The Devil Made Me Do It?

Anybody remember Flip Wilson?  Check it out, it’s still pretty funny.

Tomorrow at the NW Church, I’m going to be talking about how Jesus took on his enemies, what he did in relation to them, what action he took.  As in what verb did he practice.   Needless to say, the first enemy to talk about is the old adversary himself, Satan.  And needless to say, looking at this whole thing, which leads me into what I call the cosmology of the Bible, gets my head tilting pretty quickly.   The notion of temptation is an fascinating one, wondering exactly how the whole thing works–our inner sinful nature, the external forces like Satan (and God, for that matter) working on us.  There’s a war on, we’re told, but we’re not told much about how the war works.  Tolkein and Lewis have given us great images of the war, and I fear few of us take the realm of the unseen anywhere close to seriously enough, but even when we do, the specifics of how it works escapes us.  Like the images of heaven, there are only clues in scripture, clues that many have taken and created grand schemes that are pretty close to sure about.   Back in the garden, Eve was enticed by her own desire, but the whole thing was suggested by the serpent.  (The text doesn’t really call him Satan, but we’ll let that go…)  Jesus starts his ministry driven into the desert to be tempted, which the devil does, suggesting things that might peak Jesus interest and desire.

So in the battle against the sinful nature, what’s the action verb?

Any thoughts?