apostle john that has been given to us so that we would know the gospel and have no excuse to be making up fantasies about the word of god and about scripture today we have so much mythology going on we make up always to pray we make up ways to get something from god we have an ongoing gospel of greed in the charismatic community that been allowed to flow unchecked since the late seventy's in the word of fate teachings this is a renewal of an ancient  heresy against which this teacher that we're discussing today spent his whole lifetime exposing and destroying by the sword of the gospel hacking down any of the false teachings that eventually lead people into complete blasphemy against god and the loss of their salvation contrary to what's being taught today yes we can we can lay aside the salvation that was originally given to us and st paul encourages us constantly do not deny the faith that was given to you the book of hebrews is replete with this  he will use the old israel as an example many were called them baptized and yet they did not come into the promised land they were baptized in the water from the rock they were baptized in the red sea but they did not come into the promised land because they have no faith they didn't act on a b d ans to what the word of god in the leadership was telling them to do they believed the in the fairy tales of those who had no faith and thought they were dealing in real ality like we have today  the person we are using today is number one in ours steps as we come into the understanding of christianity from the ancient apostles it's been called orthodox christianity from the time of the first council if we say we are orthodox christians there's a whole body of sacred and holy tradition passed down including the scriptures with in them carefully guarded by commentaries from the original apostles as they passed down their experience and the word of god in them by the holy spirit to their successors second timothy two verse two says pass on to trusted elders and one of t elders is saying iran neha us or you're in the ne as it is in the french today and it means peace is a very lovely name to have he help to unify the churches if they had a little squabbles and that is in the him that we sing to him now we ask him to bring into unity of the holy spirit by the holy prayer all of the churches who call themselves orthodox this is our unity under the one vicar given to us by christ that advocate the whole of these spirit who is the leader of the church under the headship of christ our god who is the head of his church we do not need a man although he speaks through holy ordained people and he speaks also in the later as we come together in councils in meetings under the holy spirit as we see first done in the book of acts chapter fifteen all of the whole body of believers especially st paul and st peter gave their opinion as the holy spirit led them to do but only saint james as leader in bishop gave the final decision as a says it seems right to us and to the holy spirit so this is their key and to do this we have to be filled with all these spirit otherwise we will not recognize what is true in the gospel and what someone has made up as being part of the gospel messiah he was held to be above the death he was held to be who christ is essentially simon the magician saw the apostles coming in ministering in the power of the holy spirit he knew himself that he was a fake a phoney anything it did was by magic by sleight of hand even though he was able to fool people so what he did was try and ape the apostles he asked st peter's if you read chapter eight if he could buy the gifts of the holy spirit st peter's said you've got the root of bitterness you better stop what you're doing and repent tells us and he is just the next century over simon the magician went on into greater heresies or with his concubine friend helen and pretended to rise from the dead of course he did not was buried alive and in essence died doing one of his blasphemies but his followers kept this thing going it is very seductive we follow the greek fathers since they are closest to the tradition of the holy orthodox faith who wrote spoke and taught in ancient in the greek kenyan language this particular book on the apostolate preaching was only discovered at the turn of the last century in one thousand nine hundred many of our most important discoveries are like treasures that the lord has held until the latter days he does this because he knows that in the end times as st paul's st peter all the apostles wrote about in their pistols to us he keeps these treasures because the arrogance of the heretics will be is so overwhelming and cover the earth so that we will need more and more correcting with the truth of the early teachers st era nance is one of those fresh from the teachings of st john the apostle called the theologians his gospel john gospel is especially for those who are already christian in order to understand why he cries did what he did he includes things like the wedding  because he lived and take took care of the mother of the lord many years before she repulsed before her door mission so he was well aware of the early happenings of the mother of the lord as she walked with the lord along with the sons of st joseph from a previous marriage they formed the brothers and sisters of the lord that we read about quite often in the gospels let's get to his early teaching and anyone who is teaching right now as a pastor or lay teacher in that bible studies you want to go back and align your teaching with that of the apostles otherwise we're running great peril for our souls we do not want to mislead others the lord has told us it would be better that a millstone be around our neck than to cause these children to sin in any way if you put the old testament law back on people that's a burden that the lord warned against that the lawyers would lay burdens upon people he comes to set us free from the old testament law he gives us new and gentle commands he says my yoke is easy it's not a burden because we have the holy spirit yoked with us to help us go into the paths of righteousness for his name's sake let's discover  teachings of the apostle john who himself reclined on the lord's heart and learned from him as no other apostle d we are preparing for baptism the people and the apostles made sure in the early days as we must today that our faith in christ is sure that we've experienced being born anew by asking the lord jesus christ to be born in our hearts now orthodox we need to make special effort to make sure any one coming into baptism is laying aside the old pagan thought there's so much going around that people think are christian the course in miracles is an epidemic spreading today  kind of a new age hatha yoga all of these ways that seem very nice astrology seems very harmless i thought it was until the lord gave me a blockbuster vision of the satanic angela babylon that was behind this babylonian teaching i ran from it as soon as i saw this in the middle of a department store someone asked me to do their chart or logical chart trying to seduce me back into astrology that i had laid aside when i came to christ and the lord parted the curtains the entire room melted away and i saw this thirty foot tall archangel the one behind the astrological push for false worship which is the worship of demons one of worship planets we worship demons and as such we can sort of size even the smallest child who is in christ can cast out demons they will try and scare us we must not be afraid they are only she may have us they are appearances they try and appear like ghosts and goblins but they are nothing they are rooted in their own fantasy of overcoming christ and this again will gnosticism as it has come into the church we will have much to say since gnostic toll houses and worship even found today are part of the that god created the material universe is that the nonstick the lever the pagan believer who came into christianity carrying all this baggage believes that there's a secondary creator of the material univers why because the material universe is seen to be evil the body was seen to be evil you'll see that in aristotle plato some of the other pagan writers that the body is evil in that ways shuffle off the body get rid of the evil body and go into eternity thankfully freed of the body this is a complete misunderstanding that is carried through in the roman catholic church in the teaching of purgatory as we will talk about later we cannot be saved in an action of the soul with out the body we are both body and soul after death the soul awaits the resurrection of the body in the presence of the lord for we know to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord we have those things as sure the word of god is sure unto all eternity so let us understand that the material universe is good as god creates it in genesis after each aspect of creation that he creates he says the lord saw that it was good this puts to rest any pagan doctrine that we see in the modern word fa a little different aspect of the same teaching in the more modern version of gnosticism or of this dualism is paganism we have at the beginning  before adam fell creation was good but then after satan came into adam he had control over all of creation well this is the same thing in dist teaching also the whole entire creation is evil and in this false gnostic teaching of word faith we've seen that it is the job of the christian believers so called to bring everything out of lies so we have to get through to the truth by believing a whole packet of lies let's go right to the truth and this great created world prepared by god before the fashioning of man was given to man as his domain also in this domain with the servants of god and the servants were the angels man is part of creation that is good even after the fall of mankind by rebellion by participating in the rebellion of satan  by listening to the seducer to the serpent satan even after he fell it was the death and corruption that came in not evil death and corruption came into mankind and as part of creation unfortunately it traveled down and through all of creation so we see in romans eight that all of creation is in groaning until they are released how are they released when the sons of god that's you and me by grace small as sons of god are manifested are shown forth to be who we are the glorious once upon the earth who have participated in the glory of god by being obedient to christ we will shine for we shall see him as he does as we see in the epist of st john again so wonderfully told to us we in the end times after we go to be with the lord in our resurrected we shall be like him that is gives us hope as the gospel has told him from st john from the very heart of christ that all creation struggles but is not evil we struggle against that evil of ourselves and all that is around us will be saved as we are lifted up so we see all of creation in the lives of the saints being holy the lion being friends with man the walls be friended by many of our saints in romania even in these last days when we are holy when we are one with christ as far as we can be filmed with the holy spirit which is the whole purpose of our orthodox spirit filled life as orth christians as we acquire the holy spirit by prayer and by fasting by by getting our bodily passions under control what is called virtue as we get these things under control the holy spirit will come and help us even more and all of creation around us will be friend us for they know that we are partaking of the creator who gives them life and food and it will give them a new life in the resurrection remain as he was that is immortal the commandment was this you may eat freely from every tree for paradise but at that tree only the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat baptized what it means to be saved we have god the father who sends forth the son to come and save us and rescue us and we have a son who is filled overflowing with all the gifts as seen dies they are describes him full of wisdom the spirit of god is anointed me so he will grant to those who ask in the baptis of the holy spirit and when we are filled with this holy spirit our eyes open and we actually understand scripture as we never have before not as a little legal book full of little verses that i can use as a text against certain people in certain denominations when we have the holy spirit who is the author of the book of life who is the author of the word of god through ban this is where the incarnation teaching comes in it's not floating down like some super spiritual book it is spiritual it's through spirit filled man who right matthew mark luke and john st peter st paul jude sadi yes all of the saints say depaul and peter how wonderful and all of these spirit filled vessels are pouring out the word of god confirming what was given in the old testament and in the gospels it is all a body of the same troop as we go into the councils of the church we will see that they are a more and more flowering opening of an understanding of our life in christ so even the heresies played a part when heresies came along we we had to ask the holy spirit if even more light to understand the gospel that had already been revealed next program we will begin with cain and abel and go through the history of the old testament but as right now we need to know that i and given as a new salvation that is not through the law but according to faith and as i said this and he will complete and cut short and make concise a word in all of the commandments of loving god with our whole heart and strength and the second loving our neighbors are self these depend all of the law and prophets in whom we are baptized each person is part of the baptismal immersion first the father then the son then the holy spirit we are living now the life of the holy trinity in the church the spirit filled church this is what now is described as paradise before the fall of man god set man into what is called paradise now it is this is what we can't separate it's very difficult and later on as man is saved through christ we have paradise being established again heaven comes to  and what do we pray thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven there is this ladder of divine exchanges going on and remember that god is not a god of the debt as christ himself says god is a god of the living abraham isaac and jacob are alive at the throne of god the only way i know this is if i'm there in christ in spirit through the holy spirit so we come in again when we are saved we come into the paradise of adam which is open  is again taking the gospel of john and the teachings of st john the apostle so my overview is his but if you want to see it in writing in a very concise form it's good to get this book on the epis dollar teaching he goes through the passover and how the lord for fills the passover meal in his eucharist he goes through the bab tism that the people  god the old israel went through so all of this is in this on the apostolate preaching part of a series of books of the popular patristic that's called  mere seminary press in new york now next as a preview of coming attractions we have on the incarnation since most of the heresies have to do with an incorrect understanding of what happened and how the word of god became incarnate in the virgin mary and this is where the misunderstanding of the role of the virgen in the western papal church has so soured our understanding as protestants and pentagon of her role in fact she is a very important that's why the enemy of our souls has worked so hard to denigrate her virginity and her role as mother of the lord jesus christ in guarding his divinity she is called mother of god because christ is god from the instant of his incarnation it's conception by the holy spirit with in the woman the virgin specially prepared because she did not need a man's participation in the conception of this word of god god the father through the operation of the holy spirit caused the word of god to become flesh with in her and what did she say my soul meghna five them or it and this is their whole life she married and phys what god can do and does do so through his and ones she is called blasted by those in the crowds and the lord said yes a man and also blessed are the hear the word of god and keep it and do it so that was again a crown for his mother because she had heard the word of god not only that she had obeyed it and that is her glory when you understand the lord conjunction there you will see you will see that he is not denying what that woman said but is adding to it her understanding of who the mother of the lord really is and why she is blessed not only because of her physical participation but also because she or i hate the word of god in a radical and incredible way she magnifies  of our god and she was denigrated throughout her life they called her a prostitute it is implied in the gospel of john so we have to realize that walking with the lord is not easy she had to stand below the cross of her son crying out oh my side what have these men done to you who are so just so pure and holy and have long to reach out to mankind and save them and instead they have crucified you but she understood even more at the resurrection so we will get into this with another book in the series the next one on the incarnation by saint athanasius patriarch of alexander champion of the church in the holy spirit against the teachings of the heretic areas who was destroyed like h d with a vomiting forth and an instantaneous death so dear ones we have much in our series of understanding the christian faith as we are part of the center of orthodox christian studies and we want to bring you in personally we don't want to take time to have seminars and all of that for one thing it's too expensive we would have to ask for help from you financially and we want to offer all that we can freely as we have received ourselves so be patient with us take us along on your journey through life be changed for ever as you understand who god is and you relate to him as a beloved son or daughter of our heavenly father as christ becomes established in his salvation in you and as you asked for the baptism of the holy spirit day to guide your steps in the path of peace and righteousness this is our prayer for you for anyone who hears us has ears to hear and eyes to see in the name of the father to the glory of the son and the all holy spirit leaving address which i can send it but i want to go into a discussion now today a little bit of the garden of eden and the fall of mankind there are certain aspects of the story in the garden of eden which strike very profoundly one of the things that we often wonder about is the medieval arguing and disputes in the west over the nature of the crease in the garden of eden they have great deal to do with this idea crease in the garden of eden for a moment the two creatures in the garden of eden one is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the other the creative life in medieval western europe one of the great arguments that you can fall into total depravity by eating an apple even if it was in disobedience rico or had you not eating the apple you could have gone and gotten a neighbor cut off of the tree in the middle christ where i work was crucified and there were two thieves on what on either side it was surely by god's will that this was arranged this way where the thief who turned to christ and confessed him when he looked upon christ he sought christ and suddenly realized that he was the good not just good but the good and suddenly realized his own we can see is only evil and at that moment the cross of jesus christ became the creator of the knowledge of good and evil for him and when he turned to i roared and said lord remember me when you come into your kingdom the cross of christ became the creator of life for him and this is the whole mystery that unfolds before us paradise is there where man wells in communion with god not necessarily perfect communion but communion with god th but only when we can turn to him and say robert remember me when you come into your kingdom when we fully commit ourselves to jesus christ i realize the heat is the fruit as a created life and then make partaking of him we have like it or lasting by truly committing ourselves to our lord and savior jesus christ then the cross of jesus christ becomes a tree of life for us and this really is the meaning of the two trees in the garden of selfishly mankind was created in the image and likeness of god in that unselfish love and to be a part of that image so man fell not a total depravity but he did fall into to be tortured and executed in order to satisfy his gods own ego and self centeredness this is certainly a temptation from the devil to believe such a doctor that god  the who can know that world shaking effect of one elder filled to capacity with the holy spirit whose prayer reached all the way from greece over to america and changed for ever a life that in turn is wholly dedicated to the  expected not to live through injuries this elder prayed for her and was healed over two or three months as she receive communion and grew  she was sand later after her training to help mother dear daughter open another monastery this monastery in greece called the the holy cross was to be a center many people from all lands felt led to come to this monastery it is called a paradise on earth because of the extreme and lovely holiness exuding from the presence of the holy spirit at this monastery to help them establish a monastery in america because of her english proficiency mother it a million knee wasn't thrown as abas at the monastery of st mina in union bridge maryland god bless and keep them another young man was