Page:On The Spiritual Battle.pdf/42

 That is why the shield of faith is necessary for us, so that we are not led about or lured by some temptation standing in the midst of such delectable, beautiful, and honorable things. Through faith we make use of them for our needs or avoid some of them. May we always employ faith in everything and not be moved in any intention or work without faith, for whatever is not of faith is sin. If we will not be alive through faith, we will slip deeply into darkness and we will not know where we are going. Faith is the boundary line and measure of everything. For that reason, we should walk in everything according to that measure, knowing that death stands on every side beyond that border or measure. Faith discerns good and evil and is an ever present and immovable light to us. It is a shield for us to hold back all the fiery blows of the cruel devil, who the apostle calls an unpitying scoundrel. Shooting with fiery darts, the devil does not think to burn down cottages but to enflame the heart and the entire body with such blows–with debauchery, fury, various delusions, and imperceptible deceptions. He seeks to burn down everything good a person has this way, enflaming a person with wicked desires and wanting him to burn so long that he would come into the eternal flame with him. Let us not follow desires, traditions, rules, or people, and let us not compare ourselves with this world. Faith, be a light to us on the entire path and an immovable shield to hold back the devil’s fiery arrows!

Then the apostle teaches us:

We are to take the helmet of salvation. He commands us now to put armor on our heads, because the mortal blow is delivered there. We should have the hope of our salvation and take it like a helmet on the head, and we cannot be saved if it is not there. But though we sometimes say the words “cheering up” and “hope,” an understanding of them is not a given. Truly, being of good courage relates to the discourse about the things that we take from God–gifts, forgiveness of sins, and other graces. As the Lord Jesus said to the paralytic, “Son, cheer up! Your sins are forgiven you.” (Matthew 9: 2) The words “cheer up” belong immediately after faith. When a person believes in God’s goodness and that he gives good things, he should believe that God has mercy on him. When he believes like this, he should trust in Him or consummate faith in this way. And, having believed, he should also cheer up and rest himself in God, having great confidence in Him that He will give His love and forgive his sins. If he does not have the expectation that God would forgive his sins, then he still has not believed. If he has believed and does not cheer up, then he does not know what, who, or why he has believed. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, and is that faith which we hear about from God when He says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3: 16) If a person believes that that is true, then he should cheer up, because God forgave his sins through His Son and His blood when He gave Him because of His love. And if, believing that, he does not also expect that God would forgive him because his sins are many, then he does not believe or understand how he should believe. If he does not know how he should believe, then he does not have the shield or the helmet. That is why he cannot stand in this battle against the enemy or keep his soul in health.

When we say “hope,” that is about future eternal things. It refers to salvation or the eternal reward from God that we should expect, having living faith first and foremost. A person cannot be saved without that, too. Whoever does not have faith does not have the foundation of all good things. That is why such a person does not understand a righteous life and the end of their labors. If he knows this through faith and does not have hope that he would obtain salvation, it is as worthless as a night dream and a chat in the morning about it. There is no advantage in irreverently and unfaithfully having dead things within oneself like this, but true hope is the consolation of a person in the sorrow that he has here in various