faith.

We are not to try and overpower evil.  We stand strong in our faith.

We don’t make a peace treaty with evil.  We stand strong in our faith.

In fact, our course of action is the same in any encounter with evil.  Take up the shield of faith.

Faith in God.  Faith in Jesus Christ.  Faith that he overcame sin and death.  Faith that he lives again.  Faith that the name of Jesus is more powerful than any weapon of our enemy.

We live by faith and we fight by faith.

And we pray. We pray in the Spirit.  We pray all the time.  Prayer is part of who we are.  Prayer says we live by faith.

And we stay alert.  We are vigilant.  We are ready for battle.  We are vigilant because evil will likely not come as an armed group of terrorists riding pickups with mounted machine guns.  Evil will attempt to invade your mind and your decisions.

Most days, we just wrestle with the old self, the sinful nature, the human heart.  We must win these daily struggles to be ready for greater battles, but most days we are not in face to face combat with pure evil.  We must win these daily battles with our own sinful nature and the evil that somehow, we have not expunged from our hearts.

How do we win them all?  With Christ and by faith.

But for those days that we are confronted by evil, we are to stand firm, hold our ground, and when all is said and done, be found standing at the days end.

To do that, we must put on the full armor of God.  Truth, righteousness, the gospel, salvation, and the word of God—all gifts of God.  We didn’t have to go to Amazon 1-Click to get them.

And we must take up the shield of Faith.  We have all been given a measure of faith but we are to grow in our faith so that it is a shield against enemy attacks.  Our shield should be an impressive part of our battle gear.

Back in the day—that should be specific enough as none of us were alive—warriors armed with sword and shield sometimes had a shield bearer.  You know of shield bearers because Goliath had one.  His shield bearer walked ahead of him.

Great warriors shouldn’t be worn out when they get to the battlefield so some had shield bearers.  Our shield of faith must be large and growing larger each day, but not too heavy.  It grows larger and lighter the more we live in and live by faith.

 Having put on the full armor of God to include taking up our shield of faith, we are told that when all is said and done, we will stand.

Today, and every day we put on the full armor of God, but our shield of faith should grow stronger and stronger each day.

On that day when we are surrounded by evil and evil seems invincible, take up the shield of faith and declare, I will hold!

Amen.