About how spiritual sight is usually gained gradually

18 December, 1946

‘And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town’ (Mark 8:22-26).
Why did the Lord Jesus Christ heal the blind man in a different way this time? Usually He healed them immediately, and this time it was gradual: at first He returned sight in part, and then, laying His hands on the man once more, returned his sight completely.
We don’t know why, indeed we cannot know every thought that the Lord had. We can only guess. But it seems very possible the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching us through this gradual healing that spiritual healing is not – and cannot be – something sudden. It is something gradual.
And so it is. We know very well that it is impossible to begin seeing spiritually just like that, to all of a sudden become a saint, or righteous. It is a gradual process of development, which often takes an entire lifetime. Which must take a person’s entire lifetime, and indeed the whole of mankind’s lifetime. Take a look and see: the revelation God, given to mankind, didn’t come suddenly.
First only a small part of God’s mysteries was opened to the forefathers: to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The revelation they received was not large, it was only the beginning. Centuries passed and the Hebrew nation received a much fuller, much deeper revelation through Moses. The Ten Commandments were received, and the law was established. And things didn’t stop there. The Lord so kindly saw fit to come into the world Himself and bring with Him the greatest revelation of all – the complete revelation of the Gospel.
And only since the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ has such a complete revelation existed – as complete as mankind is capable of receiving; and along with it the opportunity develop and perfect ourselves spiritually, and to clean and enlighten our hearts. And there will be no more revelations. Indeed there cannot be a revelation higher than that of the great revelation of the Gospel.
Until the end of the world the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ will remain the highest and fullest.
The same thing that happened with the blind man is happening in the history of humanity, in the history of the world: the Lord has not opened mankind’s eyes suddenly, He has not healed it suddenly, He has not suddenly given people sight. It has been given gradually over the course of many centuries.
And it is the same with each person who comes into the world, indeed the Lord gives him enlightenment, and this enlightenment comes very gradually. You get your bodily sight immediately upon birth, but spiritual sight comes incredibly slowly, and only as a result of great effort.
The Lord gradually reveals everything that needs to be revealed. He reveals everything, gradually and slowly, in proportion to the effort made by the person concerned. And a real effort is required to receive this sight from Christ. He must constantly ask Christ for help. And he must cleanse himself with prayer and fasting, as well as carry out Christ’s commandments. And then, in proportion to the purification of heart, the person receives sight. Spiritual development is a terrifyingly slow process.
The great majority of people have no interest whatsoever in sight. But those who are better, those who have been chosen by God, receive sight in proportion to the efforts they make. If they are constant, unswerving, and tireless in their efforts – then the process goes forward, further and further.
The holy and righteous achieved great levels of sight. There can be no comparison between the levels of sight achieved by your average Christian, and those of great saints like Seraphim of Sarov and Sergius of Radonezh, whose sight was immeasurably greater than ours, who were so filled with the Holy Spirit that they could read the thoughts and hearts of others. Saint Seraphim of Sarov knew beforehand why a person had come to him, what he was going to ask about, and what was expected of him in reply, and quite often would answer without waiting for the question to be posed, staggering his visitors. They had just wanted to ask something – and saint Seraphim had already answered. Such was the spiritual sight of the saints. And immeasurably more – yes, even more than the spiritual sight of the saints – will be granted us when we come to stand face to face with God.
Take a look at what the holy apostle John wrote in his first epistle: ‘Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is’ (3:2). When our spiritual eyes are at last opened fully in the kingdom of God, we will enter into direct contact with Him, seeing everything, seeing Him face to face. We will gradually become more like Him, perfecting our reason, our heart, and our righteousness.
Which of God’s saints could boast of having achieved the mindset of Christ more than the apostle Paul? In the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians he says: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face’ (13:12). And even he didn’t know, seeing only darkly. But when we come to stand before God, then we will see, face to face.
How does sight come to humans and humanity who follow Christ? It comes slowly and gradually, just as the Lord healed the blind man slowly and gradually.
So move towards spiritual sight one step at a time.
It is essential that all desire and seek after spiritual sight, and that all ask the Lord to open their spiritual eyes.
May the Lord open your spiritual eyes.
Amen.

Grace affects the heart as leaven dough

15 Dec. 1946

‘Then said He, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? And whereunto shall I resemble it?
‘It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.
‘And again He said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God?
‘It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.’ (Luke 13:18-21)
How should we understand the kingdom of God as a mustard seed - as a big branchy bush growing from a little mustard seed? What does that mean?
Here’s what it means.
I already spoke about Christ’s words, ‘The kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17:21), and explained what that meant. Don’t forget that: the kingdom of God is within you. By comparing the kingdom of God to the way a mustard seed grows into a tree, the Lord is giving us a picture of what happens to the human soul when it takes in the seed of God’s word.
In his letter to the Hebrews, the apostle Paul said something astonishing about the word of God: ‘For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’ (Heb. 4:12)
Time and time again just one of God’s words, just one phrase from the Gospels, overheard by a good man, has been enough to bring about a complete change in his soul. I will give you just one example, it happened in just such a way with one of God’s greatest saints – Anthony the Great. He was nobleman, powerful and very rich. One day in church he heard the following words from the Gospel: ‘if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor’ (Matt. 19:21). And these words, this little seed of God’s word, had such an unexpected effect on his soul that he immediately went and carried out what he had heard. He sold everything that belonged to him - which was not at all insignificant - gave it to the poor, and went to spend the rest of his life in the desert, wild and terrible. He is proof of the words: ‘For the word of God is sharper than any twoedged sword.’
Just how does the growth of God’s grace in a person - the kingdom of God inside him - take place once he has taken in the seed of God’s word? The process is similar to that which happens when a seed has been buried in the ground. The Lord sends His rain, and the light and warmth of His sun. And the grass of God grows and grows under His blessed influence. All of this happens with His help.
And God’s word, once it has been taken in by a person, grows in the same way. It grows like a seed that has been taken in by fruit-bearing, tilled land. It is absolutely vital that the land be fruit-bearing. And if it is so, then God’s word will grow, just like the mustard seed, it will grow under the influence of God’s grace, just like the mustard seed grows in the ground under the influence of the sun’s warmth and light, and under the influence of the rain. It grows and yields a rich harvest in the soul of the one who has taken it in. And love grows ever more abundant in his soul, as does charity, and humility, and meekness.
The seed gradually pushes up out of the earth, a little blade of grass appears, a little stem, then a bigger stem, the plant starts to turn green and become leafy and then – gives off fruit. And it works the same way in a person’s heart. It grows and perfects itself spiritually: his heart becomes pure, his mind becomes enlightened, and it becomes - to a certain degree – similar to Christ’s. Christ directs all his thoughts, as needed, and controls his mental, moral, and spiritual growth. That’s what is meant by likening the kingdom of God to a mustard seed.
And what does the other likening mean?
You add yeast to flour, leave it somewhere warm, and an astonishing thing takes place. A little bit of leaven, the tiniest little piece of yeast brings about a big change: little bubbles of gas run through the entire dough, and it turns sour – it turns into the good dough you use to bake bread.
And the word of God is like this little bit of leaven. When it penetrates into a person’s soul, it causes something great and holy to take place there, similar to what takes place in the dough. Everything changes; everything is filled up and pierced by the blessed word of God, just like by so many bubbles of gas. Everything undergoes a complete change in the person’s soul, just like the dough is changed. The person starts to grow spiritually, and expand, in the same way the dough goes sour.
And you know that if you leave the dough in a cool spot, the yeast doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t rise. You have to put it somewhere warm, and only then does this astonishing process take place. And so it is with the human soul: only when the heart that receives God’s word is warm, only when it is hot, and full of love, does this astonishing process of rebirth take place.
And then the process begins – the rebirth of the soul.
Once the seed has been sown in the ground it needs to be cared for if it can hope to grow.
The landowner or gardener accepts great responsibility: he has to fertilize the soil the seed has been sown in, and water it, and dig around the shoots when they start to sprout up. It takes a lot of care to see a seed grow. And so must we take upon ourselves a great many cares to see the word of God grow in us. We cannot place all of the responsibility on God’s grace and hope that the Lord will do everything Himself to ensure that the plant doesn’t become stunted, or that the frost and the cold don’t kill it, or the thistles and thorns of this world don’t strangle it.
How often it happens that the word of God is heard and drives straight into a person’s heart only to find the soil rocky and shallow! And the seed cannot set its roots down deeply, and they remain weak and stunted, the plant becomes stunted and when the sun starts to beat down it withers, and if the winds pick up it is destroyed. And this is exactly what happens with all those who, having taken in the word of God, nonetheless are too much worried by the things of this age to see to the growth of the seed. How many people abandon the needs of God’s word for the needs of this world – leaving God’s word to become stunted, and its sprouts to wither.
Can you see how important it is, why it is essential that we guard these little sprouts of God’s word? How important it is to gently care for them, to groom them with all our energy, to do everything to see them grow?
It is the purpose of our life to become sons of God, to become friends of God, to get closer to Him. And this purpose will be fulfilled and achieved only when we have accomplished all our work, when we have focused all our effort and all of our attention on seeing the holy seed of God’s word grow in us.
May it not be fruitless in your hearts!
May you always be watchful, and carefully guard with all of your strength the grace of God, which you have received from the Lord Jesus Christ. In order that the chosen, those capable of approaching God, might receive this grace, God did something glorious: he gave us to drink of His Blood, which was spilled on the Cross on Golgotha. In order that we might grow as pure and holy plants before God – God’s Son gave us to eat of his Body.
You take in this Body and Blood in the great Sacrament of Communion.
Never approach the cup with a light heart. Approach it with trembling and great fear. Take the Body and Blood of Christ and know that they are for the growth of great and holy seeds in your heart.

How to Follow Christ

December 3, 1946

Look at how few people in Simferopol need to hear the word of God. So many thousands live in this town, and only a tiny handful has come to hear me.

Well, does that mean I ought to stop preaching? No, the apostle Paul used to preach to only a few people, he even used to preach to one person, he would teach one single person. And I don’t know what’s more important: to preach to a multitude, or to a tiny little group. Because it’s very possible that in this little group there is one person who really needs to hear what I have to say.

It is our responsibility to save all, to take care of the souls of all.

Great is the joy in heaven at the repentance of one sinner. Great is our joy to find out that what we have said to the tiny little group has made its way deep into their souls.

And that is why I will not cease to preach to you.

‘And it came to pass that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

‘And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

‘And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

‘Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

‘And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home in my house.

‘And Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God’ (Luke 9:57-62).

The Lord had nowhere to lay His head. He said that foxes had holes, and birds had nests, but He had nowhere to lay His head.

It is difficult to follow Christ, because to do so you have to be prepared to give things up, and to be persecuted; you have to be prepared to have nowhere to lay your head, and to have nothing to eat.

And even so many people turned up, not intimidated by the fact that there wouldn’t be a place to lay their heads, not thinking about how they were going to live, and what they were going to eat. There were a lot of people who, thinking and worrying about nothing, left for wild and solitary forests, where there wasn’t another human soul, built themselves a hut, and lived there. And the Lord forsook none, none starved to death – all were lead by the Lord down a difficult, thorny path, but lead to the kingdom of God. The Lord ordered that they be fed: and people found out that someone had come to live in the forest, someone who had given himself to the Lord; hunters accidentally stumbled upon this person and – out came people who made it their concern to take care of these who had given themselves to the Lord.

But at the same time there were others who lived in frightening circumstances, in wild places, and about which not a soul knew. Others who, like Antony Siiski, ate only grass and roots and didn’t die – and living for many years received gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit.

If you’re going to follow Christ you have to be ready for hardship and abuse. The apostle Paul says that, ‘all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’ (2 Tim. 3:12), because the number of those that hate Christ is so large – it is endless. In our day and age it is especially difficult to follow this thorny path.

First the Gospel recounts the story of a man who, desiring to follow Christ, first seeks to bury his father. ‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ answers the Lord, ‘you go and preach the gospel.’

Such cruel words - or so it would seem. How could a man not see to his father’s burial? But these words were spoken by the Lord, and that means they are not cruel – no, they are full of truth.

We have to look at these words spiritually: of course the Lord was not so cruel as to forbid a man burying his father - these words needed to be looked at spiritually. How? Just like this: if you want to follow Me, forget about everything dead and dying, forget about everything that can perish - and turn your thoughts to God; leave this sinful world behind, raise your heart upwards, and forget about everything dead and dying.

And go preach the Gospel.

And this lesson is for us – ministers of the Church. We must leave all dead things far, far behind, raise our mind and heart upwards to heaven, to the spiritual, and think about the heavenly and not the earthly, as the apostle Paul demanded. We need to leave the dead and the dying to be buried by the dead and the dying. There are so many spiritually dead, so endlessly many – let us leave to them the tasks of the dead. This is the Christians’ responsibility – to walk away from the tasks of the dead.

Another man asked to follow the Lord, and asked permission to bid his family farewell. His heart drew him to the Lord, but worries for his household, and his attachment to his family caused him to look back. ‘No man looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.’

He who has put his hand to the plough, the plough that is to till God’s fields, where holy seeds grow, seeds of truth, must never look back. Let him speed onwards, with all thoughts and designs directed straight to God. And let him not look back, or feel regret for that which he has left behind, or think about the way he used to live – never feel regret for that which has been left behind. Once you’ve left the world – forget about it.

Love the Lord with all your heart and destroy any love for the world that remains; don’t look back, and don’t think about the past, where all you thought about was how to live well and happily, and your thoughts rarely came to God. Forget about your former life, but without forgetting to give up the things of your former life.

Never say: today I’m going to live like I used to, do what I used to do, and then tomorrow I’ll give it all up. If you think like that you’ll never follow the Lord. You’ll just say the same thing tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and you’ll start thinking about everything you have to leave behind - and you’ll put it off till the next day. Then your conscience will remind you: leave it now, give it up right now. Your conscience will keep on with its own, it’ll go on reminding you, and if you don’t listen to it: it’ll stop completely. And then that which you had been putting off until tomorrow, will be put off for good. And that which should have been forgotten, never will be.

Quite correctly is it said that he who looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. He who puts his hand to the plough should not look back. Let us look only forward, forward, always forward and, raising our heart to God, follow Christ.

Make haste, make haste - make haste to follow Christ.

Life is so short that we must make haste to follow Christ.

On the Words: ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’

26 Feb, 1946

‘And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here: or, lo there: for behold, the kingdom of God is within you”’ (Luke 17:20,21). And that’s important for you to remember – the kingdom of God is within you.
People with little understanding - even Orthodox Christians – imagine the kingdom of God in the wrong way. Their imagination brings them closer to the crude conception held by Muslims. Muslims imagine eternal life to be some happy garden for the faithful, where they will be surrounded by beautiful young women, and where they will enjoy pleasant victuals. This is a crudely materialistic notion.
Christ said that the kingdom of God is inside us. And that it is not coming in a visible way. But rather quietly, unnoticed, it will come into the human heart, as it already is in the hearts of the righteous, of God’s saints. For them the kingdom of God begins while they are still alive.
Living in the kingdom of God means to live where God is King.
Our profoundest, innermost spiritual life passes in the depths of our heart, and the kingdom of God starts for us when our heart has been entered by the Holy Spirit. At that point, according to the word of Christ, He and His Father will come to those who have kept his commandments and make from him a dwelling place. If a righteous man has been counted worthy to have the Holy Spirit come reign in his heart, then he is already in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is in his heart, and in his heart the Holy Spirit dwells and reigns. Such a Kingdom of God does not come suddenly, or in a visible way, in answer to the loud blaring of trumpets. The kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit quietly, peacefully, invisibly entering into the human heart.
Saints like Serphim of Sarov, Sergius of Radonezh, and Anthony and Theodosius of the Kiev Caves were already living in the kingdom of God in this life. The Holy Spirit dwelled in their hearts, and for them the blessed kingdom of God began here on earth.
The Lord said to His disciples, ‘the days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightening, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day’ (Luke 17:22-24). That’s how sudden, how stunning his return will be. It will be sudden, completely unexpected for all, on a day only your Heavenly Father knows.
But before that stunning flash of light Christ will have to, according to his words, ‘suffer many things and be rejected of this generation’ (25).
What kind of suffering is the Lord Jesus Christ talking about here? He’s not talking about the suffering he will face on the cross. He’s talking about the suffering He’s going to be facing every single day – from the Ascension to Judgment Day – at the hands of people who have rejected Him. And He knew it was going to be difficult to be rejected by humanity, and that our sins would torture Him. Bloody wars between Christian nations cause Him great pain. We cause Him great pain with our lives, with the sinful acts we commit, with wicked thoughts, ungodly words… We cause Him this pain when we serve our passions.
The Lord Jesus Christ talks about this suffering when he says: ‘I must suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.’ The vast majority of humanity has rejected Him… Let us, His little flock, fear causing Him even the smallest suffering with our wicked senses, our wicked thoughts, our wicked acts. May the Lord God keep you from such things!

Godly Sorrow and the Sorrow of the World

1946

“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Cor. 7, 10). These profound words come to us from the holy apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. We must consider them carefully. What is godly sorrow? And what is the sorrow of the world?
All of the saints lived in godly sorrow.
More than anything it is an excruciating sorrow felt for one’s own sins. At the same time, it is a never-ending sorrow over all that we see in the world around us: over the fact that godless people - people who do not believe in Christ - live as Satan teaches them to, and have no desire to learn about the way of Christ.
Godly sorrow is sorrow over the falsehood, the theft, the murder, the depravity, the lies – terrifying, all-infecting lies amongst which people of all centuries have lived, and amongst which we continue to live.
Godly sorrow is sorrow for the fate of our children, our youth – who know nothing of God, who live without Him.
Now this sorrow, sorrow over our own frequent falls from God’s path, this sorrow over a world on a path so far from Christ - this sorrow ‘worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of’.
It gives birth to constant, invariable repentance, gives birth to a feeling of guilt before God, of our own personal guilt, as well as the guilt of those hapless godless people who surround us. This sadness, this sorrow, these tears over ourselves and over those who are close to us, leads us to repentance.
And we live in this holy and saving feeling of repentance; amongst prayers for ourselves, for our own unworthiness, for those who are close to us and those who are far, for all those hapless ones who do not see Christ. ‘Worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of’. Our spirit is created through the power of prayer – prayer of repentance, of tears; prayer for all people.
‘But the sorrow of the world worketh death’.
What is the sorrow of the world?
It is the sorrow of those who make the pleasures of this world their only goal, who seek only their own well-being, who want nothing to do with the path of salvation, who know nothing of the spiritual life, who do not pray, who believe in nothing, who believe only in the golden calf, riches, which give them blessedness and prosperity in this earthly life.
And this type of person is often overtaken by sorrow.
All of their attempts to create earthly well-being crash down like so many houses made from cards. Or even worse.
In an attempt to chase down this well-being these hapless men can even embark upon the path of crime – and then they are overtaken by complete catastrophe. Their falsehood and crime come into the light; it comes out that for the sake of their own bellies they walked all over the well-being of their loved ones, of the government, and - they are overtaken by terrifying retribution: by prison, by exile, by expulsion from society.
And that’s only a fraction of the calamity. Going to prison and exile is nothing. What’s really terrifying is the eternal death, the eternal destruction that awaits them. Yes, that’s why it is written that the sorrow of the world, the sorrow of the world’s blessings, worketh death. Fear this word, fear following this path of the world’s sorrow, which worketh death. Live in godly sorrow, in tears over your own unworthiness and over the hapless people whom destruction awaits, who are all around you – and you will receive eternal salvation. Amen.