The Shield of Faith

“Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Ephesians 6:16

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 the truth of God, 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, for 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 will receive in the great battle of spiritual life!

The Shield of Faith, Sermon 416, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, October 27, 1861.