Q. Someone once told me that God hears our silent prayers, but that Satan can not, and that if we want to address Satan, we must speak the words to him out loud. From what you know, is that a fair assessment?
My first thought in response to your question is, “Why would anyone want to address Satan?” I know that in some circles there is a practice of “claiming authority” over Satan, commanding him to depart, etc., but I’d be very careful of that kind of thing.
I don’t recall any place in the Bible where a human being directly addresses Satan. (Jesus said to Peter, who didn’t want him to go to the cross, “Get behind me, Satan,” but that was actually a reference to Peter’s motives—“You do not have in mind the concerns of God”—not a direct address to Satan.)
Jude warns us that even the archangels do not address the devil on their own: “Even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil . . . did not dare to condemn him for slander himself but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” So I would not address Satan at all, either in spoken words or in silent thoughts.
A wise man, an authority on spiritual warfare, once told me that instead, “The best way to chase away the darkness is to turn on the lights.” As he saw it, when our individual lives and community gatherings are full of love, joy, holiness, and praise, the forces of darkness simply don’t hang around.
But perhaps another concern here is whether Satan can listen in on our thoughts in order to get information he can use to tempt and entrap us. Here’s what we need to realize: Satan is a finite being.
We often speak of him as if he had infinite attributes like God—omniscience (knowing everything), omnipresence (being everywhere at the same time), etc. When people all over the world address Satan as if he were present with them, that suggests omnipresence. When lots of people say “the devil made me do it” they’re suggesting that he has comprehensive knowledge to use in temptation. But he doesn’t. Satan’s knowledge and presence are limited because he is a finite created being.
So where is the devil, if he’s not omnipresent? At one point the Bible depicts him standing before God and accusing us. (The word for “devil” in Greek is diabolos or “accuser.”) At another point the Bible says he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” But no matter where he is at any given moment, he is finite, and so not able to be everywhere and know everything.
What we are probably encountering instead when we feel as if “the devil is tempting us” is the continuum that the Bible refers to as “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Wrong thoughts, attitudes, and actions are fueled by “the world” (the planet-wide conspiracy to value things other than as God values them), “the flesh,” (everything in us that resists the cross, that is, living a sacrificial life for God), and “the devil” (which to my mind includes all evil supernatural beings, in league with one another and their leader against God).
I don’t think we should spend a lot of time trying to tease out which part of the world-flesh-devil continuum we’re up against at any given point. Instead, we should “turn on the lights” by using our wills to choose positive thoughts, attitudes, and actions. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
