The first point to make clear is that _there is a Devil_. This is plain from our first text, John 8:44: +"The Devil. . . .is."+ The whole verse reads: +"Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to 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 thereof."+ These are the words of Jesus Christ. With any one who has any right to call himself a Christian, the words of Jesus Christ have infinitely more weight than the words of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy or any one else, or all others together, and Jesus here says, +"The Devil. . . .is."+ But this is not the only passage by any means in which our Lord Jesus asserts in the most emphatic and most unmistakable terms the existence of the Devil. Turn to Matt. 13:19, and you will read these words: +"When any one heareth the word of God, and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one and snatcheth away that which has been sown in his heart."+ These words are found in the interpretation of a parable—the Parable of the Sower. It is impossible to say that these words are figurative. In parables we have figures, in the explanation of the parables we have the literal facts that the figures symbolise, and these words are not taken from the parable, but from our Lord's own explanation of the parable, and here we are distinctly told that there is _a person_, who is here called "The Evil One," whose business it is to snatch away the Word of God when it has been sown in hearts that do not understand and heed it. If evil is only impersonal and our Lord had only referred to impersonal influences, or human influences, as taking away the Word out of the hearts where it had been sown, these words of His would be utterly without meaning. That Jesus Christ believed that there was a person of whom He here speaks as "The Evil One" and of whom He elsewhere speaks, as we shall see directly, as "The Devil," admits of no doubt if we grant that the Lord Jesus was an honest man. _We must_, therefore, _if we believe in the Lord Jesus, believe that there is a Devil. We can deny his existence only by questioning either the honesty or the intelligence of our Lord._ He certainly taught that there was a Devil. It would be easy to show from the teachings of Peter (1 Pet. 5:8, 9; Acts 5:3) and from the teachings of John (John 13:2) and from the teachings of Paul (Eph. 6:10-12) also that there is a Devil; but that is unnecessary for any one who has any right to call himself a Christian, for if the Lord says so, that settles it, and the Lord Jesus does say +"The devil. . . .is."+ If there is no Devil, then our Lord Jesus was either a fool or a fraud. The question of believing in the personality of the Devil involves the honour of our Lord Jesus. If His teaching is not to be trusted on this point, it is not to be trusted