when I once again will turn our
attention to the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians and chapter
6 and this evening we'll read verses 15 and verses 16. The epistle of Paul to the Ephesians
chapter 6 and reading verses 15 and 16. And your feet shod
with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the
shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the
fiery darts of the wicked. And so we have here this evening
two more pieces of armour. Two more pieces of this whole
armour of God which the Lord has set before us to put on And
these two pieces are the feet to be shod in the preparation
of the Gospel and the shield of faith. That's what a mercy
it is then. The Lord in his goodness and
grace gives us a list of these blessed pieces of armour which
in a spiritual way we should desire to put on and how good
it is. It gives us grace and understanding
to put them on. We don't read it as mere words,
but we understand what they mean to us in a spiritual sense. And
so here we have this statement, and your feet, Sean, with a preparation
of the Gospel of Peace. Well, probably in some way we
understand what the Gospel of Peace is. And surely here it
really designs a firm and a solid knowledge of the Gospel. It's
very important for us to have a good knowledge of the Gospel,
a spiritual understanding of the Gospel. Because what it does,
it publishes peace by Jesus Christ. It yields a sure foundation for
the Christian soldier to remember This is a passage really of warfare
and a passage of encouragement, a passage of warning, a passage
of direction for the Christian as he walks through this life. And we should recognize that
as we journey, we are soldiers of Christ. It's a continual warfare. It's not an easy little doddle
through life. It's a continual warfare. And so in this warfare to have
grace, set our feet upon and stand fast on it, this great
and glorious gospel, which of course directs us to none other
than the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's good, isn't it,
to have this foundation and to have this therefore preparation
of this gospel of peace. You know, there is no gospel
peace outside of Christ. We must always recognise that.
We must always appreciate it. And so he tells us that our feet
should be shod with it as we walk this path. The shoe is really
placed on the foot. We have this as our base and
it's the foundation. And we should be shod with it. What a mercy it is then to be
shod with it. We might ask ourselves, what
are we shod with, with this preparation of the gospel? Well, the Lord
provides us with good shoes. And we read in the blessings
of Moses when he wrote to Deuteronomy, he said, thy shoes or boots shall
sometimes be of iron and brass, iron and brass, and are reckoned
among the soldiers of Christ. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass,
and as thy days shall thy strength be. We might think of these two
elements of iron and brass. Iron, of course, is a very strong
substance, a very strong metal, and whereas brass by itself can
easily become rusty and corrode, yet if it's mixed with brass,
then brass is not really a corrosive metal. therefore it gives a very
good combination, and we should think of this, the Lord has given
us a wonderful combination as we therefore walk through this
world, a combination of the gospel of peace, the combination of
the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, a combination of
that blessed Holy Spirit. that leads and directs us through
our little life here below. So we have this encouragement,
our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. May we
be encouraged to take this upon us, to put on these shoes of
iron and brass, not leave them off, think that we can just carry
on walking through this life without any concern, Well, you
know, we walk through a very difficult world. There's many
things to damage us, many thorns in the road, many thorns that
come and stick into our feet and damage us and slow us down
in our journey. So what a mercy it is if the
Lord gives us this wonderful favour and this wonderful blessing. We are therefore enjoying, therefore,
to put on these shoes of iron and brass. The Lord tells us
then, this shield of faith, and he classifies it in this way,
above all, it is something so essential, the shield of faith,
wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked. You might say, well what is a
A fiery dart? Well, we can assume it's a poisonous
dart. And you may say, well, you think
that? Well, you may remember that when the children of Israel
were traveling through the wilderness, they were attacked by fiery serpents. And those fiery serpents were
poisonous. And as soon as those fiery serpents
bit the Israelites, they were in danger of death. And of course,
many, many did die because of that. that bite from those serpents. So they were fiery serpents,
they were poisonous serpents. And the Lord has allowed poisonous
darts from the devil to be thrown at us, but he's also given us,
this is a blessing isn't it, he's given us this shield of
faith. Now then, this shield of faith
is one that we hold on our arm. and it's one that is not stationary,
it's not like that shield which is fixed to our chest which we
can't really move and we're thankful for that because it's over our
heart but here we have a shield of faith which we can move around
and what a mercy it is when the enemy comes in and throws those
fiery darts at us we're able to move it around to cover the
areas where these darts are thrown at us. We have something which
is very wonderful then, this shield of faith. You see these
attacks come from all quarters. The devil is very clever, don't
forget that. And he knows where our weaknesses
are. Therefore he hurls his fiery
poisonous darts. The things which are evil, the
things which perhaps almost consume us, if they touch us, they affect
us, they poison our thinking, they poison our words, they poison
our actions. We want to keep them at bay. Well, God has given us this blessed
shield of faith and it's wonderful to think that the Lord has given
us a wonderful direction when he wrote to the Hebrews in the
twelfth chapter, in the first two verses, because previously
in the eleventh chapter we have the wonderful account of all
those worthy saints who were blessed with wonderful faith
to resist the devil, wonderful faith to overcome the devil. And my friends, we're still blessed
today with this great and glorious faith to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked. The Apostle says under the blessed
influence of the Holy Spirit, wherefore, seeing we also are
encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset
us, and let us run with patience. It is a race which needs patience.
The race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, there's the
secret, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our
faith, the one who gives us this shield of faith, this one who
provides it for us, this one who enables us to put it on,
this one who helps us to wield it, to quench all the fiery darts
of the wicked, and then we're told who It is good to remember
to be found looking unto Jesus, who, for the joy that was set
before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God. What a mercy it
is then to be provided with this wonderful blessing of this shield
of faith. As I said, one thing is essential. we are told, above all, the truth
is that we must have this shield of faith. And as we're attacked
from different quarters to realise the Lord provides us with this
shield, can be moved to support us. You know, quench is really
a very expressive word, isn't it? To quench something. And
here it's applied to these darts, the darts of satan are not only
poisonous but they are sharp and they are penetrating oh yes
and once they penetrate they are very destructive and what
a mercy it is to have this faith which is capable of not only
blunting their edge but also quenching the poison which is
upon them what a mercy then to recognise Lord has given us this
wonderful blessing. And then, you know, we read that
84th psalm. It's a very beautiful psalm and
it comes down towards the end of that psalm. In verse 11, the
psalmist tells us, For the Lord God is a sun and shield. He is really the shield of faith. God himself is this glorious
shield. And what will he do? He gives grace and glory. No good thing would he withhold
from them that walk uprightly. And so we can really combine
this and recognise that if the Lord gives us these blessings,
what does it prove and what does it produce? Peace. Peace, of course, is in the gospel.
peace by his cross as Jesus made. What a mercy for us tonight to
meditate upon that, to think of that, because in that glorious
gospel the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life. He shed his
most precious blood in order to redeem our souls. And therefore we are not to neglect
these things. It's easy to be taken up with
the things of time, forget to pray for these things that we
may be able to put them on. What a mercy then, as you and
I pass through these times of temptation, these times that
the devil would desire to wound us, to slow us down in our Christian
walk. If we suffer from a poisonous
infection, the temptation is that it kills us, At least the
fact is that it slows us down in our Christian life. We find
we're not so healthy and so lively. We've got this illness upon us,
this poison which the devil has thrown at us through this fiery
dart. Therefore we need to be aware
of it and recognize the danger which it holds so that it may
not hurt us. penetrate us, but it may indeed
come and be held back by this wonderful shield of faith which
the Lord gives to us. So faith, you see, acts it upon,
it gives us the Word of God, which does indeed resist the
devil, and gives us also the wonderful glory of the grace
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Well, they're two very
important parts of the armour. May the Lord give us grace to
put them on and recognise how important they are. And so he
says, and your feet, that's every true Christian, your feet, shod,
the shoes of iron and brass, have been put on with the preparation
of the Gospel of Peace. to be blessed with this wonderful
view of Christ and Him crucified, walking in the Gospel path, and
above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith, without
it, we won't resist, wherewith, ye shall be able to quench all
the fiery darts of the wicked. For surely we can say, blessed
be God.