No sorry saying i think we blame the devil for a lot of stuff is only trickery.. the devils needs to be tested for a lot of stuff he has not been tested for by us that is.. The devils needs to be tested for every single marriage that breaks up in my book and we should not defend him and possibly he is to blame for everyone that has broke up.
If we take the stance he may not be to blame he may just get of scott free again.
While I understand that the Bible teaches us about spiritual warfare and tells that "Your adversary the devil walks around like a roaming lion, seeking those he might devour," (1 Peter 5:8,) we are told to be "alert and sober-minded" -- but we are NOT taught to concentrate the majority of our efforts on studying and testing the devil.
Rather, we are told to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1) as a way of knowing who and what we are to listen to, but not because we are to make the devil or evil spirits into a scapegoat onto which we blame our own sinful choices.
If you are saying that we need to be warned about the devil's ways in order to stay on top of making our OWN decisions of whether or not to follow God, then I agree with you. But as a former pastor of mine said once, "Some people put so much emphasis on the demons and the devil that their testimony seems to be more about the devil rather than about God."
One way of testing the fruits is to see where something leads us -- if we are led to focus more on God, then we know we're on the right track. If we are led to focus on the devil, it's time for a change of direction.
I have known many people who have said that the devil was attacking them, but if you really got down to the nitty-gritty, it was more about bad choices and mismanagement rather than a demonic attack (my own life included.)
Furthermore, I can't think of a single instance in which God accepted the devil's actions as an excuse for anyone's behavior:
* If anyone could blame the devil, it would be Job -- after all, God Himself was the one who allowed the devil to attack Job and all he had. But yet when Job finally cursed the day of his birth, God responded with things such as, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" He even goes on to challenge Job himself, with no mention at all of the devil: "Tell me if you know so much -- answer me like a man."
Although the devil was behind Job's troubles, God didn't even bring up the devil when Job brought up all his complaints.
* Jesus warned Peter that "Satan has asked to sift you like wheat," but when Peter denied Jesus 3 times, Jesus looked at Peter in conviction, and there was no further mention of the devil's behind-the-scenes request. The devil may have attacked, but Peter was held 100% accountable for his decision.
* Adam and Eve are the very first examples of how God handles things that might have been influenced by the devil. Adam tried to blame Eve, and Eve tried to blame the serpent, but God didn't care about who supposedly caused them to sin -- what mattered to God was that THEY had made the decision to disobey, and He holds every person since then accountable for their own choices to disobey as well.
* Cain, not learning the lesson from the sins of his parents, was told by God Himself, "Sin is crouching at your door. It's desire is to have you, but you must master it." But when Cain didn't listen and gave in to sin, he was given absolutely no excuse for his actions.
* When the Pharisees asked why Moses had allowed the people to write certificates of divorce and send their wives away, Jesus didn't say, "It's because the devil was attacking your marriages, therefore you need to study his ways more carefully and put all your efforts into fighting the devil and holding him accountable," but instead, Jesus pointed the finger straight at THEM and said that the reason this happened "was because YOUR hearts were hard."
* In Paul's letters to various churches, he never says, "I'm so sorry the devil is attacking you -- surely God will understand." Nope, nope, and nope. Rather, Paul gives these congregations a good swift spiritual kick in the butt, fully placing the responsibility on their own actions.
* When the churches in Revelation are confronted, they are told that because they are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, Jesus is about spit them out.
In EVERY one of these cases, there is absolutely NO mention of, "Oh, I understand that the devil is attacking you, so I can see what you made the decisions you did -- what you need to do is conduct a thorough study of the devil and how he works."
Rather, we are told to put our efforts into getting closer to GOD, not giving a good chunk of our attention to the devil.
If the recipe for success was contained in studying the devil, then this is what the Bible would center itself around, but it doesn't.
Rather, the Bible is centered around God, and I have to agree with my former pastor that we are in even worse danger if we start to worry more about what the devil is up to rather than what God wants us to do.
In the last part of your post, you said that if we don't take a stance to blame the devil, he "may get off scot-free again," but I can't think of a single passage that tells us that our job as Christians is to hold the devil accountable and make sure he takes all the blame for his actions.
Even when the archangel Michael confronted the devil over Moses's body, Michael said, "The Lord rebuke you, Satan!" He did not say, "I'm going to tell God all about this, and boy are you ever going to be in trouble!!"
Holding the devil accountable and making the appropriate judgment is God's job, not ours (but if you have any passages that tell us this is what we're supposed to do, please write them out for us, because I'm not familiar with them.)
Taking on a task that was never meant to be ours is not only sing, but it misses the entire point of being a Christian.
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