Question: Does the Devil Produce Evil Thoughts in Me?

Life of Faith

19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts, thefts, false testimonies, and slanderous statements.

– Matthew 15:19
(NASB® © 2020)
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Question: Does the devil produce evil thoughts in me? I am also troubled by the idea that the devil could read my thoughts.

Answer: It is not the devil who is the source of evil thoughts in us, but the flesh, that sinful nature which is still present in the believer. Although we are no longer “in the flesh,” that is, no longer characterized by the flesh (Romans 8:9), the flesh, sin, is still in us (1 John 1:8).

Evil comes from our heart!

The Lord Jesus sheds light on this matter in Matthew 15: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). It is a deeply humbling experience, which we sometimes have to make even after our conversion, that the source of all these evil things is still in us. But how good it is to know that we have died with Christ, died to sin, and that He gives us the power through the Holy Spirit to reckon ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6)! However, the devil has 6000 years of experience in dealing with people, and he knows how to tempt us believers to sin: He puts evil things in front of us from the outside and in this way ties in with the evil that is within us. Therein lies the danger.

This brings us to the second part of the question. The devil has a lot of experience with evil in people, but he is not omniscient. There is only One who knows and searches the heart, who knows our thoughts “from afar” (Psalm 139) – God. We also hear repeatedly from the Lord Jesus, when He was among men as a man, that He “saw” their thoughts, that He “knew” them (Matthew 9:4; 12:25; Luke 11:17). Knowing the thoughts of the heart is a prerogative of God alone. The fact that the devil is not omniscient and cannot really predict the future is made clear by the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. Would he have brought Him to the cross (John 13:2; Revelation 12:4) if he had known that he was sealing his own defeat?

Look to the Lord, not to the devil!

Finally, a little advice for all of us: Let us not be so preoccupied in our thoughts with the devil and his lies, but rather with the Lord Jesus and the truth of God! Only this will keep us happy, and only this will give us strength. We should stand before God in our conscience, not before the devil, not before people. We are not dealing with the devil, but with a gracious God who has solved the whole question of our sin forever in Jesus Christ. He loved us when we were still sinners; He loves us today, despite our manifold failures; and He will love us forever when we no longer have sin dwelling in us. What security and peace this gives us!

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