An Instruction for the Monday of the Twenty-Sixth Week: On the Kingdom of God

Carnal men, attached with their entire soul to earthly life, familiar with the Law of God superficially, by the letter, through mere school study of it, estranged from the Law of God in spirit, in heart, in life, in their deeds – in a word, Pharisees questioned the Lord: “When will the kingdom of God come?” (Lk 17:20) The question, of course, was not asked from sincerity of heart, not with a good purpose; it was asked frivolously, from curiosity to see what answer would follow. The cunning and malicious Pharisees hoped that the Lord would give them occasion to accuse Him conveniently. Having formed a concept of the Messiah as a magnificent king and resounding conqueror, seeing the Messiah in the image of a poor wanderer who has nowhere to lay His head, the Pharisees posed the question, concealing mockery in it, and expressed in it their carnal reasoning, foreign and hostile to the mind of God (Rom 8:7).

The Lord gave an answer which is suitable for all without exception carnal men, attached to the world, living a sinful life amid continuous worldly cares and material pleasure. The God-Man answered the Pharisees: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; that is, the Kingdom of God will not come in a perceptible manner for the sensual eye, neither will they say: ‘Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Lk 17:20–21). This means: one must abandon the carnal and sinful life, then through repentance and living according to the Gospel commandments cleanse and adorn the temple of the soul; upon completion of which the Holy Spirit overshadows it, completes the final cleansing and adornment. In such a temple God descends and establishes in it His spiritual, invisible, yet entirely perceptible and knowable kingdom. Whoever has received within himself the Kingdom of God can have a clear understanding of the second coming of the God-Man, can recognize and avoid the Antichrist or oppose him. Whoever has not received within himself the Kingdom of God will not recognize the Antichrist; he will necessarily, in a way incomprehensible to himself, become his follower; he will not know of the approaching end of the world and the coming terrible second coming of Christ; it will catch him unprepared. No human teaching, no teaching in words and words is sufficient for instruction in that which requires instruction in the chamber of the soul, instruction from God Himself. One who has acquired within himself the kingdom of God has as his guide the Holy Spirit, Who instructs the man guided by Him in “all truth” (Jn 16:13), does not allow him to be deceived by lies clothed in the semblance of truth for easier deception. A certain blessed monk spoke very truly in speaking of the Antichrist: “Many will believe in the Antichrist and will glorify him as a mighty god. Those who have God always within themselves and are enlightened in heart will see the truth with pure faith and will recognize him. For all who have the divine vision of God and understanding, the coming of the persecutor will then be clearly understood. But for those who always have their mind in worldly things and who love earthly things, this will be incomprehensible: for they are attached to worldly things. Even if they hear these words, they will not have faith, but rather will be repulsed by the one speaking them.” They will consider him a madman, worthy only of contempt and pity. Humanity darkened by its own carnal reasoning will not believe in the second coming of the Lord at all. “Scoffers will come in the last days, following their own desires and saying: ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation’” (2 Pet 3:3–4).

When the Pharisees departed from the Lord, then He said to His disciples that the sign of the end of the world and the nearness of the Lord’s second coming will be extraordinary material development: people will forget God, will forget Heaven, will forget eternity and, in their delusion, as if eternal on earth, will direct all attention to earth, to providing themselves with it the highest and unchanging well-being. What could be more foolish than this direction? Does not death, which has come and continually comes to all men, testify that we are created for eternity, that on earth we are only temporary pilgrims for the shortest time, that for this reason our concerns about eternity should be our chief and greatest concerns, and concerns about earth should be very moderate? Despite all the senselessness of such a direction, it will appear on earth, in the inevitable fulfillment of Divine prophecy. If it has appeared, then, being hostile to the word of God, it serves as one of the clearest proofs to us of the truth of God’s word. “As it was in the days of Noah” – proclaimed the Lord – “so it will be in the days of the Son of Man” (Lk 17:26). The days of the Son of Man refer to that time which will precede His coming, which will be concluded by His coming – the beginning of the eternal, everlasting day, the end of time and times. Time will end with the ending of those phenomena by which it is marked: there will be no time when day and night, and morning and evening, and weeks and months and years and centuries will be replaced by a single eternal day. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: they ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all. Likewise, as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built” (Lk 17:26–28). Sacred Scripture recounts that the contemporaries of Noah and the inhabitants of Lot’s city gave themselves over to boundless debauchery. Debauchery is born from turning away from God, from the whole striving toward earthly occupations and material development. When would a man think of God, when would he cultivate his salvation if he is constantly and exclusively occupied with earthly matters, material development? But every man who has neglected the knowledge of God and care for his salvation, who has devoted himself entirely to arranging his temporal position in the flesh and for the flesh, in an incomprehensible and imperceptible way for himself develops his fallen nature; he makes his incorporeal soul as if material; it becomes darkened, becomes alien to God; becomes wholly – sin, wholly – flesh; is rejected by God as one who has completely annihilated in himself the purpose for which he was called by the Creator into existence from non-existence. “My Spirit will not remain with these men forever, for they are flesh” said the Lord concerning the contemporaries of Noah (Gen 6:3). Universal debauchery together with the most abundant material development that gave rise to it will be a sign of the end of the age and the approaching Fearful Judgment of Christ. Not only sensuality will then rule! Debauchery, in the broad sense of this word, will become the possession of mankind in the last times of mankind’s dwelling on earth. “For people will be” – says the holy Apostle Paul – “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, slanderous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unkind, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim 3:2–5). Sin will reach its full development, and thus it will be more terrible, its dominion will be firmer, in that the mask of piety will be retained. But who will understand that in this, outwardly flourishing piety, all its essence is destroyed, all its strength? Thus they were destroyed in the religion of the Jews in the times of Christ, which the people could not possibly understand, which even the scribes and Levites and Jewish high priests, puffed up with their own learning and knowledge, could not understand. But this learning and this knowledge consisted solely in the study of God’s Law by the letter that kills, while living in a manner contrary to God’s commandments: such a life makes faith dead. Mankind will not see its miserable condition in moral and spiritual respects; it, on the contrary, will proclaim and extol its progress, being blinded by progress in material development for time and earth, having rejected Christian development for the spirit, for eternity, for God. When the world proclaims and exalts its progress, the establishment of the highest well-being, unshakeable peace “and security; then sudden destruction will come upon them” (1 Thes 5:3); then the end of the world will suddenly come, which it, in its darkness, intoxicated with earthly progress, will in no way expect. Because of the blindness of the world, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thes 5:2). Pointing to this blindness, the Lord called the time of His coming “night” (Lk 17:34). For what purpose, in God’s designs, should the world continue to exist any longer when the world, that is, mankind, will completely reject that purpose for which God has granted it the sojourn on earth, when it will choose for this sojourn a self-willed purpose, a purpose devoid of meaning? This purpose is already being chosen! With this purpose, the brief earthly life is taken for eternity; all the powers of soul and body are exhausted by man not in preparation for eternity; they are exhausted, offered in sacrifice to an impossible, senseless daydream; they are exhausted in arranging the highest fleshly well-being and bliss in the inn of earth, in our prison, as if in the very stable eternal dwelling. Cruelly does the false daydream deceive its followers: it treats them as an inhuman tyrant, as a savage demon. It is a demon! Nothing can be more evil than it, nothing can be more cunning, more false. It is mockery of fallen spirits toward men. The harmful daydream flatters men throughout the entire path of earthly life; abandons them at the end of life, betrays them to reality, leaves them with nothing. They enter eternity, not at all prepared for it, not at all acquainted with it. This is not all: they enter it having adopted an attitude completely hostile to its spiritual goods, to their own well-being in it. Where can there be a place beyond the limits of time for such tares? There can be no other place in the universe for them than in the abyss of hell: there they must be hidden from the sight of the universe.

The monks of the Solovki Monastery transmit the reply of the Venerable Zosimas, given by the elder to his disciples, who asked him how to recognize the Antichrist when he comes. The Venerable one said: “When you hear that Christ has come to earth or has appeared on earth, then know that this is the Antichrist”. The reply is most exact! The world, or mankind, will not recognize the Antichrist: it will recognize him as Christ, will proclaim him as Christ. Consequently, when the news spreads, when information about the coming of Christ is disseminated and increases, this will serve as a sure sign that the Antichrist has appeared and begun to perform the predetermined and permitted ministry. The reply of Venerable Zosimas is based on the words of the Saviour. The Saviour of the world, acquainting His disciples with the signs that announce His imminent second coming, said: “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; if they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mt 24:23–27; Lk 17:23–24). There will be no need and it will be impossible for men to communicate to each other the news of the coming of the Son of God. He will appear suddenly; He will appear by His omnipotence to all men and all the earth at one time. The objection of scholars that it is impossible for the Son of God to appear before all mankind at one time because of the natural spherical arrangement of the earth has no place whatsoever. If the almighty God drew forth the earth and the whole world from nothingness by His almighty and all-wise command, having no need of prior consultation with scholars, then is it not possible by the same reason, by His unlimited power and wisdom, for Him to appear to mankind at one time, even if the way to accomplish this were inaccessible, as it must be, to all the learned of earth? “The Lord will come” – said Saint John of Damascus – “from heaven in the same manner as the holy Apostles saw Him ascending into heaven (Acts 1:11); He will come perfect God and perfect man, with glory and power. Let no one expect Him from the earth, but let everyone wait for Him from heaven, as He Himself confirmed.”

The Lord concluded His teaching about the end of the world and His Second Coming with the following instruction and testament: “Be on guard, so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Lk 21:34–35). In these words of the Lord, in this testament of the Lord, in this counsel, in this commandment of His, fleshly life and excessive concern with earthly matters are forbidden, which altogether transform man from spiritual into carnal and material, force him to forget eternity and God, draw him to fall into all sins. In a heart which is not guarded and not sealed with the remembrance of God and the fear of God, all passions easily enter; into it enters moral darkness, into it enters ignorance of God. For people conducting a fleshly, sinful life, intoxicated and obscured by it, the coming of the Lord will arrive like a net. This net will embrace all mankind. There is no way to escape or slip out of the net for anyone. Knowing this, let us remain in constant watchfulness. By resorting to God with frequent, unceasing prayers filled with compunction and tears, acquiring and maintaining within ourselves the Kingdom of God by living according to God’s will, we are able by God’s grace and power to be freed from the chains and snares of sin and the prince of this world. We are able, with good hope and spiritual assurance of mercy and salvation, to stand before the impartial Judge who will pronounce the judgment upon us that will determine our fate for eternity. Amen.

Letters of George the Recluse of Zadonsk, vol. 1, p. 62, ed. 1850, and Venerable Ephrem the Syrian. Homily 106. On the Antichrist

Exact Exposition of Orthodox Faith, book 4, chapter 26