Does Satan Know Our Thoughts?

Does Satan know our thoughts? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Now, you can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and we have a YouTube channel. You can watch Adriel right now in the studio on YouTube and send him your question that way. And if you want to email us, here's our email address. It's questionsatcorechristianity.com.

First up today, here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named David. I'm just wondering about the dress code of women in the church, because I've had some disagreements with some elders and some priests about this. And what it is is spandex, low-cut tops, mini skirts of older women and younger women in the church environment. And I've explained that this is a temptation for man. I speak from my own issues.

That's why I say this. I've been trying to be very polite with bringing this forward, and I am like basically knocked down. And I would really like some insight on how to approach elders or pastors on such a subject. Thank you and God bless. Mm-hmm. Well, brother, any time we approach elders, pastors, I think within the church there's an appeal with humility and love.

And in a situation like this, you're bringing up a concern that you have, and there are a few things I want to say about this. First, I don't think that churches ought to go about making dress codes, specifically focusing on women, saying, okay, you have to wear jean skirts. And I know that's a bit of an exaggeration, although there are some churches that do that.

No pants, no skirts, unless they're floor-length or that kind of a thing. But I don't think that the church needs to go through all the trouble of making a dress code. I think we just have to look at what the scripture says. And the Bible does speak about modesty, about not wanting to draw attention to ourselves. That shouldn't be the focus in worship for men or for women. I think of the exhortation that Peter gives in 1 Peter chapter 3, where he's speaking specifically here to wives within the church, and he says, don't let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry and the clothing you wear. In other words, that shouldn't be the focus. But rather, let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. In other words, this is how we should be adorned with charity, with love, with humility. And I think that goes for everyone within the church. The focus is not drawing attention to ourselves, the focus on us, the external appearance. That also doesn't mean that we can't care about those things. That's perfectly fine, too. But where is your heart?

Where's the focus? There is a line, I think, that can be crossed in terms of modesty. And so I think that you can address that without creating a dress code for everyone in the church. And I think that looks like a godly sister coming alongside in love and saying, hey, you know, and again, this is where you're going to have people with different opinions. And so that's where we want to be sensitive as well and wise. What for one person might feel like, I can't believe you wore jeans to church. That's not appropriate.

Well, that's not going to be an issue for another person. This is where we really need to be able to extend charity to each other. And the ability to extend charity in this way is a sign of Christian maturity. In fact, the inability to do this is indicative of a lack of Christian maturity. But another thing that I want to say, brother, is you also have to take responsibility. You mentioned, you know, this is something that I know for me.

I'm speaking about my own issues here in one sense. And so I think recognizing that and saying, Lord, help me not to objectify any woman made in your image, you know, my sister in Christ. And so taking responsibility for your own lust, confessing it to the Lord and asking God for his mercy, that doesn't mean that there isn't such a thing as seductive dress. I mean, the Proverbs talk about this. And so again, we can talk about both. We can talk about modesty and encourage each other to, you know, not focus on ourselves and draw attention on ourselves, while at the same time saying, look, brothers, take responsibility for your own sinful behavior and own it and confess it to the Lord and seek in all things to be pure towards your sisters in Christ.

And so it's not rocket science. We don't have to say it's all this or all that. And one of the concerns, I think, and I know a lot of people have been hurt by this in certain church cultures, is that we never want to suggest, you don't want to suggest that, you know, the purity, the sexual purity of a man in the church or of the men in the church rests wholly on the shoulders of the women and how they dress. I mean, what a burden that oftentimes brings a sense of shame, can bring a sense of shame, can bring a sense of, you know, there's something wrong with me. And maybe an individual isn't doing anything wrong at all.

And yet they're forced to carry that. And I think that that's also unwise and unhelpful. And so let's seek to extend charity to each other when there is a situation where it seems like, okay, there's a line that's being crossed here. And it seems like this is just really distracting for the people around you.

It's drawing attention in a way that's not good. And that's not what we want for worship. And I think addressing that in a good way, with humility, with love, with charity, probably not parading it around or making a big scene, but going to a sister in the Lord, or even a brother. I mean, if it's an issue there with an individual, you think of what Peter says in 1 Peter 3, right, the focus there being, you know, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold and jewelry, the clothing that you wear. Well, there are guys who can be overly focused on the clothing and putting on a show as well. And so let's have charity and let's be humble and let's take responsibility for our own behavior and seek within the body of Christ to encourage each other in a way that's going to be helpful and glorifying to the Lord.

That's some really good balanced advice. Just a question for you. I like to wear muscle shirts to church. Do you think that could be distracting? Yeah. Well, with you, Bill, no, because when you don't have muscles, you wear muscle shirts.

It's just sort of, people feel sorry for you, actually. Now, if I wore a muscle shirt to church, it would be, this is why I, you know, I got the long sleeve with the tie and all that stuff. I got it.

I got it. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Hey, we'd love to hear from you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. We also get emails here at The Core. You can email us anytime at questionsatcorechristianity.com.

Here's an email from Anna. She says, my 17 year old son changed his denomination to Eastern Orthodox after being raised as a Protestant. He's extremely theological. And he said he needed a church with stricter views that stood firmly on the letter of the Bible.

I've gone to a few of the liturgies and there are big differences in the way they conduct their services, including the kissing of the icons, chanting Bible verses, and the signing of the cross. Is this denomination truly Christian? Well, Anna, if you talk to Eastern Orthodox individuals, they'll say, well, this isn't a denomination. This is the church that Jesus Christ founded. You guys all have your denominations. We are the true church. Which, you know, they wouldn't say, I've had Orthodox friends say, you know, we know where the church is.

We can't tell you where it's not, you know, God might be working among you Protestants too, but we know where the real stuff is. I have dear friends who are Orthodox and people who I, Eastern Orthodox, and people who I respect and who have read and so forth. But there are some significant differences.

I think it's really interesting that you said, you know, your son was saying he wanted something that was a little bit more strict. And certainly in Orthodoxy, in Eastern Orthodoxy, you're going to have some more strictness with regard to things like fasting and so forth. But something that stood on, you know, the letter of the Bible. And this is where I have disagreements with Eastern Orthodox, because some of the things that they do, I would say, well, you don't find that in the Bible, like the veneration of icons, which you've seen, you know, those images that they have in their churches, where they pray towards them or venerate them or kiss them or burn incense to them, those types of things, those are the things that you don't find in the early church. So it's sort of interesting because, you know, here you have a church that's saying, you know, we've been doing the same thing since the very beginning, and yet it seems like there are these significant differences from the worship of the early church.

There are other significant differences as well. So we're thinking about, you know, worship, but also in terms of ecclesiology, church government, their view of the sacraments, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, and also their view of salvation, in particular with regard to the doctrine of justification. In Orthodox theology, Eastern Orthodox theology, the focus is on, salvation is this process of becoming more and more like God. It's called deification or theosis.

And that seems to be the real focus. That's where all the talk is, whereas often in Protestant circles, we focus on, you know, we use the biblical language of, you know, you're called, you're justified, you're adopted, you're sanctified, you're glorified. Those are the words that the scripture uses.

This is order of salvation. And it's an important thing because it comes out of the Bible. It's not just, we don't just collapse all of those things together and minimize, you know, the proper distinctions that we find in scripture. And so I would say, I have some biblical reservations about this, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that, no, you know, these people aren't truly Christians, or they can't have a relationship with Jesus, or they're, you know, barred from the gates of heaven, that kind of a thing. We're thankful that Christ is the one who saves.

People can be confused about the doctrine of salvation, but if they're trusting in him, if they have faith in him, well, Jesus is the one who saves, and he saves us despite our imperfections, despite the fact that we're still confused about certain things. And so I say all that to say it's not an insignificant thing that your son has decided to become Eastern Orthodox. I think that there are some some serious issues there, disagreements that I have, and would hope that he would come back to, I would say, a more biblically faithful understanding of the scriptures, but continue to encourage him and to pray for him. And I pray that you, Anna, through this, grow in your understanding of the word of God and studying the important differences between the theology of the Reformation and what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches. God bless.

Just a follow-up question for you, Adriel. My impression that is in our culture right now, we have a lot of younger people who are looking for more meaning in their worship service, and they've kind of grown tired of the very casual, you know, huge church rock concert, TED Talk sort of a service. They're really looking for something that's more worshipful, more often more liturgical. Do you see a sort of a change, a change in our culture in that direction?

Yeah, there have been a lot of people who've recognized this. I remember some years ago interviewing someone for membership at our church, and it was a couple, and they said to us, they said, you know, with me and the rest of the elders, and they said, you know, one of the things we love about your churches, it's just not that cool. And boy, I love that, right? Because the focus shouldn't be, I mean, earlier with the question of modesty, we were talking about, you know, how as individuals we can seek to draw attention to ourselves, and the focus can really be on us, not on the Lord. Well, I wonder if in a lot of our worship practices, we've done that as well, when it's, you know, just this big performance, this big show.

We just want to, you know, rock your socks off and all that stuff. It's, is the focus on the Lord? Are we worshiping God with reverence and awe? And so what some people have, I think this is one of the reasons that some people are going to some of these more liturgical traditions, because they're longing for that, they're looking for that, and you know what? That's a good thing to want. That's something we should long for, and God ought to be worshiped with reverence and awe. It's not just this sort of, worship is not just this sort of pragmatic thing where, well, what works? What do people want?

Well, they want the rock concert and the TED talk. Okay, let's do that, because that's how we're going to grow the church. Well, you can grow a church like that, truly. I mean, the church can get really big. The question is, are we worshiping the Lord in spirit and in truth, the way in which Christ has called us to worship God? Are people having an encounter with God, or are we just manufacturing an emotional experience for them, and they're still dead in trespasses and sins? And so you're onto something, Bill, and I think for all of us, regardless of the Christian tradition that you're in, the type of church that you go to, I think you should ask yourself, are we worshiping the Lord with reverence and awe, because our God is a consuming fire? And there I'm just quoting from the end of Hebrews chapter 12, that's how we need to be worshiping the Lord. Amen.

Really good counsel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open right now. If you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, maybe something about your church that you're kind of wondering about, or maybe there's some kind of persecution you run up against in your Christian life at work or at school.

Hey, we'd love to hear from you and even pray for you. Here's the number. It's 833 the Core. That's 1-833-843-2673.

We'll be taking calls for the next eight minutes or so, so now is the time to jump on your phone. By the way, there's a lot of discussion right now in our culture about abortion based on the Supreme Court's anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on that issue, and we've actually developed a free devotional that addresses that issue from a biblical perspective. Yes, this devotional is called Fearfully Made, and Bill, I'm glad you said that it's free. This is something you could access right now. You can get it on your computer or on your phone if you head over to corechristianity.com forward slash offers to download a free digital copy of this devotional on the issue of abortion and life in particular and the dignity of human life.

It's called Fearfully Made, and so I hope that you get a hold of that resource. You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers corechristianity.com forward slash offers. By the way, while you're at our website, feel free to browse around and check out some of the other great resources, many of them free.

Our core guides, our core questions, and we have some wonderful printed Bible studies that you can use individually or in your small group at church. Well, we do receive voicemails here at The Core, and you can call us 24 hours a day and leave your voicemail on our system, 833-THE-CORE. Here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named Albert. My question is, does Satan know your thoughts?

And I know that he gives us thoughts, but does he know whether we fall into the temptation that he gave us or not is my question. Thank you. Hey, thanks for that question.

So a couple of things. Satan is a creature, a finite creature, right? He's not omniscient. He doesn't know everything.

He's not everywhere at the same time. Now, there are demons, evil spirits that do seek to tempt us, to lead us astray from the Lord. But no, I don't believe that they can read your mind. I do believe that they can place thoughts there or influence us, tempt us, we're told in scripture.

But no, Satan doesn't have the key to everything inside of you. Now, having said that, I think it's important for us to be on guard. I mean, we are in a spiritual battle. I mean, Paul talks about this at the end of the book of Ephesians, standing firm, clothed in the armor of God, praying at all times against the forces of darkness. This is something that we have to take seriously as Christians.

I love, C.S. Lewis once said, I believe it was in the Screwtape letters, it's not so much that Satan is winning the battle by putting thoughts in our minds or even reading our minds. It's the stuff that he keeps out of our minds.

It's the truth, right? It's the distractions that keep us from going to the wellspring of life, going to the Word of God, being committed to a Christian community. It's that stuff. It's being distracted with the cares of the world. Let us stray by the evil one. And so what we ought to focus on is filling our minds with that which is good and true and beautiful with the Word of Christ. And as that Word of Christ dwells in us richly, we are enabled to follow the Lord and filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And so one of the ways that Satan attacks us is by keeping that away from us, keeping our attention on to other things, keeping those realities out of our minds. And so we should work hard to put them there, to be nourished by the Word of God and by Christian encouragement and fellowship.

Thanks for that question. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to David calling in from Kansas.

David, what's your question for Adriel? Well, I was listening about dress code, and you know, a lot of jobs, they require dress code because it's all based on safety. And I was surprised nowadays, Christianity, you can pretty much dress, I mean, wear flip flops and a swimming suit and go to church and then next, you complain in why God is not answering your praying because a lot of complaints on that. My question to you, why are you guys not preaching this? Like if you want to go to the President of United States, okay, well, you must be dressed at least like him.

That way, he will listen. And the other question is, well, underline, I am for the dress code, because when you drop the dress code, especially on the job, which requires it, it can lead to the tragedy. The other one, why are you guys on the radio? I never heard that 10 Commandments in the order.

Why are you guys not preaching 10 Commandments straight? Those two questions, and one of them was underlined already, and the other one is, I want to hear the answer if you have time. Thank you.

Okay. Hey, okay, great question. So I mean, I was just talking about the importance of worshiping the Lord with reverence and awe and not coming before God flippantly.

And so, in one sense, I understand where you're coming from, right? Like a pastor in Southern California, which is a very laid back culture, and it's not uncommon for people to show up to church in shorts or in a t-shirt, that kind of a thing. The main thing, though, David, right, like your shorts and t-shirt are not going to keep God from hearing you. What will keep God from hearing us is our sins.

And we can come before the Lord, dressed in the finest attire, looking like the high priest himself. And yet, if our hands are stained with blood, if you will, I mean, this is what the prophet Isaiah says at the very beginning of the book of Isaiah, as God is rebuking his people. So you guys are offering up these prayers to me, but though you offer up many prayers, you lift up your hands. I'm not going to listen to you because your hands are stained with blood. You've rejected my law, my word.

And so, yes, right? We want to worship the Lord with reverence and awe. We care about our approach to God, and there's nothing wrong with that being reflected in how we dress. In fact, I think there's something very good about that, but I'm not going to tell somebody in my church who's wearing shorts, God is not going to hear your prayers because of that.

I will say, if you are living in sin, you are turning away from the Lord, then you are hindering hindering your prayers, and you need to confess your sins. And so it's a matter here of priority, not to minimize the externals, or to say that it just doesn't matter at all. And there are lines that are crossed, I think, that need to be addressed and can be addressed, but it's just getting the priorities straight. And then with regard to the Ten Commandments, you asked, well, how come I don't hear people, you know, listing the Ten Commandments and preaching them? We're bound by the Ten Commandments, even as Christians.

Now we're called to these things, and ultimately, you know, what did Jesus say? The whole law of God is fulfilled in two things, loving God perfectly and loving our neighbor as ourselves. And so the law for the believer, you know, these commandments, and again, the summary being love God and love your neighbor, that's a guide for us as Christians. We're not saved by the law, we're not saved by the Ten Commandments, because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Nobody perfectly keeps the law. But we should talk about it, and we should preach it, not as a way of saving people, but one, as a way of highlighting that people need God's grace.

You can't save yourself, you're a breaker of the law. I remember having a conversation with somebody some time ago, and I said, you know, can you tell me what the good news of the Christian faith is? Can you tell me what the gospel is?

And they said, you know, honor your father and mother, don't commit adultery. I mean, they started listing some of the Ten Commandments, and I said, well, that's the law, and the law is good, that's a good thing, but that's not the good news of the gospel. The good news of the gospel is, you and I haven't done that perfectly.

We've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and yet God sent his Son into the world for sinners. So you listening right now, you realize, I've not perfectly kept God's law. I've fallen short. In fact, I look at my life, and I think, man, I've been miserable. I've not obeyed God like I should.

Is there hope for me? Will God accept me? I've not been doing great at loving him and loving my neighbors. Let me say to you, cling to the good news of the gospel, that God sent his Son into the world to save sinners, those who had broken his law, and having received that grace, love him and follow him and love your neighbor. Join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.