The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-B, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 4."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  ©1976. All Rights Reserved.

Question

Can Satan hear what we say and know our thoughts?

Answer

There are a lot of people, you know, who struggle with the idea of whether or not Satan can hear what they’re saying.  Someone was telling me last week that they’re having problems in this one home with Satan (at least, they felt it was that) and with demons and so forth, and so they said that rather than pray out loud any more, they all started praying to themselves so the devil couldn’t hear them.  Well, you may chuckle at that, but they are really, I think, at the heart of a true point: there is nothing in the Bible to indicate that Satan is omniscient.  I can’t really give you any Bible verses about this problem, but I can sure tell you there aren’t any verses that say he knows everything and there are not any verses that say he can read your thoughts.  But he is able to predict human behavior better than any other being other than God because he’s seen it operate for so long.  He can anticipate what you might do in a given situation without knowing your thoughts because of his knowledge of humankind and because he has a supernatural mind.

But in terms of being omniscient and being able to, as Jesus could, read your thoughts, I don’t believe the Bible would support that at all.  It never tells us that angels are omniscient and Satan is nothing but a fallen angel.  If a holy angel isn’t omniscient, one that is fallen would have less capacity than a holy one; certainly wouldn’t have omniscience.

So, I don’t believe Satan can read our thoughts, but he’s great at predicting human behavior because he’s seen so much of it.  I’m not sure that it’s really important whether he hears what you’re praying anyway or not because if you’re living right, he can’t do a thing about it.  If you’re not living right, whether he hears it or not isn’t going to make a lot of difference because you’re going to be messed up anyway.

I was speaking back in this conference in Iowa about this problem.  People were asking the question of “how do you deal with demons?  Do we need exorcism to get rid of demons?”  Well, there are a lot of people today who say you do.  I told you about the man down in Florida who has this kind of ministry.  You may have read his book—his name is Bashan or Basham, first name is Don—he’s written a book about deliverance.  He gave the story, I told you, about the doctor who was delivered from the demon of post-nasal drip and what a wonderful testimony he had given and so forth.  And there is this approach, that whenever you have a demon, there’s a certain magical formula you say or you run around, you “plead the blood” and something—whatever that phrase means.  It’s not from the Scripture.  The blood has already been pled in your behalf at the time of your salvation and that takes care of it.

There are a lot of people who are advocating little formulas and little séance kind of things with a Christian connotation and they can cast out demons and so forth, but when you get into the Bible, you find, really, that dealing with the devil is as simple as going to Ephesians 6 and putting on the armor of the Christian.  You see, in Ephesians 6, it says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers,” right?  We’re wrestling against demons and against Satan.  But what do we do about it?  The best place to find out is to read right in that same chapter, isn’t it?  And it doesn’t say, “go get your demons exorcised with a Christian exorcism.”  It doesn’t say, “Go get somebody to cast your demon out.”  It says, “Put on the whole armor of God,” and what that whole armor really consists of is righteousness.  The heart of it is “the breastplate of righteousness.” 

A righteous life is invulnerable.  You don’t have anything to worry about if you’re living a righteous life.  If you aren’t living a righteous life, you can have all the exorcisms you want and you’re still going to have problems because where there is unrighteousness, Satan can move right in. 

So, there is nothing in the Bible that says Satan can read our thoughts.  Certainly demons can hear what we say.  They can understand what we say…  And as I said before, they are very good at predicting the common responses of man because they’ve been at it for such a long time.  And, apparently—interestingly enough—there’s a very strong ESP among spirit beings: they have a language of their own and a communication of their own.  But don’t worry about that!  This lady said to me, “We whisper,” I said, “Well, that’s foolish!”  You can go boldly before the throne of grace.  In the Old Testament, it doesn’t say, “And David whispered to the Lord and we have no idea what he said.”  It says, “And David said unto the Lord”—and out it came.  And you never hear any time in the apostle Paul’s instruction to us about prayer when he says, “Don’t talk out loud.”  When he wanted to pray, he just flat out prayed and it didn’t bother him whether Satan heard it because he was living such a kind of a life that Satan couldn’t do anything about it anyway.  That’s the issue. 

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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