Can Satan Put Thoughts into Our Heads?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | We've been talking about thoughts recently, our thought lives.
00:00:08.000 | Friday we asked if God can read our thoughts, and the resounding answer is yes, God can read our thoughts.
00:00:14.000 | And not only our thoughts, but also the intentions of our hearts.
00:00:18.000 | And that fact carries vast implications for each of us.
00:00:21.000 | It means God can see the difference between what we want to say and what we actually do say.
00:00:28.000 | He can actually weigh that difference, and so we can glorify God by stopping sinful words from exiting our mouth.
00:00:35.000 | It's one of the fascinating implications that we looked at on Friday in ABJ 1917.
00:00:41.000 | And we're going to start this new week with another short but profoundly important question about our thought lives.
00:00:48.000 | It's asked by Garrick, "Pastor John, can Satan himself put thoughts into our heads?"
00:00:58.000 | Yes, he can, and he does.
00:01:02.000 | And of course, the urgent questions then are, well, how do we recognize them, and how do we resist them?
00:01:12.000 | They'll get controlled by them.
00:01:14.000 | But before I give some biblical examples of this, it would be good to remind ourselves that Satan's putting thoughts in our minds
00:01:26.000 | and putting desires in our hearts or our bodies are very closely related.
00:01:34.000 | Sometimes he may put desires for something sinful directly into our hearts, followed by thoughts that justify those sinful desires.
00:01:47.000 | And sometimes he may do the reverse by putting deceptive thoughts in our minds that lead to sinful desires.
00:01:57.000 | Now, Garrick only asked about thoughts, but I just wanted to make plain that thoughts and desires are so closely related,
00:02:09.000 | we should be asking about both. So, I'll keep that in mind.
00:02:14.000 | Let's start with the biblical text that actually uses the words that Garrick used in posing his question,
00:02:23.000 | namely, does Satan actually put thoughts in our minds?
00:02:29.000 | And here's John 13, verse 2.
00:02:33.000 | "During the supper," that is, during the last supper,
00:02:36.000 | "the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him."
00:02:47.000 | So, the thought, the intention, the desire was there in Judas.
00:02:55.000 | "Satan," John says, "put it there."
00:02:59.000 | Now, here's another clarification, though.
00:03:01.000 | That does not mean, it doesn't mean for Judas, it doesn't mean for us,
00:03:07.000 | that the intention and the desire did not arise out of Judas's own sinful nature.
00:03:15.000 | He's described in John 12, 6 as a thief who's taking money out of the disciples' money bag.
00:03:22.000 | And it says he's a person who had no heart for the poor, which means he was also a liar, which also means he was greedy.
00:03:34.000 | So, we can infer pretty certainly from this that Jesus was not the kind of Messiah Judas wanted to follow.
00:03:46.000 | He had other things going on in his mind and heart.
00:03:51.000 | All Satan had to do was intensify and direct Judas's own sinfulness.
00:04:00.000 | And that's true with us as well.
00:04:03.000 | There's no clear, fine line between the thoughts that Satan puts and the thoughts that we come up with,
00:04:11.000 | or the desires that Satan puts and the desires that we come up with.
00:04:16.000 | So, we don't know exactly how.
00:04:19.000 | It's these "how" questions that baffle us, isn't it?
00:04:22.000 | We don't know exactly how Satan interacts with our own sinful nature to do his ugly work.
00:04:32.000 | But I think it is fair to say that our own sinfulness is like an invitation, like a welcome mat, and an open door to Satan.
00:04:43.000 | That's what Paul says in Ephesians 4, 26.
00:04:47.000 | He says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Don't give opportunity to the devil."
00:04:53.000 | In other words, sinfully holding a grudge is like a welcome mat put out for Satan.
00:05:02.000 | And it works the other way around.
00:05:04.000 | When Satan beckons us to sin with deceptive thoughts or desires,
00:05:10.000 | our own sinful nature kicks in and makes those beckonings more attractive.
00:05:16.000 | So, here's another biblical example to answer Garrick's question.
00:05:20.000 | Does Satan put things in our heart?
00:05:23.000 | Here's Acts 5, verse 3, where Ananias and Sapphira decide to lie to the apostles and keep back part of their pledge.
00:05:32.000 | Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit
00:05:41.000 | and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?"
00:05:45.000 | So, Ananias and his wife had the thought,
00:05:48.000 | "Ah, let's make a little extra money for ourselves by lying about how much we sold our land for."
00:05:55.000 | And the thought became a plan, and the plan became a deed,
00:06:00.000 | and Peter describes that whole process as "Satan filled your hearts."
00:06:07.000 | Satan caused the plan to appear more desirable than honesty or worship.
00:06:13.000 | Satan's design filled them up and conquered all their other thoughts and desires.
00:06:20.000 | It was a pretty costly sin.
00:06:23.000 | Another example is how Satan moved King David to take a census in Israel against God's will.
00:06:31.000 | 1 Chronicles 21.1, "Then Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to number Israel."
00:06:40.000 | That is, to take a census of Israel.
00:06:42.000 | He put the thought in David's mind, and he made the thought look like military wisdom
00:06:49.000 | when it was in fact distrust in God.
00:06:53.000 | And eventually, he had to repent of that folly.
00:06:57.000 | And we might think, as we go back to the very beginning of the Bible,
00:07:02.000 | that the deception of Eve in the Garden of Eden was not like the way Satan works today
00:07:11.000 | because it was by means of an actual conversation between the devil and Adam and Eve, or Eve.
00:07:19.000 | But Paul said that Christians must be on guard against a similar assault,
00:07:27.000 | just like in the Garden of Eden.
00:07:30.000 | He said in 2 Corinthians 11.3,
00:07:34.000 | "I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning,
00:07:41.000 | your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
00:07:50.000 | So here, Satan's work in our minds is called leading us astray, corrupting our thoughts.
00:08:03.000 | So, we don't know how Satan does it, but there it is.
00:08:08.000 | He does it.
00:08:09.000 | He can ruin and distort and mislead our thoughts and turn them into thoughts against Christ and for sin.
00:08:22.000 | Now, the main reality to keep in mind in all this is that Satan is a deceiver, a liar, a murderer.
00:08:30.000 | He works his destruction mainly by deceiving, by lying,
00:08:36.000 | sometimes with half-truths, but always with deceptive, murderous intent.
00:08:44.000 | Here's Revelation 12.9 that says,
00:08:48.000 | "The great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent,
00:08:53.000 | who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world."
00:09:00.000 | And John 8.44 says, "The devil was a murderer from the beginning
00:09:06.000 | and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.
00:09:12.000 | When he lies, he speaks out of his own character,
00:09:16.000 | for he is a liar and the father of lies."
00:09:21.000 | All his thoughts, in other words, are misleading.
00:09:25.000 | They're misleading thoughts, whether they're half-truths or whole falsehoods.
00:09:29.000 | They're misleading.
00:09:30.000 | All his miracles are lying miracles, that is, miracles in the service of a lie,
00:09:38.000 | which means that the central and steady-state weapon against him is truth,
00:09:49.000 | faith in the truth.
00:09:51.000 | Here's the way Paul says that.
00:09:53.000 | 2 Timothy 2:25-26.
00:09:57.000 | "We should correct our opponents with gentleness.
00:10:01.000 | God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,"
00:10:11.000 | and here's the effect of that,
00:10:13.000 | "and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil."
00:10:19.000 | That's how he does it, knowledge of the truth.
00:10:22.000 | Jesus said, "You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free."
00:10:26.000 | Let me keep reading.
00:10:27.000 | I stopped in the middle of verse 26.
00:10:29.000 | "They may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil
00:10:33.000 | after being captured by him to do his will."
00:10:37.000 | How did he capture them?
00:10:38.000 | How did Satan capture them?
00:10:41.000 | By trapping them with lies.
00:10:43.000 | Untruth persuaded them to believe a lie, but putting lies--he put lies in their hearts--
00:10:49.000 | by deceiving them that error is better than truth, sin is better than righteousness.
00:10:57.000 | And the remedy, Paul says, is speak the truth and show righteous love,
00:11:03.000 | and that's exactly what we get in Ephesians 6, verses 11 to 18.
00:11:09.000 | "Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil."
00:11:16.000 | And then six pieces of armor are mentioned, and four of the six relate directly to truth
00:11:26.000 | because the schemes of the devil are lies, and we protect ourselves and others with the truth.
00:11:33.000 | Number one, the belt of truth.
00:11:35.000 | Number two, shoes of the gospel.
00:11:38.000 | Three, sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
00:11:43.000 | Four, shield of faith, which is the faith in the Word of God.
00:11:48.000 | You have the Word of God in your hand like a sword, and you put the shield up,
00:11:51.000 | and you trust the Word of God, the truth.
00:11:55.000 | So I think the answer to Garrick's question is pretty clear.
00:11:59.000 | Yes, Satan can put thoughts in our minds, but God has given us everything we need
00:12:09.000 | to recognize them and renounce them.
00:12:13.000 | Here are the questions I think we need to ask of every thought that comes into our mind.
00:12:18.000 | One, is this thought false to Scripture?
00:12:22.000 | Two, is this thought false to the glory of Christ?
00:12:26.000 | Three, is this thought false to Christ honoring love for others?
00:12:33.000 | Four, is this thought false to purity?
00:12:37.000 | Five, is this thought serving to make sin attractive and to make holiness unattractive?
00:12:45.000 | If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then we remember Revelation 12, 11,
00:12:52.000 | where John says, "They have conquered Satan by the blood of the Lamb
00:12:58.000 | and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives, even unto death."
00:13:02.000 | In other words, we turn to Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us,
00:13:08.000 | and we take hold of precious promises that he's given of his superior worth and helpfulness,
00:13:17.000 | and we testify to Satan, "Christ is my truth. Christ is my treasure. Be gone."
00:13:24.000 | And we turn and we walk with Christ in the truth.
00:13:30.000 | Fascinating. Yeah, John 13, 2 is so profound.
00:13:33.000 | "Satan puts the thoughts and the desires into Judas's mind and heart."
00:13:38.000 | Wow, that's a haunting text. John 13, 2 is haunting, and it's only appeared on the podcast twice now.
00:13:46.000 | The first time was just back in December.
00:13:48.000 | "What can Satan do to Christians?" That was APJ 1869.
00:13:52.000 | "What can Satan do to Christians?" 1869, if you want more on this theme.
00:13:57.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.
00:14:00.000 | Ask a question of your own. Search for "Episode 1869" or subscribe to the podcast, all at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:14:09.000 | Well, who am I, and how do I find my self-identity?
00:14:14.000 | We get that question all the time, and we field it next time on Wednesday.
00:14:18.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reike. See you then.
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