Let me assure you that this is exactly the way the Devil wants people to think. The very real devil rejoices to hear the theologians deny his existence. It gives him a terrific advantage in making his attacks.
Listen to what the Bible says about his reality. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour ... ." 1 Peter 5:8.
Yes, he exists. We see evidence of him, and more then that, the Bible tells us that he exists. But where did he come from? Where did he originate? Jesus gives us the answer to that question. He says, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Luke 10:18.
Just think of it! The devil came from heaven? That is what it says, but what a place for the devil to come from!
And it says exactly the same thing over here in Isaiah. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations." Isaiah 14:12.
There is no doubt about it. Heaven is the place he came from, and his name was "Lucifer". In other places it describes him as being one of the most glorious beings in heaven. He was so bright that they called him the "Day Star", "Lucifer." Coming down to this earth it says he is the one that weakens the nations.
We hear all kinds of theories about what makes certain nations go down, a political movement here, a military debacle there, but according to the Bible it is Satan that brings weakness to the nations. Anything in which Satan is involved has death in it. He carries with him the seeds of death and destruction for any program, nation, or person that takes him in.
Now, it says Satan came from heaven. How did he happen to be up there and why would he leave a place like that? Well, the Bible record is clear enough on the matter. They threw him out. It says so right here in Revelation 12.
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Revelation 12:7-9.
Well, he was cast out of heaven. It says "he prevailed not". That was when Jesus saw him fall like lightning from heaven. He came down to this earth and gained control down here.
Now this earth is a very small part of the universe. God could have saved Himself a lot of suffering if He had just let Satan have this world. But He loved this world and the people in it too much to abandon it to Satan. Because of God's great love for the people in this world the plan of salvation was inaugurated. As soon as Satan gained control of this earth plans were immediately set in motion for Jesus to come down and wrest it back from Satan. This time Jesus would be in the form of humanity and after overcoming all of Satan's temptations He would lay down His life as an offering for the sins of mankind. Only then would the way be paved for the complete annihilation of the devil and his host.
It was a bold plan, conceived in love and accomplished with infinite suffering. But in the words of the Apostle Paul, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." 2 Corinthians 9:15.
One of these days Jesus is coming back to gather His people out of this world. He will call them from their graves and take them to Heaven to be with Him. That will be one of the final steps for the end of the devil's power. He will be cast down, never, never to rise again. He is going to die, be burned up! The Bible says he will be reduced to ashes upon the earth. Ezekiel 28:18.
Now we know the devil came from Heaven, but how did he get there? Listen: "Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. ... Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth ... thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee." Ezekiel 28:12,14,15.
There it is! That is how he got there! He was a created being. But that doesn't mean that God created the devil. The being that God made was a holy being. God says Himself that he was perfect. It was just a case of a good angel going bad. Just like some people do today. They are good at first, but they take up with sin and go bad. Lucifer did that. How did it come about? Therein lies a great mystery. To explain his sin is to excuse it and there is no excuse for sin. Maybe this story will help.
Suppose I walked down the street with you and we saw a drunken wretch in the gutter, dirty, disgraced and looking more like an animal than a human being. Suppose his mother happened to be coming along the street right at that time. What would you think of me if I said to that mother. "Mother, what in the world did you bring a bleary-eyed, dissipated derelict like this into the world for?" "Oh" you say, "nobody would ever say a thing like that to a mother." No, I would hope they wouldn't. Words like that would be grossly unjust and would make any mother weep. But she'd probably answer, "Oh, but he wasn't that way when he was born. He was a beautiful perfect child. I had such wonderful plans for him. I meant for him to really amount to something." "Well, mother, what happened that your plans for him never worked out?" , "Well, he just got into bad company and went from bad to worse." , "But he wasn't that way in the beginning?" , "Oh, No! No!" , "About how old was he when you first noticed these symptoms of his going bad?" , "Oh, about 13 or 14 when he first began running around with bad company." , "Well, mother, listen, when you first noticed these symptoms of his going into sin and drunkenness why didn't you just take him off and kill him?"
Why that just sounds terrible to say it, doesn't it? Would anybody expect a mother to do that to her son? Of course not! Yet people think that of God. They say "Why didn't God take Satan out somewhere in the universe and destroy him when he first entered the path of sin?" Do you know, friends, why God didn't do that? It is very simple. For the same reason that no mother could destroy her boy in his first steps of evil, God loved Lucifer. God loved him from the beginning. We don't know how long Divine Mercy pleaded with Lucifer, urging him to come back. It is the way God would do, He does it with us. Human parents do it with their children, why wouldn't God do it with Lucifer? Of course He did. Finally, however, Lucifer went beyond the point where Divine Mercy could do any more. There was nothing left for God to do but to send him out of heaven.
But remember that Satan had his sympathizers, and it was not clear to the heavenly beings the awfulness of the path that Satan had embarked on. "Was he right or not? Why was his course of action so terrible?"
Satan had held God up before the universe as an arbitrary judge. God declared Himself to be a God of love. God declared that His entire universe was operated on laws of love. Satan said that he was closer to God than any of the other angels and that he knew that God's government was not based on love.
Remember this! Satan had a tremendous advantage. He could lie and deceive, while God could not. All God could do was to protest Satan's accusations and declare them to be untrue.
Listen friends, what led up to this incredible division in heaven? How could a beautiful, innocent cherub turn into a rebellious devil? Something happened! Somewhere, somehow, this happy glorious angel began to exalt himself. Ambition and pride took hold of his heart. He couldn't go any higher than he was without becoming God, and terrible as it sounds, that's exactly what he wanted. It says:
"Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou has corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness". Ezekiel 28:17. "For thou has said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."
That was a pretty big boast, wasn't it? But that is what he said, "I'll be like the most High." (This same praise and honor and worship that is given to God should be given to me.) Yes he reached for much, too much! He set his future and his eternal destiny on something that could never be his. He forgot that he was only a created being, not the Creator.
However, God did not cut him off at once. In the first place, as we have said, God loved Lucifer. In the second place, all the other beings in Heaven loved him too, and it wasn't yet clear to anybody but God the awful results that would come from Lucifer's program.
Lucifer went out from God's presence and sowed distrust among the angels. Questions were raised about the love and motives and laws of God. I don't know what all he said. It could well be that he used the same arguments that he does today: "God's law is an unnecessary thing. It is a yoke of bondage. It's the spirit that giveth life, not the letter. The letter of the law killeth. Let's nail the law to something, anything, but let's get rid of it."
How long did God permit this to go on? Finally, things came to the place where something had to be done. The future of Heaven was jeopardized, so a showdown was called. The Bible says, "There was war in Heaven" and Satan and his angels were forcibly and permanently thrust out, and never again could they enter into the life of Heaven.
He obtained control of this world and the sad history of this earth is the lesson book of the universe. This world is the sample of what Satan would have done to the whole universe had he obtained control of it. Satan has tried to blame God for the trouble in this world, but actually the trouble has been caused because God's laws have been flouted. Chaos, misery and death have been the result.
Someone says, "But even though God didn't make the devil, even though Satan went into sin on his own choice, still couldn't God have made him so he couldn't have done that?"
He could have. But do you know what He would have had? A whole heaven full of marionettes with no intelligent choice of their own, doing what they did because they had to and not from any free choice of their own. But how much joy do you think God would get from His creatures if that were the way they were made?
So, when God gave to His creatures the power of choice, He had to take the chance that some time, some where, one of them might arise and say, "I'm not going to do it." And that is exactly what happened.
As we have said, God could have destroyed Lucifer, but the questions and doubts Satan had raised had not yet been fully answered. So He allowed Satan to continue on that the lessons of sin might be forever written in the lesson-book of the universe that all His beings might understand the justice and mercy, the righteousness and truthfulness of His ways.
So when Satan led Adam and Eve, and through them the entire human race, into captivity, God could have dealt with man's sin in two ways. He could have said, "Well, I warned you about this. I told you not to do it. Now that you've done it you'll have to suffer the consequences."
Oh, friends, how thankful we can be that God didn't say that. Instead He said, "Oh, Adam, I cannot bear to see you die, you nor your descendants. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Rather than to see you die, I the Creator, will die in your place." And there for the first time the Plan of Salvation was announced and our first parents, as did also the entire universe, received with amazement the story of redeeming love.