In God's Armor, Track 6. A devotional on Ephesians 6:16.
The Scripture
"Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." (Ephesians 6:16, KJV)
"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped." (Psalm 28:7, KJV)
The Heart of It
"Above all," Paul says. Of all the pieces, he lifts this one up. The shield is the piece you move. The belt and breastplate stay where they are fastened, but the shield goes wherever the attack comes from. When the darts fly, you raise it. Faith is active. It is the hand that lifts protection into the path of the blow.
The Roman shield Paul pictures was not a small round buckler. It was the long door-shaped shield, large enough to crouch behind entirely, and its surface was leather soaked in water. Enemies would dip their arrows in pitch and set them alight, and those soaked shields would swallow the fire and snuff it out. That is the picture: not arrows deflected with a clang, but flaming darts caught and quenched, hissing into silence against a shield drenched in something stronger.
The fiery darts are real. Paul does not pretend the enemy throws nothing. Doubt comes flying fast. Fear whispers that we will fall. Accusation, temptation, despair - they arrive lit and aimed at the soft places. The question is never whether the darts come. It is whether they land, or whether they strike a raised shield and go out.
Faith is what we raise. Not faith in our faith, not a feeling we work up, but trust fixed on the living God - the shield that is finally Him. "The LORD is my strength and my shield." When the dart says you are alone, faith answers with His promise to never leave. When it says you are finished, faith answers that He is not. The dart still flies, but it strikes trust, and trust drenched in the promises of God simply will not catch fire.
So we lift the shield on high, again and again, as many times as the darts come. By faith we stand, and by faith we press on. Not because the battle is small, but because the One we trust has already won it.
More Witnesses: Latter-day Scripture
The Restoration scriptures make faith the shield that meets every fiery dart. Helaman charges his sons to build on the only foundation that holds: "Remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you... because of the rock upon which ye are built" (Helaman 5:12). His shafts will come; built on the Rock, they have no power.
Nephi names faith as the very thing that overcomes the adversary: those who "hearken unto the word of God, and hold fast unto it... the fiery darts of the adversary could not overpower them unto blindness" (1 Nephi 15:24). To hold fast to His word is to raise the shield.
And the Lord, naming this piece, ties it to His protection: "Taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked" (Doctrine and Covenants 27:17). The same God who commands the shield is the strength behind it.
How the Song Carries It
The verses name the darts honestly: "the darts of doubt come flying fast, the fears that whisper I will fall." The song does not minimize the attack. It sits with it for a moment, the way faith must - eyes open to the danger, then lifted higher.
The chorus is the raising of the shield: "I lift the shield of faith on high, and all the fiery darts are gone. My trust is fixed on the living God, by faith I stand, and I press on." Slow and resolute, it sounds less like a battle cry and more like a settled certainty. By the bridge, "faith is the victory, faith is the shield," the listener has stopped flinching at the darts and started trusting the One who quenches them.
The Lyrics
Above all, taking the shield of faith,
wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
The darts of doubt come flying fast,
The fears that whisper I will fall.
But faith will lift the shield of God,
And stand unshaken through it all.
Though fiery arrows fill the night,
My faith will quench them in His light.
I lift the shield of faith on high,
And all the fiery darts are gone.
My trust is fixed on the living God,
By faith I stand, and I press on.
When terror flies by day or night,
When all the world would shake my ground,
I hide beneath His mighty wings,
And in my God my strength is found.
Faith is the victory, faith is the shield,
Faith in the One who will never yield.
Quench every arrow, silence every lie,
Faith in the Lord who is ever nigh.
By faith I stand.
The darts are quenched.
A Blessing
The darts will come; you do not have to fear them. Raise the shield - trust fixed on the living God - and watch the fire go out. By faith you stand, and by faith you press on. Go in peace.
Scripture References
- Ephesians 6:16
- Psalm 28:7
- Helaman 5:12 (Book of Mormon)
- 1 Nephi 15:24 (Book of Mormon)
- Doctrine and Covenants 27:17