Revelation 12:9 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.
I have to be honest, I am usually a curious person, but there are some things that I don’t care to know about. There are some people that I just don’t want to know about. One such personality is the devil, Satan, that old adversary, that old serpent. I don’t really care to be absorbed by all the facts I can learn about Satan. Sometimes we can be so wrapped up in who Satan is that we forget that greater is He that is in us than he who is in the world.
Having said that, ignorance is not bliss. God does want us to know some things about the devil, and Revelation 12 tell us more than a little about him. You can understand who the devil is by knowing what he is all about. There are three ways you can do that.
First, you can understand the devil by his very names. In Revelation 12:3 he is called “a great red dragon.” That is very descriptive. You can know a little bit about who he is by how he appears and what he is called. In verse 9 he is called “that old serpent.” He is slyly cunning just as he appeared in Genesis 3 when he deceived Eve.
In verse 9 he is called “the Devil,” which means literally, “that who brings to shame as a false accuser.” He is called Satan, the adversary, the accuser. So, you can learn a little bit about Satan by the names and pictures God uses to describe him.
Second, you can know a little bit about the devil by what he does. In verse 4, Satan is one who devours. I Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Revelation 12:7 tells us that he fights against Heaven even though he cannot prevail. Verse 10 reminds us that he accuses God’s people. He is called “the accuser of our brethren.”
Verse 9 tells us that he “deceiveth the whole world.” Ephesians 6 tells us to “stand against the wiles [trickery] of the devil.” A devil who can deceive and fool you does not need to fight you. Verse 13 calls him a persecutor. In verse 17 you get the picture that he is just angry. He hates what God has created.
Finally, you can know about who the devil is by what becomes of him. Thank God, in verse 8 we read that he “prevailed not.” He can war against Heaven and hate God’s people, but he cannot prevail. In verses 9-10 he is cast out and cast down. Verse 11 indicates that he is overcome by God’s people by the blood of the Lamb, and verse 12 says that his time is short and he knows it.
In summation, the devil hates us because God loves us, and he is defeated because Christ died for us. We don’t need to be overly absorbed by the details about the devil, nor do we need to be ignorant of his devices. We need to know that he hates us, but that he is defeated because Christ died for us.