Response:
You may click on verses to reveal pop-up Scripture

Very good questions.

This next statement is going to sound like double talk, but I will explain it in the next paragraph: The Devil wasn't always the Devil.

Lucifer, who became the Devil, was a created being who was perfect. Ezekiel 28:15 says,

"Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee."

Thus, when he was first created, Lucifer was an obedient servant of God and did what God wanted him to do. However, when he made his choice to sin against God, he became the Devil, and from that point has never done anything good. Revelation 12:9 says,

"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world..."

The great deceiver of the world is called the Devil; when he was known as Lucifer, the anointed cherub, he was not the devil. Thus, when Lucifer sinned, he became the Devil and has continued sinning from that point. Thus, God did not create evil when he created Lucifer. He created a sinless angel who was allowed to make choices, and Lucifer choose to be a rebel, and thus became the Devil.

I don't think it is really accurate to say that "evil" was created at all. Evil is a choice. Lucifer had the choice to obey or disobey God. When he chose to disobey, he did that which was evil. He was not influenced to make that choice. He did not have a sin nature. There had never been any act of rebellion against God before that time, so there was no "evil" before Lucifer made the decision that turned him into the Devil.

At least as far as his relationship to mankind is concerned, Satan never does anything good. His motivation has always been (since his fall) the overthrow of God, and thus his every action is based upon that desire. I Peter 5:8:

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."

Ephesians 6:11:

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."

John 8:44:

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

If Satan does anything that appears to be "good" for someone, it is being done for the purpose of using that individual to thwart the will of God on earth. An illustration might be the drug dealer who gives free drugs to high school kids. He does it so that he can get them hooked and then they will come to him and pay for the next batch of drugs. If Satan can get someone to think that sin is beneficial, or if he can get a heretic to do something "good" for someone that leads that individual to follow the heretic's false teachings, then he has accomplished his wicked goals through "good". I think we would agree that you could not call actions that result in turning people away from or against God "good".

The only possible "good" that I could see Satan doing is that we know in Job 1:6 that when God called the angels together Satan came with the others. That may make him "obedient" at that point, which we could say was good, but at the same time we know that when he arrived at God's throne he began to accuse God's servant. We know that in the middle of the tribulation when he loses access to the throne room of God that he gets very angry (Rev 12:12), so it is probably safe to say that even when Satan does what God tells him to he does it for selfish reasons and does it with the ultimate goal of establishing himself as God.

So why did God create Lucifer? He did not create Lucifer so that he would sin. He created Lucifer to serve Him just as He created Michael and Gabriel. However, He gave the angels a free will, just like He gave Adam and Eve, and to a certain extent, just like He gives you and me (although our free will has been marred by sin - theirs were not). Michael and Gabriel use their free will to serve God. Lucifer, and Adam and Eve, used theirs to rebel against God. That's not God's fault, unless a person believes that God should have made all His creation robotic and forced them to love and serve Him because they could make no other choice. And, quite frankly, no one really wants to be loved because the other person HAS to love him. We want to be loved because the other person CHOOSES to love us. Why would God be any different?

By Pastor Dr. Mark Montgomery Email: Ask the Pastor