YOU NEED TO GET MAD AT THE DEVIL! — Part 2

The View From Above: Thoughts To Help With Everyday Life

October 23, 2026

Pastor Paul Stephens

YOU NEED TO GET MAD AT THE DEVIL! — Part 2

My pastor, Pastor Harold Warner, has always said that his wife Mona has a favorite saying, and that is:

“You need to get mad at the devil!”

My wife Renee also has a favorite saying, and that is:

“You need to get over yourself!”

Jesus got mad, very mad.

What was He mad about?

He was mad about what the house of God had become. A place that was supposed to be a place of sacrifice and worship and, as Jesus said, “My Father’s House shall be a house of prayer…”

That’s not what Jesus found when He went into the temple.

So what did He see? What had the house of God become?

Imagine the scene. It is recorded in all four of the Gospels.

What Jesus said and did is a precursor to what Mona says: “You need to get mad at the devil.”

Mona is following in Jesus’s footsteps, and when she says to get mad at the devil, she is encouraging us to do the same.

Here’s the narrative describing what Jesus got mad at…

This is the epitome of righteous anger, and He’s not only mad, He does something about it.

John 2:13–16

“Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business.

When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables.

And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’”

What must the disciples have thought when they saw this display of Jesus getting mad at the devil?

They witnessed how Jesus thought of the House of God being desecrated.

Merchants and money changers turned the sacred area into a noisy, fraudulent marketplace, charging exorbitant exchange fees on foreign currency and inflated prices for animals to sacrifice.

This is not what God intended for the Temple.

They had taken something sacred and changed it into a place to exploit.

That made Jesus mad.

So Mona’s admonition is entirely biblical.

There are things that God gets angry at.

God’s anger is framed not as a reckless loss of temper, but as a righteous and measured response to evil, injustice, and broken covenants.

God’s anger is recorded in the Bible when people turn to false, lifeless idols instead of the true and living God who loves, saves, protects, and redeems.

Romans 1:18

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…”

Righteous anger is not a spiritual temper tantrum but a correct response born of love and compassion for the damage the devil has done and is doing to God’s creation.

If anyone has a right to be angry, it is God.

All you have to do is look at the Garden of Eden and what Satan did there.

He spoiled God’s wondrous creation by luring Adam and Eve into sin, thereby installing a curse on all mankind.

God’s anger didn’t result in destruction…it resulted in the wonderful plan of redemption.

Get mad at the devil?

Yes…

But not at the people who are bound and being hurt.

Getting mad at the devil means we do all we can to help people come out from under the yoke of Satan.

So today we thank Mona for that little piece of wisdom that is a rallying cry to do all we can to advance God’s Kingdom in a very much fallen world.

So, go ahead, get mad at the devil!