The Devil Knows: Your mountain of sin is not the end of your story

Summary

The video script delves into the spiritual journey of following Christ, highlighting the struggle with sin and the importance of humility. It emphasizes the need to let go of self-leadership and allow Christ to guide, despite the trials that test faith. The speaker discusses the concept of sin being a tool of the devil to create distance between us and God, and the necessity of repentance to heal this divide. The message concludes with encouragement to persevere in faith and repentance, regardless of the depth of sin, as God's grace is always available for salvation.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Life begins with dreams and aspirations, often influenced by the idols we create about how our lives and faith should look.
• 🌪️ God sends trials to teach us humility, a fundamental lesson that requires us to let go of our own control and allow Christ to lead.
• 💔 The struggle with sin and the repeated falling into it can lead to despair and a sense of distance from Christ, which is the devil's aim.
• 😈 The devil persistently tempts us into sin out of hatred, knowing that it creates a rift between us and Christ that can be difficult to heal.
• 🙏 Despite our repeated sins, Christ's love is always ready to forgive, but the devil knows that the distance we create from Christ through sin is harder to mend.
• 🔄 The cycle of sin and repentance can lead to a hardened heart and a greater spiritual distance, making it tougher to return to Christ with each repetition.
• 🌱 The early monastic saints taught that those saved at the end of the world will be greater because they bear the weight of centuries of sinfulness.
• 🛑 Our deeds and struggles for virtue may seem fruitless due to the accumulated sins of generations, but faith in Christ can still save us.
• 🤲 Our salvation depends on both God's grace and our willingness to close the spiritual distance created by our sins through repentance and faith.
• 🕊️ Even if we fall repeatedly, we must strive to repent and heal the spiritual distance, as God's mercy and love are greater than our own understanding of ourselves.
• 🌈 The potential for sainthood or sin lies in our free will, and it is this free will that allows for the possibility of redemption and salvation.

Q & A

What is the central theme of the video script?

The central theme of the video script is the struggle with sin, humility, and the importance of maintaining a close relationship with Christ despite repeated falls into sinfulness.

What does the speaker suggest is the fundamental lesson of our lives?

The speaker suggests that the fundamental lesson of our lives is humility, and learning to allow Christ to manage our lives instead of leading ourselves.

Why does the speaker mention 'Idols' in the context of following Christ?

The speaker mentions 'Idols' to refer to the unrealistic expectations and self-created standards about how our life, faith, and worship should look like, which can distract from truly following Christ.

What does the speaker mean by 'the devil insists out of hatred'?

The speaker means that the devil persistently tempts and pushes individuals into sin out of hatred, knowing that this can create a distance between the individual and Christ.

How does the speaker describe the effect of sin on our relationship with Christ?

The speaker describes sin as creating a distance or a 'wound' in our hearts between us and Christ, which can become hardened and more difficult to heal over time.

What does the speaker suggest is the role of Christ's sacrifice in relation to our sins?

The speaker suggests that Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sufficient to forgive the sinfulness of the entire world, emphasizing that the issue is not about sin being forgiven but about overcoming the distance it creates from Christ.

What historical perspective does the speaker provide regarding the struggle with sin?

The speaker provides a historical perspective by mentioning that early monastic saints taught that those who will be saved at the end of the world will be greater because the weight of sinfulness over the centuries is heavier, making the distance to God larger and more difficult to overcome.

What does the speaker mean by 'our salvation is also dependent on us'?

The speaker means that while God is willing and able to forgive our sins, our salvation also depends on our efforts to not allow the distance between us and Christ to be created and, if it is, to actively seek to heal and cover that distance.

How does the speaker address the concept of faith in the context of salvation?

The speaker addresses faith as a crucial element in salvation, not in the sense of faith alone as in some theological interpretations, but as a manifestation of our desire and efforts to live virtuously and to strive towards Christ despite our failures.

What encouragement does the speaker offer to those who struggle with sin and feel distant from God?

The speaker encourages individuals to always turn back to God with acts of repentance, no matter how small, to heal the distance created in their hearts and to remember that God's love, understanding, and compassion for us are greater than our own.

Outlines

00:00

🙏 The Struggle with Humility and Idolatry

The first paragraph discusses the human condition of aspiring to lofty ideals and the inevitable encounter with life's challenges that test our faith. It emphasizes the importance of humility and recognizing our need for Christ's guidance in managing our lives. The speaker reflects on the struggle to let go of personal ambitions and the idolization of our own expectations, which can lead to despair and a disconnect from Christ. The paragraph also touches on the devil's role in exacerbating our weaknesses to create a barrier between us and God.

05:00

😔 The Inevitability of Sin and the Devil's Strategy

In the second paragraph, the speaker delves into the concept of sin and the devil's tactics in exploiting our weaknesses. It explains that the devil is aware of Christ's forgiving nature and uses this knowledge to create a rift between us and Christ. The paragraph illustrates how repeated falls into sin can lead to a hardened heart and a growing distance from God. It also highlights the importance of recognizing our free will and its role in either maintaining or healing this spiritual distance.

10:03

🌟 The Hope in Salvation Amidst Generational Sins

The third paragraph speaks to the increasing difficulty of maintaining a close relationship with God as sin accumulates over generations. It mentions the teachings of early monastic saints who believed that those saved at the end of the world would be greater in number than those immediately after Christ, due to the immense burden of sin. The speaker encourages us to take heart in the grace of God and the potential for salvation through faith, despite our struggles.

15:04

🛐 The Path to Salvation: Faith, Repentance, and Love

The final paragraph concludes with a message of hope and a call to action. It stresses the importance of faith, repentance, and acts of love as means to bridge the spiritual distance caused by sin. The speaker reminds us that God's love and mercy are boundless, and even a small act of repentance can be sufficient to heal our relationship with God. The paragraph ends with a blessing, encouraging us to strive for virtue and faith, knowing that salvation is possible for all who seek it.

Keywords

💡Humility

Humility is a fundamental Christian virtue that involves recognizing one's own limitations and dependence on God. In the video, humility is presented as an essential lesson that believers must learn, allowing Christ to manage their lives instead of trying to lead themselves. The script emphasizes that this is a difficult lesson that can lead to a sense of despair and distance from God if not properly understood or embraced.

💡Idols

In the context of the video, idols refer to the unrealistic expectations and self-created standards about how one's life and faith should look. The speaker discusses how these idols can lead to pride and a disconnect from the true path of following Christ, ultimately resulting in a form of worship that is misguided and self-focused.

💡Sinfulness

Sinfulness is the state of being characterized by or resulting from sin. The video script discusses the recurring nature of sin and how it can create a barrier or distance between the individual and Christ. It also touches on the idea that the depth of sinfulness can affect the spiritual closeness to God, with the potential to create a 'wound' in one's heart.

💡Repentance

Repentance is the act of feeling regret or remorse for one's wrongdoings and seeking forgiveness. The script highlights the importance of repentance in overcoming the distance created by sinfulness and returning to a right relationship with God. It is presented as a necessary step in the spiritual journey, regardless of the frequency of falling into sin.

💡Devil

The devil, in the script, represents the force of evil that tempts and pushes individuals into sin. The speaker explains that the devil's persistence in causing individuals to sin is driven by hatred and the desire to create a rift between them and Christ. This concept is integral to understanding the spiritual battle and the challenges faced by believers.

💡Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the act of pardoning someone for their wrongdoings. In the video, forgiveness is depicted as a divine attribute, with Christ's love being capable of covering a 'mountain of sinfulness.' The script emphasizes that Christ's forgiveness is unconditional and always available, but the individual's acceptance and response to this forgiveness are crucial.

💡Free Will

Free will is the power of making choices that are neither determined by natural causality nor predestined by fate or divine will. The video discusses how free will allows individuals to create distance from God through their actions but also gives them the ability to heal this distance through repentance and turning back to God.

💡Salvation

Salvation, in the context of the video, refers to the deliverance from sin and its consequences, achieved through faith in Christ. The script suggests that salvation is not solely dependent on deeds or virtue but also on the individual's faith and their efforts to overcome sin and close the spiritual distance from God.

💡Faith

Faith is the trust and confidence in something or someone, in this case, Christ. The video emphasizes that faith is the foundation of salvation and the driving force behind the believer's efforts to live a virtuous life and overcome sin. It is through faith that individuals can find the strength to repent and seek forgiveness.

💡Virtue

Virtue, in the script, refers to moral excellence and the qualities that guide a believer towards a righteous life. The speaker discusses the struggle to live a virtuous life amidst the weight of sinfulness and the importance of striving for virtue as an expression of faith, even when the outcomes may seem insignificant.

💡Grace

Grace is the unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration, sanctification, and salvation. The video mentions grace as a gift from God that enables some to overcome the distance created by sin and achieve salvation, highlighting the role of divine intervention in the believer's spiritual journey.

Highlights

Life is a journey filled with dreams and ambitions, but it is also a process of learning humility through trials.

God sends challenges to teach us the importance of humility and reliance on Him.

The struggle to let go of self-leadership and allow Christ to guide our lives is difficult and can lead to despair.

Falling into sin repeatedly can create a distance between us and Christ, which is the devil's ultimate goal.

The devil exploits our repeated sins to create a sense of alienation from Christ, knowing that Christ's love can forgive but not heal the distance created.

Sin is irrelevant to God and the devil in the sense that Christ's love can forgive any depth of sinfulness.

The challenge is not in Christ's ability to forgive, but in our ability to prevent and heal the distance from Him.

Each generation's sinfulness contributes to a growing distance from God, making it harder to overcome.

Early monastics taught that those saved at the end of the world will be greater due to the heavy burden of sinfulness.

In the end, salvation will come not from deeds of virtue, but from faith in Christ's forgiveness and love.

Our deeds may not amount to much due to the weight of sinfulness, but our faith in Christ's forgiveness is what saves us.

The devil seeks to push us past our breaking point to create a belief that God does not care for us.

God is teaching us lessons in humility and dependence on Him, not refusing to help us.

Our salvation is dependent on both God's forgiveness and our efforts to heal the distance created by sin.

Free will is the ultimate virtue, and God respects it by not imposing His will upon us.

Even if we fall, we must always turn back to God, seeking His mercy, love, and compassion.

Repentance, no matter how small, can cover the distance between us and God, healing the wound created by sin.

Focus on trying our best not to sin and, if we fall, immediately work on healing the distance from God.

We and our generation can be saved if we always return to God, seeking His forgiveness and love.

Transcripts

[Music]

hello my dear ones well life itself is

like this failed attempt um of trying to

film something beautiful for you today

we went out like at the beginning of our

Lives filled with dreams and um

worshiping these Idols that we create

about how our life should look like like

and what we should be like what our

following Christ will look like and then

in at the height of that enthusiasm and

that ambition at the height of that

Pride ultimately God sends a beautiful

blessed storm to turn us around so we

can learn the most

essential and fundamental lesson of Our

Lives

humility we have to learn to allow

Christ to manage Our Lives we have to

learn to allow him to be the ones to be

the one leading us and um that implies

that we have to let go of leading

ourselves that's very difficult that's

very difficult and it crushes many

people and it makes them stop following

Christ or if we don't learn that lesson

we end up still following our own will

still worshiping the same Idols we

created about how our life should look

like about how faith and the church and

worship and so on should look like and

by the end of our Lives we are nothing

but Idol worshippers not followers of

Christ well this video

is uh in many ways just

that why is it that despite our absolute

best intentions and our most honest

desire to follow Christ why is it that

we fall into sin again and again and

again to despare to the limit of just

complete despondency why is it that the

devil insists

so harshly so stubbornly in pushing us

down and why is it that we do not have

the strength to Simply fight back and

stand spiritually on our own two

feet well the devil insists out of

hatred the devil insists out of hatred

because he

knows this is mint because he knows that

sooner or

later part of our report repentance will

turn

into a distance that we create between

us and Christ the devil knows that if we

keep asking for help and if we keep

falling if we keep following Christ as

he leads us towards learning the lesson

about humility and our own helplessness

and weakness without him sooner or later

the frustration of this repeated

sinfulness of ours will be turned into a

distance between us and him a coldness

between us and our creator and the devil

knows something that we forget all too

easy the devil knows that in a sense and

I don't want you to take this out of

context in a sense our sin is irrelevant

in a sense sin is irrelevant both to God

and to the devil because the devil knows

that no matter how deep our state of

sinfulness becomes the devil knows that

no matter how many times we repeat the

same scene again and again Christ's love

can and will forgive it the devil knows

better than we do that no matter what we

do no matter how far we

fall when we turn back Christ will

Embrace us and Christ will forgive us

and Christ will heal us of our passion

and our fallen state of

being the devil also knows that that

distance that is slowly created between

us and

Christ that distance is no longer

healable in the sense that although

Christ can cover a

mountain of a of our

sinfulness Christ cannot cover that

distance that we created between him and

us let me give you an example if I fall

in the same sin

10 times for a week for a month for a

year for a decade slowly in my heart

there will be this wound opening up this

distance that then

becomes like a crust um an old

wound it comes out of frustration that

Christ in my mind in my view the way I

see things does not step forward to

release me out of this sin out of this

passion and although Christ can in my

repentance cover that mountain of

sinfulness that distance that I created

between myself and him he cannot cover

because that belongs to me that comes

out of my own free will that is my own

creation and I am the one I am the only

one who can deal with that

distance the problem is

that every generation as our sinfulness

gets deeper and deeper that distance in

our hearts between us and Christ also

gets larger and larger and more

difficult to

overcome the difficulty again is not

with Christ

forgiving us Christ died on a cross to

forgive the sinfulness of the entire

world our mountain of sinfulness all the

sins that the whole world has done from

the beginning of the world up to this

point and until the end of this world

all that mountain that depth of sin is

nothing compared to one drop of the

blood of the uncreated

god so it's not a matter of sin being

forgiven by Christ it's a matter of us

being able to first of all not allow

that distance to be

created and secondly if it is created

being able to go

back and truly repent go back and cover

that distance between us and Christ and

ask for

forgiveness it's not about Christ

wanting to forgive us or being able to

forgive us with sin on that cross that

he wants and that he can forgive

everything it's about us not allowing

the Devil to get his way which is to

keep pushing us repeatedly into

sinfulness until when out the

frustration that distance that coldness

that wound is

created Adam was close to

God and Adam's fall as important as it

is because it is the source the seed of

all

sinfulness it didn't take him that far

away from God Adam could could still

hear God could communicate with him it's

like if you imagine I imagine this axis

which is God and man being one in Christ

and at the top you've got Adam and God

quite close to each other but then

generation after generation there's a

spiral that goes further and further and

further from that Central axis as our

sin gets deeper and deeper the distance

between us and our axes our creator gets

larger and larger and it gets more and

more difficult for our generation and

for Generations that will follow us to

reach back to go back to crawl back like

that sun that had squandered all his

inheritance and asked forgiveness from

God but at the same time we need to take

courage from the words of those very

very early monastics Saints who taught

us 17 centuries

ago that those who will be saved at the

end of the

world will be greater than those who

were saved immediately after Christ

precisely because the weight of the

sinfulness of these

centuries is so heavy on our shoulders

that this distance that has been created

for us and to which we contribute as

well between us and God is so

big this wound is

so difficult to overcome that very few

of us manage to do it and it is only by

the grace of God as a gift from him that

some of us manag to do it it's because

of this

distance which is brought about by the

heaviness

and the depth of our sinfulness it's

because of this distance that so few of

us I don't want to say that few of us

are saved but few of us are saved by

acts of virtue the way things were done

in the beginning and we were told this

as well do you remember that those first

monastic Saints told us that at the end

of the world we shall do nothing we

shall have no deed of virtue no

aesthetical work no aesthetical struggle

and that we shall be saved Alone by

faith not in the sense of the Protestant

theology which leads to predition always

that salvation comes from faith alone

but in the sense that all our attempts

to do something all our attempts to to

have a virtuous life to lead an

aesthetical life all our struggle all

our fight amounts to nothing we still

struggle we still fight we still do the

Deeds to the best of our ability or at

least we we start to do the Deeds but

because of the weight of all these

generations and generations and

generations of sinfulness that weighs so

heavily on our shoulders none of it

comes to fruition and yet that's simply

because we want to do these things

simply because we strive to do them

these these seedlings that never bring

any fruit any flour for them if we keep

doing them for them Christ will save us

and in that sense it's not because of

our Deeds because our Deeds don't amount

to anything but it's because of our

faith in him which which is

manifested seen proven in these failed

attempts of ticism and of a virtuous

life there is

this desire of the devil my beloved one

my beloved ones to keep pushing us until

we go past our breaking point because he

knows one sin is not enough if he just

pushes us once into sin it's not enough

because God can cover that sin and God

is happy and willing to cover that sin

with his sacrifice and love for us he

knows that he has to push us in the same

sin a million times until out of

frustration and of fear and despondency

we decide in our hearts that God doesn't

love us that God does doesn't care for

us that God simply refuses to help us

when in fact God is teaching us all the

lessons that have to do with humility

and depending on him alone and if we

fall into that trap of thinking that

Christ does not care that Christ is

somewhere else and does not care for us

if we've fallen in that and that

distance between our hearts and God has

been created then our Salvation is no

longer dependent on God alone it's

dependent on God alone and he will do

his part he will cover this mountain of

sin but it's also dependent on us being

able through these failed attempts of

leading a virtuous life that should

never stop until the end of our Lives we

should strive to do something until the

end of our Lives it's also our Salvation

it's also dependant on us covering this

distance because this distance my

beloved ones is entirely built by our

Free Will and it is based on our free

will that it can be healed and then

covered healed again otherwise God would

become a bully God would crush our Free

Will and would impose his will upon us

and God is not a bully our Free Will is

the

ultimate

ultimate virtue and God will never erase

that God will never step on that it's

that Free Will of ours my beloved ones

that allows us to bear in ourselves

the potential to be the greatest Saints

in God's heavens and also the greatest

sinners in the

devil's hell and the depth of his

Darkness even if you fall even if we

fall until the end of our Lives my

brothers and my

sisters get up

and repent by doing an act of repentance

whatever that act may be a sigh a prayer

an act of Love of mercy of compassion

towards one of your brothers or your

sisters a tear or a St Simeon the

Theologian says even a drop a fraction

of a tear bring something before God and

cover that distance that the devil

created in our hearts between our loving

God and our hearts heal that

wound and don't worry about that

mountain of

sinfulness because if you've sinned

despite your best intentions if you've

sinned despite trying your best not to

sin if you've Fallen because the Dev in

his envy and his hatred has pushed you

again and again and again God sees

all God has more love for us than we

have for ourselves God has more

understanding and compassion for us than

we have for

ourselves focus on trying your absolute

best not to fall into sin and if you've

Fallen my brother and my sister Focus

immediately on not allowing that

distance to be

created and or on healing covering that

distance if it was

created and you shall be

saved you and I and this whole

generation sinful as we are we shall be

saved if we always turn back to the god

of Mercy the god of love and of

compassion be blessed my brothers and my

sisters beyond your hopes beyond your

dreams be

blessed be

blessed be

blessed