WHY CREATE DEVILS?
I know the question that these thoughts provoke in your minds. Why on earth did God create the devils? The answer is that He did not—at least, not as devils. He created them as angels, good, and entrancingly lovely, of their very nature.
But, being endowed with intelligence and freewill, they themselves had to use their power of choice in the right way rather than in the wrong way. Trial is inevitable for all free beings, even for angels. And Scripture tells us that some of the angels used their power of choice in opposition to God’s Holy Will. We are told that Lucifer, intoxicated as it were by his own perfections, said within himself, “I will be like unto the Most High.” How he could think that, or what was the occasion of it, we do not know. But we are told that there was war in heaven, that the good angels led by Michael the Archangel hurled Lucifer and his supporters from heaven, and that “God spared not the angels who fell.” Lucifer became Satan, the Adversary; and his followers devils, or slanderers, and destroyers.
Fundamentally, the choice was one of life with God, or life without God. The angels who fell chose life without God, and found themselves condemned eternally to hell.
Unfortunately, as it might seem to us, their condemnation to hell did not make it impossible for them to vent their hatred of God upon mankind, tempting men to share in their revolt. And we must say something of their efforts to dislocate God’s plan of love and peace and happiness for us.