Every Christian today witnesses how homosexuality and abortion, amongst other things, are being legislated into every national parliament, including in their own country, but can hardly understand how this is going to affect them directly, and think that if they do not agree with it is all going to be OK for their salvation.

There is a more spiritually profound aspect to this effort of legalizing these abominations, currently sweeping the world over, that Church leaders completely and consistently fail to recognize or condemn, but which in our opinion is the key to understanding the relation between the mark of the beast and the disavowal of Christ (denial of Christ) our Holy Fathers have warned about.

Our Orthodox Church teaches that the mark of the beast will have two key attributes, one material which will mean nobody will be able to buy or sell without it, and one spiritual that will mean one’s final disavowal of Christ. The mark of the beast will ultimately mean that the Christian will totally renounce Christ and His Heavenly Kingdom for the material world (mammon). In Matthew 6:24 we can read:

No man can serve two masters: for either he
will hate the one, and love the other; or else
he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Therefore the mark of the beast will ultimately represent the final choice each man and woman will have to make at the end of times and which will decide his/her individual salvation.

We can observe in the efforts to legislate these abominations in every country, the very foundation of the future disavowal of Christ because it will make everyone who will want to still live in this world a partaker to the collective sins imposed to the world, since these sins are being transposed into the public domain and being funded by everyone’s effort and contribution to the society (for example through moneys from taxes on income or other earthly activities).

This will inevitably put every Christian into a difficult situation in which a choice will have to be made. Those in the Church that are silent today (most of them) will use as an argument to support these policies various passages from the Bible such as “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”, and will tell people that they should obey these laws since they are of “Caesar’s”.

A good example is, if one will want to keep his/her earthly job knowing that by doing this he/she will partake into the collective sins (just by paying taxes that will fund these public programs, and thus contributing to the implementation of these anti-christian policies), he/she has already chosen this world. It will be impossible for the true Christians to live in the world if the current trends are not reversed, and our Holy Fathers have told us that the Christians of the last times will run away and hide from the face of the antichrist and will only be found in the burrows of the earth. And there is very little chance that these trends may be reversed without Divine Intervention which can only come through real repentance and giving up of the wicked ways.

True Orthodox Christians will understand the consequences of such choices and rather prepare spiritually for the coming persecutions and hard decisions. Without being prepared to stand and confess the truth of Christ and accept the inevitable repercussions, and without leaving one’s faith fully in the hands of God Who, as our Holy Fathers emphasized, will not leave us without divine help, it will not be possible survive what is coming. That is what the Holy Martyrs confessors against communism did.

As the case in many other instances throughout the history of the Church, there will probably be a period of time for which the economy of God will work, and a Christian will still be able to “live” in the world described above for a limited time, but ultimately a decision will have to be made. This will only be possible with the blessing and guidance of a true spiritual Father who really understands the situation. This does underline how important in navigating the “narrow path to salvation” is having carefully chosen a spiritual Father.