I had a Believer tell me the other day they thought the devil was behind them getting rear-ended at a stop light the day before, resulting in a mild case of whiplash. The person said something like, “Satan’s come after me because he knows things have just been going too good for me lately.”

From the Bible, we know there’s only been a handful or so of humans that Satan’s ever come against himself. There’s Job, Jesus Christ, Paul, Moses.

“Now, you understand when we talk about whether Satan reads our minds, you and I are really pretty insignificant individuals and we don’t deal with Satan himself; we deal with his emissaries, his cohorts, his fledglings, his dupes,” says my pastor, Richard Jordan, in an old study I have on tape. “There have only been a few people in human history that Satan deemed important enough to intervene directly in their lives. In Job 1, for example, Job gains Satan’s personal attention.”

As Job 1:6-12 lays it out, “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
[7] And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
[8] And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
[9] Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
[10] Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
[11] But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
[12] And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.”

Jordan explains, “Satan says to God, ‘Go and touch what Job has and he’ll curse thee to thy face.’ You know what devil’s saying? He’s saying to God, ‘He’s serves you because you’ll bless him. He’s serving you for profit.’ He’s saying, ‘If you really knew his heart you’d know he’s doing it for some other reason than what he tells you.’

“You’ve got a passage there where what Satan knows about Job is put in contrast with what God knows about him. God says, ‘I know his heart,’ and Satan comes up, and it’s obvious from what he says about Job, that he doesn’t know the real motives of Job’s heart. He falsely accuses Job before God. He didn’t really know what was in Job’s mind, he just knew what he thought he could put into Job’s mind.

“Satan says, ‘I know what I can put into his mind,’ but it’s pretty obvious in the passage that Satan’s not really capable of looking into Job’s mind and reading it.

“We could talk about Paul, Peter, Eve, and it’s clear Satan can’t read their minds.”

Of Satan’s tempting of Christ in the wilderness after he’d fasted 40 days and 40 nights, it says in Matt. 4:3-11, “And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
[4] But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
[5] Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
[6] And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
[7] Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
[8] Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
[9] And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
[10] Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
[11] Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”

In the passage, Satan’s not a tempter among tempters, but The Tempter; the No. 1 Tempter. Satan’s whole business is that of tempting and that’s why James 1:13-14 says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”

Jordan says, “God is not tempting any man and a lot of people misunderstand this. A lot of people make a mistake and they blame God for things when they come along. And they say, ‘Why did God allow this happen to me?’ Or, ‘Why did God allow that to befall me?’ but the verse is clear that God doesn’t tempt men. That’s Satan’s purpose and program. That’s his job and activity. His whole business is temptation.”

In Satan’s tempting of Christ, it’s crucial to understand he’s tempting the humanity of Christ, and as the God-man, He was very much a man who was hungry, thirsty, tired, weary and in need of sleep.

Christ repeatedly comes back at Satan with, “It is written,” showing the tremendously high attitude he had toward the Book.

“He said of the Book, ‘That’s the very words that came out of the mouth of God,’ ” explains Jordan. “God breathed the Word of God, and that means the Scripture came out of the very mouth of God Almighty. You know what you do when you speak? You breathe. If you’ve ever taken voice lessons, the first thing they teach you to do is to breathe properly.

“You know what was in the mind of Christ? The Word. You know what David said? ‘Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee.’ What was in his mind was not feeding himself, but it was the Book.

“Notice Satan quotes Scripture to Christ? Don’t get upset, folks, if Satan and his ministers can read to you right out of the Bible. Satan is a better Bible student than any of us will ever be. They know what’s in the Bible and they can pick it up and read it as good as you can.

“Don’t be amazed if you say, ‘It is written,’ and they say, ‘It is written,’ back to you. That’s the way Satan operates.

“In verse 7, we see Jesus say, ‘It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ It is amply evident that Satan doesn’t know what’s in the mind of Christ and he can’t get into His mind. He doesn’t have access to the mind and the body of the Jesus Christ in order to read Jesus’ mind.

“The way Satan is tempting Christ is by making suggestions to Him—to have outside suggestions go into His mind and try and lead Him. To try and affect His thinking from the OUTSIDE.

“Your body is the temple where God the Holy Spirit dwells in this earth today and the very idea that Satan would be able to have access into your body as a Believer is ridiculous. It’s the height of absurdity to believe that Satan would be able to have access into the mind or the body where God Almighty’s Holy Spirit dwells.

“At the same time, it’s quite clear from Paul’s epistles that Satan does understand and know the minds of unsaved people. It’s quite clear that he has access into their thinking processes. I’ve told you repeatedly that the very creative genius of unsaved people is satanically inspired. Unsaved men can have more than one demon in them.

“By the way, the Greeks, when they use that word ‘demos,’ it’s translated in our Bible ‘devil.’ The Greeks looked at the word as a word that was good and not bad. They didn’t consider it necessarily bad to have a demon. They looked at a demon as that which gave a man the ability to be a genius.

“When you trust Christ and God, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in your body and the demons are cast out. Now, because Satan doesn’t have access into your mind, he comes against you and seeks to tempt you and influence you the same way he did the Lord Jesus; that is, by outside suggestions.

“May I say something to you, the battleground between you and Satan is in your mind; it’s in your thinking processes. The mind’s the most important part of you. Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.’

“Isaiah 26:3 says, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.’ He takes his mind and fixes it on the person of God Almighty and it stays there. His mind, his thinking capacity. His ability to perceive, and know, and think is focused and directed and flowing toward God Almighty. If it flows toward God, it has to flow toward His Word. And it’s just like Jesus Christ said, ‘It is written.’

“II Cor. 10:3-5 says, ‘For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
[4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
[5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;’

“You know where imaginations come from? You know where those vain thoughts and dreams come? In your mind. Casting down the imaginations means casting down the vain reasonings.

“Please underline these two words: ‘EVERY THOUGHT.’ You want victory? You’ll have to bring ‘every THOUGHT to the obedience of Christ.’ You’ll never have it any other way. You’re not trying to bring every action, every emotion, every response—but you’re thinking first. You see, my friend, you sin with your mind, not your body. Sin begins in the mind.

“When you study in theology what’s called the doctrine of pecability, pecability is that accountability for sin that takes place in the thinking—when the decisions are made. What you do with your body is decided by your mind. And Satan’s pattern is to attack our minds from the outside by outside suggestions being poured into us.

“I Tim 4:1 says some ‘shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.’

This bad information and doctrine is from the outside being pumped in, and from the outside these teachings are being bombarded at you all the time through teachers, preachers, books, TV and radio.

“You’re being bombarded by Satan’s doctrine constantly and he’s constantly trying to lead your mind down a path of thinking that is his thinking and not God’s thinking. And you, my friend—right here in the technological age in which we live, in which communication is the name of the game--you are more susceptible to this than in any other time in human history that we know anything about.

“The design and aim is to bombard you with thoughts and doctrines and teachings: A false system of Christianity, or a secular humanism. In no time in your Christian life are you ever going to have a respite from Satan trying from the outside to govern your thought patterns. You see, my friend, he’s after your mind and he never quits being after your mind.

“He wants you to think the way he wants you to think and he wants to govern and control your thought patterns, and he has seducing spirits to try and entice you from thinking properly so he can teach you ‘doctrines of devils.’ And it’s constantly bombarding you.

“You turn that stupid TV on and what are they doing? There’s that old mess on right there in the background where you don’t even notice it. And you just sit there like that.

“It’s just a constant bombarding and God said you better garrison around your mind and you better bring every thought into captivity. You better put up a corral around your thinking processes and have your attitudes and actions reflect His viewpoint and His thinking.

“Ephesians 6:11 says were to ‘stand against the wiles of the devil.’ Now that word ‘devil’ there—I’ve told you this time and again. The Greek word is ‘diablos,’ and that word is a compound. It’s the little preposition ‘dia’ which means ‘through’ and the verb ‘to throw.’ And you put together the preposition ‘through’ and ‘to throw’ and you get a word that means to throw through something. And what that is is ‘balos.’ We say bowling. It’s to throw that ball. That’s a description of his activity.

“He seeks to throw something and separate you and God. And his purpose, his aim, his strategy, his goal is to throw something between you and God that will separate you.

“There are two ways that he does this above everything else. The first one is by false doctrine. Satan throws false doctrine between the Believer and God seeking to separate you from the position and standing you have in Christ.

“Paul says in Eph. 4:14, ‘That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.’

“That word ‘craftiness’ is that word ‘wiles’ over there in chapter 6—it’s those crafty, tricky strategies. What does he do? He comes in here with this ‘every wind of doctrine’ to toss you back and forth. And listen, folks, they’ll come in and teach right out of the Bible to you. And they’ll give you chapter and verse. Satan doesn’t care how much of it you believe as long as it keeps you off-balance. As long as you never take your stand in combat readiness in who God’s made you in Christ.

“That’s why ‘right division’ is so important (II Tim. 2:15). It’s not just to show you how smart I am, or you are, or how you can put somebody else down. It isn’t to show you how wonderful it is, and how marvelous it is that we found out something nobody else knows. No, no, no. The reason it’s important is so you can clearly understand what God’s doing, and stand in it, and successfully see it live in your life. Rejoice in it. Be thrilled by it and live it!”