Charles H. Spurgeon

Justification by Faith
Charles Finney

Not Faith, But Christ
Horatius Bonar

Faith's Persistency
T. Austin-Sparks

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The Shield of Faith
By Charles H. Spurgeon     (Continued)

Have you the spirit of love and gentleness? Take care that you have the shield of faith, or your gentleness may yet turn to anger and your love be changed to bitterness. We must protect our graces with faith as well as the nature they adorn. It is not simply the head but the helmet, not the feet merely, but the shoes. Not the loins, but the blade all must be shielded and secured by this all-covering, all-protecting, all-triumphant shield of faith.

In the second place, let me suggest that faith like a shield receives the blows which are meant for the man himself. Some Christians think that faith would enable them to escape blows that if they had faith everything would be quiet, everything would be peaceful and calm. I know how young Christians imagine this. They think as soon as ever they have come out of their first convictions of their own sinfulness and found the Savior, oh, now they are going to ride softly to Heaven, singing all the way. Why did they put their armor on at all if there were to be no battles? Why have they put their hand to the plow if they are not to plow to the end of the furrow and often to wipe the sweat from their face through their hard toil?

Why enlist, young men, if you are not wanted to fight? What is the good of a fair-weather soldier one who stays at home to feed at the public expense? No, let the soldier be ready when war comes. Let him expect the conflict as a part and necessary consequence of his profession. But be armed with faith it receives the blows. The poor shield is knocked and hammered and battered like a hen house exposed in the time of storm. Blow after blow comes rattling upon it and though it turns death aside, yet the shield is competent itself to bear the cut and the thrust.

So must our faith do it must be cut at, it must bear the blows. Some people, instead of using the shield of faith to bear the blow, use the skulking place of cowards. Ashamed of Christ they make no profession of Him or having professed Christ, ashamed of the profession they hide themselves by deserting their colors, by conformity to the world. Perhaps they are even called to preach the Gospel but they do it in so quiet and gentle a way like men that wear soft raiment and ought to be in kings' houses. Unlike John the Baptist, they are "reeds shaken with the wind."

Of them no one says anything ill because they have done no ill to Satan's kingdom. Against them Satan never roars why should he? He is not afraid of them, therefore he need not come out against them. "Let them alone," he says, "thousands such as those will never shake my kingdom." But this is not to use the shield of faith. This, I repeat it, is to use the sulking-places of an ignoble coward. Others use the shield of presumption. They think it is right with them when it is not. They are proof, not against the attacks of Satan, but against the weapons of our spiritual warfare.

Seared in their conscience as with a hot iron they fear not the rebukes of God's Law. Deadened even to the voice of love they bow not before the invitations of Christ. They go on their way caring for none of those things. Presumption has made them secure. Such people have no blows to suffer. Their shield lets them go through the world quietly, saying, "Peace, peace, where there is no peace." But only uplift the shield of faith, bearing the blood-red emblem of the Cross and there are plenty of the knights of Hell who are ready to unhorse you. On, Champion, on! In the name of Him that is with you. No lance can pierce that shield. No sword shall ever be able to cut through it. It shall preserve you in all battle and in all strife you shall bring it home yourself through it you shall be more than conqueror. Faith, then, is like a shield because it has to bear the blows.

Thirdly, faith is like a shield because it has good need to be strong. A man who has some pasteboard shield may lift it up against his foe the sword will go through it and reach his heart. Or perhaps in the moment when the lance is in rest and his foe is dashing upon him he thinks that his shield may preserve him and lo it is dashed to shivers and the blood gushes from the fountain and he is slain. He that would use a shield must take care that it be a shield of proof. He that has true faith, the faith of God's elect, has such a shield that he will see the swords of his enemies go to a thousand shivers over it every time they smite the shield of faith.

And as for their spears, if they but once come in contact with this shield, they will break into a thousand splinters, or bend like reeds when pressed against the wall they cannot pierce it, but they shall themselves be quenched or broken in pieces. You will say, how then are we to know whether our faith is a right faith and our shield a strong one? One test of it is it must be all of one piece. A shield that is made of three or four pieces in this case will be of no use. So your faith must be all of one piece it must be faith in the finished work of Christ. You must have no confidence in yourself or in any man but rest wholly and entirely upon Christ else your shield will be of no use.

Then your faith must be of Heaven's forging or your shield will certainly fail you. You must have the faith of God's elect which is of the operation of the Holy Spirit who works it in the soul of man. Then you must see to it that your faith is that which rests only upon Truth, for if there is any error or false notion in the fashioning of it that shall be a joint in it which the spear can pierce. You must take care that your faith is agreeable to God's Word that you depend upon true and real promises, upon the sure word of testimony and not upon the fictions and fancies and dreams of men.

And above all, you must mind that your faith is fixed in the Person of Christ nothing but a faith in Christ's divine Person as "God over all, blessed forever" and in His proper manhood when as the Lamb of God's Passover He was sacrificed for us no other faith will be able to stand against the tremendous shocks and the innumerable attacks which you must receive in the great battle of spiritual life. Look to your shield, Man. Not so fast there with that painted God! Not so fast there with that proud heraldic symbol which has no strength in it. See to your shield! See if it is like the shields of Solomon which were borne before the king, each one made of gold. Or at least let them be like the shields of Rehoboam, every one of the best brass, so that there be found no wooden shield in your hand which may be dashed in pieces when you need its help most.

But to pass on for we must not pause long on any one particular faith is like a shield because it is of no use except it is well handled. A shield needs handling and so does faith. He was a silly soldier who, when he went into the battle said he had a shield but it was at home. So there are some silly professors who have a faith but they have not got it with them when they need it. They have it with them when there are no enemies. When all goes well with them, then they can believe. But just when the pinch comes, then their faith fails.

Now there is a sacred art in being able to handle the shield of faith. Let me explain to you how that can be. You will handle it well if you are able to quote the promises of God against the attacks of your enemy. The devil says, "One day you shall be poor and starve." "No," says the believer, handling his shield well, "He has said ‘I will never leave you, nor forsake you.' " He has said, "Bread shall be given you and your water shall be sure." "Yes," says Satan, "but you will one day fall by the hand of the enemy." "No," says faith, "for I am persuaded that He that has begun a good work in me will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."

"Yes," says Satan, "but the slander of the enemy will overturn you." "No," says faith, "He makes the wrath of man to praise Him. The remainder of wrath does He restrain." "Yes" says Satan, as he shoots another arrow, "you are weak." "Yes," says faith, handling his shield, "but ‘my strength is made perfect in weakness.' Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." "Yes," says Satan, "but your sin is great." "Yes," says faith, handling the promise, "but He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him."

"But," says the enemy again, drawing his sword and thrusting, "God has cast you off." "No," says faith, "He hates putting away, He does not cast off His people, neither does He forsake His heritage." "But I will have you, after all," says Satan. "No," says faith, dashing the enemy's jaws, "He has said, ‘I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand.' " This is what I call handling the shield.

But there is another way of handling it, not merely with the promises, but with the doctrines. "Ah," says Satan, "what is there in you that you should be saved? You are poor and weak and mean and foolish!" Up comes faith handling the shield doctrinally, this time and says, "God has chosen the base things of this world and things which are despised has God chosen, yes and things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are," for "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called." "Has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him?"

"Yes," says Satan, "if God should have chosen you, yet after all you may certainly perish!" And then, Christian handling his shield of faith doctrinally again, says "No, I believe in the final perseverance of the saints, for is it not written, ‘the righteous shall hold on His way and he that has clean hands shall wax stronger' "? "Those that You gave Me I have kept and none of them is lost," and so forth. So by well understanding the doctrines of grace there is not a single doctrine which may not in its way minister to our defense against the fiery darts of the wicked.

Then the Christian soldier ought to know how to handle the shield of faith according to the rules of observation. "Yes," says the enemy, "your confidence is vain and your hope shall soon be cut off." "No," says faith, "I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken." "Yes, but you have fallen into sin and God will leave you." "No," says faith, "for I saw David and he stumbled, but yet the Lord surely brought him out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay." To use this shield in the way of observation is very profitable when you mark the way whereby God has dealt with the rest of His people. For as He deals with one, so He will deal with the rest and you can throw this in the teeth of your enemy.

I remember the ways of God. I call to remembrance his deeds of old. I say has God cast off His people, has He forsaken one of His chosen? And since He has never done so, I hold up my shield with great courage and say He never will. He changes not. As He has not forsaken any, He will not forsake me.

Then there is another blessed way of handling this shield and that is experimentally. When you can look back, like the Psalmist, to the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. When you can return to those days of old and call to remembrance your song in the night. When your spirit can say, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, why are you disquieted within me? Hope you in God, for I shall yet praise Him." Why, Brethren, some of us can talk of deliverances so many that we know not where to end, scarcely do we know where to begin. Oh, what wonders has God done for us as a Church and people! He has brought us through fire and through water.

Men did ride over our heads, but up to now all things have worked together for our good. His glory has appeared amidst all the villainies and slanders of men to which we have been exposed. Let us handle our shield, then, according to the rules of past experience! And when Satan tells us that God will fail us at the last, let us reply, "Now you lie and I tell it to you to your face, for what our God was in the past, He will be in the present and in the future and so on even to the end." Young soldiers of Christ, learn well the art of handling your shield.

Lastly for the matter of the figure. The shield in olden times was an emblem of the warrior's honor and more especially in later days than those of Paul. In the age of chivalry, the warrior carried his escutcheon, his shield. Now, faith is like a shield, because it carries the Christian's glory, the Christian's coat of arms, the Christian's escutcheon. And what is the Christian's coat of arms? Well, good Joseph Irons used to say it was a Cross and a crown, with the words "No Cross, no crown" a most blessed coat of arms, too.

But methinks the Christian's best coat of arms is the Cross of his Savior that bloodied Cross. Always stained, yet never stained. Always dyed in blood, yet always resplendent with ruby brightness. Always trod on, yet always triumphant. Always despised, yet always glorified. Always attacked, yet always without resistance, coming off more than conqueror. Some of the old Reformers used to have an anvil for their coat of arms and a significant one, too, with this motto, "The anvil has broken many hammers." By which they meant that they stood still and just let men hammer at them till their hammers broke of themselves.

Another old coat of arms with some of the Reformers was likely to be a candle with a great many enemies all puffing to blow it out. Although they all blew as hard as they could, yet the candle did but burn the brighter. Out of darkness came light and from all their attacks the light grew stronger. This morning put your coat of arms upon your shield and lift it up. Let that blood-red Cross be your choice. Then when your battle is over, they will hang your escutcheon up in Heaven. And when the old heraldries have gone and the lions and tigers and beasts and all manner of strange things have vanished from remembrance, that Cross and your old shield indented with many a blow shall be honorable with many a triumph before the Throne of God. Above all things, then, take the shield of faith.

II.   I now leave the expounding of the figure in haste and pass on to ENFORCE THE EXHORTATION.

"Above all taking the shield of faith." If you sent a servant upon an errand and you said to him, "Get so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so, but above all now see to such-and-such a thing," he would not understand that he should not neglect any. He would perceive that there was some extra importance attached to one part of his mission. So let it be with us. We are not to neglect our sincerity, our righteousness, or our peace but above all, as the most important, we are to see to it that our faith is right that it is true faith and that it covers all our virtues from attack. The necessity of true faith is clearly explained by the text.

Faith is here said to have a quenching power. The ancients were likely to use small arrows, perhaps light cane arrows which were tinged with poison. They would be called fiery darts, because they no sooner touched the flesh or even graced the skin than they left a fiery poison in the veins. Sometimes, too, they employed darts which were tipped with tow that had been dipped in some inflammable spirit and were blazing as they flew through the air in order to set the tents of their antagonists on fire, or burn down houses in besieged cities. Now faith has a quenching power it sees the temptation or the blasphemy, or the insinuation coming against it with poison and with fire in it to take away its life or to burn up its comforts.

Faith catches the dart not only receives it but takes away its sting and quenches the fire. Oh it is wonderful how God sometimes enables His people to live in the midst of temptations and tribulations as though they had none of them! I believe that some of the martyrs, when they were burned in the fire, suffered hardly any pain because the joy and peace which God gave them delivered them from the vehement heat. This I know. There are times when everybody is speaking well of some of us and we are wretched by reason of the world's fawning. We do not want to be called "Son of Pharaoh's daughter."

And yet there are other times when, though every one speaks ill, our peace is like a river and our righteousness like the waves of the sea. Truly at such times we can say, "Now I am in my proper place. This is where I should be outside the camp bearing the reproach of Christ." The praise of man is deadly and damnable. His censure is goodly and godlike. Let it come. It cannot dishonor, it does but ennoble. Thus does it often happen that faith quenches the fire of attack. No, more it turns the attack itself into comfort, extracts honey from the nettle and sweets of joy from the wormwood and the gall. "Above all, take the shield of faith."

Another commendation which the text gives is this that faith alone, out of all the pieces of armor, is able to quench all the darts. The helmet can only keep off those that are aimed against the head. The foot is only and alone protected by the sandals. The breast alone is guarded by the breastplates, but faith protects against all attacks. Have all other virtues, but most of all have faith, for faith is the cure-all, it is the universal remedy. It is good not only for the heat of fever, but for the shaking of fever. It is good for everything good for the timid to make them strong. Good for the rash to make them wise. It is good for those who are desponding to make them brave and good for those who are too daring, to make them discreet. There is no respect in which faith is not useful to us. Therefore, whatever you leave out, see to your faith. If you forget all besides, be careful above all that you take the shield of faith.

And then, again, we are told above all to take the shield of faith because faith preserves from all sorts of enemies. The fiery darts of the wicked! Does that refer to Satan? Faith answers him. Does it refer to wicked men? Faith resists them. Does it refer to one's own wicked self? Faith can overcome that. Does it refer to the whole world? "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." It matters not who the enemy may be let the earth be all in arms abroad this faith can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Above all then, take the shield of faith.

I know there are some ministers who seem to teach doubting as a duty. I cannot. I dare not. Above all, take the shield of faith. You know in the old Grecian contest the aim of the enemy was to get near enough to push aside the shield and then to stab under the armor. And that is what Satan wants to do. If he can knock aside the shield and get under it, then he can stab us mortally. Take care of your shield. Do not fight in perpetual unbelief. Be not always cast down. Pray unto your God till you can say "I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him."

Oh, the old saints were not always doubting. "My Beloved is mine and I am His," said Solomon. David said "Say unto my soul, I am your salvation." "The Lord is my salvation." "The Lord is my shepherd." Job, too, could say, "I know that my Redeemer lives." Paul could speak very confidently in many places. And why should we be content to say "I hope, I trust" when they said they knew and were persuaded all was well between God and their souls? Let it be so with us. Unbelief dishonors us, weakens us, destroys our comforts, prevents our usefulness. Faith will make us happy and make us useful and what is best of all, it will enable us to honor God on earth and to enjoy His presence while yet we are in the low-lands of this present world.

III.   Lastly, I have a word or two to say by way of conclusion to some POOR SINNER WHO IS COMING TO CHRIST BUT WHO IS GREATLY VEXED WITH THE FIERY DARTS OF THE WICKED ONE.

You remember how John Bunyan in his Pilgrim's Progress represents Christiana and Mercy and the children coming to knock at the gate? When they knocked, the enemy who lived in a castle hard by sent out a big dog which barked at them at such a rate that Mercy fainted and Christiana only dared to knock again. And when she obtained entrance, she was all in a tremble. At the same time, hard by in the castle there were men who shot fiery darts at all who would enter. And poor Mercy was exceedingly afraid because of the darts and the dog.

Now it generally happens that when a soul is coming to Christ the devil will dog him. As sure as ever he feels his need of a Savior and is ready to put his trust in Christ, it will be true of him as of the poor demoniac child. As he was a coming the devil threw him down and beat him. Now, poor tempted Sinner, there is nothing that can bring joy and peace into your heart but faith. Oh, that you may have grace this morning to begin to use this shield. "Ah Sir," you say, "I have been looking within and I cannot see anything that is good. I have been looking to my experiences and I am afraid I have never felt as So-and-So did."

That is the way to ruin yourself. Did you ever hear of a man who in cold winter's weather got warm by rolling on the ice and saying, "I don't feel any heat as some people do." No, because he is looking in the wrong place to get the heat. If you expect to get anything in yourself you expect more than Paul ever got, for he said after he had long known his Master, "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) there dwells no good thing." "Oh, Sir," you reply again, "I find I am willing to do a great many things, but I cannot. And when I would be what I should be, I find a resistance somewhere within my own breast."

Well and what of that? Even so did the Apostle "When I would do good, evil is present with me." The fact is you have no business to look there. These things are not shields against Satan. What cares he for your experiences? Were they ever so good he would still roar at you. What he is afraid of is your faith. Throw down these things, then, which only encumber you and expose you and lay your breast bare to his attacks and take up the shield of faith. What has Satan said to you? "You are too great a sinner to be saved." Well, quote this text, "Him that comes unto Me, I will in nowise cast out."

I had a lesson this week in the case of a good Christian man who through feebleness of mind has fallen at last into the deepest despair. I never met with a person in such awful despair as he was and you cannot tell how it puzzled me to give him any sort of comfort. Indeed, I failed after all. He said, "I'm too big a sinner to be saved." So I said, "But the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleans us from all sin." "Yes," he said, "but you must remember the context, which says, ‘If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleans us from all sin.'

"Now, I do not walk in the light," he said. "I walk in the dark and I have no fellowship with the people of God now and therefore it does not apply to me." "Well," I said, "but He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him." "That is the only text," he said, "I never can get over, for it says ‘to the uttermost,' and I know I cannot have gone beyond that and still it does not yield me comfort." I said, "but God asks nothing of you but that you will believe Him. And you know if you have ever so feeble a faith you are like a child the feeble hand of a child can receive. And that is the mark of a Christian of His fullness have all we received and if you only receive with your hand, that is enough."

"Yes," said he, "I have not the hand I have not the hand of faith." "Very well," I said, "you have the mouth of desire. You can ask, if you cannot receive with the hand." "No," said he, "I have not. I do not pray, I cannot pray. I have not the mouth of desire." "Then," I said, "all that is wanted is an empty place, a vacuum, so that God can put it in." "Ah, Sir," said he, "you have got me there! I have a great deal of vacuum. I have an aching void a vacuum. If ever there was an empty sinner in this world, I am one." "Well," I said, "Christ will fill that vacuum. There is a full Christ for empty sinners."

Let me now say the same to you as I said to that poor man. All God wants is a vacuum. You have got a vacuum. This is not much to have simply to be empty, to be pumped dry, to have nothing at all in you. But then, "He fills the hungry with good things and the rich He sends empty away." All that is wanted is to be down there on the ground. It is not hard work. It is not to sit up, nor to stand up, nor to kneel but to lie there at His feet. And when He sees the soul flat on its face before Him, He will have mercy upon you.

Now, Soul, for that shield of faith, say to Satan, "In the name of God I dare believe." "You are a great sinner," says he. "Yes, but I believe He is a great Savior." "But you have sinned beyond all hope." "No, there is forgiveness with Him, that He may be feared." But he says, "You are shut out." "No," you say, "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." "But your disease is of long standing." "Yes, but," you say, "if I but touch the hem of His garment, I shall be clean." But says Satan again, "How dare you? Would you have the impudence?" "Well," you say, "if I perish I will trust Christ and I will perish only there."

Have it fixed in your soul that in the teeth of everything you will trust Christ that be you such a sinner or not, still you will trust Christ that whether Satan's accusations are true or false, you mean to have done answering them and simply trust Christ. Ah, Soul, then you shall have such joy and peace that nothing shall be like it. O that you would believe on Jesus now! Leave your feelings, leave your doings and your works and trust Christ.

"I dare not," says one. Dare it, Man, dare it! You cannot do wrong for He commands you. This is the commandment, "that you believe on Jesus Christ whom He has sent." "Oh, but I may be lost even if I do." You will be lost if you do not, for "he that believes not shall be dammed." "But I am afraid of being condemned if I were to believe." "He that believes not is condemned already." You are like the poor lepers at the gate. You are dying and you say, "Let us fall to the Syrians if they kill us we can but die and if they save us alive we shall live."

Say, as Benhadad did concerning king Ahab, "We have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings, but let us put ropes upon our heads and go out to the king of Israel perhaps he will save our life." So say you to God, "I have heard that You are merciful, if there is a wretch out of Hell that deserves to be in it, I am that sinner. If there is one that now feels that earth is provoked against him and the ground says, swallow him up, I am he. If there is one which Heaven is provoked against him and cries, let the lightning flash destroy him. And the sea says, drown him. And the stars say, smite him with pestilence. And the sun says, scorch him.

"If there is one which the moon says let him be blasted. And the mildew says, let me devour his crops. And fever says, let me cut off the thread of his life, if there is such a wretch out of Hell, I am he." Yet, say but to God, "By Your grace I believe in Your mercy, I believe in Your promise, I believe in your Son Jesus. I believe in His precious blood and here I am do with me as seems good in Your sight." Say but this and you shall have mercy and pardon and peace. My dear Hearers, shall I say this for myself and not for you? No, but may God grant that many a score of you this morning may be led to put your trust in Him who has said, "They that trust in Me shall never be confounded."