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When the Enemy Strikes Workbook: The Keys to Winning Your Spiritual Battles
When the Enemy Strikes Workbook: The Keys to Winning Your Spiritual Battles
When the Enemy Strikes Workbook: The Keys to Winning Your Spiritual Battles
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When the Enemy Strikes Workbook: The Keys to Winning Your Spiritual Battles

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About this ebook

Fear. Discouragement. Loneliness. Anger. Temptation.

These struggles are common to every person, yet not all originate within us. Often they result from a coordinated assault by Satan. In the When the Enemy Strikes Workbook, best-selling author Dr. Charles Stanley explores the often-overlooked reality of siritual warfare and teaches how to respond effectively.

Product features include:

  • Insightful Questions for In-Depth Study
  • Guided Prayers
  • Quotes from When the Enemy Strikes

This important study, which is perfect for individual or group settings, will build your awareness and dependence on God.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherThomas Nelson
Release dateJul 9, 2005
ISBN9781418555429
When the Enemy Strikes Workbook: The Keys to Winning Your Spiritual Battles
Author

Charles F. Stanley

Dr. Charles F. Stanley was the founder of In Touch Ministries and pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church Atlanta, Georgia, where he served more than fifty years. He was also a New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books. Until his death in 2023, Dr. Stanley’s mission was to get the gospel to “as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, as clearly as possible, as irresistibly as possible, through the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.” This is a calling that In Touch Ministries continues to pursue by transmitting his teachings as widely and effectively as possible. Dr. Stanley’s messages can be heard daily on In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley broadcasts on television, radio, and satellite networks and stations around the world; on the internet at intouch.org and through In Touch+; and via the In Touch Messenger Lab. Excerpts from Dr. Stanley’s inspiring messages are also published in the award-winning In Touch devotional magazine.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dr. Stanley offers the reader many practical applications of Bible principles to help one through hard times, especially when other people or evil itself seem to be after you personally. There is an accompanying workbook to give the reader lessons to internalize through self examination.

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Book preview

When the Enemy Strikes Workbook - Charles F. Stanley

Title Page with Thomas Nelson logo

Copyright © 2005 by Charles F. Stanley

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotation in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Nelson Impact, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, the NEW KING JAMES VERSION®. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, 1992 Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-4185-0589-7

05 06 07 08 09 — 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

EBOOK INSTRUCTIONS

In this ebook edition, please use your device’s note-taking function to record your thoughts wherever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes] or [Your Response Here]. Use your device’s highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).

CONTENTS

Ebook Instructions

Introduction

Lesson 1 THE FACE OF EVIL

Lesson 2 THE NATURE OF OUR ENEMY

Lesson 3 THE OUTCOME OF THE BATTLE

Lesson 4 THE ENEMY'S SNARES

Lesson 5 LEARNING TO DISCERN

Lesson 6 EXTINGUISHING FIERY DARTS

Lesson 7 THE STRATEGY UNDERLYING

EVERY TEMPTATION

Lesson 8 RESPONDING TO TEMPTATION

Lesson 9 STAYING DRESSED FOR BATTLE

Lesson 10 TAKING UP ARMOR

Lesson 11 STANDING STRONG IN PRAYER

Lesson 12 PROTECTING YOUR FAMILY

Notes

INTRODUCTION

Remember the story of the artist who won a contest for the best picture of peace? Unlike the other entrants, who produced images of family picnics and brilliant sunsets, he painted a raging storm battering a barren cliff beside the sea. On a small recess in the rock he put a single flower, shielded by an overhang, raising a tiny blossom in utter disregard for the wind and rain.

Recently I heard of a lady who gave the people in her Bible study group a similar challenge, except that they were to draw their version of evil. One older gentleman, normally a ready participant, seemed to be doing very little with his pencil and eventually handed the lady a blank sheet of paper, with a small frame around the edge. She held his entry until last, but soon she had commented on all the other images of monsters, Hitler look-alikes, and venomous snakes.

Why, James? she asked at last. Why a blank page?

Because I think that the worst evil of all is the evil we cannot see, he said. It blends in so well with other things it can fool us even when we’re the most careful.

That fellow knew exactly what he was talking about. Let us search together for ways to recognize the face of evil in all its near-invisible forms.

Better still, let’s examine the ways God has provided for us to protect ourselves. Let’s build our awareness, our defenses, and our dependence on God Himself.

1

THE FACE OF EVIL

Satan sometimes confronts us with 100 percent evil. The soldiers who liberated Hitler’s concentration camps at the end of World War II knew they were looking into the face of evil when they saw what had happened there.

In more recent years, no one who knows of the murderous actions of Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, or the anti-Christian forces in Sudan, Rwanda, and other troubled spots around the globe can doubt that 100 percent evil is just as alive and active today as it was in biblical times.

Just as surely, on September 11, 2001, all those who watched those three airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and that barren field in Pennsylvania knew they were seeing purest evil in action.

Or did they?

With respect to 9-11, many people actually blamed the United States for causing its own tragedy. We are too proud and arrogant, they said. We failed to be understanding and tolerant enough.

DOES EVIL COME IN DIFFERENT SIZES AND SHAPES?

Is evil, as in the adage about beauty, really in the eyes of the beholder? Or does it have a face, a name, and common methods of operation?

Let’s study several examples of evil from the Bible, beginning with Genesis 4:23, 24. Please fill in the blanks.

Then Lamech said to his wives: Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech! For I have _____________ a man for ________________ me, Even a young man for _____________ me. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold (NKJV).

(1) When Lamech said If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, to what avenger was he referring?

[Your Response Here]

(2) How did Lamech sin in both his actions and his words?

[Your Response Here]

(3) Can you identify anything in Lamech’s story that indicates any cause of the sin other than the presence of pure evil?

[Your Response Here]

STRAIGHT FROM THE BOOK . . .

If you have made a commitment to Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you are absolutely correct in saying that your spirit already belongs to God and the devil can lay no claim on your eternal destiny. The satanic forces can do other things to you, however.

Now turn to 1 Kings 3:23–27. This familiar story is about Solomon and the two women who claimed the same child as their son. Begin with Solomon’s judgment and observe what the two women said in response.

And the king said, The one says, ‘This is my son, who lives, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! But your son is the __________ one, and my son is the __________ one.’ Then the king said, Bring me a sword. So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the __________ child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other. Then the woman whose son was __________ spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him! But the other said, Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him. So the king answered and said, Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him; she is __________ __________ (NKJV).

(1) This story is often quoted to prove Solomon’s wisdom. What characteristics of evil does it also expose?

[Your Response Here]

(2) Why do you think evil so often believes it will not be revealed?

[Your Response Here]

Next, turn to Genesis 39:11–15 and consider the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.

But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, that she caught him by __________ __________, saying, Lie with me. But he left his __________ in her hand, and fled and ran outside. And so it was, when she saw that he had left his __________ in her hand and fled outside, that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, See, he has brought in to us a Hebrew to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it happened, when he heard that I lifted my voice and cried out, that he left his garment with me, and fled and went outside (NKJV).

(1) Is there anything in this story itself, or the surrounding verses in Genesis 39, that indicate that Potiphar’s wife was obviously an evil person?

[Your Response Here]

(2) Was Joseph the victim of his own foolishness, or was something else at work here?

[Your Response Here]

(3) From what you might already know about the story of Joseph, what do you think about the devil’s ability to kill Joseph immediately or to have him put into prison until he died?

[Your Response Here]

ONLY IN LIVING COLOR!

One of our difficulties in discerning evil is that so much of what we encounter seems to come—not in black-and-white—but in shades of gray. Satan can be very adept at masking his temptations and covering up his intent.

In contrast, most of us think of evil in the Bible as easy-to-spot. There is some truth in that assumption, for much of the Bible deals in what we often call universal types or clear examples of evil—for teaching purposes.

Read the Scriptures listed in the following table, but don’t be satisfied with the barest minimum of verses—read them in context, meaning that you might need to read several more verses to understand completely the whole story. For each one, try to give a one-word name to the evil it illustrates. Then rate that evil with a numerical Visibility Index, based on how easily you think it can be discerned. If it is clearly a black-and-white case, give it a 10. If it seems to be 90 percent evil, give it a 9. If it is half-and-half, give it a 5; and so on.

Keep in mind, however, that in spite of what Satan wants us to think, giving in to something that seems only 10 percent evil can be just as devastating, in the end, as giving in to something that is most obviously his work. Sometimes the visibility for Satan’s handiwork is cloudy for us.

The first entry is filled out for you as an example.

Next, consider the death of John the Baptist in Matthew 14:6–9.

But when __________ birthday was celebrated, the daughter of ________ danced before them and pleased Herod. Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. So she, having been prompted by __________ __________, said, Give me John the Baptist’s head here on a platter. And the king was sorry; nevertheless, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he commanded it to be given to her (NKJV).

(1) Evil does not always act alone. Three different people were involved in this case: __________, __________, and __________. Who was most responsible?

[Your Response Here]

(2) Who was least responsible?

[Your Response Here]

(3) Why?

[Your Response Here]

To change the outcome what small thing could each one have done differently?

[Your Response Here]

(4) Now let’s expand on this information by reviewing the beginning of Matthew 14.

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