William Gurnall, on the Shield of Faith and Temptation

“Sometimes the temptation is leveled at the head – at the saint’s reasoning. Satan will dispute truth and, if he can, will make a Christian question the validity of faith merely because his understanding cannot comprehend it. And sometimes he prevails, blotting out a person’s beliefs in the deity of Christ and in other great and profound truths of the gospel. But faith intervenes between the believer and this arrow, coming to the relief of the Christian’s weak understanding. Abraham, ‘being not weak in faith…considered not his own body now dead’ (Rom. 4:19). If reason had had the upper hand in that business, if that holy man had put the promise to a test of sense and reason, he would have been in danger of questioning the truth of it, although God Himself was the messenger. But faith brough him through the test. ‘I will trust the Word of God,’ says the believer, ‘not my own blind reason.” (The Christian in Complete Armour, Vol. 3, pg. 28)