By Blessed Hieromonk
Seraphim Rose
In the following talk,1 Fr. Seraphim
speaks to us from almost
twenty years ago, and yet his words are quite
relevant to our times
as we approach the end of the second millennium.
Although some of
the individual examples he gives are now dated, there
are now even
more extreme examples of the same phenomena of which he
speaks. As
always, he humbles his understanding before the holy
Scriptures and
their interpretation by the Orthodox Holy Fathers, and
thus his teaching
about the times remains timeless, free of the intellectual
fashions and
prejudices of this world. As time goes on, the Orthodox
world-view
from which he received his wisdom will become ever more
necessary for the spiritual survival of true Christians.
1. WHY STUDY THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES?
THE SUBJECT of this talk
is watching for the signs of the times. First of all, we have to know what
it is meant by the phrase "signs of the times." This expression comes straight
from the Gospel, from the words of our Saviour in Matthew 16:3. Christ tells
the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to Him, "Ye can discern the face of the sky,"
that is, tell what the weather will be; "but can ye not discern the signs of the
times?" In other words, He's telling them that this has nothing to do with
science, or with knowing our place in the world, or anything of the sort.
It's a religious question. We study the signs of the times in order to be
able to recognize Christ.
During the time of Christ, the
Pharisees and Sadducees did not study the signs of the times in order to see that
Christ had come, that the Son of God was already on earth. There were already
signs that they should have recognized. For example, in the book of Daniel
in the Old Testament, there is a prophecy concerning the seventy weeks of years,
which means that the Messiah was to come about 490 years from the time of Daniel.
Those Jews who read their books very carefully knew exactly what this was all
about, and at about the time that Christ came they knew that it was time for the
messiah.
But this is an outward sign. More importantly,
the Pharisees and Sadducees should have been watching for the inward signs.
If their hearts had been right with God, and if they had not been merely trying
to fulfill the outward commandment of the law, their hearts would have responded
and recognized God in the flesh when He came. And many of the Jews did—the
apostles, the disciples, and many others.
This same passage
in the 16th chapter of St. Matthew speaks further about signs. Our Lord
told the Jews, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there
shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah." The
events of the Old Testament contain prefigurations of events in the New Testament.
When Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, this was a prefiguation of
our Lord's being three days in the tomb. And this sign—the sign of Jonah-was
given to the people of Christ's time.
Our Lord was telling
the Pharisees and Sadducees that an evil and adulterous generation seeks for spectacular
events, that is, fire coming down from heaven, or the Romans being chased away,
angels manifesting themselves and banishing the foreign government of the Romans,
and things of that sort. Christ told them this kind of sign would not be
given. An evil and adulterous generation seeks after this, but those who
are pure of heart seek rather something more spiritual. And the one sign
that is given to them is the sign of Jonah. Of course, it is a great thing
that a man should be three days in the grave and the rise up, being God.
Thus, from our Savior's words, we know that we are not to watch for spectacular
signs, but we are rather to look inwardly for spiritual signs. Also, we
are to watch for those things which according to Scripture must come to pass.
2. THE SIGNS GIVEN US BY CHRIST
We Orthodox Christians have
already recognized and accepted the signs of Christ's First Coming. The
very fact that we're Orthodox Christians means that we've done this. We
know what these signs mean: for example, the sign of Jonah, the 490 years of Daniel,
and many other things which our Lord fulfilled. Our Orthodox Divine services
are filled with Old Testament prophecies which were fulfilled in the coming of
Christ. These we all see and recognize—it all seems clear. But now
we have to look for different kinds of signs, that is, the signs of the Second
Coming of Christ. The whole teaching about the Second Coming of Christ and
the signs which will precede it is set forth in several places in the Gospels,
especially in the 24th chapter of St. Matthew. St. Mark and St. Luke also
have chapters about this.
This chapter of St. Matthew tells
of how our Lord departed from the Temple, and how his disciples came to him to
show him the buildings of the Temple. Of course, in those days the Temple
was the center of worship. Every Jew had to come to the Temple at least
at Pascha, the Passover, for this alone was where God could be worshipped in the
right way.
Our Lord looked at the Temple and told His disciples,
"See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you: There shall not
be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." To
tell a believing Jew at that time that the whole Temple is to be thrown down,
that nothing is to be left of it, is like saying it's the end of the world, because
the Temple is precisely the place where God is supposed to be worshipped.
How are you going to worship God if there's no Temple? So these words of
our Savior made the disciples start thinking about the end of the world.
They immediately said, "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be
the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" In other words, they
already knew that He was going to come again and that this would be bound up with
the end of the world.
Then our Lord gives a whole set of
signs which are to come to pass before He comes again. First of all He says,
"Take heed that no man lead you astray. For many shall come in My name saying,
'I am Christ'; and shall lead man astray." That is, many false Christs will
come. This we've already seen throughout the history of the Church: those
who have risen up against the Church, those who have pretended to be God, pretended
to be Christ.
Secondly, in the next verse He says, "Ye
shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. Se that ye be not troubled, for these
things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." Of course, from the very
beginning of the Christian era there have been wars and rumors of wars, and even
more so in our time. "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquake in diverse
places." Again, wars, then famines, earthquakes. And He says, "All
these things are the beginning of tribulation."
Then comes
the next sign, which is persecutions. "Then shall they deliver you up unto
tribulation, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name's
sake." So, first we have false Christs, then wars, rumors of wars, famines,
earthquakes, persecutions—and then a very important sign for our times concerning
the growing cold of love: "Because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love
of many shall wax cold." This is the most deadly of all the signs, because
the sign of Christians, as St. John the Theologian tells us, is that they have
love for each other. When this love grows cold, this means that even the
Christians are beginning to lose Christianity.
Then another
sign, in the next verse of the 24th chapter: "This gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nation, and
then shall the end come." This sign of the Gospel being preached unto all
the nations we see about us now. The Gospel itself is produced in hundreds
of languages now to almost all the tribes of the earth, and Orthodox Christianity
is being preached in almost every country of the world. In Africa there
are great missions: in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, the Congo, and spreading
out from there.
The a more difficult place: our Lord
speaks concerning the abomination of desolation which is spoke of by Daniel the
prophet. "When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy
place (let him that readeth understand)." That is, you're supposed to understand
this from something else. This is another sign. It is concerned, of
course, with the Temple in Jerusalem and some kind of desecration of it.
Then, in the 21st verse, there is the sign of great tribulation: "Then shall
be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until
now, nor ever shall be." That is, it will be the worst and most difficult
time of suffering in the whole history of the world. You can read history
books and find that there have been many times in the history of the world when
there was great suffering. If you read about what happened to the Jews when
Jerusalem was taken after the death of Christ, you will find that such suffering
as went on then was unparalleled. In other places there has been almost
as much suffering. And yet the great tribulation at the very end will be
much worse. Of course, it will be worldwide and involve everyone, not just
one people, and will be something of a very impressive character. It will
be called "such tribulation that the world has never seen."
Just after this time, something even worse begins to come. Verse 29 reads:
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and
the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Such an event, of course, has never
been before, and this obviously refers to the time just at the end of the world,
when the whole of creation prepares to be annihilated in order to be refashioned.
Finally, the next verse: "And then shall appear the
sign of the Son of Man in heaven," that is, the sign of the Cross will appear
in the sky. "And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."
That is, the very coming of Christ shall be in the heavens with the sign of the
Cross—and that is the very end of everything.
After telling
all this about the signs of the end, our Lord gives a final command, saying,
"Watch, therefore, for you know not on what day your Lord cometh.... Therefore,
be also ready, for in an hour that you think not, the Son of Man cometh."
All this is in the 24th chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew. But all this,
for anyone not thoroughly acquainted with Scriptures and the writings of Holy
Fathers, almost raises more question than it solves. We must understand
what is the meaning of all these prophecies. How can we know when they are
really being fulfilled? And how can we avoid false interpretations?—because
there are many false Christs, false prophets, false prophecies, false interpretations.
How can we know what is the true interpretation and what are the true signs of
the times? IF you look about you and go to any religious bookstore, you
will see shelves containing many books of commentaries on the Book of Revelation
(The Apocalypse), books with interpretations about the coming end of the world.
In fact many Christians who are not Orthodox have a very definite feeling that
these are the last times, but they all give interpretations based upon their own
opinions.
3. THE BASIS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE SIGNS
The first thing we must have if we are going
to have the true interpretation of the signs of the times is something we can
call basic Orthodox knowledge. That is, knowledge of the Holy Scripture,
both the Old and New Testaments (and not just according to the way it seems, but
according to the way the Church has interpreted it); knowledge of the writings
of Holy Fathers; knowledge of Church history; and awareness of the different kind
of heresies and errors which have attacked the Church's true understanding of
dogma and especially of the last times. If we do not have a grounding in sources
such as these, we will find ourselves confused and unprepared. That is precisely
what our Lord tells us: to be ready, to be prepared. Unless we have this basic
knowledge, we will not be prepared and we will misinterpret the signs of the times.
A few years ago a book was printed in English which has become a fantastic
bestseller for a religious book. It has sold over ten million copies in America.
It's called The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, a Protestant Evangelical
in Texas. In a rather superficial style he gives his interpretation of the signs
of the times. He believes it's the last times we are living in now. He believes
that everywhere around us there are being fulfilled these signs which our Lord
talked about. If you read this book, you find that sometimes he gets something
more or less correct according to our Orthodox understanding, sometimes he is
totally off, and sometimes he is partly wrong, partly right. It's as though he's
just guessing, because he reads the Scripture according to his own understanding.
He has no basic Orthodox Christian knowledge, no background in the true knowledge
of the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. Therefore, if you read this book seriously,
you will find that you become very confused. You don't know what to believe any
more. He talks, for example, about a millennium which is supposed to come before
the end of the world. He talks about the rapture, when Christians are supposedly
gathered up into the heavens before the end of the world, and then watch
how the people suffer down below. He talks about the building of the Temple
in Jerusalem as though this is a good thing, as thought this is preparing for
Christ's coming.
If you read such books as this (there
are many other books like it; this one happens to be a bestseller because the
author caught the imagination of people just at one particular time), and if you
take them all as truth, you will find that instead of recognizing Christ—which
is the whole reason for our understanding about the signs of the times—you will
be accepting Antichrist.
Take, for example, the very question
of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is true, according to Orthodox prophecies,
that the Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. If you look at people like
Hal Lindsey, or even the Fundamentalist Carl McIntire, they are also talking about
the building of the Temple, but they're talking about it as though we are building
it in order for Christ to come back and reign over the world for a thousand years.
What they are talking about is the coming of Antichrist. The millennium,
according to the Protestant interpretation, as being a special thousand-year reign
at the end of the world, is actually the reign of Antichrist. In fact, there
have already been people who have arisen and proclaimed their thousand-year kingdom
which is going to last until the end of the world. The last one was Adolf
Hitler. This is based upon the same kind of chiliastic idea: that is, interpreting
the millennium in a worldly sense. The actual thousand years of the Apocalypse
is the life in the Church which is now, that is, the life of Grace; and
anyone who lives it sees that, compared to the people outside, it is indeed heaven
on earth. But this is not the end. This is our preparation for the
true kingdom of God which has no end.
There are many books
of basic Orthodox knowledge now available. Those who are seriously concerned
about studying the signs of the times should first be very well versed in some
of these books, and they should be reading them, seriously studying them, and
having them as daily food. The best books to read are not someone's
interpretation of Revelation (the Book of Apocalypse), because right now there's
not really any Orthodox interpretation of this in English.2
The best books are the basic spiritual textbooks. First of all there
are basic texts of Orthodox dogmas, the various catechisms. One of the best
is the eighth-century work of St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith,
which goes through the whole of the catechism. An even earlier one is St.
Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Lectures, that is, lectures prepared
for people about to be baptized, which goes through the whole Creed and tells
what the Church believes. There are many similar books of catechism, both
in ancient times and in more modern times. More recently we have the catechisms
in Russian of Metropolitan Platon and Metropolitan Philaret, which are a little
shorter and simpler.
Then there is a different kind of
book: commentaries on Holy Scriptures. There are not too many of these in
English,3 but we
do have some of the commentaries of St. John Chrysostom. This area is a
little bit weak in English, because there are many good books in Russian which
are not in English yet, including more recent books of commentaries on the Scriptures,
even on the Apocalypse. Archbishop Averky's books are very good, but they're
just being put into English now. God willing, before too long, they will
be out.4
Then, besides these two kinds of books—basic catechism and commentaries on Scripture—there
are all the books on Orthodox spiritual life. These include the Lausiac
History (which tells about how the monks lived in Egypt, and how they fought
spiritually), the Dialogues of St. Gregory of Rome, the Lives of Saints,
The Ladder of St. John, the Homilies of St. Macarius the Great,
the books of St. John Cassian, the Philokalia, Unseen Warfare and
St. John of Kronstadt's My Life in Christ. These books deal with
basic Orthodox spiritual life, spiritual struggle, how to discern the wiles of
the demons, how not to fall into deception. All of them give a basic foundation
by which to understand the signs of the times.
Then there
are the works of more recent writers who are in the same patristic spirit as the
ancient Holy Fathers. The main examples are the two great writers of 19th-century
Russia, Bishop Theophan the Recluse and Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov,5 whose
works are now coming out gradually in English. Bishop Ignatius' book The
Arena and various articles by Bishop Theophan are in English.6
These two writers are very important because they transmit the patristic teaching
down to our times. They have already explained many questions which arise
concerning how to understand the Holy Fathers. For example, the new Orthodox
Word has a whole text of Bishop Ignatius on the toll-houses which the soul
meets after death. Sometimes, in reading the Holy Fathers, one has questions
on such subjects and doesn't quite know how to understand what the ancient Fathers
say, and these more recent Father explain these texts.
There are the histories of the Church, which tell of God's revelation to men and
how God acts with regard to men. It is very instructive to read the stories
of the Old Testament, because exactly the same things repeat themselves in the
New Testament. Then one should read, along with he New Testament, the histories
of the New Testament Church. For example, there's a pocketbook of Eusebius'
History of the Church, which traces the history of the Church down through
the first three centuries, written from an Orthodox Christian point of view.7
It's very important to see what early Church writers saw was important in the
history of the Church: the martyrs, the apostles, and so forth.
So all these different kinds of writings help to prepare us with basic Christian
knowledge, that is, catechisms, commentaries on Scripture, books on spiritual
life, more recent patristic books in this same spirit, and histories of the Church.
Before we do too much reading about what specifically the signs of the times mean,
we should have a basic background in all of these categories of books. All
of them prepare one to understand something about the signs of the times.
Once one has begun to prepare oneself like this, it is not merely a matter of
adding knowledge up in one's head and being able to repeat by heart certain phrases,
to have exactly the right interpretation of a Bible verse, or anything of the
sort.
4. SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT
The most important thing that one acquires through reading such basic Orthodox
literature as this is a virtue which is called discernment. When
we come to two phenomena which seem to be exactly alike or very similar to each
other, the virtue of discernment allows us to see which of them is true and which
is false: that is, which has the spirit of Christ and which might have the spirit
of Antichrist.
The very nature of Antichrist, who is to
be the last great world ruler and the last great opponent of Christ, is to be
anti-Christ—and "anti" means not merely "against," but also "in imitation
of, in place of." The Antichrist, as all the Holy Fathers say in their writings
about him, is to be someone who imitates Christ, that is, tires to fool people
by looking as though he is Christ come back to earth. Therefore, if one
has a very vague notion of Christianity or reads the Scriptures purely from one's
own opinions (and one's opinions come from the air, and the air is not Christian
now, but anti-Christian), then one will come to very anti-Christian conclusions.
Seeing the figure of Antichrist, one will be fooled into thinking that it is Christ.
We can give a few examples of how the virtue of discernment
can help us to understand some fairly complicated phenomena. One such phenomenon
is the charismatic movement. There is a Greek priest, Fr. Eusebius Stephanou
in Indiana, who is spreading this movement in the Orthodox Church. He has
a rather large number of followers and sympathizers. He's even been to Greece
and is going again soon, and there too people are sometimes quite overwhelmed
by him.
One can see that part of the reason for his success
is that he comes from an Orthodox church atmosphere in which people, being born
Orthodox, go to Orthodox church, receive sacraments, and take the whole thing
for granted. Since it becomes with them a matter of habit, they do not understand
that the whole meaning of the Church is to have Christ in the heart, but that
one can go through the whole of Orthodox Church life without having one's heart
awakened. In that case, one is just like the pagans. In fact, one
is more responsible than the pagans. The pagans have never heard of Christ,
while the person who is Orthodox and does not know what spiritual life is simply
has not yet awakened to Christ.
This is the kind of atmosphere
from which Fr. Eusebius comes. Seeing that this is a spiritual deadness—and
it's quite true that much of what is in the Orthodox Church is spiritually dead—he
wants to make it come to life. But the trouble is that he himself belongs
to the same spirit. In fact, you very seldom see that he reads the basic
Orthodox books. He picks one or two that seem to agree with his point of
view, but he does not have a thorough grounding in the Orthodox sources.
He doe snot think that they are the most important things to be reading.
If you look deeply at what he and other people in the charismatic movement are
saying—and our book The Religion of the Future goes into detail on this
subject—you see that what they call a spiritual revival and a spiritual life is
actually what more recent Fathers like Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov carefully
described as deception, that is, a kind of fever of the blood which makes
it look as though one is being spiritual when actually one is not even grasping
spiritual reality at all. In fact, it's as different from true Christian
life, which is reflected in these very basic Orthodox books, as heaven is from
earth.
Quite apart from the details of how they pray and
what kind of phenomena manifest themselves at their services, you can see that
the very basic idea which Fr. Eusebius and these charismatics have is a false
idea. Yesterday we received an issue of Fr. Eusebius' magazine, Logos.
There he talks about the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last times
preparing for the coming of Christ. All Christians are supposed to be renewed,
to receive the Holy Spirit, to be speaking in tongues. This prepares for
the coming of Christ, and there will be a great spiritual outpouring before Christ
comes.
If you read the Scriptures carefully, without putting
your prejudices into them, even without the patristic commentaries you will see
that nowhere is anything said about a great spiritual outpouring at the end of
the world. Christ Himself says the contrary. First he gives His teaching
concerning how we should pray and have faith and not be faint. He presents
the example of the woman who goes to the judge and keeps begging him to intercede
in her case, and He tells us that this is how we should continue to pray and pray
and pray until God hears us and gives to us. This is a very solid example
about praying. Then He says, "Nevertheless" (that is, despite the fact that
I've given you this teaching and this is the way to pray), "nevertheless, when
the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" In other words,
despite the fact you've been given all this, there will be practically no one
left who is a Christian at the end of the world. "Will He find faith on
the earth?" means He will find almost no one left. There will not
be flocks of people who are praying and inspired with the Holy Spirit at the end
of time. All Holy Fathers who speak about this subject speak about the great
terrible times at the end, and say that those who are true Christians will be
hidden away and will not even be visible to the world. Those who are visible
to the world will not be the true Christians.
Today there
are tremendous charismatic revivals at Notre Dame University, and in Jerusalem
there is every year now a charismatic conference on the Holy Spirit. Sixty,
seventy thousand people come together and pray and raise up their hands, and they
all speak in tongues. It looks as though the time of the Apostles has come
back, but if you look at what goes on there, you see it's not the right spirit;
it's a different spirit.
Therefore, when Fr. Eusebius speaks
about St. Symeon the New Theologian, and about how you must know Who the Holy
Spirit is and receive Him consciously, this is fine, this is good teaching—but
if you have the wrong spirit, that teaching does not apply. And this is
not the right spirit. There are many signs evident that it is a different
spirit and not the Spirit of God.
Here is one case where,
if you have discernment from basic Christian knowledge, you can look at a phenomenon
which claims to be apostolic and just like the times of the early Church preparing
for Christ's Second Coming, and if you look closely you can see it is not the
same thing. In fact, if anything, it's just like those who want to build
the Temple for Christ. They're building for Antichrist; it's totally the
opposite.
Again, you can see how discernment enables us
to evaluate other phenomena which may not be identical with Orthodox phenomenon,
but are new things. When you first look at them, you wonder what
they are all about. This is characteristic of intellectual fashions: something
gets into the air, everybody grabs it because the times are ripe for it, and then
everybody begins to talk about it and it becomes the fashion of the times.
Nobody quite knows how; it's just that everybody was ready for it, and all of
a sudden somebody mentioned it and it began to circulate everywhere.
5. THE DISTORTION OF CHRISTIAN EQUALITY
We have one particular idea right now that's taking possession of people: the
so-called idea of women's liberation. This takes the form of women priestesses
in the Anglican Church, and also in the Catholic Church, which is preparing for
it now.
Of course, if you look at this seriously, sit down
and think about it, and you read what St. Paul says about women and so forth,
you have no problems. It's all very clear that this is some kind of crazy
new idea. But it is also very interesting to look at this more deeply and
see where it comes from—why is there such an idea, what is it, what's behind it?—because
if you understand the strategy of the devil, you're a little better equipped to
fight against it.
This particular idea of women's liberation
can be traced back at least two hundred years. Of course, you can go back
even before that, but its present from goes back at least two hundred years, to
the forerunners of Karl Marx, the early Socialists. These Socialists were
talking about a great new utopian age which is going to come when all the distinctions
of class and race and religion and so forth are abolished. There will be
a great new society, they said, when everybody is equal. This idea, of course,
was based originally upon Christianity, but it distorted Christianity, and amounted
to its opposite.
There was a particular philosopher in
China in the late nineteenth century who brought this philosophy to its logical
conclusion, as far as it could go. His name is K'ang Yu-Wei (1858-1927).
He's not particularly interesting except as he incarnates this philosophy of the
age, this spirit of the times. He was actually one of the forerunners of
Mao Tse-Tung and the takeover of China by the communists. He based his ideas
not only on distorted Christianity, which he took from the liberals and Protestants
in the West, but also on Buddhist ideas. He came up with the idea of a utopia
which was to come into being, I think, in the 21st century according to his prophecies.
In this utopia, all ranks of society, all religious differences, and all other
kinds of differences which affect social intercourse will be abolished.
Everyone will sleep in dormitories and eat in common halls. And then with
his Buddhist ideas he began to go beyond this. He said that all distinctions
between the sexes would be abolished. Once mankind is united, there's not
reason to halt there—this movement must go on further. There must be an
abolition between man and animals. Animals also will come into this kingdom,
and once you have animals… The Buddhists are also very respectful to vegetables
and plants; therefore, the whole vegetable kingdom has to come into this paradise,
and in the end the inanimate world, also. So, at the very end of t he world,
where will be an absolute utopia of all kinds of beings who have somehow become
intermingled with each other, and everybody's absolutely equal.
Of course, you read about this and you say the man must be crazy. But if
you look deeply, you see that this is coming from a deep desire to have some kind
of happiness on earth. No pagan philosophy, however, gives happiness; no
man-made philosophy gives happiness. Only Christianity gives hope for a
kingdom which is not of this world. The idea to have a perfect kingdom comes
from Christianity, but since the early Socialists did not believe in the other
world or in God, they dreamed of making this kingdom in this world. That
is what communism is all about.
We see what happens, of
course, when this idea is put into practice. You have the experiment of
the French Revolution, which had apparently good ideas—liberty, equality, fraternity—or
the Bolshevik Revolution, or in more recent times the various other communist
revolutions. Last of all you have Cambodia, a poor little country which
for three years suffered absolute communism and found that at least one-fourth
of its population was exterminated because it didn't fit. Everyone who had
more than a high-school education had to be eliminated, everyone who thought for
himself, and so forth. Now the regime has been overthrown by people who
are a little less ruthless, but there's nothing much to cheer about.
This shows that once you try to put these ideas into operation, you get, not paradise
on earth, but more like hell on earth. In fact, the whole experiment in
Russia for the last sixty years has been a proof of this, that there is no paradise
on earth, except in the Church of Christ, with sufferings.8
Our Lord prophesied that already in this life we would receive back a hundredfold
what we give, but it must be with persecutions and sufferings. Those who
wish to have this happiness on earth without suffering and persecutions, and without
even believing in God, make hell on earth.
6. "CHRISTIAN" INTEREST IN UFOS
A second example of a new phenomenon,
which at first sight one doesn't know what to make of, is the now very common
phenomenon of UFOs, flying saucers.
There is a particular
Protestant evangelist, the above-mentioned Carl McIntire, who is extremely strict
and righteous and very Bible-believing. He has a radio program, the Twentieth-Century
Reformation, and a newspaper. He is absolutely upright—you have to separate
from all people who are in apostasy—and his ideas are very nice. He's anti-communist.
He calls Billy Graham an apostate, together with everyone who deviates from the
strict line of what he thinks is right. From this point of view he's very
strict, and yet you see the strangest things i his philosophy. For example,
he's building himself the Temple of Jerusalem, in Florida. He has a model
of the Temple, and he wants to build it so as to make it compete with Disneyworld.
People will come and pay to see the great Temple which is soon going to be built
for Christ to come to earth. This is supposed to provide a good opportunity
to witness Christianity.
He goes in for the flying saucers,
also. In every issue of his newspaper there's a little column called "UFO
Column," and there they talk, to one's great astonishment, about all the wonderful,
positive things which these flying saucers are doing. The give conferences
and make movies about them.
Just recently there have been
several Protestant books about UFOs, showing quite clearly that they're demons.
The person who writes the column in this newspaper got upset about this, and said
that some people say that these beings are demons, but we can prove they aren't.
He says that maybe a couple of them are demons, but most of them aren't.
He cites a recent case in which some family in the Midwest saw a flying saucer.
The flying saucer came down, landed, and the family saw inside little men—they're
usually four and half feet tall or so—and they sang "Hallelujah." They stopped
and looked and then they flew away; I guess they didn't talk to them any more.
And that set the family to thinking; they began to think "Hallelujah"; they began
to think about Christianity; they looked in their Bibles, and they finally ended
up going to a Fundamentalist church and being converted to Christianity.
Therefore, he says, these beings must be some kind of people who are helping God's
plan to make the world Christian because they said "Hallelujah."
Of course, if you read Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, you will know about all
the deceptions which the demons perpetrate: the demons "pray" for you, the demons
make miracles, they produce the most wonderful phenomena, they bring people to
church, they do anything you want, as long as they keep you in this deception.
And when the time comes, they will suddenly pull their tricks on you. So
these people, who have been converted to some kind of Christianity by these so-called
outer-space beings, are waiting for the next time they will come; and the next
time their message may have to do with Christ coming to earth again soon, or something
of the sort. It's obvious that this is all the work of demons. That
is, where it's real. Sometimes it's just imagination, but when it's real
this kind of thing obviously comes form demons.
This is
very elementary. If you read any text of the early Fathers, any of the early
Lives of Saints or the Lausiac History, you find many cases where beings
suddenly appear. Nowadays they appear in spaceships because that's how the
demons have adapted themselves to the people of the times; but if you understand
how spiritual deception works and what kind of wiles the devil has, then you have
no problems in understanding what's going on with these flying saucers.
And yet this person who writes the UFO column is an absolutely strict Fundamentalist
Christian. He is looking, actually for new revelations to come from beings
from outer space.
7. WHY WE MUST HAVE AN ORTHODOX WORLD-VIEW
So,
to repeat the first point: we watch the signs of the times in order to recognize
Christ when He comes, because there have been many false Christs, many more false
Christs will come, and at the very end of the world there will finally come one
who is called Antichrist. The Antichrist will unite all those who are deceived
into thinking he is Christ, and this will include all those whose interpretation
of Christianity has gone off. Often you can look at some people who confess
Christianity, and it seems that many of their ideas are correct—they go according
to the Bible. Then you look here and there, and you see that here's a mistake,
there's a mistake.
Just recently Fr. Dimitry Dudko, in
the little newspaper he puts out, said there came t him someone who claimed to
be Christian. As he began to talk to him, he began to feel that this person
wasn't Orthodox, and he said, "What confession are you?" "Oh, that's not important.
We're all Christians. The only important thing is that we be Christians."
He said, "Well, no, no, we have to be more precise than than that. For example,
if you're a Baptist and I'm an Orthodox, I believe that we have the Lord's Body
and Blood, and you don't." We must be precise because there are many differences.
It's good to have the attitude: I have respect for you, and I won't interfere
with your faith, but nonetheless there's a true way of believing and there are
ways which go away from the truth. I must be according to the truth.
In the same way we can see that many people who ae not Orthodox have many good
things about them, and then they go off in some respect. In the end it's
up to God to judge, not to us. But we can see what will happen if all these
little ways people go off now are projected into the last times, if people still
believe that way when the last times come. These mistakes cause people,
when they see Antichrist, to think that he is Christ. There are very many
sects now which believe that Christ is coming to rule for a thousand years form
the Temple in Jerusalem. Therefore, when the Jews start building the Temple,
these sects will only rejoice because, to them, this is the sign of Christ's coming.
On the contrary, we know that this isn't he sign of the Antichrist coming, because
Christ will no more come ot the Temple. The Temple has been destroyed.
Christ comes only at the end of the world to begin the eternal kingdom of heaven.
The only one who will come to the Temple is Antichrist.
So, this is why the correct Orthodox Christian understanding and preparation based
upon this understanding are absolutely necessary. The closer we get to the
very last times, the more indispensable this understanding and preparation are.
8. A LOOK AT SPECIFIC SIGNS
Now let us look for just a moment
at some of the signs in our times that the Second Coming of Christ, preceded by
the coming of Antichrist, is close. Concerning the prophecies set forth
in the 24th chapter of St. Matthew—first of all, the false christs who will come,
then the wars, famines, earthquakes, persecutions—it is difficult to judge, because
all these things have been happening for almost two thousand years now.
It's true that they are now an a bigger scale than ever before, but it is also
true that they can be much worse yet. These signs are the beginning of signs,
and are not yet so severe that we can say we are right in the very last days.
One sign, however , is very interesting and very indicative
of our times, that that is that Christ is now depicted on the stage. In
previous times it was never allowed that Christ should be depicted on the stage,
because an actor gives his own human interpretation, and Christ is God.
In Orthodoxy there is perhaps no particular canon about this, but the whole Orthodox
Christian outlook is against it; and nay Protestant or Catholic until t he last
few years would have been horrified at the idea of some actor playing the part
of Christ. Now this has become common, and not only in religious contexts,
but in contexts which are far from religious. Godspell, Jesus Christ
Superstar, and so forth: all these are actually blasphemous parodies which
present Christ in secular form for people to see.9
This is very symptomatic of our times because it presents even to unbelieving
people an image of Christ so that when Antichrist comes they will say, "Aha, I
saw on the stage something like that. Yes, that must be it."
9. THE GROWING COLD OF LOVE
Another very
symptomatic sign of our times is the next one mentioned in this chapter of Matthew:
that the love of many grows cold. This seems to be a definite characteristic
of our times, to a quite greater degree than at any time in past history.
One can see this in what can be called nihilism. People commit crimes
for no particular reason, not for gain but just for a thrill because they do not
have God inside them. In all kinds of places now, one can see the lack of
normal human relationships in families, which produces cold people. It is
this kind of people who, in a totalitarian society, are used as slave drives,
working in the concentration camps and so forth.
Recently
we had the tragedy in Jonestown, which was composed of American citizens.
The people there were idealists who devoted themselves utterly to a cause.
Although it's come out now that it was actually a communist commune, still the
people were supposed to be Christians. The leader was a minister of the
so-called Church of Christ, one of the mainline denominations. And yet these
people, supposedly having some awareness of God and Christianity, coldly killed
each other. Those who drank and administered the poison to their children
did so with calm faces. There's no problem: that's just your duty, that's
what you're told to do. This kind of coldness is what Christ is talking
about. Any kind of normal human warmth has been abolished because Christ
has gone out of the heart; God is gone. This is a frightful sign of our
times. In fact, they very thing that happened in Jonestown is a warning
because it looks as though much worse things are going to come. This is
satan's work, quite obviously.
Just a year or two before
that occurred, we heard of what happened in Cambodia. A small party of men—some
ten or twenty altogether—took a whole country in their hands and killed off at
least two million people quite ruthlessly, based on some abstract ideas.
We're going to get back to the country, they said; therefore, everybody is to
leave the cities. If you can't leave the city, you die. People in
the hospitals had to go from their operating tables, and if they couldn't go,
they died—they were shot and left in a ditch. Corpses were piled up in the
cities—it was frightful.
This was the same kind of thing
as what occurred in Jonestown: coldness based upon the idea—which looks idealistic—of
brining communism to earth. It turns out that Dostoyevsky was right.
In his book The Possessed, written in the 1870s, there was a Russian character
named Shigalov, a theoretician, who had an absolute theory of how communism could
come to earth. He believed that the ideal state upon earth will be true
communism. Unfortunately, he said, in order to make sixty million people
happy, you have to kill a hundred million people. But those sixty million
people will be happier than anyone else has ever been happy, and the hundred million
people will be like fertilizer for the future world paradise. It so happens
that in Russia there have been exactly a hundred million people missing since
1917, of which at least sixty million were killed by the Soviets themselves.
So this sign is very, very present in our times: that love grows cold. This
occurs among Christians also, not just in the world at large.
Then another sign, which in our times has reached greater dimensions than every
before, is that the Gospel is being preached in the whole world. This, of
course, is true in that the very text of the Gospel is being spread in almost
all the languages which are spoken on the earth now—at least a thousand languages,
I think. Moreover, the Orthodox Gospel is being preached all over Africa
now. We send our magazines to Uganda and Kenya, and receive letters back—very
touching letters from young African boys who are converts to Orthodoxy.
They have the utmost respect for their bishop; they go to seminary. It's
obvious that a very Orthodox feeling is being given to these people in Africa.
They are very simple people. Orthodoxy does not have to be complicated if
there are very simple people to preach the Gospel to. It's only when others
come in to challenge it and to say that the Scripture means something else, trying
to give over-literal interpretation which mean doing away with priests and bishops,
etc., that the people begin to get mixed up. If they're preached the Orthodox
Gospel, simple people respond now in the same way that they've always responded
in the past. The problem is, rather, with complicated people.
10. THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM
Then there is the sign of
the abomination of desolation and all that relates to the Temple in Jerusalem.
For the first time in history, this has now become a possibility. The rebuilding
of the Temple was tried only once before, in the fourth century. Knowing
about this is a very good example of how reading Church history enlightens one.
We can find several sources about it from the fourth century: St. Cyril mentions
it, as do several of the Church historians at that time. Julian the Apostate,
because he had such a passion to overthrow Christianity, decided that, since Christ
had prophesied that not one stone of the Temple would be left on the other, if
he rebuilt the Temple, he would prove that Christ was an impostor, and therefore
paganism could be restored. So he deliberately invited the Jews back to
Jerusalem, and they began building the Temple with the blessing of Julian the
Apostate. They would build a little in the daytime, and the next morning
they would come and all the stones would be on the ground. They tried again
and balls of fire began to come out of the earth. All the historians agree
on this. In fact, modern rationalist historians, because they see that they
cannot deny the texts and that something did actually happen, begin to say things
like, "They must have struck oil," or "There were underground gas flues."
It was obviously a miracle of God to keep the Temple from being built, because
it was not the time—the Temple is to be built only at the very end of the world.
Anyway, they finally failed in their attempt and gave up the operation.
Of the few stones that remained, not one was left on the other. So the prophecy
was fulfilled in the time of Julian the Apostate.
But now,
since 1967, the site where the Temple was before is now in the hands of the Jews.
Therefore for the first time, it becomes quite possible that the Temple could
be built. The only thing interfering is the great mosque which the Moslems
have there. If that's destroyed, there will probably be a war.
Only since 1948 has there been a separate state of Jews in the Holy Land.
It is to the unbelieving Jews that the Antichrist will come. He will come
first to the Jews and then to the whole world through the Jews; and only as this
is happening will the faithful remnant of Jews finally be converted to Christianity
in the very last times.
So this sign of the Temple is a
very big one. When we see the Temple being built, then we know that the
time is at hand, because that is definitely one of the signs of the very end.
So far, of course, it's not being built, but there are all kinds of rumors that
plans have been laid, that stones are being gathered, etc. It's obvious
that the Jews are thinking about it.
11. OTHER SIGNS
Another sign is the fact that when Antichrist comes he is to be the ruler of the
world, and only in our times has it been a practical reality that one man can
rule the entire world. all world empires up until now have been only over
part of the earth, and before modern communications it was impossible for one
man to rule the entire world.
Furthermore, with increased
communications, with atomic bombs and more advanced weapons, the possibility of
a worldwide tribulation now becomes much greater than ever before. It's
obvious that the next war will be the most destructive in the history of mankind,
and probably will cause, in its first few days, more damage than all the wars
in history. Besides atomic weapons, there are various bacteriological weapons
for spreading plagues among people, poisonous gases and all kinds of fantastic
things which in an all-out war could come into play.
Also,
the fact that all the peoples of the world are bound up more with each other means
that when some great catastrophe comes to one country—a depression, or something
of the sort—then all the rest of the world will be affected. This we already
saw in the 1930s when there was a Great Depression in America and it spread to
the rest of Europe. In the future it's obvious that something much worse
can occur. If one country begins to starve, or if the crops fail one year
in Canada, Australia, America and Russia—all those four great countries which
supply what—just imagine how the whole world is going to suffer.
12.
A WARNING TO THOSE ATTRACTED TO
GLOOM AND DOOM
All these signs of the times
are very negative. They are signs that they world is collapsing, that the
end of the world is at hand and that the Antichrist is about to come. It's
very easy to look at all these negative signs of the times and get into such a
mood that we look only for negative things. In fact, one can develop a whole
personality—a negative kind of personality—based on this. Whenever some
new news item comes in, one says, "Aha, yes of course, that's the way it is, and
it's going to get worse." The next one comes in and one says, "Yes, yes,
it's obvious that's what's going to happen, and now it's going to be worse than
that." Everything one looks at is seen merely as a negative fulfillment
of the horrible times.
It's true that we have to be aware
of these things and not be unduly optimistic about contemporary events, because
the news in our times is seldom good. At the same time, however, we have
to keep in mind the whole purpose of our watching the signs of the times.
We watch the signs of the times not just so we can see about when Antichrist is
going to come. That's rather a secondary thing. We watch the signs
of the times so we can know when Christ is going to come. That is a very
fundamental thing we have to keep in mind so we do not get overwhelmed by gloom,
depression, or stay to ourselves, storing up food for the great calamity.
That's not a very wise thing. We have to be, rather, all the more Christian,
that is, thinking about other people, trying to help others. If we ourselves
are cold and gloomy and pessimistic, we are participating in this coldness which
is a sign of the end. We have to ourselves be warm and helping each other
out. That's the sign of Christianity.
If you look
at history (in fact, this is another good reason for reading Church history),
you see that throughout the whole history of mankind, throughout the Old Testament,
the New Testament and all the Christian kingdoms afterwards—and if you look at
the pagan world, the same story—there's a continual time of sufferings.
Where Christians are involved there are trials and persecutions, and through all
of these Christians have attained the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, when the time of the persecutions come, we are supposed to rejoice.
There was a good little incident related in Fr. Dimitry Dudko's little newspaper.
A woman in Russia was put in a psychiatric clinic for making the sign of the Cross
in the wrong place or for wearing a cross, or something like that. Fr. Dimitry
and his spiritual children traveled to Moscow, went tot he clinic, made an appointment
and talked to the doctor, and they finally persuaded him that she shouldn't be
there. Fr. Dimitry says, "They're actually afraid of us, because when you
press them about it, they say they haven't really got any law by which they can
keep her there." So finally they agreed to let her go, after she had been
there for a week. When she was there they gave her various drugs and "inoculations,"
trying to break her down and get rid of her religion. When she came out
she was a little shaken up. She sat down on a bench someplace outside the
clinic and began to talk. "You know," she said, "when I was there and they
were treating me so awful, I felt calm because I felt there was Someone there
protecting me; but as soon as I got out here, all of a sudden I'm afraid.
Now I'm all upset and scared that they are going to come after me again, that
the secret police are looking right around the corner." It's obvious why
this is so. When you're in conditions of persecution, Christ is with you
because you're suffering for Him. And when you're outside, then there's
the uncertainty of whether you might not get back into that condition. You
begin to go back to your own human understanding. When you're there you
have nothing else to rely on, so you have to have Christ. If you haven't
got Christ, you have nothing. When you're outside, you begin to calculate
and to trust yourself, and then you lose Christ.
1A talk given at St. Herman's Women's' conference in Redding, California, in the summer of 1980. This talk, which has never before appeared in print, was transcribed from the tape archives of the St. Herman Brotherhood. Fr. Seraphim gave another talk on the same subject in May of 1981, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. That talk, entitled "Signs of the Coming of the End of the World," is available on cassette tape.
2 Fr. Seraphim gave this talk before the publication of his translation of Archbishop Averky's Commentary on the Apocalypse, first in The Orthodox Word, and later as a separate book.
3 Since Fr. Seraphim's repose, Orthodox commentaries on the Scriptures by St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. Theophylact the Bulgarian have been published.
4 In addition to translating the whole of Archbishop Averky's Commentary on the Apocalypse, Fr. Seraphim translated some portions of his Commentary on the Gospels and epistles.
5 Later canonized by the Church in Russia.
6 St. Ignatius' book On the Prayer of Jesus is also in English. Since Fr. Seraphim's repose, his Brotherhood has published three books by St. Theophan in English: The Spiritual Life, The Path to Salvation, and Kindling the Divine Spark.
7 Eusebius lived in the 4th century.
8 Cf. Mark 10:30.
9 The movie The Last Temptation of Christ, which came out several years after Fr. Seraphim's repose, is more blasphemous than even these examples.
Vol. 34, Nos. 3-4 (200-201) May-August, 1998
Life After Death
Photos - Elders - Hermits from Mount Athos
Father Cleopa: The Elder of Romanian Orthodoxy
The Life and Works of PROTOSINGELOS IOANICHIE MOROI of Sihãstria Monastery
Glossologia (speaking in tongues) - Elder Cleopa
About Holy Scripture by Elder Cleopa of Romania
About Holy Tradition by Elder Cleopa of Romania
Magic and Occultism - by Elder Cleopa
On the Presuppositions of our Personal Salvation - by Elder Cleopa
The Second Coming of Christ - by Elder Cleopa
On the Thousand Year Reign (Chiliasm) - by Elder Cleopa
Movies for children - The Phenomenon Harry Potter - Resemblance to the occult activity
The mysteries of music - THE TRUTH ABOUT ROCK MUSIC
"CHRISTIAN" INTEREST IN UFO ( aliens )
Charismatic Revival As a Sign of the Times - by Fr. Seraphim Rose
About Evolutionism - SCIENCE AND RELIGION
How to Read the Holy Scriptures - Fr. Seraphim Rose
Orthodoxy in America - by Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)
Signs of the Times - by Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA AND THE END OF THE WORLD - by Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
THE HOLY FATHERS SURE GUIDE TO TRUE CHRISTIANITY - by Fr. Seraphim Rose
The Orthodox World-View - by Blessed Father Seraphim Rose
Fr. Seraphim (Rose) Speaks - Excerpts from His Writings
The Orthodox Revival in Russia AS AN INSPIRATION FOR AMERICAN ORTHODOXY - by Fr. Seraphim Rose
Buddism and orthodoxy - Through The Eastern Gate - By Nilus Stryker
Orthodox Catechism
GREAT MIRACLE GIVEN BY GOD ONLY TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
About Holy Angels
The Saints speak out on abortion
Hieromonk Savatie Bastovoi:
About pornography, pollutions and monasticism - A reply for a stranger who could be just anyone of us
THE FIRST LOVE
Between Christ and Freud
What I Intended to Understanding while Watching “The English Patient”
About the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” (From the Byzantine Icon to the TV Set)
WHY DO THEY KILL THE LIGHTS IN DISCO CLUBS?
FREEDOM MEANS PUTTING NO BREAKS ON LOVE
WHO IS AFRAID OF SAINTS?
Fast and freedom
The scandalous commandment
Fatigue and love
The unborn people
Zodiacs, horoscopes …
The holiday of undeification
Among posters and stands
Hierarchy or church dictatorship ?
With a kiss closer to death
Defeated people
Postmodernism in frock
SINGING UNDER WATER
Why Is Flood a Gentle in Pain Scene
About the contradictory opinions regarding the obedience