The steps of sin
If a good deed is done with bad intentions, it passes into intention and becomes like you. The soul and smell of a good deed is the intention.
If we break the mind and do a good deed, we have to see if we are doing it with the intention of being God in order to be saved, otherwise our mind will turn the other way. The divine Father Ephraim says, “If the spirit leaves the goal of godliness, that is reverence, then all good works cease to be profitable” [2].
Because the goal is either glory or fear or love, as St. John Climacus says. Listen to what he says and explains about the tumultuous effect of even giving up the world for an evil purpose: “He who for the sake of love renounces the world is like a millstone, in which the same thing always spins.” [3] Speaking of the three forms that dispense with the three forms of the world.
And of another purpose: “He who distorts himself out of fear is like Phimiam, who first smells a fragrance and then smokes.” [4]. ! St. John Climacus said this! In Sinai he is called St. John the Sinaite. According to his book Laman, we call it the ladder.
And what does he say? “Anyone who has devoted himself to the world out of love for God – that is, out of God’s love – he is bound to fire by desire and fire, ignited by love for God and served God with fear and dread.” [5]. He loves God to the end!
And now our mind, sober from attention, must not only what comes, but also the goals with which we work and follow God. It may turn out that we work hard and end up with nothing if our goal is different. The goal of good works will always be the glory of God. Because the Apostle says: “Whether ye eat or drink or whatever you do, do all things to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
So if a man is sober of mind, he kills sin when he is an ant!
When the blessed God has helped us to be sober in spirit and kill sin while he is still an ant! For in the next steps sin becomes a lion and we can no longer defeat it!
The second and third stages of sin
The first stage of sin is a good deed with bad intentions. The second is an incomplete, not entirely good act. Here’s an example: giving alms, but out of stolen goods! And St. John Chrysostom says, “Anyone who offers a sacrifice from another’s work is the same as the sacrifice of a stinking dog.” So things don’t happen the way they should!
The third stage of sin is baiting (sabotage). Thoughts approach the spirit, but without passion. A woman, a legend or fame, money. Let’s take just these three as examples. But none of these are bad, because God originally created everything good: woman, fame, and money.
Just as ivy and hops cling to the plant that turned out to be better, so passion is related to simple darkness over a thing. And that is exactly what the struggle of a sober person is-we’re talking about sobriety of attention! It is the keenest (most penetrating) abuse of the mind of the Christian and the monk.
We are all struggling for salvation. But we must separate mere thoughts of things from things sealed with the seal of the work! There is no sin in contemplating a woman, for the gospel also says that “whoever looks at a woman” – not in order to look at her, but “with desire, he has already given her a commitment in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). As soon as lust arose near a woman – that’s it! That’s adultery! When I look at her and think: not lust, not adultery. I can see a million women! But if even one of them enters my heart, I immediately become an adulterer.
This is why the divine Ephraim says, “Do not lead me into neglect, my brethren, of sins with thoughts as if they were small! If they were not great, it would not have been necessary for righteous Job, 1850 years before the coming of Christ, by thought, to sacrifice his children for sins, and the wisdom of God would not have charged the woman with adultery and murder – hatred for her brother. With a man, a man can be a murderer and an adulterer at any time. That is why the Venerable Ephraim the Syrian said: “Celebrate me not in neglect!” Thought has entered the mind, and man goes about his imagination; all sin begins with thought.
Our whole struggle, and every one of us who wants to be saved, is to distinguish between simple thoughts of sin and clinging to action. Because it is not the simple thought that harms us, but the one that binds us to sin. And when we saw that we were accepting a sinful thought, which is an inflection of simple thought, the demons led us to the next stage of sin.
The fourth and fifth stages of sin
The fourth stage of sin is sympathy. Our soul has agreed to speak a simple thought! To speak with slight bitterness: “Well, what is it?” And that’s it! We are in the fourth step of sin! This is the state of conversation between the soul and sin.
In the fifth degree the abuse begins, “This thought is not good; it comes to me with a passion! ” And the abuse is carried out in all the further stages of sin up to satiety and death. The spirit begins to struggle. “That thought is not good! It has planted passion in my soul! Look, I want a woman! ” – or money, or rank, or I hate my brother. Or who knows what other connotation sin will have in each of the three components of the soul. And you have to be careful here, because we’re talking about sobriety. “Well, devil, that’s enough! You’ve done me! ” And that’s where the struggle begins!
And in that struggle, I told you, we have to cry out, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…” Because do you hear what Scripture says? “Do not go out, O Israel, into the war without Me, for you will be smitten!” You saw how they suffered at the hands of the Amorites. And the Jews said, “Lord, we have fallen!” – “Did I not tell you that you would not go to war without Me?” So shall we call upon the name of the Lord in the struggle against sin. No matter how broken your mind or how great a sage you may be, demons will destroy you unless you call upon Christ, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…”
Sober attention and prayer of the spirit are connected just as the soul is connected to the body. Sober up, resist sin, and cry out, “Lord Jesus Christ…” – This is spiritual wisdom! One such connection exists between mindfulness or sobriety of attention and prayer of the mind.
In the struggle with sin, our spirit starts a war. There are three types of minds involved in this war: the Udash mind, the Engels mind, and the human mind. Man must be sober and cry out to the Lord Jesus. “Create Me in Me, and I in you, for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5)! And if the Christian calls on the name of Jesus in this struggle, he is the victor! But if he leans on himself and is lazy and forgets to call on the name of the Lord, sin comes out victorious.
The sixth step of sin.
The sixth step is doubt, “Well, what happens if I easily accept the idea of evil, of sin?” If you’ve reformed and gained sober attention, you may hesitate a little bit to sin Sin Sparks a fight, as they say in the invisible war. You treat him like a cat with a mouse. You let it go and grab it again. You call out to him again, then you say, “Lord Jesus Christ…” – And you hit him. You will call a second time, as it says in Invisible War, “He who is sober calls sin.” Convince him several times and kill him. Because demons are afraid: “This spirit is sober; he calls me, but he will kill me with ‘Lord Jesus Christ…'” and the demon doesn’t come again for a while. And after a while he says, “Leave him, now he is not defeated by oblivion; Let him now go alone! And if the spirit slumbers, we will come; Not when he calls us. Now he asks us to fight, For he is with Jesus and is not afraid. And when he sleeps, we will come! Because the devil doesn’t get tired, he doesn’t sweat.
So it says in the Paterik; Like the robbers guarding the house, they, when they hear it, say in it, “You do not sleep. We cannot go in there, because now we will not be able to rob,” so it is with demonic thieves. If demons see that the soul is conversing with Christ, that is internal prayer, they can not go in, because Christ is there and will burn it! And if there is no conversation in the heart, no conversation with Christ, they cannot enter!
In this struggle the soul, if it yields a little, cares for the sixth step of sin, that of agreement [6]. “I am in agreement. But what if I speak with thoughts of fornication, anger, hatred, hatred, or vanity? And this consent, as St. John the Hermit shows, comes from self-love. It is the mother and root of creation and all evil! If only to please AAS [7] all the time, at least in my mind.
Self-love first breeds self-pity and then self-pity, for which the Redeemer called Satan to Peter. “Be merciful to thee, O Lord!” said Peter. “Get away from me, Satan! What are you doing? I came here to sacrifice myself, not for Him to protect me! ” (See: Matthew 16:23).
Self-pity arises from self-reproduction. “So what? But I can’t; but I’m weak, because I’m human too! I must allow myself something human! Justify yourself, man!”
Complaints come with self-reproduction. “I thank God that I agree with sin only in thought and do not sin directly.”
Self-righteousness follows self-righteousness and then self-righteousness. What, then, is its task? St. Maximus the Confessor says, “Make your soul full of virtues!” What does our inner Pharisee say? As in the temple, “I thank Thee, O Lord, that I am not like other men, nor am I like this customs officer” (cf. Matt. 18:11)… Self-righteousness says, “I thank God that I only agree with the thought and others sin! “
So what is it?
Have you seen what a philosopher is? What kind of a theologian is he? To give you this satisfaction, and to say that your sin is nothing, when it has reached the same time or sympathy! And about this satisfaction, when the soul is satisfied with its condition, this is what the Gospel says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). In every hour this thirst and hard virtue! And self-satisfaction is a sin, a branch of pride, because it makes for a well-mannered virtue. Thank You, Lord … The inner Pharisee on the inside says to him, “But there’s still something in you! You’re not the worst person yet! “
Out of self-satisfaction, the man immediately begins to cut himself. Because the devil eludes his virtues: “You did this and that!” And then self-dry, and then self-satisfaction. He is satisfied with his condition. And from smugness is born the native, “Yes, I represent something of myself!” And out of imagination he begins to imagine himself. I imagine that he is something!
Out of imagination is born selfhood – aahim. He respects. “I! What are you, don’t touch me, or I’ll break! Did you touch me?” The notion is taken out of respect. Self-honoring is followed by arrogance, “I have to, because I’m something!” Self-honoring is followed by confidence, then support of one’s own power, then arrogance, and then comes insensitivity and heart-locking, which is the death of the soul-and I don’t have time to tell you about each one.
This is how pride affects us. And it happens exactly when the spirit is asleep and has no sober attention. Because when he is sober, he always says, “Lord Jesus Christ…” or reflects other spiritual things. And then he humiliates himself because he recognizes his weakness. What happens here?
At the same time, our spirit has agreed with the thought of the devil who is there. He sees that the mind now dreams of either this or that, vanity or money or something else. The soul speaks to every sin when it agrees with it.
As we conclude these few words, let us pray to God’s subsidiary enterprise and to the whole Redeemer of our correction. May he send us his mercy and reciprocity with which we all live here, and right for believers who lead their lives carefully. Let us not forget his divine words and convince ourselves to be sober and vigilant, as it is written in the Holy Gospel, “So he suddenly did not sleep. And what shall I say to you, say to all: be watchful” (Mark 13:36-37)!
Translated by ne Vorbeşte Părintele Cleopa. Vol. 1. Ed. A 2-A. Vânători-Neamţ: Editura MĂstirea Sihăstria, 2004.
September 29, 2011.
Compare: Maximus the Confessor, Rev. Four hundred chapters on love. The second hundred. § 35 // Good Love: In 5 vols. М., 2003. T. 3. S. 200.
[2] See: Ephraim the Syrian, the Venerable On Virtues and Passions. The Passion of the Body // Ephrem the Syrian, Venerable. Essays: in 8 vol. М., 1994. Т. 3. С. 393.
[3] See: John, Abbot of Sinai. Ligal. Word 1. § 13. Sergiev Posad, 1908. p. 5.
The four sins of the end times
More than twenty centuries have passed since the Son of God left the earth. But He spoke to His disciples: “I . I … will come again.”
Christ did not reveal the day and hour of his second coming. But He did name the signs of that time and said that we would know when it was near by the events of the world.
This is how Jesus describes the state of the world before his return: “But as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the son of man; For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and thought not of the flood, and destroyed everything, so shall be the coming of the son of man” (Matthew 25:37-39).
But what was it like in Noah’s time? The first book of the Bible, Genesis, says, “And the Lord saw that the corruption of the people on the earth was great, and that all the thoughts and thoughts of their hearts were evil at all times.” Disability was the cause of her death. And today the world is following the same path. Violators of God’s law fill the earth with crimes. They play dangerous games, lead riotous lives, indulge their moods and unbridled passions, and all this fills the world with evil.
The last book of the Bible (Rev. 9:21) lists four end-time sins when God’s judgment will meet with the earth: “They spared neither their murders, nor their sorceries, nor their lewdness, nor their lasciviousness in stealing. Sins”: Murder, witchcraft, debauchery and theft – these especially define the state of the world in the last days. Those who observe the moral situation of the world conclude that these four sins are more relevant today than ever before, and one sign of this is that the day of the Lord is approaching. We will look at each of them separately.
The media today cannot stop talking about the constant brutal killing. People are killing each other for their own selfish ends, there are terrorist attacks in many countries, and wars are going on all the time. Scientists have calculated that the last 20th century is the bloodiest: the most wars, revolutions and armed conflicts took place during that time.
Researchers argue that global spending on defense and armaments in 2004 exceeded $1 trillion in history. The United States accounted for nearly half of all military spending.
In their report, the researchers focus not only on defense spending, but also on military operations. According to the researchers, there are 19 armed conflicts around the world, with more than 1,000 victims in 2004. Here are some of them: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba, Korea, Lebanon, Gaza, Persian Golf, Iran, Israel, Kosovo, Chechnya, Iraq… At the same time, according to the report, three of these conflicts are related to the fight against al-Qaida, and only two (the conflict in Darfur and the war in Iraq) lasted less than 10 years.
The numbers showing today’s terrorist attacks are even worse. There have been more of them in the last 5 years than in all of human history. They also vary in their brutality. Suffice it to recall the World Trade Center, the Moscow subway, Beslan, the terrorist attacks in London in 2005. The threats of failed air raids in August 2006. And the ongoing terrorist attacks in Israel! How many lives have been taken! According to a study by Haifa University, more than one-fifth of all Israeli Jews have lost a relative or friend to terrorist attacks! Since September 2000, 12% of Jews, that is about one in eight, have experienced at least one terrorist attack or seen a person wounded or killed in terror.
But no war, no terrorist attack can compare to the number of victims of abortion.
Statistics claim that the total number of legal and illegal abortions was allegedly 30 million and 35 million worldwide in 1968. Today there are 55 million abortions a year worldwide: more than 1 abortion every second. These numbers are so breathtaking that they defy imagination. And I think that Francis Shaifer (theologian) and Evette Koop (leading pediatric surgeon in the United States) were not exaggerating when they talked about “Innocent Murder” in their joint book and film.
One of the main signs of the decline of the Roman Empire was that unwanted children were “abandoned to their fate,” meaning they had to die. Can we say that we have unwanted children in less decline for this reason, and instead of garbage ovens in clinical cremation ovens? Modern abortions are worse than the old tradition of leaving children behind because they have become a commercial activity and, for some doctors and clinics, a very profitable practice.
Even without barriers, euthanasia is starting and becoming more and more of a legal act.
2. Witchcraft Today astrology is a developed business. There are about 10,000 people in the United States who practice astrology professionally and over 175,000 who practice it part time. More than 2,000 newspapers publish horoscopes daily. The number of Americans who trust astrologers has grown from 32 million to half the population.
The popularity of astrology is everywhere. Astrological symbols can be seen on tennis, jewelry and restaurant tablecloths. Horoscopes are sold in vending machines. The occult is now penetrating medicine, education, sports, music, art, politics, business, religion, and so on. We see its terrible influence on children and boys, young and old, men and women, great and small. Its bondage is terrible and merciless. It is the devil’s fetters into which he wants to drive all people.
In one Christian book of this edition I read an amazing statistic. I can’t show all of them here, but I will give some excerpts.
In 1972 there were 100,000 registered witches in the United States. A huge army of clairvoyants, healers, magicians, fortune tellers, astrologers, hypnotists and many others travel around Russia and the CIS countries. Many of the world’s political figures have their own personal astrologers.
The media presents witchcraft as something normal and funny. And this is a great stress for the younger generation. Today, many people call a number of Harry Potter books “the new star in children’s literature. Almost every schoolchild has read a Harry Potter book. Many children watch movies about him with interest and buy coloring books and stickers depicting the beloved hero. Satanic boy with incredible force penetrates the brain of our children, and the consequences do not have to wait.
Recently, twenty Russian schoolchildren were poisoned by copper sulfate, which the enterprising schoolboy was selling under the guise of Blue Magic Powder – based on the book about the adventures of Harry Potter. Thank God, not to death. But the dull belief is alarming and frightening to the point of dubious surprise.
Abroad, the situation with the wizard Harry Potter is even worse. Studies conducted in the United States have shown that many teens, after reading books and watching movies about Harry Potter, are seriously interested in witchcraft and esotericism. The study found that 41% of teens have either read or watched Harry Potter stories. As a result, 12% of those surveyed were seriously interested in the occult and black magic.
Magic for Kids and Teens. Who has heard of it before? So I rightly call the global onslaught of the occult. And the Bible is direct and emphatic in its definition: “Anyone who does these things is warmed before the Lord.”
Just recently my friends and I were talking about a trip to the sea next summer. We were talking about places along the coast that we know, and they were sharing their discoveries. One place that sparked interest was Fox Bay. It is hard to get there, but it is a very beautiful place. Many tourists wanted to relax there, but since last year it became impossible. Now this beach belongs to nudists and drug addicts. They were there before, but they were very few, and other people could relax nearby. But now they have grown so that they have taken over the entire coast.
And this is not the only fact of progressive debauchery.
The British Navy advertises in the gay press to recruit a teenage generation of homosexuals. Until 2000, gay soldiers were exempt from navy service. Now the Navy says they are welcome. So the navy is cooperating with one of the homosexual unions.
The fact that homosexuality is in bloom in all countries today is evidenced by the fact that there are fixations, removals and mass demonstrations for such people everywhere. As a result of these many marches, same-sex marriage has become legal in some countries.
What does fashion say today? It seems to me that the motto of today’s youth is, “The more you film, the cooler you are.” And this flourishes both on screen, in print, and in practice. Every time you walk past kiosks and print tablets, you involuntarily frown your forehead. And even if you wanted to buy something, the desire vanishes at the sight of a large number of indecent, brazen pictures: only naked bodies and spoiled pictures.
However, pornography has filled not only magazines. It can be found everywhere: offered on billboards, TV screens, on the Internet and even cell phone users. It is available to both adults and children. And the worst thing is that it has already become the norm in our society. No one wants to remember that all of this is especially dangerous for teenagers and children, because it promotes sexual promiscuity, causes great harm and drives children into addiction to pornography and promiscuity.
“What’s there to think about? – You say. -We know that in 10 or 11 years our children will already be sexually active. What can you do? That’s the way the world is today! Today debauchery and lust is in almost every home, in the family, at work, in the culture, on the street. “Recently a woman was telling her friend about her life. Her husband had a mistress. So as not to hurt his wife or divorce her, he allowed her a lover: ‘Now each of us is openly dating the other – and everything is in its place.’ In their place? At first I was just shocked. But then I remembered the words of the Bible and recently characterized, “And they did not repent… In their fornication…”
4. Theft and Fraud
I will not give the numbers here. You hear enough about it in the daily news, at work, from neighbors and friends. Often you can hear: “my purse was taken”, “and I was cheated for 2 rubles”, hundreds of thousands of criminal cases are opened in the country on the facts of domestic and commercial thefts. “One of the ministers robbed the country and fled abroad. We ourselves also rob factories, take bricks from the neighboring construction site, and therefore we do not consider it a great sin: after all, everyone in our country lives this way.
The new mass hobby of the Russian bureaucracy and Russian businessmen is corruption, which is a form of brazen theft. Officials steal billions of dollars worth of public resources from us every year through unauthorized power decisions, signatures, information leaks, and other illegal activities. According to a recent World Bank survey, 78 percent of Russian companies reported paying bribes. The Indem Foundation in Moscow, one of the most active attempts to measure corruption in Russia, conducted a survey last month that found that ordinary Russians pay a total of $3 billion in bribes per year per company. This is nearly ten times the result of the first Indem Foundation survey four years ago.
Luther rightly said that “no craft in the world is as widespread as theft,” that it is “so widespread and universal, yet so little noticed, that if you hung all thieves who did not want to be called so. The world would be deserted, and there would be not enough gallows or executioners. And just like all the other sins listed above, this latter-day sin is considered more or less normal and tolerable today. Almost no one is shocked by it. It has become the norm in the world, and people do not want to bow down before God and repent of these sins.
This attitude toward the four sins is a sign of the end times: “They did not repent of the murders they committed, nor of witchcraft, nor of sexual immorality, nor of theft.
Today, however, there is still time for repentance. God extends the time of grace and waits: “The Lord does not postpone the fulfillment of His promise, as some people think, but shows patience, for He does not want man to perish. On the contrary, He wants all to repent and stop sinning” (2 Peter 3:9).
God still calls for it and lives it, offering forgiveness that has power for everyone who comes to Jesus in faith. But the time of grace and the day of the Lord, the day of judgment, is coming. How will you meet it, dear friend? There can be no delay. Today is the time to accept the gift of God’s forgiveness, the time to regret all your sins. Don’t be too late!
After Christ described the signs of His coming, He said: “If you see it coming true, know that it is near the door. Watch, watch, pray.” God has always warned people about future courses. Those who believed and acted on His signs avoided the ships that the rebellious and unbelievers understood. So it is today. We had a warning of the second coming of Christ and the future destruction of the whole world. Those who conclude and go to God are saved. But the time of grace and the day of the Lord, the day of judgment, is approaching. How to face it, dear friend? We must not delay. Today is the time to accept God’s forgiveness, the time to be early and sorry for all your sins. Don’t be too late!
