FR.
NIKON LECTURES ON THE YEARS BEFORE THE COMING
OF
THE ANTICHRIST
Fr. Nikon is from the Monastery of
Nea Skete on Mount Athos, Greece. He
lectures frequently to the spiritually battered people of Greece. He bases his information on real-life
experiences that he encounters outside of the monastic republic of Mount
Athos. His presentations usually are
made to standing room only audiences. He
has some most interesting information about the signs that indicate to us the
coming of the antichrist. He says: “We
are living in an age of confusion. The
devil wants us to be concerned about two things that should not be of our
concern to us. First he wants us to be
concerned about what has happened in the past.
He wants us to be thinking and troubling ourselves about the past that
created turmoil in our souls. The second
thing he wants us to be concerned about is what will happen in the future. These types of concerns also bring turmoil
into our souls. We should be concerned
only about things that are happening right now in our lives. If we live according to the will of God
today, the past and the future will take care of themselves.
Instead of preparing ourselves for
the antichrist, why don’t we prepare ourselves for Jesus Christ? It is true that the signs of the times of
troubles have appeared on the horizon.
These signs are as follows:”
1.
The
number 666 troubles us very much for we have cut ourselves off from the
sacraments of the Church. As Christians,
we should be assured that we are not left alone during these troubles because
we belong to the Body of Christ.
2.
The
love of people will disappear. We are
going to cease to love one another. A good example of this is what happened to
someone we baptized on Mount Athos recently.
This person has a very rich cousin living in London, England who had
cancer. The person that we baptized went to London to take care of his cousin during
his sickness. This cousin was married
but he did not have a good relationship with his wife. One day he expressed his displeasure with his
wife by saying: “I prefer to leave my whole fortune to the rhinoceroses in the
London Zoo than to you.” And when this
man died he, in fact, did leave his whole fortune to the rhinoceroses at the
Zoological Garden of London. This is not
unusual today in our world for we have one and a half million people who leave
their fortunes to their pets. In view of
this unfortunate fact, you should know that every three seconds a young child
in the world dies from hunger. In
another foreign country the people spend twenty billion dollars for pets and
one point two billion dollars for cosmetics.
This is happening in the world today when there are people do not have
enough money for their medicines and they die.
This is a very graphic sign that the love of many has grown cold.
3.
The third
sign of the antichrist is the sexual revolution. This revolution started as an expression of
freedom. It started off as a revolution
and it has ended up enslaving millions of people, especially young people. The people who are involved in the sexual
revolution demand their right to have free sex whenever they desire without having
any responsibilities for their acts. All
of this sexual propaganda is being directed toward young children. Fr. Nikon said that he recently saw a TV
program showing ten and twelve year old children in a school who were talking
about virginity. When a person considers that the cost of producing such a
video is huge we know that the advocates of the sexual revolution are spending
millions of dollars to brain wash our children about sex. The devil carefully prepares his plan to
seduce us and our children. Fr. Nikon
was with a newspaper publisher recently who showed him a picture of a six year
old girl holding a placard which read: down with virginity! My question to you about this is; was this
six year old child so concerned about her virginity at her age? Are not all these things, the demonization of
our world, fostered by adults that foist these things upon our children? Are these adults trying to make these
children into the likeness and image of what the adults are?
4.
The
fourth sign of the antichrist of our times is that as individuals we are no
longer concerned about the decisions other people make about their lives. God only knows why a person is the way he is
in life. Each one of us will have to
answer to God for what they have done in life.
This is not the problem of our day.
The problem is that these people want to force their lifestyles on other
people. They want other people to agree
with them and if you don’t agree with them you are called a racist or a
homophobe. Don’t the in-your-face demands of homosexuality concern you on TV
and movies? I was watching a contest on
TV recently that showed three men and two women. A young person who was sitting next to me
said laughing; “See Elder, there are two women and three sisters.” I was visiting another country and my host said
to me: “In our country Elder one of three men are gay.” The issue is not that these people are gay
but it is the way they talk about their lifestyle. Elder Nikon said that they can do whatever
they want to do but just don’t throw your lifestyle in my face. The truth is that these militant homosexuals
embarrass other homosexuals who are quiet and serious people. St. John Chrysostom says: “When the
antichrist comes, the bodily passions of people will be glorified.”
Homosexuals want
to get married. That is their
desire. The problem for these people
arises when they want to have a child.
They say that now that we are a couple we have the right to have a child. But in response to this, doesn’t a child have
the right to have a father and mother?
How is that child going to grow up?
What kind of psychological problems will the child have growing up calling
one man mother and the other man father?
Homosexuals have rights but don’t other people also have rights? If you speak this way about homosexuality you
are considered homophobic. A few years ago an actress played a role in an
excellent movie. Everyone thought that
she would win an Oscar for her performance. She did not get the Oscar. The following year this same actress appeared
in another movie role, based on a very debased and immoral role which focused
on the life of lesbians. She played a
very small and insignificant role in that movie. In spite of the unimportant role she played
in this movie she won an Oscar. This
obviously was done in order to promote the lesbian lifestyle.
5.
Another
sign of the times before the coming of the antichrist is that strong ties
between people will no longer exist. There
will be the dissolution of families, countries and lose of faith in God. In fact, most movies today show only families
that have failed. We should know that
demonic egotism brings about the dissolution of everything. We also see a dramatic increase in the
dissolution of countries throughout the world.
One of the big reasons for this happening is illegal immigration. A good example of this is given by Fr. Nikon
about a fish hatchery in Greece. He was
told by someone in Greece that immigrant Albanians used to work at this particular
fish hatchery. The Albanians made their
money and returned to their country and they were replaced by workers from
India. When Fr. Nikon heard that the
workers who replaced them were from India he asked how the Indians were enticed
to travel to Greece. He asked how did
the Indians hear about Greece. The
Indian said: “I never even heard the name Greece.” Someone in India asked him: “Do you want to
go to a place where there is money, where the country and the people are
beautiful, then go to Greece.” The
person who told him about Greece was a dealer in human trafficking. Fr. Nikon then tells his Greek listeners at
this point that they should not hate illegal aliens that come to Greece because
they are victims of human trafficking.
Fr. Nikon also told his people that they should not help the illegal
aliens because by helping them they also help those who promote illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration tears countries apart.
Another sign of the time of troubles is the
personality of Jesus Christ. Jesus
Christ today elicits such hatred amongst people that they become almost schizophrenic
about it. These people want faith in
Christ to be destroyed. In the mass
media of the world, TV and movies, Christians are portrayed as troublemakers.
An example of this is given by Fr. Nikon.
A video was produced in a foreign country where a clergyman visits a
family. When the clergyman arrived at the
home, he needed to use the bathroom.
When the clergyman went to the bathroom he found a large picture of
Jesus Christ placed low on the wall right next to the toilet bowl. The placement of Jesus in such a position was
done on purpose for when a person urinated, the urine splashed on the picture
of Jesus. When the clergyman saw the
droplets of urine on the picture of Jesus he began yelling out: “A miracle, a
miracle, myrrh is being exuded from the
picture of Jesus.”
THE MOTHER OF GOD WITH JESUS
Fr. Nikon next tells his audience about his visit to a
Monastery where he visited the library.
He saw a beautiful tapestry of the Holy Mother on the wall. It is the icon of the Sweet-kissing depiction
of the Holy Mother. One of the monks told
Fr. Nikon that the tapestry had been used in a store in Istanbul where people
could wipe off their shoes. Fr. Nikon
said that someone sent him an email that showed people at a night club dancing
on the face of Jesus. Fr. Nikon then
asks: “why is there such hatred directed at Jesus Christ? Why isn’t this same
type of hatred directed at Buddha, Confucius, Hare Krishna or Muhammad? It is because Satan fears Jesus Christ.” This type of hatred for Christ was also displayed
in Orthodox Greece at a cultural art festival of European artists. Amongst other things this art exhibit
displayed a huge painting showing a male penis ejaculating onto a large
Cross. It was truly unfortunate that there
was no outcry from the leadership of Greek society.
People organize strikes all the time when issues of
money are at stake. There never seem to
be public demonstrations when people’s faith is attacked. The reason for this is because the god of
these people is in their pocket. All
these things are happening because Satan is afraid of the love of God. In 1
John 2:22 we read: “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the
Christ? He is antichrist who denies the
Father and the Son.” We now have two
distinct types of people in the world today.
We have disbelievers and those who fall prey to the third temptation,
the sign of the antichrist 666. Remember
the story of Jesus encountering Satan in the wilderness. We read in MT. 4:8-10:
“Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him
all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
And he said to Him, All these things I will give you if you will fall
down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan! For it is
written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”
The other groups of people are Christians who don’t
know what kind of Christians they are.
These are people, supposedly Christians, who are writing books about the
advent of the antichrist and prophesying when this will happen. These people are making a lot of money doing
this, dealing with the issue of the antichrist.
Fr. Nikon says: “I say to you that we Christians must live in a spirit
of peace and tranquility in the time of troubles. I say this because when we were baptized we
were then confirmed with the Seal of the Holy Spirit (Holy Chrism). Because of this we should not fear anything
because God has singled us out with His Seal of salvation. We therefore should not fear the seal of the
antichrist (666). In the Book of
Revelation it writes about the Seal of God given to us by His holy angels. “Then
I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living
God. And he cried with a loud voice to
the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying,
do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have sealed the servants
of our God on their foreheads.” (Rev. 7:2-3)
A certain father who was visiting a Monastery saw
before him a demonic being. This
happened in the Monastery Church. This had never happened to him before and he
said to me: “When I saw the demon before me I became frozen with fear.” I asked
him: “What did you do?” “I covered my mouth with my hands in order to muffle
the screams that were coming out of me.
I understood at that very moment that there is no one else in the world
that will ever hate me as much as that demon that was staring at me.” Fr. Nikon asks the question: “Why does Satan
hate us as much as he does? He hates us
because we have managed to accomplish that which he has never been able to
accomplish—to become gods. We have
become united with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. St. Maximus of Egypt tells us: “man can
acquire all things that God has; we can become all-wise, like God; we can become
all-knowing, like God; and we can become immortal, like God. The only thing that we cannot acquire of God
is His essence.”
GLORIFIED IS THE NAME OF GOD IN HIS HOLY SAINTS
ΔΟΞΑ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΕΝ ΤΟΙΣ ΑΓΙΟΙΣ ΑΥΤΟΥ
Translated
from the Greek by:
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