THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY AT WORK
IN THE CHURCH

The message this article proclaims is prophetic. It is not for the timid in heart who content themselves with a comfortable Orthodoxy. What follows is not simply personal speculation, but is rooted in the revealed Word of God.

I intend to consider how “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) will ultimately disfigure the Bride of Christ, so progressively that the process will evade the notice of the casual church member. It is predicted in the Bible that she will emerge at the close of the age as the Bride of the Christ-Imposter.

Dark threatening storm clouds are gathering on the horizon. Natural disasters of every description seem to be on the increase, not only in the world, but even in our own nation. Floods of biblical proportions, tornadoes, forest fires, famines and hurricanes create scenes of homeless people fleeing their homes for survival.

Can we say that what Christ foretells in the Bible is now coming to pass? Listen to His predictions: “There shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:7).

In what is called the Olivet discourse our Lord Jesus Christ lays out a long list of events that are to take place just leading up to His Second Coming. It’s not going to be a pretty sight. If you think you have problems now, wait and see what is coming up in the near future.

Even in a small country like Greece, it is heart-rending to see villagers where earthquakes have destroyed homes, livestock, crops, and orchards, and have left the populace homeless and deprived of everything they toiled all their lives to enjoy. What about the forest fires that have also destroyed the homes of countless Greeks? And then there are the farmlands ravaged either by floods or hailstorms?

This might appear to be a tragic misfortune visited upon ordinary men and women, families, households and simply to be grieved over and lamented. However, what elicits greater grief and affliction is the fact no prophetic voices are heard following such large scale misfortunes. Apart from issuing instructions for taking up special offerings and collections for the victims of these natural disasters, our priests and members of the Church hierarchy stop their ears and fail to hear the voice from heaven.

Their hearts are dull of hearing the voice of God. They have no spiritual antennas to catch what the Lord is trying to say to this “sinful and adulterous generation.”

It’s very simple. Because too many of our shepherds generally fail to drink from the springs of living water, they cannot see God in the natural disasters around them. As far as they are concerned, God has nothing to do with these catastrophic outbreaks of the forces of nature. Nature is at work independently of its Creator. Once God creates the world He withdraws and leaves His creation to operate autonomously.

God is looking for messengers to carry His word of warning to a world that has turned against Him in rebellion and disobedience on a global scale. But, again I say, “We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet” in the land (Psalms 74:9). There is no spokesman – no messenger - for the Lord of hosts.

God is trying to get our attention by permitting these natural disasters to happen. God is not simply connected with them. God is behind these disasters and in these disasters. He is shouting His warning especially to us who have been spared of these misfortunes. But no one is listening. Those who have been called to pastor His sheepfold cannot hear the message from heaven. They remain mute as fish, totally unresponsive and insensitive to the warnings thundered from heaven.

When prophets do not appear on the firmament of the church following large scale human disasters, it’s time to worry. It is a sign of ultimate judgment. You could ask: Has God forsaken us His covenant people? Is it possible that God has withdrawn and turned His face away from the people He has redeemed in the precious blood of His Son Jesus Christ?

The revealed word of God obviously does not indwell richly in the hearts of those ordained to be shepherds of His people. St. John Chrysostom teaches: “To be ignorant of the scriptures is the source of all evil.” There it is, crystal clear.

Jesus revealed to us in His word once and for all generations that the reason for which God allows tragic disasters to occur is simply this... to call those who have survived or spared to turn to Him in repentance.

The key word here is REPENTANCE. He made it emphatic to us who have been spared: “Unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” The moment it is announced to us in the public media that a natural disaster (tornadoes, massive flooding, an earthquake or a hurricane) has occurred in some particular location in our own country or abroad, the immediate reaction from the lips of the believer should be: “I repent, O Lord, of all my sins!”

Let’s study the text of the related scripture. In chapter 13, verses 1-5 of the Gospel of St. Luke we read as follows:

“There were present at that season some that told Jesus of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

“And Jesus answering said unto them, Do you suppose that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?

“I tell you, No. But, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

“Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, do you think they were sinners above all man that dwelt in Jerusalem?

“I tell you, No. But, unless you repent you shall likewise perish”.

Is it possible that God /has given up on us Orthodox? After all, we need to remember how many of his prophets have we rejected in the past and those sent by God have we persecuted and ostracized as villains and subversives of Orthodoxy.

Theoretically the church represents the presence of Christ in the midst of His covenant people. But too often it appears in reality that the visible institutional church hardly reflects the character of Christ and his apostles. Tragically, however, the church lacks the awareness that – not the secular world – but she herself has come under divine judgment. “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17)

Some complain, saying, “Look at the courts! Look at the government and public education!” But the Lord is responding: “Look at the church! The salt has lost its savor!” One wonders whether or not she remains “subject to Christ,” as the Bride to her divine Spouse. Who is standing in the “holy place?” Christ or Satan?

The Old Testament church teaches a lesson to the New Testament church. In Ezekiel 9: 4-6 we read: “And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of Jerusalem and smite…slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women…and begin at my sanctuary”.

Like Samson, is it possible that the church is totally unaware that the Holy Spirit might have departed from her? “And he knew not that the Lord was departed from him” (Judges 16:20). But, you might argue that the church teaches the Holy Spirit exercises dominion over everything she decrees and initiates. Well, of course, the institutional church is not expected to admit that the Holy Spirit might have departed from her. That’s all part of the “mystery of iniquity” that St. Paul reveals in 2 Thessalonians 2:7.

Only those who are indwelt with the Holy Spirit can discern such end time realities. Only they have the inner vision to recognize such apocalyptic subtleties. All others who are devoid of the Spirit are unsettled and shaken religiously, labeling such statements as demonic, blasphemous, and wild religious speculation. However, I respond to this with the words of St. Paul:

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged by no man.

“For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:11f).

Everything that shines is not gold. Remember St. Paul’s warning: “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). So what appears as a spiritual light is not necessarily the true light of Christ. Ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit within you that will impart to you the supernatural ability of knowing the difference.

Is it possible for the genuine light of Christ to depart from the church? The very thought of this occurring can scare you, as it did me in my earlier years, even as a priest.

But the answer comes right out of the mouth of our Lord. Remember the warning found in Revelation 2:5 against the church at Ephesus: “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent to do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place unless thou repent.”

Jesus in Matthew 5:15 speaks of the “candlestick” (Gk. lychnia) upon which is placed the lighted “candle” that it may give “light unto all that are in the house.” The removal of the “light of the candle,” or the “candlestick,” is a direct reference to a church whose witness is no longer visible.

It is a dead organism, despite the glitter and splendor of the Persian mitres worn by our hierarchy and the imperial vestments they don, borrowed from the emperor of Constantinople. When will some church prelate have the boldness to refuse this attire alien to a shepherd’s calling and get back to the original simple vestments worn by the clergy in the early church?

God has given us ample warning in advance. However, the Lord made good His warning, when as recently as 1922, He unleashed the fury of the Turks against the Greek Christians in Asia Minor and allowed all seven churches of the Apocalypse to be wiped off the map. “Because ye have not heard my words…Remember from whence thou art fallen” (Revelation 2:5).

When the church deteriorates into a dead organism, it is obvious that the “light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world” is no longer visible. It helps to call to mind the Lord’s indictment pronounced upon the church of Sardis: “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead” (Revelation 3:1).

It is no longer rare to hear of some wealthy church member donating millions of dollars to his local parish. Building programs absorb much of the church’s life. One parish tries to outdo another parish in the size and architectural splendor of the temples of worship they erect. It almost appears as if our churches don’t know what to do with the surplus in their coffers.

God, however, is not impressed by the material wealth of the church. What did you say, Jesus? “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked. “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich…” (Revelation 3:17).

If we are serious about the church on earth being truly the Church Militant, then she must be expected to be tried by fire. It is normal for her to be subjected to the attacks of adversaries and to be engaged in a spiritual conflict with the powers of darkness. The true church of Christ is never at peace with the world and the world system. Only a church that compromises the Gospel of Jesus Christ enjoys harmony and a peaceful coexistence with this world whose prince is Satan, as God’s word explicitly states (John 12:31).

Those in the church who continue to sleep in the comfort of their religious cradles better wake up very soon. Some in the clergy would prefer they stay in the cradle, since, if they grow up and mature spiritually, they will be asking too many questions. Why invite problems? The pastors can preserve their comfort zone, while they secure that of their parishioners by rocking their cradle.

Is it not time rather to rock the boat and stir the stagnant waters? We are living in a time of God’s preparation for the Last Day. God will no longer put up with the sins of the “great house” (2 Timothy 2:20). “The Lord knoweth them that are His”. Could the Bride of Christ “not having spot, or wrinkle, or any other such thing…holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27) be progressively turning into the Great Harlot? “Her sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities” (Revelation 18:5).

Are you ready, dear reader? God’s judgment is falling on the totality of the visible, institutional church!

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