The Whole Armor of God - The Shield of Faith

Sermons Blog - Calvary

Ephessians 6:16

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PDF Manuscript: The Whole Armor of God - The Shield of Faith

Do you ever wake up with the weight of your insufficiencies bearing down on you? Do you find that there is a cloud of despair so dark that you can’t imagine anything else on the other side? Do you ever find that your mind becomes consumed by thoughts that seem to stick with you all day? Perhaps they are thoughts not only about how unworthy you are but also about how little there is that you can do about it.

You might think or feel that you’re the only Christian who deals with such doubts and despair. Maybe you’re under the impression that there are some believers that are so spiritual they never struggle with their flesh, with temptation, and with remaining sin. None of us are exempt from spiritual battles—both internal and external.

Martin Luther describes such bouts of despair as Anfechtungen. That’s a German word that does not have a direct English translation. It carries the sense of terror and despair due to an inability to trust God’s goodness. To be more specific, it is a place in which you come to realize your inability to withstand the judgment of God on your own. Historian David Steinmetz describes the terror which Luther experiences at these times as a fear that “God had turned his back on him once and for all,” abandoning him “to suffer the pains of hell.” Feeling “alone in the universe,” Luther “doubted his own faith, his own mission, and the goodness of God—doubts which, because they verged on blasphemy, drove him deeper and deeper” into despair. His prayers met a “wall of indifferent silence.” He experienced heart palpitations, crying spells, and profuse sweating. He was convinced that he would die soon and go straight to hell. “For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation and blasphemy of God.” He “despised himself and murmured against God.” In fact, his friend Philip Melanchthon said that the terrors afflicting Luther become so severe, he almost died.

What do you do when it feels like you’re under attack and you can barely survive? Not just despair, but temptations, fear, doubt, discouragement, worry, wanting to give up? Well, the Apostle Paul tells us about a great defense that’s been given to us.