Lesson 29: Warring Against the Flesh Review
Questions 3 and 4
Searching the Scriptures
In our lesson today, we will study the Scriptures for insight on how to war against our flesh. This will be a reminder of the first lesson in this course on waring against the flesh, where we saw that we must seek the Lord and receive from Him a battle plan as to how to defeat pornography and sexual impurity.
Please read the following passage and answer the questions below:
Once more the Philistines came up and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim; so David inquired of the Lord, and he answered, “Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move quickly, because that will mean the Lord has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.” So David did as the Lord commanded him, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.
2 Samuel 5:22-25 (NIV)
Question 3. David struck down the Philistines and won the battle. How did He win?
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A Specific Plan for Battle
Notice a couple of thoughts on this passage:
1. David first inquired of the Lord. This is the opposite of relying on ourselves, trusting in our skills, or looking to “common sense” for solutions.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
2. David had a particular enemy, and the Lord gave David a battle strategy that was very specific to his situation. He had a precise way to follow God’s plan in his battle.
Similarly, since you and I have very specific enemies, we must receive from the Lord very specific plans to defeat them as opposed to making a generic good effort. The difference looks like this:
We can all agree that we must war against our flesh, right? It’s obvious. But the reason so many lose the war against the flesh is that they are generic in their approach. They make promises to stop viewing pornography or to stop giving in to self-gratification, but they never take the specific action needed to win the war.
Those who are victorious in the war against the flesh will have knelt at the foot of the cross and come often to the throne of grace in prayer. And as they pray God’s Word back to Him, He gives them a very specific plan.
God might tell you: Block access to pornography on your iPad using the Self-Control app. Delete that contact on your cell-phone. Turn your computer around so that everyone can see the screen. Unsubscribe from that email list. Install Ad-blocker. Use the parental controls on your computer or smartphone to block access to anything that might tempt. Change the route you drive to work. Take your lunch at a different time. Or any number of other instructions that will be unique to your situation.
Do you see the difference between generic plans and God-given specific battle plans? Generic plans might be good ideas or suggestions from other people and might be well-intentioned, but they don’t end in victory; whereas God-given battle plans always succeed when followed. We must seek the Lord and submit to His leading if we want to win the war against our flesh.
Question 4. Is your battle plan specific and therefore bringing freedom? Please share.
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