Student Study Guide
Lesson 32
Strategies for Walking in Constant Victory - Pt. 2
Section 1 - Strategy Four: Praise the Lord
The Most Underutilized Weapon Against Temptation
One of the greatest strategies of the devil is to keep your mouth shut. When you feel the condemnation that comes with temptation, you want to hide. You pull back into yourself. You go quiet - just as Adam and Eve did: guilt, then fear, then hiding. But instead of hiding in shame, do the exact opposite.
1. God showed me this strategy directly. He said: "Bind the spirit of lust that is attacking you from the . Cast down the lust in your own heart, and then start Me." As soon as I applied that three-part strategy, the broke immediately.
The Enemy's Goal
Keep your mouth shut. Drive you into guilt, fear, and hiding. Exploit the condemnation to silence you. He cannot stand the high praises of God.
The Strategy
Do the exact opposite. Open your mouth. Fill the space with praise. Invite the presence of God right into the heat of the battle.
2. The devil is the king of the heathen, and demons are the nobles. When you begin to praise God with the high praises and you have the Word of God, you the powers of darkness. Praise is one of the most powerful in your arsenal.
✍ Jehoshaphat - Worshippers Before Warriors
The armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir came against Israel - a vast, overwhelming force. God's instruction was not to send the fighting men first. He sent the worshippers. They went out before the army singing and praising the beauty of holiness.
God sent confusion among the enemy. The enemies turned on each other and destroyed themselves. Israel did not have to fight - they just went out and collected the spoil. When you begin to truly praise God in the midst of your temptation, He will send confusion into the enemy's camp. The attack will lose its power.
3. When they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set against the enemy (2 Chron. 20:22). The devil has no against a believer who opens their mouth in worship in the middle of the battlefield.
4. Think about what happens if you are in a situation where temptation is pressing strongly and you begin to say out loud: "Holy is God Almighty. I worship You."
The changes. The power of the temptation . His presence brings and confusion to the enemy simultaneously.
Your Reflection
Section 2 - Strategy Five: Prayer
Pray with Authority - Bind and Loose
5. The original language carries even greater weight: whatever you declare on earth must already be declared unlawful in heaven. You are not changing God's mind - you are what He has already established.
6. If the temptation is lust, the lust and a spirit of purity. If it is fear, bind the spirit of fear and loose the spirit of power, love, and a mind.
The Misread Thorn: Paul's thorn in the flesh - a tormenting spirit sent to buffet him - and he asked God three times to take it away. God responded: "My grace is sufficient." For too long, we have read this as God saying: "Just put up with it." That is not what God was saying at all.
God was saying: "My grace, My favor which gives you access to My power, is sufficient. I am not going to defeat this devil for you. You rise up in My name, with My power, and fight." And notice: it was after this experience that Paul began writing about the weapons of our warfare, the pulling down of strongholds, and the whole armor of God.
7. God was not leaving Paul in . He was revealing to him the he already possessed and commanding him to use it. The devil wants to keep your mouth shut, so it. I would rather have people think something slightly unusual than stay silent and walk in .
Your Reflection
Section 3 - Strategy Six: Fellowship
True Biblical Fellowship - Not Christian Entertainment
8. You become like who you time with. If you surround yourself with people who are spiritually dead, you will begin to . But if you surround yourself with born-again, Spirit-filled, Word-grounded, devil-chasing believers who will hold you , it is extremely difficult to fall into sin.
The Irony of Our Day: The Bible says as we see the Day approaching, we are to fellowship more. But in most churches, we have gone in the opposite direction. We cut Sunday night. We cut Wednesday night. We shortened services. We walk in, shake two or three hands, do our religious duty, and walk out. We barely know the people sitting beside us. That is a direct violation of what God is telling us to do in the end times.
9. You need to find people to pray with, study the Word with, be real with. People who are more in the Lord than you are. People who are so in love with God that being around them makes you want of Him.
10. Fellowship is not Christian . It is believers in the presence of God, gathering around Him, exhorting one another, building one another up. Think about it: how hard is it to run out and do something wicked when you have spent the evening with people who are passionately pursuing God and who would deeply if you fell?
Warning: If you begin to think you are too good for your brothers and sisters in Christ - that their level of maturity is beneath you - you have taken the first step toward walking away from the body of Christ entirely. "Pride goes before destruction" (Prov. 16:18). Stay humble. Stay connected. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.
Your Reflection
Section 4 - Strategy Seven: Stay Busy About the Lord's Work
Idle Hands Are the Devil's Workshop
✍ Dr. Edwin Louis Cole - The Unemployed Principle
When a person in the natural world is unemployed, they tend to become involved in three things: that which is illegal, immoral, and illicit. You can see this in any region with high unemployment. When people have nothing meaningful to do with their energy and time, they fill the void with destructive things.
Now apply it to the church. What happens when ninety-five percent of believers are spiritually unemployed - sitting on the sidelines, never personally engaged in the work of God? They become involved in what is spiritually illegal, spiritually immoral, and spiritually illicit: gossip, division, compromise. Idleness opens the door.
11. When people are spiritually unemployed, they become involved in what is spiritually , spiritually immoral, and spiritually . The natural equivalent: gossip, division, and compromise. opens the door.
12. Believers are spending hours , filling their minds with worldly and carnal things. It is genuinely addictive. It is psychologically harmful. And spiritually, it is one of the most effective tools the enemy has to keep believers and passive in this generation.
The Simple Solution: Be busy in the work of the Lord. If you have time on your hands, have a prayer meeting. Go out witnessing. Serve in your church. Read the Word. Invest in someone younger in the faith. Whatever it takes - fill your time with the things of God, and you will leave no open door for the enemy to exploit your idleness.
13. Be real with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Allow your to be seen. Bear one another's burdens. Set your mind on things , not on things on the earth.
Your Reflection
Section 5 - All Seven Strategies
From a Life of Struggle to a Life of Consistent Daily Victory
We have now covered all seven strategies for walking in consistent victory over temptation. Along with the seven lies we exposed in Lessons 29-30, these seven strategies are weapons that will take you from a life of struggling and falling to a life of consistent, daily victory.
The Seven Strategies - Complete List
- Close the Eye Gate - Set nothing wicked before your eyes (Ps. 101:3)
- Shut the Ear Gate - Guard what you allow yourself to hear (Mark 4:24)
- Meditate on the Word - Mutter it, speak it out, apply it personally (Josh. 1:8)
- Praise the Lord - Open your mouth in worship right in the heat of temptation
- Pray with Authority - Bind what is unlawful, loose what is lawful (Matt. 16:19)
- Fellowship with On-Fire Believers - Surround yourself with those pursuing God (Heb. 10:25)
- Stay Busy About the Lord's Work - Fill idle time with Kingdom activity (1 Tim. 5:13)
He whom the Son makes free is free indeed. Walk in that freedom. You were not designed to live in perpetual defeat. Jesus came to deliver you from the power of sin, and He is fully sufficient to do it.
Lesson 32 - Practice Test
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Part A: Multiple Choice (5 questions · 2 pts each)
1. What does the Jehoshaphat account illustrate about praise as a strategy against temptation?
2. What does the lesson say God was actually communicating to Paul with "My grace is sufficient" regarding his thorn?
3. According to the lesson, what is the number one reason people backslide?
4. How does Dr. Edwin Louis Cole's unemployed principle apply to spiritually idle believers?
5. What does the lesson say about the direction of the church's fellowship practices in relation to what Hebrews 10:25 commands for the end times?
Part B: True or False (6 statements · 1 pt each)
1. The lesson teaches that praise during temptation works best as background worship music playing while you resist - not as an active, mouth-open declaration of worship.
2. The three-part praise strategy taught in this lesson is: (1) cast down the lust in your heart, (2) bind the spirit of lust attacking from outside, (3) begin praising God.
3. Biblical fellowship, as the lesson defines it, includes Christian entertainment activities like softball games and socials as valid expressions of what Hebrews 10:25 calls for.
4. The lesson says a believer who begins to think they are too mature or spiritually advanced for their brothers and sisters has taken the first step toward walking away from the body of Christ.
5. The lesson teaches that social media and endless digital content consumption is a spiritually neutral activity that only becomes harmful if the content itself is sinful.
6. The lesson closes by affirming that Jesus is fully sufficient to deliver believers from the power of sin, and that believers were not designed to live in perpetual defeat.
Part C: Fill in the Blank (5 items · 1 pt each)
1. 2 Chronicles 20:22: "When they began to and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the enemy."
2. Matthew 16:19: "Whatever you on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you on earth will be loosed in heaven."
3. The number one reason people backslide is that they maintain close relationships with people who are not God.
4. When spiritually unemployed believers have nothing meaningful to do, they become involved in what is spiritually illegal, immoral, and illicit - because opens the door.
5. He whom the Son makes free is indeed.
Part D: Short Answer (completion credit)
1. Explain the three-part praise strategy from this lesson and why the lesson says the combination was devastating to the enemy. What does the Jehoshaphat account add to the understanding of how praise works in spiritual warfare?
2. What is the correct reading of "My grace is sufficient" in 2 Corinthians 12:9, and how does that reading connect to what Paul wrote afterward about spiritual warfare? Why does this matter for the strategy of prayer?
3. How does the lesson distinguish true biblical fellowship from Christian entertainment and social activities? What kind of community makes falling into sin genuinely difficult, and why?
Part E - Before You Leave
Identify one specific area of temptation you regularly face. Write out the three-part strategy you will apply to it: what you will cast down, what you will bind, and what praise declaration you will make. Then commit to using it the next time that temptation comes.
Look at all seven strategies. Which two are you weakest in right now? Name a specific, practical step for each one that you will begin this week.