The evil one's attack strategy

I've been thinking about two big moments in the writings of the New Testament accounts of Jesus.  Both of these involve the deceiver or the evil one or, as other renderings go, the devil or satan (both not proper names). 

So in Luke 4, Jesus is directly confronted by the evil one tempting Him with power, fame, and pleasure, and to use His strength for Himself.  Jesus, being very hungry and tired at this point, refuses to play the deciever's game.  So, the deceiver goes away to figure out another attempt to take Jesus down.

This leads to the second encounter, but this time, the evil one doesn't go directly but indirectly through one of Jesus's inner 3 disciples, Simon Peter. For some reason, Luke leaves this out of his account, but it is recorded both by Matthew (16:23) and Mark (8:33).

Toward the end of Luke's account (chapter 22), the deceiver apparently gives up on attacking Jesus, so he switches to others in Jesus' life, like Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter, the latter being the next key kingdom leader for the age of the church era...

I guess these moments cry out for me (and us) to be aware that sometimes following Jesus will lead to a direct attack by the evil one, and other times, maybe more often than not, the evil one will attack through other people or circumstances.

Lord, have mercy.

Photo by Amir Sani on Unsplash