This real spiritual conflict in the heavenlies against the forces of evil is a thing which is altogether foreign to that which is called "the Church" here in this world.
They do not have any fights, any battles, any warfare. It is something outside their ken. Why? They have got no impact of a living knowledge of the Cross.
The Cross with them is a story, a history, a doctrine, a creed, not a mighty inwrought reality and power. Immediately it becomes that, they will know the fight.
Satan does not trouble where there is no living working of the Cross. That is not the Church.
You cannot have a church without the Cross, and you cannot have the Cross without a living expression which provokes the powers of evil.
That is the Cross according to God's mind.
~T. Austin Sparks~