The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 3

 

We are exiles here on earth. There is no doubt that the world is full of people that do not accept Christ as Lord and Savior of the Universe. Whether it is atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, or any other religion that one might be able to think of. The world is full of people who wish to see the destruction of the Church and the Glory of God to be wiped out. We know from the scriptures that God will always triumph in the end for the end of the movie has been revealed to us. Because of this exile, St. John of the Ladder details the life of the Christian in full through the third rung. We have went through the first two rungs on the ladder and are climbing steadily towards the final ascent. We have been called to a higher purpose, one in which we must complete through ascending this Ladder. Just like the tollhouses in which I talked about in a previous blog, the ladder counters them with ways in which we can overcome the torments of the devil. One of those ways is through us living as exiles on earth.

As I did in the previous blog, I would like to start with a quote from St. John regarding exile. He says, “Exile means that we leave forever everything in our own country that prevents us from reaching the goal of the religious life. Exile means modest manners, wisdom which remains unknown, prudence not recognized as such by most, a hidden life, an invisible intention, unseen meditation, desire for humiliation, longing for hardship, constant determination to love God, abundance of charity, renunciation of vainglory, depth of silence” He also builds off of the previous rung saying, “Detachment is excellent; but her mother is exile. Having become an exile for the Lord’s sake, we should have no ties of affection at all lest we seem to be roving in order to gratify our passions” Of note, St. John also asks a question and gives us answer to what we should do as exiles saying, “Have you become an exile from the world? Do not touch the world any more; because the passions desire nothing better than to return”  We have all become exiles for the Lord’s sake seeking out his Kingdom for our benefit leaving the world and what it offers us behind. The world is a place full of sin and sickness, things that as Christians we need to abstain from. He says, “Run from places of sin as from the plague. For when fruit is not present, we have no frequent desire to eat it.”  Also he reminds us who have been called to be Christian, “It is not from hatred that we separate ourselves from our own people or places (God forbid!), but to avoid the harm which might come to us from them. In this, as in everything else, it is Christ who teaches us what is good for us. For it is clear that He often left His parents according to the flesh. And when He was told, ‘Thy Mother and Thy brethren are seeking for Thee’, our good Lord and Master at once showed us an example of dispassionate3 hatred when He said, ‘My Mother and My brethren are they who do the will of My Father who is in heaven.’  When I converted to Orthodoxy from Southern Baptist I grieved my parents dearly. I did not do so because I hated them, rather I sought to seek God in the fullness that he had presented himself. I found that in the Orthodox Church. I love my parents both dearly and want what is best for them as much as they want what is best for me. My mother is my rock that I lean on so much and my father the man I hope to become in later years. However, St. John of the Ladder reminds me that, “Love of God extinguishes our love for our parents. And so he who says that he has both deceives himself. He should listen to Him who says: No man can serve two masters. I have not come, says the Lord, to bring peace on earth (that is, love of parents among sons and brothers who have resolved to serve Me) but war and a sword in order to separate lovers of God from lovers of the world, the material from the spiritual, the proud from the humble. For strife and separation delight the Lord when they spring from love for Himself.” St. John of the Ladder also says, “Attachment either to some particular relative or to strangers is dangerous. Little by little it can entice us back to the world, and completely quench the fire of our contrition. It is impossible to look at the sky with one eye and at the earth with the other, and it is equally impossible for anyone not to expose his soul to danger who has not separated himself completely, both in thought and body, from his own relatives and from others.” Now loving your parents and loving others is what we are called to do. St. John from this statement is clearly saying that when you’re so attached to someone that you can’t live without them, that is a bad thing. We are called to live for Christ alone and not for others. I was once obsessed with a young lady who I thought was the most beautiful girl in the world. I prayed day and night for God to grant me a miracle in which she would one day become my wife. I would literally fantasize about her all day and even while I was sleeping to the point that it affected me mentally and spiritually. I only have overcome this obsession in recent years as I finally got married to a much better woman and someone who I absolutely adore. However, I do not in any way worship her like I did the girl in my youth.

Finally before I end my blog I would like to discuss visions. While I have never had the pleasure of experiencing a true vision all of our saints warn against them. This is because visions come from both the devil and from God. Discerning which is often difficult even for those who have been practicing the faith for a long time. St. John of the Ladder discusses dreams in the final part of rung three and says, “Devils often transform themselves into angels of light and take the form of martyrs, and make it appear to us during sleep that we are in communication with them. Then, when we wake up, they plunge us into unholy joy and conceit. But you can detect their deceit by this very fact. For angels reveal torments, judgments and separations; and when we wake up we find that we are trembling and sad. As soon as we begin to believe the devils in dreams, then they make sport of us when we are awake, too. He who believes in dreams is completely inexperienced. But he who distrusts all dreams is a wise man. Only believe dreams that foretell torments and judgment for you. But if despair afflicts you, then such dreams are also from devils.” Lastly he says, “The demons of vainglory prophesy in dreams. Being unscrupulous, they guess the future and foretell it to us. When these visions come true, we are amazed; and we are indeed elated with the thought that we are already near to the gift of foreknowledge. A demon is often a prophet to those who believe him, but he is always a liar to those who despise him. Being a spirit he sees what is happening in the lower air, and noticing that someone is dying, he foretells it to the more credulous types of people through dreams. But the demons know nothing about the future from foreknowledge. For if they did, then the sorcerers would also have been able to foretell our death.”

So with that in mind, let us live like exiles. Let us forsake the world and continue to go up the ladder and to the place of paradise. If we should falter now, we have a long fall as we are already three rungs up. As St. John says, “He who has reached it, let him not look to the right hand nor to the left.”

 

Amen

The Triumph of Christ

 

“ As the prophets have seen, as the apostles have taught, as the Church has received, as the teachers have set forth in dogmas, as the whole world has understood, as Grace has shone forth, as the truth was demonstrated, as falsehood was banished, as wisdom was emboldened, as Christ has awarded; thus do we believe, thus we speak, thus we preach Christ our true God and His saints, honoring them in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in temples, and in icons, worship ping and respecting the One as God and Master, and honoring the others, and apportioning relative worship to them, because of our common Master for they are His genuine servants.  this is the Faith of the apostles, this is the Faith of the fathers, this is the Faith of the Orthodox, this Faith hath established the whole world.”

 

This was going to be an entirely different post when it was first written, but as I have said before God has a mysterious way of working in the hearts and minds of men.  God has called us to preach Christ and to honor him in our writings, thoughts, churches and in the icons of the faith. And this blog I like to think I am in some small way carrying on the tradition set by the apostles. Which leads me to our discussion today. While yes, the council was restoring Icons to their proper place in the worship of God in the Church all those many years ago, it is not without the Victory of Christ that the Victory and Triumph of Orthodoxy was achieved. Without it, there would be no Sunday of Orthodoxy, Holy Pascha, The Nativity of Our Lord, and so on. The Victory of Christ is the victory over death and the victory for all mankind.

Death is a touchy subject for many, especially those who do not grasp the reality of life, and forget the power Christ defeated with his Holy Resurrection. Death for many in the world today is scary thought, a fear that grips their minds, their hearts, their souls. Death in the minds and hearts of people is the end, the sudden fading into black. We see this in many movies, tv shows, books, and writings of people that surely once we pass from this life, there is no next. But, we know this is not the case. First let me draw you to Mark, Chapter 12, Verse 27, where it states quite clearly, “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.”  If God is the God of the living, then those who have “died” must continue on living, this life is the next, the afterlife it is called. Jesus again in John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Jesus has conquered death by his resurrection. Why should I fear death? In fact Christ also answers this question when says also in John 14:1-4, when says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  And you know the way to where I am going.” The Book of the Apocalypse, called Revelation says in 1:18, “And the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”  Jesus was of course talking about himself in Revelation, after all it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ to St. John, but it remains, that Jesus was dead, and is alive. He is the God of the living, not the dead. He has broken the power of death in our lives to fulfill it with His life, His Body, His Blood. We partake of this life every service when we have The Eucharist at the end of the Divine Liturgy. The living water that Jesus offered to St. Photini at the well is given to us freely at Divine Liturgy with open arms and a willingness to heal our bodies and souls if we only repent and ask for it. And yet, there are still some that fear death. Fear what decay and destruction might come to their mortal bodies, and yet they do not fear what could come to their immortal souls.  1 Corinthians 15:26 is a favorite verse of mine, not just because it was used in one of my favorite books, but rather because it speaks to the hearts of men, telling them with courage to embrace death, because it says, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” When we pass into life everlasting, we too defeat death, because it is Christ living in us, that has already and will forever defeat death. There is no need for fear, but joy and happiness. I think that’s what amazes me about Orthodoxy more than anything is the amount of people who when they repose in the Lord, a smile can be seen on their faces, because they are embracing Jesus in all his glory upon their repose.

We have once again come to the opening paragraph. I discussed the Triumph of Orthodoxy, which was celebrated this passed Sunday. But more than anything it isn’t about the Icons, the saints, the churches we gather in. Many in Africa, and the poorer regions of Orthodoxy may have these things, but they are not as grand as in Eastern Europe or here in America. Yet they still celebrate with full vigor and joy unending. Why? It is not because we defeated the iconoclast heresy long ago. No it is because we have a Savior, a Lord, a God who defeated death so that we do not have to fear it. We have Jesus Christ, the God-Man who united the divine with the mortal so that man could be who God meant him to be. We have forgotten that. People today either fear death, or they accept it as something that ends their existence. But to those of us Christians who remain true, death is not something to fear, rather it is something to embrace. Because Jesus has destroyed its power.

Amen.

Facing the Persecutor

 

Persecution. Not the greatest of topics, but as the past two blogs have become a running theme, it’s the logical next step in our discussion that I have taken up on my blog. We have discussed St. Sophronios who was beloved by his flock but saw that the persecution of the Christians was due to lukewarm hearts and disdain for true and righteous beliefs. We discussed St. Ephraim, who left his home in Greece to become a monk and come to America, a foreign and strange land to him where he would be looked down upon for his simple way of life and his status as a monk. But we have not gotten at the heart of the matter, rather the heart of the world. Our discussions on this blog have shown that persecution does exist, sometimes subtly, other times as it was with the Islamic Invasions of the Holy Land, very real and very straightforward. But both times it is there. It lurks in the shadows as does the devil. He doesn’t need to work in the light, for by working in the shadows does he do his greatest damage to the hearts of men. When the devil corrupts, he corrupts only to the point in which we allow him to. Just like God, he doesn’t force himself on us, but whispers and connives and plots in hearts until we are so ensnared by his thinking, we pass it off as our own and often the world sees what the devil has created as normal. And that is where we land ourselves in this article today.

You see we see it in the world around us whether we admit it to ourselves or if we are ignorant and blissful of the situation, but it is real. From political leaders who wish to tear down the fabric of society and remake it in their image, or from so called religious leaders who beg and plead with those they have been entrusted with to make evil good and good evil. But dear brothers and sisters this is simply persecution in its subtleness. Jesus spoke of those who would hate true Christians and seek to destroy them. He says in John 15:23, “He who hates Me hates My Father also.” He also says even before that in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.” The world is constantly working against Christians. That is why I have spoken at great length about the bastions of faith like Elder Ephraim and St. Sophronios. Father Seraphim Rose’s book was such an eye opener for me, that it has changed how I view the world and how I interact with it. The world hates what we stand for, they are willing to go into destruction of their own accord by being themselves deceived. And yet, they do not want to admit this. Sin has corrupted their hearts and minds and allowed them to persecute the Church and her members in the name of preserving peace and prosperity. In fact, Jesus even speaks of this, because he in John 16:2 in the same discourse as the two previous mentioned verses in this article says, “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.”  We have seen this time and time again. St. Paul before he was appointed as Apostle to the Gentiles was himself a great persecutor of Christians. There have been martyrs too numerous to count who have surrendered their lives, by being beheaded, burned alive, fed to wild beasts, pushed off cliffs, broken on wheels, and other such torturous devices.  

The hopes of these people who commit these acts is not as I have said to preserve peace and prosperity, but to eradicate their own conscience and to try and expunge the name of God from the Earth. They wish to not have to confront their own demons, their own sins. They wish to again as I have said place the blame on others for their own rejection of God. My dear brothers and sisters, it is just beginning. Elder Ephraim speaks of the neo-martyrs of America, others have said what began in Russia will be finished in America. Elder Paisios was known to have spoken about the war between Russia and Turkey and retaking of Constantinople and the defeat of the NATO forces. All of this in preparation for the coming of Jesus and the beginning of the age of eternity. These times may come in our lifetime, they may be years, decades away, it is not for us to decide but to wait and watch. God calls us to be protectors of our nous, our hearts and minds, our souls.  Persecution will come. It will grow stronger as the chains that bind Satan will be loosened. This however will be for a short time. Just like in the days of the early church when droves went to the arena and contested for their faith among the multitudes, we ourselves might be called once again to great contests. If that is the case, we must arm ourselves with spiritual armor, with the hope of salvation. We know that times will test us but when we are strongest is when we have our faith solely rested in the Bosom of God.

Amen.

The End of the World as We Know It

 

            Nothing is more speculated about in Christianity than the end of the world. The Last Judgment, called the Awesome Judgement Seat of Jesus Christ by the Orthodox Church. I am not a priest, and do not plan on becoming a priest anytime soon, but today, as a layman I will try to outline the Church’s teachings and what we believe in a simple blog post. This may end up being a series, and if so, I will try from time to time explain different parts of the teachings without trying to be too lofty or direct. I don’t plan on condemning or badgering people. This is simply what the Church teaches, and if you choose to reject it, then that is on you. In fact, the reason I started this blog was to simply voice my beliefs, that I have come to understand through the priests and elders of my life without trying to belittle or discredit others. It is not a blog for discussion, rather for growth and learning. With that said let’s get into the heart of the matter…and start at the most controversial topic…the Rapture.

            The Orthodox Church does not nor has ever taught that there will be a Rapture. When I mention the word Rapture, people immediately think of the heretical book Left Behind. As a kid growing up Southern Baptist, I was tasked with reading the Left Behind series and it scarred me. It left a deep impression. The books written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins details the exploits of those who after witnessing a global event of people mysteriously disappearing, realize that Jesus returned and took all Christians to heaven before a seven-year tribulation where the Antichrist would rule the world and culminates at the Battle of Armageddon. The Rapture was first brought into Christian thought through Margaret MacDonald who often engaged in charismatic beliefs like speaking in tongues. Her belief in the pre-tribulation rapture was proselytized by John Nelson Darby who was a member of the Plymouth Brethren.  The Plymouth Brethren were a group of radicals who broke away from established Christianity in 1820 in Dublin. John Nelson Darby also translated the Bible into different languages. While he did proselytize the pre-tribulation rapture it is well of note that he believed Margret MacDonald to be demonic and possessed. This raises an important question. If the Church did not believe in a pre-tribulation rapture up until this point in its history, why then would it be revealed nearly two thousand years later to a young girl who was clearly possessed? The answer is that the people did not test the spirit and did not seek the answer from the spiritual fathers as the Orthodox do, nor did they take the time to search the scriptures.  I would also direct you to read my Religion of the Future Part 4 blog that discusses the nature of speaking in tongues and why dabbling with such spirits is extremely dangerous to the soul. To clear things up about this section before we move on to the next topic let’s review Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 which reads, “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Paul clearly taught that the Second Coming was the end. Even St. Paul did not believe in a rapture, and he was taught and guided by those who had been with Christ. If Christ had taught a pre-tribulation rapture, surely it would have been taught by the early church.

            The second portion of the theology that most people get wrong about the Second Coming of Jesus is that he will reign for a thousand years after his victory at the Battle of Armageddon. For an Orthodox Christian, and any true Christian, we understand that Jesus’ victory was his resurrection and that the age we are living in now is the “millennial” reign. This is the age of the church, the age in which the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached and taught and accepted by many across the world as they are brought into the fold. It is the establishment of the Kingdom at the first coming of Christ and has no end.  Elder Cleopa says that the Church fathers believed it be an infinite number, because the Kingdom of Christ has no end. He says that the Kingdom of Christ is a spiritual one, that will reign in the internal hearts of man throughout all ages. John 18:36, discusses that the Kingdom of God is not of this world, and that we should not expect an earthly kingdom like those who preach the earthly 1000 year reign of Christ. This is simply a ploy to try and make the things of God in the image of man, not man in the image of God.  Though it can be said, the devil, Satan, has been bound for a time and as the end of the world draws ever nearer, will be loosened from his chains to cause as much destruction as he can on the world before his time is up at the Second Coming. The Second Coming will be the end of established history, the Last Judgement will be to where no one can hide from their actions and there will be no chance for those people to accept Christ. Those who believe in the Rapture will often say that the seven-year tribulation is a chance for those who didn’t accept Christ the first time to accept Christ then. But Christ has given all of us the chance to accept him now. There will be no second chances with the Second Coming. You are either for Christ or against Christ. 

            Finally, we get to the star of the show, the part that everyone has speculated on since the Ascension. The Antichrist.  This part is especially difficult for me, because growing up, I joined in the typical evangelical speculation of which politician was the Antichrist, and which person would be leading the one world government. While this is certainly the case, that a final Antichrist is coming, there have been many antichrists throughout the history of the world. Anyone opposed to Christ and His Church is an antichrist, whether large or small. Adolph Hitler for example could be considered an antichrist. St. John says, “Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that this is the last time.” (1 John 2:18)   The Antichrist however will be the epitome of what everyone in the world is looking for in Christ. They will flock to him in droves. Just like a celebrity, a royal, someone who can fill the emptiness in their hearts. They who have searched for something outside of the established will that God has for mankind, and they will fill it with the Antichrist. He will perform miracles and do signs, all in the name of being the Christ, but it will be false. Jesus is the Christ, anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a fake. The Antichrist will reign for a short time, the consensus is seven years and then Jesus will return at the Second Coming and the Awesome Judgement Seat. However, unlike the pre-tribulation rapture folks, the church teaches that all people, Christians, and non-Christians will be a part of the tribulation, there will be no separation and that yes, we will have to suffer for our faith. If you understand Church history at all, then this will not come as a shock, as martyrs and others have suffered for Christ even in recent times especially in Soviet Russia. After this end, the world will be renewed and those who have been condemned will enter into eternal torment, and those who have accepted Christ will enter into eternal glory.

            As you can see, to many in the west, this teaching is foreign to most people. It is not a simple task to uncover, and it has taken me a long time to accept this as truth. As someone who is coming from a protestant evangelical background who converted to Holy Orthodoxy, I was relieved and skeptical of this teaching myself. But with help from God, I have come to understand the truth through His Church and the teachings held for 2000 years.

Amen.