We have reached the final ascent of
the Ladder. Thirty rungs are difficult to overcome, and if I am being totally
honest, then I have to admit that I’ve taken a break preparing myself for the
final five rungs of the ladder. Rungs 26-30 are some of the more difficult
rungs to overcome as we have been battling our way up the ladder and are now
being assaulted head on with the full force of the demons. However, if we are
to overcome the last rungs, we must prepare ourselves with the Sword of the
Spirit, aka our prayer ropes. We must continue on and pray diligently that God
will allow us to be perfected in faith and to reach our final destination (not
the movie) …heaven. We have now reached discernment, which is a very difficult
thing to obtain, and one that I’m afraid the world is seriously lacking in
today. In fact, I would assume with all the transgender and gender fluid
movements out there today that people have never even attempted discernment. However,
we must obtain true knowledge ourselves and in doing so we will progress up the
Ladder. In reading the Ladder I came across this quote by St. John that sets the
basis for our discussion today. He writes, “Discernment in beginners is true
knowledge of themselves; in intermediate souls it is a spiritual sense that
faultlessly distinguishes what is truly good from what is of nature and opposed
to it; and in the perfect it is the knowledge which they possess by divine
illumination, and which can enlighten with its lamp what is dark in others. Or
perhaps, generally speaking, discernment is, and is recognized as, the assured
understanding of the divine will on all occasions, in every place and in all
matters; and it is only found in those who are pure in heart, and in body and
in mouth.”
So once again let us delve into the
heart of St. John in this matter. I will once again state, that he is writing
to monks, but there is something to be gleaned from this for all Christians.
First, we see that discernment is true knowledge of oneself. This allows a
person to accept that they are sinners, in need of the divine grace of God,
through prayer and repentance. In our metanoia, we can turn away from those
things that are displeasing to God and are harmful to the soul. We also come to
the conclusion that God has called us to a higher purpose, one that is fully
vested in God and not of this world. The hopes and cares of this world will
pass away, but our immortal souls will not. Whether they end up in eternal
paradise among the righteous, or eternal torment with the souls of the damned,
only God can decide. Our hope and prayer is that by discerning those things
that are evil from those that are good, we can live a righteous path and obtain
the Holy Spirit with which will dwell in us and guide us on the straight and
narrow path. There is often talk among the Orthodox that we are the middle
path. We do not turn to the right or to the left, but rather stay our course no
matter the circumstances. In doing so we are able to see both sides of an issue
and come to the conclusion that God has for us. Today we do not have this,
rather we have people being either left or right. In some cases we have
ultra-left and ultra-right people who have strayed even farther from the path
on which God has set for us. So too in the spiritual world do we see this. The demons
will either turn us to the left in a spiritual sense, being fully demonic and
evil that we are unable to come to grips with salvation and reject in entirely,
or to the right, being full righteous and believing ourselves in no need of salvation
from God. The second leads us to a path of self-righteousness and pride that
destroys our souls even more so than that of the first. In this pattern that I have
laid out, I would suggest that St. John sums it up best. He says, “In all
our actions in which we try to please God the demons dig three pits for us. In
the first, they endeavour to prevent any good at all from being done. In the
second, after their first defeat, they try to secure that it should not be done
according to the will of God. But when these rogues fail in this too, then,
standing quietly before our soul, they praise us for living a thoroughly godly
life. The first is to be opposed by zeal and fear of death, the second by
obedience and humiliation, and the third by unceasing self-condemnation. We
shall be faced by toil of this kind until the divine fire enters into our
sanctuary. And then the force of bad habit will no longer exist in us. Our God
is a fire consuming all fever (of lust) and movement (of passion), every
inclination rooted in us and all blindness and darkness within and without,
both visible and spiritual.”
God being an all-consuming fire is an
icon present in Orthodoxy and one that speaks to me more than most. For the
righteous this fire consumes us and leads us to righteousness in God and His
Church, and for the damned, it is a fire that torments and burns their souls
with agony. When we allow the all-consuming fire to sweep us and cleanse us of
every stain that we have brought onto ourselves we are able to worship and
practice our faith with humility and love. It is like the forest that is burned
but not consumed when park rangers and foresters set ablaze the trees and grass
that otherwise would suffocate and die under the thick tall weeds that have grown
around it. It is like the trees that without this fire could not produce their
seeds and would not carry-on living. Without God our lives wither and die and
suffer not just the first death, but the second as well. For those who are damned,
the fire consumes them and suffocates them like a wildfire set in the summers
of places like California and Colorado. God wants to grow us, not harm us. And
using discernment, we are able to achieve this. Christ says for us not to place
our light under a basket, and when the divine fire enters our sanctuary, we are
able to shine brightly on this world and enlighten the even the darkest of
places. I am reminded here of St. Nicholas of Japan, who leaving Russia for a
foreign country, brought the light of Orthodoxy to Japan, in a time where Japan
was and still is a pagan nation. His discernment and life by yielding himself
to the divine fire of God led a large portion of the nation to Christ and His
Church though he had his trials and tribulations. But the divine grace of God saw
him through. So too when we reach a difficult point in our lives must discern
the truth from God. In his own timing he will reveal what is to be done for His
Kingdom and Glory. St. John writes, “Let no one plead his incapacity to
fulfil the commandments of the Gospel, for there are souls who have gone even
beyond the commandments. And you will certainly be convinced of what has been
said by him who loved his neighbour more than himself and laid down his life
for him, although he had not received this commandment from the Lord.” So if the saints, who normal as they were
with their own faults like St. Moses the Black, or the penitent thief, called
Rakh in Russian were able to receive the divine grace you can too. The moral of
this is that you must allow God to work in your life and present yourself as a
willing servant of God. Only then will discernment come and will you be able to
climb the ladder even further.
We have only scratched the surface
of discernment here, in that it comes from God to those who are pure of heart
and willing to accept the cross. Times will be difficult, and times will come
when you will need to discern things whether they are demonic or from the Lord.
We have seen this in the charismatic movement which was led astray by the
speaking in tongues. We see this today in the transgender movement and all
forms of the LGTBQ+. However the true Christian will seek the will of God and
only what he wants for us. There will be no turning away from the faith for
those who persevere. May God bless you and keep you forever.
Amen.
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