Does the Devil Know My Thoughts?

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: We’re recording live from Ligonier’s 2021 Pittsburgh conference, and I’m joined by one of Ligonier’s teaching fellows, Dr. Steven Lawson. Dr. Lawson, does the devil know what I’m thinking right now?

DR. STEVEN LAWSON: That’s an interesting question. The devil is not omniscient. He does not know everything, just like he’s not omnipresent. He’s not everywhere present. He’s restricted to only one place. So, I don’t think that he knows everything that I’m thinking. I do think that he puts thoughts into people’s minds. And for example, even with Peter, when he said, “Lord, don’t go to the cross.” And Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan,” acknowledging that those words and that thought were simply an echo chamber of what Satan was really influencing Peter to say. And so, there are thoughts that I think that are planted by the devil, even into the minds of believers. And sometimes it even comes in the form of temptations with us to lure us further into sin. But does he know everything? Of course not. He is a limited being.

As Martin Luther said, the devil is God’s devil, and he’s on a short leash. And he can only do what God gives him space to do. I mean, we know that from Job chapter one and Job chapter two. God defined the boundaries for Satan what he could do and what he could not do. And the same is true for us today. So the devil... There’s two dangers as we think of the devil. It’s one is to think too highly of him. And there are those even in churches who I think believe in the sovereignty of Satan. To hear them talk, there’s a devil behind every bush rather than the sovereignty of God. The other extreme is just to totally disregard the devil and to so believe in the sovereignty of God that I never put on the full armor of God. I never resist the devil. I never am consciously aware of his sinister attacks against me. You remember Martin Luther picked up that bottle of ink and threw it at the wall in the Wartburg Castle because he knew the devil was after him.

So those are the two extremes: to think too highly of the devil or to think not at all of the devil. We need to be somewhere in the middle. That God is sovereign, but the devil is the god of this age, the prince of this world, the power of the air. And so, we need to keep that in proper perspective, doctrinal perspective. And that’s why as J.C. Ryle said, “It takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian.” You’ve got to know the whole Bible and know even Satan’s place in this narrative of redemptive history.