We do not live in a world at peace.
We inhabit a theater of active conflict — a creation that was pronounced good, now subjected to the systematic campaign of a wounded but wrathful enemy. The cross of Christ was the decisive blow. Satan was not destroyed at Calvary; he was defeated. And there is a critical difference. A defeated enemy with time remaining is still dangerous — perhaps more dangerous than before, because desperation has replaced strategy.
This is the world we wake up in every morning.
Collateral damage is a military term for unintended harm to civilians and non-combatants during warfare. We have adopted it into our civilian vocabulary almost casually — a phrase that softens what it actually describes: the destruction of the good, the innocent, and the beautiful as a byproduct of someone else’s war.
But in the spiritual theater, the damage is not collateral in the sense of unintended. It is targeted.
The Apostle Peter does not mince words: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8, ESV). John records the Lord’s own indictment: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10, ESV). And the Revelation gives us Satan’s operating motive with chilling precision — “the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12, ESV).
Short time. Great wrath. Maximum destruction.
Satan is not aimlessly wandering. He is working against a deadline, and his objective is clear: destroy as much of what God called good as possible before the clock runs out. Image-bearers. Families. Communities. Minds. Bodies. Dignity. Vocation. Joy. He is dismantling the building floor by floor.
Mark 5 gives us the unfiltered portrait.
A man lives among the tombs on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. He cannot be restrained — not by chains, not by shackles. Night and day he cries out among the tombs and cuts himself with stones. The community has given up. They have moved him to the margins, to the place of the dead, because they do not know what else to do with him.
Look at what the Enemy has accomplished in this one man:
This is the enemy’s finished product. This is collateral damage with a face.
And yet — Jesus crosses the water to get to him.
Christ does not stumble upon the Gerasene demoniac. He navigates a storm to reach him. He steps off the boat and walks directly toward the one that everyone else has abandoned.
The restoration Jesus enacts is not partial. It is comprehensive.
“And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind” (Mark 5:15, ESV).
Clothed. In his right mind. Sitting. The frantic, chained, howling exile is now composed, present, and restored. Jesus does not merely cast out the demons — He reinstates the man’s humanity. He gives back what the Enemy had taken: dignity, identity, coherence, and community.
And the man’s first request is to go with Jesus. His second assignment — given by Christ Himself — is to return home and tell what the Lord has done.
The one who was isolated becomes a witness. The one exiled to the tombs becomes the first missionary to the Decapolis.
We are not spectators to this conflict. We are participants — and the nature of our participation matters enormously.
Proximity is the first weapon. The Gerasene community kept its distance and the man deteriorated. Jesus crossed a sea and the man was restored. The pattern is instructive. The Kingdom does not advance from a safe remove. Damage does not diminish when the people of God maintain comfortable distance from the wreckage.
Presence is the second weapon. There is no formula in Mark 5. Jesus simply shows up, engages the reality in front of Him, and exercises the authority He carries. We carry that same Spirit. We bring the same Christ. Our presence in hard places — in broken families, in fractured communities, in lives that look like the tombs — is not social activism. It is Kingdom warfare.
Proclamation is the third weapon. The restored man was sent to tell. He could not accompany Jesus on the road, but he could saturate his own region with testimony. Damage is mitigated not only by presence but by the Word that reframes what people are experiencing. People need to know that what is happening to them has a name, that the Enemy has an agenda, and that Christ has already secured the decisive victory.
The temptation of a theology of sovereignty, wrongly applied, is quietism — the sense that because God is in control, our role is simply to endure until He acts. But Revelation 12:12 does not call the church to shelter in place. It names the threat and calls for resistance.
Every act of genuine care for an image-bearer is a form of resistance. Every marriage restored, every mind renewed, every addict who finds sobriety and community, every child who is protected, every grief that is met with presence rather than distance — these are acts of damage mitigation in an active war zone.
Christ has won. The outcome is not in question. But the interval between the decisive battle and the final victory is not a waiting room. It is a mission field.
Satan knows his time is short.
So do we.
Let us work accordingly.
From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. Acts 17:26-27