[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]

Is the Devil Real?

Does Satan the Devil really exist? Is he or she a real spirit being? Or is he no more than a product of cartoon creators, artists, and Hollywood film makers? And if that’s the case, must we conclude that evil is no more than time and chance and impulses found in the hearts of men?

There has always been a fascination with the spirit world. Belief in unseen spirits wreaking havoc on mankind goes back thousands of years. The idea of evil spirits—ghosts, goblins, and spooks in the night—were taken as serious threats by the ancients, but are often seen as mere entertainment in our modern world. Yet even now, belief in real witches, palm readers, and mystics prevails. The tools of their trade include crystal balls, tarot cards, and dreams and visions crafted by an unseen world.

Is there a real devil? Can you know? And if there is, what are the ramifications for you and me?

Don’t Be Ignorant of Satan’s Devices: Pagan Holidays and Traditions

The ancients held many fears regarding a spirit world, as seen in some of their superstitious customs that have been handed down to us today.

As a prime example, children and even adults dress up in ghoulish costumes on the night of October 31, and they decorate their homes with skeletons, sheets representing ghosts, spiders, spiderwebs, and carved faces in pumpkins. Few understand why they do this other than following the crowd in an ancient tradition. And it’s all done in fun, as people profess, “for the children,” who go about gathering as much candy as they can.

But is this mere fun? Or is there a darker side to Halloween celebrations?

While this program is not specifically about this celebration, it does show how ideas about the unseen world have been handed down to us today and how they have changed over time.

From Britannica.com, we read about the origin of Halloween in the Celtic celebration of Samhain.

It was believed that on Samhain, during this seasonal transition, [from summer to winter] spirits came to the world of the living, and their presence was regarded with trepidation. In conjunction with All Souls’ and All Saints’ Day, Samhain had an influence on the modern holiday of Halloween, and it is also celebrated as an important holiday in modern Paganism.

Notice how Samhain is an “important holiday in modern Paganism.”

Now for starters, do you really think God is pleased with us taking part in a pagan religious festival, even if the seriousness of it has been changed?

When God brought Israel out of Egypt and they were ready to enter the promised land, He gave them very explicit instructions not to borrow heathen practices in His service. Notice it in Deuteronomy 12, beginning in verse 29.

When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them… and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.” You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way…. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it(Deuteronomy 12:29-32).

Most people have some inkling that Halloween has a checkered past. And for anyone who stops to think about it, isn’t it rather weird to focus on death, and ghosts, and evil spirits returning to harass innocent people—especially if they don’t even think they exist?

But if evil spirits do exist, isn’t that even weirder? What strange customs we observe to entertain ourselves.

It’s important to note that these customs have a religious background.

It’s easy to look down upon our pagan ancestors with pity for their superstitious beliefs and customs. After all, who today believes such rubbish? But it wasn’t the so-called pagans only who believed in the need to ward off these evil spirits.

Notice how the mainstream Church blended pagan superstitions with their own.

Pope Gregory 1 (590-604) arrived in Britain from Rome to convert Pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. The Gregorian mission decreed that Samhain festivities must incorporate Christian saints “to ward off the sprites [sic] and evil creatures of the night” …. All Souls Day, 2 November, was created by the Church, “so people could still call on their dead to aid them”; All Saints Day, 1 November, was also known as All Hallows, so 31 October later became All Hallows’ Eve, later known as Halloween (“Samhain to Soulmass: The Pagan origins of familiar Halloween rituals,” BBC.com, October 31, 2026).

It’s evident that our ancestors, whether ignorant heathens, or those claiming their beliefs are founded in the sacred scriptures, believed in a spirit world filled with “evil creatures of the night.”

We must therefore ask these important questions:

• Is there a real devil?
• Does he have evil spirit assistants?
• What about embracing the spirit world with palm readers and mystics? Or are we to leave such alone?
• And what about those cartoon figures with a little fellow in a red jumper suit sitting on someone’s shoulder and an angel sitting on the other?
• Is that fellow carrying a pitchfork real, or only a symbol of evil?

The Problem of Evil in (Flawed) Philosophy

The question of evil is much debated among philosophers, and it’s no small question for the common man—not whether evil exists, but its source.

• What was the cause of the holocaust in Europe during World War II?
• And what about the war itself that killed an estimated 70 to 85 million?
• Why the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides?
• Why are children exploited, raped, brutally beaten, and murdered?

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), the Scottish philosopher David Hume asked these probing questions but drew a flawed answer.

“Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” Since well before Hume’s time, the problem has been the basis of a positive argument for atheism: If God exists, then he is omnipotent [all powerful] and perfectly good; a perfectly good being would eliminate evil as far as it could; there is no limit to what an omnipotent being can do; therefore, if God exists, there would be no evil in the world; there is evil in the world; therefore, God does not exist. In this argument and in the problem of evil itself, evil is understood to encompass both moral evil (caused by free human actions) and natural evil (caused by natural phenomena such as disease, earthquakes, and floods) (“Problem of evil,” Britannica.com, January 3, 2026).

That evil exists in our world is indisputable, unless you believe there is no God. And is that not the irony in atheist’s conclusions? If there is no God, evil could be no more than personal opinion—there could be no universal consensus.

Rapists and murderers would have a very different view of evil. And when whole nations commit genocide, who is to say that is evil? You and I would, but that is merely our opinion if there is no God, no higher power to determine good and evil.

However, in the minds of most of us, God does exist and He determines good and evil. Therefore, the questions:

• What is the source of evil?
• Are some people born more evil than others?
• Are they only the product of their upbringing?
• Is it a combination of genetics and upbringing?
• Can evil people be redeemed?

Satan in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation

The existence of a very real spirit being, called variously as Lucifer, Satan, or the Devil is verified in the pages of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Our first introduction to him is in the very beginning of the Scriptures—the book of Genesis.

The Serpent in the Garden of Eden | Genesis 3:1–6

After God created mankind, He instructed our first parents to leave one tree alone in the garden. Only one was off limits, and that is where an evil being, disguised as a serpent, challenged God’s authority (Genesis 3:1).

And he [the serpent] said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

Now, Eve knew what God had commanded and she replied:

We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die” (Genesis 3:2–3).

Then came the lie.

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4–5).

His sales pitch was that God had lied to them. They did not need Him telling them what was right and wrong. They could determine that for themselves. And Eve bought the lie.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate (Genesis 3:6).

Satan Is the Father of Lies | John 8:44

Four millennia later, Jesus was challenged by carnally minded Jews about what they wrongly understood about His birth—questioning who was His Father. In response, He rebuked them(John 8:44).

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

So we see that the Devil is the father of lies, but where did he come from? How did he come to be? Did God create an evil being? Or is there more to the story?

Satan Is the Dragon of Revelation 12:9

We read in Revelation 12:9 something that should cause us to sit up and take notice.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him (Revelation 12:9).

Now consider that the largest religion on earth, some 2.6 billion strong, is called Christianity. But of course, Christianity as we know it is divided, confused, and a mixture of biblical, pagan practices, and human philosophies. Is it just possible that most of what we call Christian is not Christian at all?

Did God Create Satan?

According to the Bible, we’ve seen that there is a real evil spirit being. But who is he? Where did he come from? We’re not left in the dark for the answers as the Bible reveals the plain truth of the matter. However, we must go back to the beginning, and that is not found in Genesis, but in the gospel of John. There we find two Beings who are described as God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God (John 1:1-2).

So there was God, who later became known as the Father; and there was the Word or Spokesman, who later became known as the Son—Jesus Christ. And that’s evident from verse 14 where it tells us:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

All Things Were Made Through Christ | John 1:3, Colossians 1:16

Verse 3 reveals something that many church-goers fail to understand, though it’s laid out in the simplest of terms.

All things were made through Him [that is, the Word—Christ], and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3).

There are several scriptures that confirm that the God of the Old Testament was none other than the one who emptied Himself of His divine privileges to become a human being, born of a woman. Lest there be any doubt about this, Paul also explained:

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1–4).

Now notice what Paul explains is meant by “all things.”

He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:15–16).

Revelation 1:20 shows us that stars are sometimes used in scripture to symbolize angels and we read of a time:

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job 38:7).

What was it that these angels of God were so happy about? The context of this passage in Job is the creation of the earth. We must therefore conclude that the angels were created prior to the creation of the heavens and Earth.

So the Bible introduces us to two spirit beings known as God and the Word, and both are God. We next see that God created the angelic realm, and sometime later, the universe. However, in all the universe, our planet is of special importance to God and to the angels He created. Why was that so? Why did the angels shout for joy when Earth was created?

As we shall see elsewhere, it was to be their home.

Satan, King of Tyre | Ezekiel 28

Ezekiel 28 fills in a portion of the story. The chapter begins with a rebuke by God for the “prince of Tyre.”

The prince of Tyre is clearly the human leader of the city, but what about its king? The Bible leaves us without any doubt. This king is not human—he was not born, but created. He was also in the Garden of Eden which ceased to exist millennia ago. Notice carefully the description of this king in Ezekiel 28:11-13.

Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering… The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes [in other words, he possessed great musical talent] was prepared for you on the day you were created.’”

He is further referred to as a powerful angel, a cherub. Even a casual reading of this passage indicates that he was not any ordinary human being, but the spirit power influencing the human leader.

Did God Create Lucifer? Yes, But…

Let’s continue in Ezekiel 28, beginning in verse 14.

You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground (Ezekiel 28:14–17).

Lucifer Rebelled and Became Satan | Isaiah 14

Scripture often blends ideas and quickly changes as it does here by reverting back to the human leader of Tyre. We learn more about this powerful being—even his name and further motivations for rebelling against his Creator—in the book of Isaiah. Note that this spirit being was not satisfied with ruling only on Earth. He wanted to knock God off His throne and take over rulership of the universe. He was the first narcissist. Count the “I’s,” and notice also that he has a throne and it is on this Earth.

How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:12–14).

As with Ezekiel, the dialog once again fades back to apply to the human leader who is influenced by this fallen cherub.

Why is it that artists portray cherubs as chubby little babies shooting love arrows? What better way to deceive people than to convince them that there is no real devil and that, if there is, he’s harmless as a babe?

Yes, dear friends, there is a real devil, and he is far more powerful and crafty than most can begin to imagine. He is the great deceiver, and one thing he has deceived mankind about is what it means to be a follower of Christ.