KEEP YOUR BREASTPLATE ON

Faith is a shield. Will a soldier drop his protection unless he has been seriously wounded?

David expressed keen sorrow for the unholiness in his life: “O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more” (Psalm 39:13). He did not want to die until holiness ruled his heart again. Ungodliness is a poison which drinks up all serenity of conscience and inward springs of joy. If you throw a stone into a clear brook it will soon become muddy.

Psalm 85:8 “He will speak peace unto his people but let them not turn again to folly”.

Carelessness in the walk of holiness dangerously exposes your faith, which is kept in good conscience as a jewel is protected in a cabinet.

Faith is an eye, and sin casts a hazy mist before it. To faith, a holy life is like pure air to the eye; we can see farther on a clear day. Thus faith sees further into God’s promise when it looks through a holy well-ordered life.

Faith is a shield. Will a soldier drop his protection unless he has been seriously wounded? If faith fails, what will happen to hope, which cleaves to faith and draws strength from her as a nursing child takes nourishment from its mother? If faith cannot see pardon in the promise, then hope cannot look for salvation. If faith cannot claim sonship, hope will not wait for the inheritance. Faith informs the soul it has “peace with God” and then the soul rejoices “in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).

Are you trying to use the sword of the Spirit? How can you hold it when unholiness has seriously maimed the hand of faith that must carry it?

This sword has two edges—one side heals but the other wounds. With one it saves and with the other it damns. The Bible does not speak a single kind word to the person who practices sin. Now—think and then think some more—is any sin worth all this confusion which will inevitably strangle and smother your soul?