“It’s Later Than You …” click

It’s later than you think.
— Father Seraphim Rose

You know, it just may be later than we think. After “surviving” the Y2K Computer Bug of 2001, some folks may be resting on their laurels in regards to preparation for death, the judgment, the “afterlife” — not to mention a foretold time of persecution. Especially in America, we have become complacent (or worse).

Beginning in 1994, for seven years, my wife and I did without Cable TV. I then became a rabid non-TV type. In 2001, just before the terrorist attacks, we once again burned incense to the demons of the airwaves — or, in this case, the cable demons — and had the TV connected. Lord have mercy. More than ever, on the “devil’s icon,” common decency was out the window. Just in those seven years, TV programming had gone from horrible to worse. [After Nine-Eleven, I became a news junkie. So, in 2002, we ditched cable again. Except for another brief stint in 2004 (new house special), we’ve been cable-free.]

Don’t get me wrong, you can get used to all the filth. When this happens, you really don’t see it. I mean, when you are used to naked bodies selling shampoo, teens parading as hookers, rap singers spewing filth, adultery running rampant, fornication viewed as virtue, blood & guts flying all over the screen, bang, Bang, BANG, sexy, Sexy, SEXY, etc. — when you are USED to this sort of stuff — you really don’t notice it.

We must all be on guard against becoming complacent to the blatant attempts of the Enemy to derail our path toward salvation. We cannot count on the world, particularly the MSM, to aid us in this endeavor. And it has already gone on for too long, gone too far, for us not to be infected by such immoral baggage garbage.

To be honest, some of the pornography pawned off on us by the media is just plain embarrassing. For instance: football. I’ve often found myself in a room full of mature “Christian” men watching a football game. Growing up Southern Baptist, it was odd enough to see everyone staring at the beer commercials flying about during the holiday game. Today, those days seem tame by comparison. Such broadcasts are definitely not kid-friendly. And yet, what do we do? If we do nothing, we become jaded and no longer see what is right before our eyes.

Dare I even mention the Internet? Suffice it to say, just one little click … and you can lose your salvation. A few more clicks and gone is the day. Just a few more clicks of the mouse and the kids are grown, depression sets in or continues, life is over.

There’s a rule governing Internet dialogue that whoever’s the first to mention “Hitler” loses the argument. That is, to label someone with a name beyond “redemption” is beyond the pale and it then becomes impossible to continue civil dialogue. I believe, in our day and age, the same is probably true of mentioning the “Antichrist.” Certain Christian sects and Fundamentalist groups have so over-used the term that “right-thinking” folks just plain ignore it. This is, I believe, part of the Big Lie to which many have succumbed.

Like an abused child who learns Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, Don’t Feel … we’ve become so jaded by the images of the media, our chief teacher, that we don’t dare discuss it. Why? Because in these latter days, we distrust all authority — not realising that we’ve allowed the Media to be our governor. We feel no remorse, contrition, even shame for our part in the soul-destroying filth that is spewed our way.

In 1917, Elder Nectarius of Optina prophesied:

Noah’s time is a figure of our own. The flood was approaching. Noah knew about it and told the people, but they did not believe him. He hired workers to build the ark, and they, while building the ark, did not believe, and so they only received the agreed pay for their work, but were not saved. Those days are a prefiguring of ours. The ark is the Church, only those who are in it will be saved.

And yet, many within the Church have grown complacent. We’ve grown fat — full of our own passions — showing no remorse or repentance. Our prayers in the home and even our attendance at church often seems a burdensome interruption of our otherwise hedonistic lifestyle. The venerable Fr. Lavrentii of Chernigov would frequently repeat that “souls go to hell just like people come out of a church on a feastday; but they go to Heaven like people go to church on a weekday.”

Over and over again one can read prophecies of signs pointing to the End Times. Many contain a common thread, such as this one from Elder Philotheos Zervakos:

In an ancient book it was written that when the Disciples asked the Teacher when these things would happen, He told them that when the men became women and the women men, then the end would take place. And the divine Chrysostom said that the Lord also said this, that the Second Coming will take place when women are lacking in modesty. On the basis of all this, my opinion is that we should be ready, for we do not know either the hour or the moment of death.

That this is already fulfilled in our own day is undeniable.

There’s another story wherein a disciple asks a Saint if those that would follow would be as firm as the fathers of his own generation. The Saint said that those that would immediately follow would do half what they did. Those in the end times would do practically nothing, but because of the temptations they faced they would be held in greater esteem. In this regard, those in the End Times who stand and pray are accounted equal to the wonder workers of earlier times. This, however, should not be for us a matter of pride. As time passes, it becomes harder and harder to stand and pray — at home and in church. Yet, we must be vigilant! For we know not the time of the Bridegroom’s coming!

Fr Seraphim Rose summarized a talk on the Apocalypse thus:

We should not be counting the years or calculating who is the “King of the South,” the “King of the North,” and so on, but going more deeply. All the early Apostles, in their epistles, write about the necessity of thinking Christ is near, for preparing oneself, being first of all spiritually prepared. If we are in this state of expectation of Christ coming in a spiritual sense to us, whether to our own souls through grace or at the time of our own death, then the question of when He is going to come physically to this earth at the end of the world will not upset us to such an extent that we will join some new sect that goes to the top of a mountain and waits for the day to come. The day and the hour we do not know; the main priority is spiritual preparation.

Our times, however, are so filled with what could be called “apocalyptic” events that we should be very aware of them. Our Lord says that, although we do not know the day and the hour, we should take example from the fig tree, which when its leaves become green we know the summer is close. Likewise, when all these things begin to happen — when it becomes possible for there to be one World Government, when the Gospel is being preached to all peoples, when so many spiritual currents are coming into being which are obviously deceptive — they are clearly signs that something momentous is about to happen, and are very likely bound up with the end of the world.

Oh well, enough of this. Happy New … click.