This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 9/28/25, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: Ephesians 6:10-13, Revelation 12:7-12.
In December 1944, Allied soldiers huddled in frozen foxholes during the Battle of the Bulge. They faced some of the war’s most vicious fighting. The Nazis had launched a massive counteroffensive, and the antifascists were dying by the thousands in the snow-covered Ardennes. To those men, it seemed like they might lose everything. But military strategists knew what the frontline soldiers could not see: D-Day had already sealed Germany’s fate.
The beachhead was established, supply lines were secure, and Allied industrial might guaranteed victory. The outcome was certain, even as the fighting remained brutal and costly. What appeared to be a desperate struggle was actually the working out of an already-decided war.
Fast forward to today. Here we are, living in our own moment of apparent chaos and contradiction. We’re surrounded by confusion, illusion, and desperate grabs for power. We live in a land where the name of Jesus is used to justify ICE raids targeting families. We endure under a government that uses arrogant and blasphemous words to twist our faith and abuse our scriptures, all in the service of nationalism and racism.
We live in a time of spiritual, moral, and economic disarray. It feels like we are at war, but there’s no clear enemy. That’s very dangerous. Times like these are ripe for scapegoating. Humans are tempted to impose order on the chaos by finding someone to blame, and every party and faction has their favorite targets.
In times like these, it is more important than ever to turn back to the words of scripture, which were often written in times of severe crisis and persecution. Nothing that we are experiencing is new; our spiritual ancestors have endured far worse, and they have words of wisdom for us.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes from a Roman prison to a church under widespread persecution. He encourages the church at Ephesus to “be strong in the Lord and the strength of his power.” In the face of the chaos and heartbreak in the world around them, he exhorts them to “put on the whole armor of God, so that you may stand against the wiles of the Devil.”
Paul is clear that the real struggle that the church is facing, in the midst of a hostile pagan empire, is not one with humans, but with spiritual forces beyond human comprehension. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day, and having prevailed against everything, to stand firm.”
What is this struggle that the early church was facing? Who were these rulers, these authorities, these spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places? And what does this have to do with the chaotic power struggle that we see at work in our land today?
D-Day established the beachhead that made Nazi defeat inevitable, but the antifascists still fought major campaigns for eleven more months. Those fighting the fascists on the ground experienced brutal, uncertain combat, even though Allied command knew the strategic outcome was secured. The biblical writers understood reality through a similar strategic lens – they saw earthly conflicts as the ground-level experience of battles already decided on the spiritual plane.
This is what Paul is referencing in his letter to the Ephesians. The chaos and violence we’re witnessing aren’t just human decisions. Our world is a battlefield for heavenly powers. Some work for God’s justice; others rebel against God, seeking to break creation and cause suffering.
This is a consistent worldview throughout the scriptures, and we understand better what the scriptural authors are getting at when we understand their cosmology. Our reading from Revelation 12 provides us with a very direct expression of how the early church viewed the nature of the universe – as a battle between the light of God and the rebellious powers of this present darkness.
John of Patmos writes:
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
This is where we find ourselves today. Attacks on our public institutions, military occupations of American cities, the rounding up of immigrants into concentration camps – these things don’t “just happen”; they are a reflection of the divine struggle that has taken place in the heavenlies. We here on earth are caught up in the death throes of an evil uprising.
But the war is already decided.
D-Day was the decisive battle of the war in Europe – not because it ended the fighting, but because it established an irreversible strategic reality. Once the antifascists secured their foothold, Hitler’s defeat became inevitable, even though eleven brutal months of combat lay ahead.
The cross and resurrection represent our cosmic D-Day. Christ’s victory over sin and death created an irreversible spiritual reality. What we’re experiencing now – the chaos, the violence, the desperate lies – these are the spiritual equivalent of the Battle of the Bulge. Fierce, costly battles, but fought in the wake of triumph. As John writes, “The devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
The power of evil is hollow and rotten to the core. It crumbles under the slightest weight of God’s love. Its only power is illusion, chaos, confusion. That failed power is so evidently at work in our society today. It seeks to ensnare us and drag us down with it. But we shouldn’t be intimidated.
The antifascists who fought in the post-D-Day reality carried themselves differently than armies fighting for survival. Yes, they faced machine gun nests and artillery barrages. Yes, they bled and died in hedgerows and city streets. But they fought with the confidence of those who knew massive reinforcements were crossing the Atlantic, that Allied factories were outproducing the enemy ten-to-one, and that time itself was on their side.
Even during setbacks like the Battle of the Bulge, they maintained strategic confidence because they understood the larger reality. This is how Paul calls the church to fight (with the spiritual weapons of love and truth): not with the desperation of the doomed, but with the bold assurance of those who know the outcome is already secured.
As followers of Jesus, we are clothed in his mighty power. We are clothed in the whole armor of God to stand on this evil day and withstand all the confusion and terror of this age. We are empowered to become the holy ones that John writes of, saying “They have conquered [evil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.”
John calls us to rejoice with the innumerable angels in the heavenly realms: Now have come the salvation and power and kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah!
Are you rejoicing yet?
This isn’t easy. It’s not obvious that we should be rejoicing, because the world that we live in is so full of violence, falsehood and evil. The battle is raging around us, and it seems like all may be lost. But Paul and John and the whole cloud of witnesses are here with us this morning to reassure us: This darkness is not how life actually is! Despite all appearances, our experience of evil is a brief aberration, not the norm.
The authors of scripture provide us with a wider perspective than would otherwise be possible right now. They bring us a God’s-eye view of the situation. John gives us strategic perspective: We are living on the final battlefield of a war that has already been won. It seems terrible because it is terrible, and we wish we didn’t have to live through it. In the pages of Revelation we begin to see that we have an important role to play in this heavenly drama. We have been given to conquer death with life, hatred with love, accusation with forgiveness.
Now have come the salvation and power and kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah. The war is already won, and reinforcements are on the way. Only stand firm. Put on the full armor of God: His love, his compassion, his glory, his light. Love your neighbor as yourself, and pray for those who persecute you. Yes, even pray for those who persecute others (this is often the hardest part).
Love your enemies, because our struggle is not with them; it’s with the darkness. Pray for your enemies. Pray that they would not be led astray by the sorcery of the Dragon and the confusion of his fallen angels. Pray that the Holy Spirit cover and protect them and draw them back into the One Body, where enemies become friends and strangers become neighbors.
World War II is an imperfect metaphor for the kind of struggle we are called to in Jesus. The Allied forces fought against human beings, but our struggle is not against flesh and blood. As followers of Jesus, we are friends to all living beings. Some may have made themselves our enemies through their bondage to the power of the Dragon, but we will never hate them. We will love them and seek their redemption, even as we refuse to participate in their evil. We will imitate our Lord Jesus, who died for us while we were still captives to darkness and delusion. He went to the cross to save us while we still hated him.
Remember this. Hold onto this. Stand firm in this. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, knowing that he has already won the victory.