“Stand firm […] taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is theword of God.” In these words the apostle teaches all Christ’s faithful warriors to gird themselves in the armor of God absolutely everywhere in this difficult battle and he commands them to take up the shield of faith so that enemies shooting at them from far away will not injure them. And there must be that shield of faith. There can be two deceptions in a person: one through pleasure in a desire and the second through lack of consciousness in understanding. Just as the apostle taught how the feet of desire should be shod, he then also teaches that they take faith as a shield. But faith is about unseen spiritual things and the future. It is like light, so that the understanding is enlightened by it. It is like a shield that holds back every fleshly snare and every powerful, spiritual, and unseen blow. That is why it is necessary for this battle that the recognition of all spiritual and unseen malevolence be a light to a person through faith. A person should have faith within him for these things, because the prophet says, “But the righteous will live by faith. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10: 38) For that reason, knowing that a person does not please God without faith, the devil is vigilant to blind people so that they do not understand anything about faith and, not understanding, are not pleasing to Him. Either such people do not even know that they should please Him (not knowing what faith itself is), or the devil deceives them when, knowing faith, they do not comprehend it correctly and do not have a pure heart towards it.
Many fall into error through the devil’s great cunning because of ignorance of the faith. When the devil sees that some people are restless and do not have pure and spiritual understanding in faith, he either leads them into heresy or a deceitful understanding of scripture, as are both familiar to us today. Many people have erred for a long time about the blood of Christ[1] and other truths because of the bestowing of priestly wealth. That is all because of the deceitful interpretations of scripture by evil people, both spiritual and carnal. Such defilement occurs today such as has not been heard of since the holy gospel’s inception. This all happens through spiritually blind people who have a carnal understanding of faith. Because they are self-willed and proud, the apostle commands as of utmost importance to take the shield of the true faith of Christ, because faith is the foundation of everything good. When the devil sees that he can desecrate that faith with error, he has already won the battle against a person–not only in what he has struck a person down from faith with, but he has corrupted everything that person does. If such a person were of impeccable faith, his works would be great praises. But instead, everything in him will be condemned because of corrupted faith. That is why the blessed person will be among those many witnesses found in the pure faith.
When the devil has employed such multifaceted spirits, who will take the shield of faith in Christ to declare something as true? He will be considered a heretic because he declares that he follows Christ and is founded purely on his faith. That is why only the one to whom pure faith will be given from heaven above will uphold it. I do not say he will profess much about it, but suffer with it. And, because many difficult things are decreed concerning faith, who will inquire into them in these days?
Only the one whom He Himself teaches and to whom He reveals true faith takes his stand against the devil in the spiritual battle so that he takes it like a shield and is not deceived by any error. For that reason
- ↑ The serving of wine in the sacrament of communion was re-instituted by Jakoubek of Stříbro in 1414. This, more than anything else, led to the separation of the Hussite movement from the Church of Rome and to the establishment of the independent Hussite Church.
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