BEHIND THE SHIELD
(Eph. 6, 16)
PAUL is imprisoned at Rome and is writing to "the saints which are at Ephesus." He beholds Christian life as one immense struggle—not against flesh and blood, that is, against the depraved elements in the life of mankind and the evil tendencies in man; no, back of flesh and blood are principalities and powers, a host of spirits trained in the wiles and the cunning of the devil, and exercising a tremendous power in the world, through evil persons.
Against these gigantic powers we must needs fight, and we must vanquish them. But we cannot do so by our own power. We must be "girt about with truth," must be clothed in "the whole armour of God." This is not an armour that can be forged from the steel within ourselves—although we say that with all due deference to bravery, shrewdness and wisdom; but in the great struggle against the powers of darkness we must be girt with something stronger. Fortified with our own, we sustain wounds, but win no victory. The armour of God gives victory, but protects against wounds if we know how to use it rightly.
But when Paul describes the whole armour of God, he strongly emphasizes a particular part of it, for he says: "Above all, taking the shield[A] of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." Thus it is a question of making proper use of the shield rather than of the sword. The church of the Lord has hitherto laid stress on the use of the sword, and therefore the result of the fight has often been a number of wounded souls, for the sword wounds, while the shield protects.
It is said of our heathen forefathers that they knew how to fight as well as how to rest behind the shield. They knew how to grasp all the hostile arrows in their shield while they fought; when they had fought themselves weary or spent all their arrows, while the foe still had plenty of deadly arrows to hurl against them, they knew the art of taking a rest behind their shield in the midst of the shower of arrows. Covered by the shield they gathered strength for the purpose of resuming the fight with axes and spears while the enemy uselessly wasted his supply of arrows.
I wish sincerely that we possessed somewhat more of this ability of our forefathers to use the shield, to fight and to rest behind the shield of faith, spiritually speaking. That would make it possible for us to give battle the thunder of which would resound in the remotest corners of the earth, as in days of yore the song and the hammer strokes of our forefathers were heard in distant countries. Then we would not use our fighting ability to plunder foreign shores, but to lead the fight against the spiritual powers of evil—to be in the front ranks during the fight that shall be fought from the sea to the ends of the earth, in which thousands must bleed because they have not learned how to use the shield of faith.
We shall make a stand against the wiles of the devil!
If I am not very much mistaken by the signs of the age, the attacks on the church of the Lord will during the present century become still more marked by diabolical cunning and cleverness than ever before. The arrows will be sharpened with all the shrewdness of science, directed against us with cunning, glowing with a devilish hatred against everything that is of heavenly birth, and aims at heavenly goals. Indecent jokes, cutting scorn and cleverly formulated inquiries will constitute a cloud of arrows which will darken the sun to many. They will be hurled against us through the means of literature and science, with violent haughtiness, with fierce hatred. And we—we have not that unconquerable courage which enables us to say with the hero of Thermopylae: "So much the better—then we fight in the shade!"
How shall we approach the struggle of the twentieth century?
Someone may say: We shall sharpen our arrows, make them pointed, and send them forth with shrewdness and wisdom. We shall use our common sense, meet the opponents on the battlefield of thought and cleverness, show them what is unenduring in the chimera of the atheists and what is depraved in the life without God. In the church of the Lord we have men who are not inferior to our opponents in respect to cleverness and wisdom—indeed, we have, praised be God!
But it does seem to me that many a valiant fighter will succumb in this kind of a struggle, and many plain-thinking Christians may flee, as did the Philistines in ancient days when their giant had fallen. All honor to those who defend and promote the Kingdom of God by thought, by reasoning and by wisdom! But along that way we do not accomplish much more than to humbly admit that
"Stood we alone in our own might,
Our striving would be losing."
More and more the shibboleth must be: "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." Learn how to fight, covered by the shield! That means: All your struggle must be based upon the words of faith, all your arguments must take these as their point of departure instead of using human sagacity and the tricks of interpretation; then you will be unconquerable. And if it does happen that you become weary in the fight against the wiles of the devil, or that your arrows are all spent while the foe has plenty, then do as our fathers did: Take a rest behind the shield! Cover yourself completely with the words of faith, then no hostile dart will reach you, far less wound you. On the contrary—you rest and gather strength while the foe exhausts himself uselessly, and "all the fiery darts of the wicked are quenched."
This method of fighting is especially adapted to the people, and it is the age of the people, also in the church of our Lord. The future does not require a great chieftain with a host of good-for-nothings behind him, but an army whose every individual is trained in the use of the shield of faith.
When Mr. Moeller-Anderson, a Dane with a warm and faithful heart, a Dane whose quiet ways his compatriots abroad do not forget—in the summer of 1888 made regular sailing trips from Copenhagen to Sweden for the sake of his health, it happened one day aboard the vessel that some scoffers wished to have fun with him. They may have thought that it would be an easy matter to subdue him. They, therefore, started a conversation with him, but soon their speech changed to scoffing and witty questions, daring attacks upon Christianity. Then Mr. Moeller-Anderson replied: "I don't know how that all may be, and I cannot answer you, but if you wish to know what my faith is, then I will confess my faith through the Apostles' Creed before you right here!"
The scoffers had nothing more to say!
What had Mr. Moeller-Anderson done which made them silent? Had he told them a striking joke which could not be commented upon, or had he stated a cleverly formulated truth which they could not resist? No, he rested behind the shield and the scoffers realized that he was protected.
You Christian man and woman from the everyday walks of life—when you meet the scoffers, then don't try to find clever thoughts with which to defend Christianity, as though that were your way to victory. In that case it would merely become a question as to which side was supported by the greatest wisdom, the most cleverly pointed shrewdness. The great struggle of the world is the struggle of faith, and it must by no means be changed into a chaos of personal trickery and clever stratagems. Above all, grasp the shield of faith instead of resorting to your own wisdom and cleverness. Say your creed plainly and simply, you mother of a child, you master of the home, you young man and woman among your chums, when you meet the devil and his wiles in the form of clever questions formulated so as to entangle you in self-contradictions—catch you in the net of words as formerly the Pharisees and the Herodians tried to catch Jesus asking: Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar?
You often hear it said: You claim that God loveth mankind: But why, then, does He let some suffer in all eternity? Or, you claim that you have a good Father in Heaven who can do everything: How is it, then, that He lets His children suffer distress on earth? etc.—Say it plainly and simply: Well, I can't answer questions like these, for I do not see through all these things, but if you want to know what my faith is regarding salvation, then I will confess my creed right here before you! That's to rest behind the shield, and you will feel how blissful that is compared with the fight by wisdom and reasoning in which there is the fear of being wounded and vanquished, and of rendering harm unto Christianity by attempting an unsuccessful defence.
Behind the shield of faith: there is victory both when you fight and when you rest!
Paul was not afraid of fighting. Neither must we be. But that fight which gives victory without wounds, without one painful sensation to limit the joy of victory, must be directed from a covered position. And the agility necessary to enable one to seek cover behind the shield of faith is obtained only by daily training. Therefore, train yourself every morning to protect yourself by the words of faith before going to your work and fight your fight; and in the evening when you lie down to rest, you must train yourself so that in fight as well as during the lull, you can be covered by the shield of faith; then you will conquer the wiles of the devil, and his fiery darts will not wound you.
Thus I consider it essential for the church of the Lord in the twentieth century that it learns how to use the shield rightly whether in fight or at rest. The struggle of the church will then result in a greater victory and in fewer wounds than during the last century, and its rest will become increasingly beneficent and strengthening while its restlessness will become less nervous and less strength-consuming.
Wonder if the time has not come when the church, driven by inner friction and by enemies from without, will listen readily to the apostolic warning: "Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."
I look forward to the day when the Apostles' Creed becomes the universal slogan for all Christian organizations. Then the church of the Lord will march forward to victory.