# HOW TO PUT ON THE SHIELD OF FAITH TO EXTINGUISH THE ENEMY'S FIERY DARTS (EPHESIANS 6:16) **Channel:** You Are in the Bible **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR9cOEUJKOU **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/LR9cOEUJKOU ## Chapters - 0:00 — Opening Call to Faith - 4:48 — Understanding the Shield of Faith - 9:37 — David and the Repeated Giant - 14:31 — Peter Walking Through the Storm - 19:11 — The Furnace and Unshaken Trust - 23:58 — Job, Hannah, and Hidden Pain - 33:45 — Jesus Resisting the Tempter - 38:32 — Jehoshaphat and Praise in Battle - 43:43 — Final Exhortation and Blessing ## Transcript **[0:00]:** Right now, at this very moment, there is a fiery dart being aimed at your mind. And the enemy is counting on you, not knowing that you were handed a shield to stop it. Pause whatever you are doing. Because what you are about to hear was not placed in your path by accident. The Apostle Paul writing with a Roman chain around his wrist gave the church a sentence that has been read millions of times and understood by very few. Ephesians 6:1 16. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked above all. Not first, not last, but above all, out of every piece of armor that God has provided, the Holy Spirit chose this one to carry that weight of emphasis. And today, you are going to discover why. There is a secret hidden inside that single verse, a spiritual principle that very few believers ever truly grasp. **[1:08]:** Most Christians hold the shield of faith the way a child holds a toy sword with enthusiasm but without instruction. They say they have faith. They sing about faith. They even preach about faith. And yet the darts keep landing. The anxiety that wakes you at 3:00 in the morning. The thought that whispers you are too late, too broken, too forgotten. The argument that appears out of nowhere in a home that was at peace. The doubt that arrives precisely when the answer was about to come. Those are not random. Those are darts and they are fiery. Which means they were never meant only to wound you, but to set something inside you ablaze. But listen carefully. Scripture does not promise that you will be unable to feel the darts. It promises that you will be able to quench them. Quench, a word that means to put out, to take a flame and make it die before it spreads. **[2:16]:** That is what is waiting for you in this message. A way of lifting your faith that does not depend on how strong you feel, how long you prayed this week, or how perfect your life looks from the outside. It depends on understanding what the shield truly is, how it works, and exactly where to place it when the enemy takes aim. Throughout this study, we will walk through eight powerful stories from the word of God. And each one will put in your hands a piece of the instruction you have been missing. You will see how a shepherd boy stood before a giant, how a fisherman sank beneath a storm, how three young men looked into a furnace and refused to bow. You will also see how science itself with all its research on the human mind keeps arriving at the same truths that scripture declared thousands of years ago. **[3:15]:** I believe the Lord has been preparing this word for you. Perhaps you have been through a season of tears that no one saw. Perhaps you have prayed and felt only silence. Stay until the final minute because the last teaching is the one most people never reach and it may be exactly the one God wants to plant in your heart today. Before we begin, I would like to invite you to do something in the comments. Write this short phrase. My shield is faith. Write it with your own hands and write it with conviction because there are brothers and sisters reading what you write. And your declaration may be the very encouragement someone needs tonight. You are not just a viewer here. You are part of a family that prays. And if this message is already touching your heart, tap the like button and subscribe to the channel. **[4:13]:** Many people who watch these studies do not have a church near their home. And this channel has become their place of spiritual support, a pulpit that fits in the palm of the hand. Every person who subscribes joins a chain of prayer that never sleeps. So make it a custom starting with this very study. Before anything else, write in the comments, "Peace of the Lord." Now take a deep breath, open your heart and let us begin. **[4:48]:** The study starts now. The shield Paul had in mind was not the small round buckler you may be imagining. The Greek word he chose describes the great door-shaped shield of the Roman legionary. a towering rectangle of glued layers of wood, nearly four feet tall and almost three feet wide, wrapped in tough leather and bound along the edges. A man could crouch behind it and vanish. Paul, guarded day and night by Roman soldiers, saw that equipment constantly. And so, when the Holy Spirit wanted to explain faith, he borrowed an image the apostle could see with his own eyes. Think now about what a fiery dart truly was. Ancient armies wrapped arrows in flax, soaked them in pitch, set them ablaze, and released them in volleys. The goal was not mainly to pierce a body. The goal was to set the camp on fire, to burn the supplies, to ignite a cloak, to spread panic until a disciplined army turned into a crowd of frightened men. **[5:57]:** The fire was the weapon and the panic was the victory. Does that sound familiar? The enemy rarely needs to destroy your life with one blow. He only needs to light a small fire in your thoughts and wait for you to panic. Here is the part that changes everything. Historians tell us that the leather covering of those shields was soaked in water before the battle. Metal can heat up and burn the hand that holds it, but wet leather swallows the flame. The arrow strikes, it hisses, and the fire dies. The shield did not work because it was strong. It worked because it was wet. And that is the hidden secret of the shield of faith. A dry faith catches fire, but a faith that is soaked will smother the flames. Paul tells us what the water is. Romans 10:1 17. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. **[7:00]:** The word is the water. Yesterday's soaking will not protect you today because leather dries in the sun. Every morning you must bring your faith back to the water. Notice also the verb. Paul does not say that the shield will be dropped on you from heaven. He says taking to take up is an action, a decision, a movement of the hand. A shield resting on the ground protects nobody. One more detail and it is a tender one. Roman soldiers did not fight alone behind their shields. They stood side by side, locked their shields edge to edge, and even raised them overhead to form a roof that no volley could penetrate. Your faith was never meant to stand alone. When you pray for a stranger in the comments, when you whisper a name before God, you are overlapping your shield with someone who is tired tonight. Now, let us look at what science has discovered about those first flames. **[8:06]:** Neuroscientist Joseph Leoo spent decades studying how the brain responds to danger. And he found that a small structure called the amygdala can sound the alarm before the thinking part of your brain has even finished understanding what happened. In other words, the first jolt of fear is not a choice and it is not a sin. It is a dart landing and you did not decide to receive it. What matters is the second moment. Psychologist James Gross at Stanford University studied a skill called cognitive reappraisal, the deliberate act of reinterpreting a threatening situation and found that people who practice it experience a weaker emotional reaction and show greater calm. That is exactly what taking up the shield looks like. a deliberate second thought soaked in truth placed in front of the first. So hear this and let it settle. The fire is not proof that God abandoned you. **[9:12]:** The fire is proof that the enemy has noticed you. The question is not whether the darts will come, but what you will be holding when they arrive. And to learn what that looks like when the taunt has lasted, not for a minute, but for 40 days, we must go down into a valley where an army stood frozen, and where a boy with a sling was **[9:37]:** about to show the world what a soaked faith can do. Every morning and every evening for 40 days, a giant walked into the valley of Ella and said the same thing. 1st Samuel chapter 17 tells us that Goliath stood and shouted at the armies of Israel, mocking them, challenging them, belittling the God they served 40 mornings, 40 evenings, 80 times the same dart fired at the same trembling soldiers until the Bible says that when Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Pay attention to this. Not one soldier had been struck by a sword. Not a single man had fallen. They were defeated by a sentence repeated enough times. Psychologists have a name for what happened in that valley. They call it the illusory truth effect. Experiment after experiment has shown that when people hear a statement again and again, they begin to judge it as true, even when they once knew it was false. **[10:48]:** Repetition produces familiarity. And the mind mistakes familiarity for fact. The enemy understood this long before any laboratory did. You will never get out of debt. Nobody really loves you. God is tired of your prayers. Said once, it is a whisper. Said at night. Said on the road. Said in front of the mirror. Said for 40 days. It becomes a giant that nobody dares to challenge. Then a boy arrives. David was not a warrior. He was a delivery boy sent by his father with bread and cheese for his brothers. And watch what he does. He hears the same words that paralyzed an entire army. And the first thing he does is ask a question nobody else had asked. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? David refused to accept the premise of the dart. Then came another arrow, this time from inside the family. **[11:53]:** His own brother Elab burned with anger and accused him of pride and a wicked heart. Some of the sharpest darts will come from your own household, from people who feel threatened by the calling on your life. When King Saul tried to talk him out of it, David gave an answer that is the beating heart of this entire study. First Samuel 17:37. The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear. He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. Do you see the engine of his faith? He did not say, "I feel strong." He did not say, "I have never been afraid." He said, "I remember." Out in the dark pasture where no crowd watched and nobody applauded, God had been training him. The lion and the bear were not interruptions to his destiny. **[12:54]:** They were the water that soaked his shield. Saul dressed him in royal armor and David took one look and said it did not fit because he had not proved it. Never let anyone hand you a borrowed faith. Take up the faith that has been proved in your own history, in your own nights, in your own answered prayers. Then David walked to the brook and chose five smooth stones. Smooth because the water had spent years wearing them down. What the river has polished, God can use. Science confirms the wisdom of that remembering. Psychologist Albert Bura in his research on self-efficacy discovered that the strongest source of confidence is not applause or positive slogans, but mastery experience, the memory of having actually overcome something before. A mind that rehearses its past victories meets the next threat with a steadier pulse. The psalmist said it thousands of years earlier. **[14:01]:** Forget not all his benefits. So begin today to answer the giant with a counter repetition. Write down every prayer God has answered. Say them aloud. Ask yourself, "What was my lion and what was my bear?" And notice the last detail of this story. The Bible says that David hasted and ran toward the army. A shield is not raised to hide forever. It is raised in order to advance. **[14:31]:** But there are moments when faith is tested not by a giant on the horizon, but by a wave under your feet in the middle of the night, right after you have already done something impossible. It was the fourth watch of the night, the hour between 3 and 6 in the morning, when exhaustion is strongest and hope is weakest. The disciples were in a boat tossed by waves far from land. And suddenly they saw a figure walking toward them on the sea. They cried out in terror, thinking it was a spirit. And Jesus spoke into the storm, "Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. Peter, always the first to move, answered with a daring request, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And Jesus said one word, come. Here is what nearly every sermon forgets. Peter walked on water. **[15:33]:** He climbed over the side of the boat, put his feet on something no human foot had ever stood upon, and he walked. Faith was not absent when he left the boat. Faith was visible in his steps. Then Matthew 14:30 tells us, "But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me." Think about this carefully. The wind was already blowing when he stepped out. Nothing in the storm had changed. What changed was the direction of his gaze. The dart was not the wind. The dart was the moment his attention slipped from the face of Jesus to the force of the waves. Science has measured this same movement of the mind. Researchers who study anxiety have found what they call attentional bias toward threat. The anxious mind locks onto dangerous details, magnifies them, and lets everything safe fade into the background. **[16:39]:** Psychologist Roy Balmeister published a famous review titled, "Bad is stronger than good," showing that negative events weigh far more heavily on us than positive ones of the same size. This is not weakness. It is wiring, an ancient alarm system designed to keep us alive. But here is the good news. Attention can be trained. Studies on neuroplasticity show that where you repeatedly direct your focus, the brain builds stronger pathways. And the choice to look at something safe, practiced again and again slowly reshapes your reactions. That is why the Bible does not merely tell us to have faith. It tells us where to look. Hebrews 12:2. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. The shield of faith is not a feeling of confidence. It is an object of gaze. A shield is only as good as the direction it is facing. Pointed at the wind, it is useless. **[17:48]:** pointed at Christ, it becomes a wall. And now look at the most beautiful words in the entire story. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him. Immediately, not after a lecture, not after Peter cleaned up his doubt. The same hand that said, "Come," was already close enough to catch him. His prayer had only three words. Lord, save me. And it was enough. If you are sinking right now, hear me. The shield is not gone. The cry itself is faith. Jesus then said, "Oh, thou of little faith, wherefore dst thou doubt?" But notice that he said it while holding him, not while watching him drown. There is one more detail hidden in the final verse. The Bible says that when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Sometimes the storm does not stop when you shout at it. It stops when Jesus steps into your boat. **[18:53]:** So today, name your wind out loud. Whatever it is, the diagnosis, the debt, the silence of a child, the loneliness of an empty house. Then say one sentence over it. Jesus, my eyes are on you. **[19:11]:** But what happens when you have fixed your eyes perfectly and the answer still does not arrive the way you asked? What happens when the fire comes anyway and not even heaven seems to be putting it out? To answer that, we must travel to a plane in ancient Babylon where three young men stood in front of a furnace and gave the most daring answer in the entire Bible. the plain of Dura in the land of Babylon. A golden image stood there 60 cubits high, roughly 90 ft, gleaming under the sun. And the king had commanded that when the music sounded, every person must fall to the ground and worship. The cornet, the flute, the harp, the sackbutt, the sulttery, and the doulamer all played together, and a whole empire bowed. Almost everyone. Three young men stayed on their feet. Shadrach, Meach, and Abednego were exiles far from their homeland with no temple nearby and no prophet to cover them. **[20:18]:** If they had bent their knees quietly, nobody in Judah would ever have known. The king burned with fury and ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than it was ever want to be heated. Observe the pattern because it repeats. The enemy's fire grows seven times hotter at the exact moment you decide to stand. Then the king offered them a second chance. And what they answered is one of the most powerful declarations in all of scripture. Daniel 3 17 and 18. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image. two sentences. The first says, "God is able." The second says, "Even if he does not," that is the full shield of faith. **[21:23]:** A faith that only works when God does what we want is not a shield. It is a negotiation. Real faith trusts the character of God even when the outcome is unknown. Science has stumbled upon the same strength. Victor Frankle, the Austrian psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps of the Second World War, observed that the prisoners who endured longest were not the strongest in body, but those who held on to a meaning that no circumstance could remove. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he wrote that those who have a why to live can bear almost anyhow. A large body of resilience research points in the same direction. People whose confidence rests on meaning and conviction rather than on a guaranteed result tend to recover more steadily from suffering. The three Hebrews had a Y that was bigger than the furnace. They were bound and thrown in. **[22:28]:** The flame was so fierce that it killed the soldiers who carried them. And then the king leapt up in astonishment because he saw something impossible. Daniel 3 25. Lo, I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the son of God. Four men, not three, and loose, not bound. Do you understand what this means? The fire burned only the ropes. The very thing meant to destroy them was the thing that freed them. How many of your trials in the end burned nothing but the chains that held you? And when they walked out, the Bible says that the smell of fire had not passed on them, not a singed hair, not the odor of smoke on their clothing. There are people who walk through the furnace and carry the scent of it for the rest of their lives. **[23:29]:** bitterness and fear clinging to every conversation. But the shield of faith does more than keep you alive in the fire. It keeps the fire from staying in you. Hear the promise tucked inside this story. Jesus does not always keep his children out of the furnace. He comes inside with them. The shield does not say there will be no fire. It says there will be no burn. **[23:58]:** And yet some of the hottest darts do not come from kings or from furnaces. They come from the people closest to us, from the mouths of those who should have been our defenders. For that kind of pain, we must visit a man who lost everything in a single day. Before we continue, a gentle word. If this message is strengthening your heart, take a moment to tap the like button, subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell. Every new subscriber becomes one more soul in this chain of prayer. And every notification means that the next time the fire comes, a word like this one will already be waiting for you. Job was blameless and upright, a man who feared God and turned away from evil. In one single day, messengers arrived one after another, each one finishing his report while the next was already speaking. **[25:02]:** The oxen and donkeys were taken. The sheep were consumed by fire from heaven. The camels were stolen. And finally, the worst news of all, that a great wind had struck the house where his children were gathered, and all of them were gone. What did Job do? He tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground, and worshiped. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But the enemy was not finished. Soars covered Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And then came a dart from the person who shared his bed. His wife said, "Dust thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die." Three friends arrived and sat with him in silence for 7 days. And during those seven days, they were wonderful. The trouble began when they opened their mouths. **[26:04]:** They told him that suffering is always the result of hidden sin. That is the dart of the wrong explanation. And perhaps you have felt it. Someone told you that your illness, your loss, your long delay was proof that you lacked faith or that you had secretly displeased God. Hear me clearly. The Bible itself declares that Job was righteous. Suffering is not always a verdict. Look at how Job answered. He did not pretend. He lamented. He questioned. He cried out in anguish. And he held on all at once. Job 13:1 15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. And in chapter 19 verse 25, for I know that my redeemer liveth. The shield of faith does not require fake smiles or silence. Faith that wrestles with God is still faith that faces God. Psychology has found something remarkable about people who walk through such valleys. **[27:13]:** Richard Tedeski and Lawrence Calhoun, psychologists who studied survivors of devastating loss, introduced the term post-traumatic growth. They found that many people who endure deep suffering later report stronger relationships, a deeper appreciation of life, a greater sense of inner strength, and a transformed spiritual life. They were careful to say that suffering itself is not good. But those who wrestled openly with the great questions rather than burying them were the ones most likely to grow. Job's honest wrestling was not the absence of faith. It was the path of faith. Then God answered from the whirlwind. He did not offer an explanation for the pain. He offered himself. And Job said, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee." Sometimes the greatest healing is not an answer, but an encounter. You may never receive a complete explanation for what you have lived, but you can receive the presence of the one who holds every answer. **[28:28]:** And then came the verse that so many people overlook. Job 42:10. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. The restoration began when he prayed for the very people who had wounded him. Bitterness is a dart that keeps burning long after it was fired. And forgiveness is the water that finally puts it out. Whom do you need to release tonight? Not because they deserve it, but because you deserve to be free. Yet some wounds are not shouted. They are whispered year after year in the very place where you go to worship. And nobody around you even notices that you are bleeding. For that quiet kind of pain, we must visit a woman who cried in a temple. Hannah had a loving husband and a deep unanswered ache. First Samuel 1 tells us that the Lord had closed her womb and that her rival Panenna, who had many children, provoked her sorely to make her fret. **[29:36]:** Read that again slowly. This did not happen once. Year by year, when the family went up to Shiloh to worship, the provocation returned. The house of God, the very place where she should have found refuge, became the place where the darts were sharpest. If you have ever felt more alone in a crowded church than in an empty room, Hannah understands you. Her husband loved her tenderly and asked, "Am I not better to thee than 10 sons?" He meant well, but he could not feel what she felt. She wept and could not eat. Science tells us that her pain was not exaggeration. Psychologist Naomi Eisenberger at the University of California used brain imaging to show that social rejection and exclusion activate some of the same regions that process physical pain. Words that wound truly wound. When someone told you that it was only a joke or that you should simply move on, your brain was registering something much closer to a bruise. **[30:46]:** God knows this. And Hannah's tears were never weakness in his eyes. So she rose and she prayed. Bitter in soul, she wept sore and she made a vow. And then the Bible gives us a detail that stays in the heart. Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Eli the priest, watching from his seat, saw a woman whose mouth was trembling without sound. And he concluded that she was drunk. And what did she do? She did not storm out, and she did not defend her reputation. She answered gently, "I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Poured out. That is the language of a shield that is soaked. Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that simply putting feelings into words reduces activity in the amygdala, the brain's alarm center. **[31:51]:** James Pennibaker, a psychologist in Texas, discovered that people who write honestly about painful experiences show improved health over time. To pour out your soul is to give your pain a language. And God designed the human mind so that honesty heals. Prayer is far more than a technique because it meets a living God. But how kind of the creator to build us in such a way that telling him the truth lowers our fire. Eli then blessed her. Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition. And the next verse is one of the most astonishing in scripture. So the woman went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. Look at the order of events. Her face changed before her circumstances did. She had no child yet. Nothing outside her had moved. But the shield had gone up and peace arrived ahead of the proof. **[32:55]:** That is exactly what Hebrews 11:1 describes. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In time, a son was born and his name was Samuel. The silent prayer of one weeping woman offered in a corner where no one could hear it produced the prophet who would anoint the kings of Israel. Her song in the next chapter begins with the words, "My heart rejoicth in the Lord." The mouth that was once only trembling became a mouth full of praise. Hear this, you who serve without recognition, you who pray without audience. Heaven heard what only your lips moved to say. Nothing offered in faith is ever wasted. **[33:45]:** And now we turn to the one who carried the shield perfectly. What did the son of God do when the dart came straight at his identity in a wilderness after 40 days without food? Immediately after his baptism, a voice from heaven declared over Jesus, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." And then Matthew tells us, "The spirit led him into the wilderness, 40 days without food, hunger, gnawing, strength fading." And that is when the tempter arrived. And his first words were these. If thou be the son of God, look at the target. He did not attack Jesus's body. He attacked his identity. The very thing the father had just declared. If you are really a child of God, why are you hungry? Why are you broke? Why has he not answered? The enemy often follows a moment of heavenly affirmation with a moment of fierce attack. **[34:53]:** So do not be surprised when your greatest blessing is followed by your greatest battle. Jesus answered with three words and he repeated them each time. It is written. When the tempter urged him to turn stones into bread, he answered, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedth out of the mouth of God." When the tempter took him to the pinnacle of the temple, and quoted scripture himself, twisting a passage from Psalm 91, Jesus answered, "It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." And when the tempter offered him every kingdom of the world, Jesus said, "Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." He lifted the shield and let the word absorb the fire. There is a lesson here that deserves your full attention. **[35:56]:** The enemy knows scripture, too. He quoted the psalm accurately, but he removed it from its context and from the heart of God. Knowing verses is not enough. You need the whole word soaked into your spirit so that you can tell the difference between a verse and a twisted verse. And notice that Jesus quoted from the book of Deuteronomy, passages that every Israelite child was expected to know by heart. He drew from what was already inside him. The word can only come out of you in the hour of battle if it was put into you in the hour of peace. Science has a powerful explanation for why this works. Psychologist Peter Gwitzer at New York University developed the concept of implementation intentions. Simple plans shaped like this. If this situation happens, then I will do this. The brain links the trigger to the response beforehand so that when the pressure arrives the answer rises almost automatically even when willpower is exhausted. **[37:08]:** That is exactly what Jesus modeled. If the dart says if you are the son then the answer is it is written. So prepare your answers now while the field is quiet. If fear arrives at night, say Psalm 4:8, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. If shame arrives, say Romans 8:1, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. If lack arrives, say Philippians 4:1 19. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory. And look at how the story ends. The Bible says that the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. The enemy departed, and heaven's reinforcements arrived. Resistance opens the door for ministry. Luke adds a sober detail that the devil departed for a season, which means the darts will return, but so will the shield and so will the angels. **[38:18]:** Jesus did all of this while hungry and weak, which proves something precious. The word does not wait until you feel strong. It works most powerfully when you are weakest. **[38:32]:** There remains one more lesson, and it is for the moments when the enemy has surrounded you completely. When there is no obvious path and you honestly do not know what to do. In that hour, a king of Judah showed us a strategy that no general would ever have dared to design. The report reached King Jehoshaphat like a thunderclap. 2 Chronicles 20 2. There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea. Moab, Ammon, and a host from Mount S had gathered, and Judah had no army large enough to answer. And what did the king do? The Bible is wonderfully honest. Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Hear what that means. He was afraid and he was a man of faith. Faith never required the absence of fear. It requires only that fear be pointed toward God. **[39:37]:** Standing in the house of the Lord, he prayed one of the most honest prayers in scripture. Oh our God, we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. We do not know what to do, and do not miss the next verse, which says that all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children. Whole families stood together shouldertosh shoulder, shield overlapping shield. Then the spirit of the Lord came upon a Levite named Jeaziel, an ordinary man whose name is hardly remembered. And he spoke a word that has comforted generations. Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude. For the battle is not yours, but God's. And then he gave the strategy. You shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves. **[40:39]:** Stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord. Set yourselves. Take your position. Lift the shield and stay put. Some battles are won not by running harder, but by standing firm in the place where God placed you. The next morning, Jehoshaphat did something that made no military sense. He appointed singers to go out in front of the army dressed in holy garments and they sang, "Praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever." Singers in the front line where the strongest soldiers should have been. And then comes the verse that deserves to be read slowly. Verse 22. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Sir. When they began, not when the praise was finished, not when the victory was visible, but at the very moment the first note rose from their mouths. **[41:45]:** Researchers have discovered fascinating things about what happens in the body during this kind of worship. Studies on group singing have found that it lowers the stress hormone cortisol. A study from the University of Goththingberg in Sweden found that when people sing together, their heart rates begin to synchronize as breathing align and the vagus nerve, the body's great calming pathway is activated. And psychologist Robert Emmens at the University of California, Davis, found that people who practice gratitude consistently report greater well-being, more optimism, and better sleep. Praise is not a mood. It is spiritual warfare that happens to calm the heart as well. What followed was astonishing. The enemy armies turned against one another, and when Judah arrived at the watchtowwer, they saw only dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none had escaped. There was so much spoil that it took them 3 days to carry it away. **[42:53]:** On the fourth day, they gathered in a valley and blessed the Lord. And the Bible says that the place was named the valley of Barachcha, the valley of blessing. The very field where destruction was planned became a valley of blessing. Do you see it? The shield does not only defend, it leads to a harvest. The darts that were meant to burn you down will become a testimony. And the Bible closes the story by saying that God gave Jehoshaphat rest roundout. So tonight, when fear rises, do not wait for the evidence. Sing even if it is only a murmur, even if your voice trembles, begin to praise at the front line and let heaven take care of the ambush. **[43:43]:** And now, dear friend, the singing continues because you have reached the edge of the field, and what remains is for you to rise. Congratulations. If you are still here listening to these final words, you have done something that very few people ever do. Most people leave a message like this halfway through. They get distracted. They grow tired. They decide they will return later and later never comes. You stayed. You stayed because something in your spirit was hungry. And that hunger does not come from the world. It comes from God. A person who remains until the end is a person the Lord is shaping for something greater and you should know that you are special to him. I would like you to prove that you made it here. In the comments, write this phrase and write it in your own words if you wish. I raised my shield and the fire died at my feet. **[44:48]:** Let it be a testimony for every person who will come after you, so that they may read it and know that someone before them stood firm and stayed until the end. Your phrase may be exactly the dose of courage that a weary soul needs tonight. If you have not yet subscribed, I invite you to do it now. And I want you to understand what that means. When you subscribe, you are not merely following a channel. You are joining a chain of prayer that stretches across nations and languages. People who may never meet in this life, yet who lift one another before the throne of God every single day. And if you are already subscribed, be proud of that. You are a link in that chain. And the chain is stronger because of you. Keep coming back. A flame does not stay alive by remembering the night it was lit. **[45:46]:** It stays alive by receiving wood every day. These studies exist so that your spiritual fire is never left to die in silence. So that when the darts come at 3:00 in the morning, you already have the water, the word, and the strategy in your hands. Watch the next studies. Share this one with someone who is under attack and let the shield pass from hand to hand. Now I want to speak to you about something from my heart. This ministry exists because people like you believe that the word of God should reach every corner of the earth, including the places where there is no church nearby. If this channel has blessed your life, consider becoming a member through a small monthly contribution. It is far more than a donation. It is an investment in the kingdom of God. Every member helps keep this ministry alive and makes it possible for thousands of people to hear a word of hope when they need it most. **[46:52]:** Philippians 4:17 reminds us that fruit abounds to the account of those who give. And to every member who is already part of this family from the depths of my heart, thank you. Your faithfulness is carrying a light into homes that you will meet only in eternity. Receive now the blessing that the Lord commanded over his people. Number six verses 24- 26. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And now, wherever you are, lift your hands or bow your head and thank the Lord out loud. Thank him for this word. Thank him for every truth he spoke to your heart. Thank him for the shield that he placed in your hands and for the fire that will never again have the last word over your life. **[47:58]:** Glory to God forever and ever. Amen. Peace of the Lord.