Today we heard the hymn: "O Lord, Thou hast given us a weapon against the devil." The cross is likened to a weapon. And very often in the church we hear the words: armor, sword, weapons, battle, battle, army, and so on. What kind of abuse is this? The Apostle Paul says: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but... against the spirits of wickedness in high places." The Church is an army, but it does not fight with people. In our time, some people are trying to fight the enemies of the Church, they would like to hang them, tear them to pieces, shoot them, and so on, because they do not know the essence of the subject. And the essence is that our warfare is spiritual.

We are all surrounded by spirits. We are surrounded by angels and holy saints of God, but because of our damage, we do not see them. And those people who follow the path of abstinence from sin, the purification of their hearts, are vouchsafed to see angels and the light of God, which can be contemplated with a pure heart. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Sometimes we hear the following opinion: no one has seen God, so it is impossible to prove that He exists. But this is not true, God has been seen by many, hundreds of thousands of people, and some have even touched Him with their own hands. The Apostle John the Theologian said: "We touched Him with our hands."

In addition to the spirits of light, we are also surrounded by spirits of darkness. And many thoughts that come to our heads, and then are let into our hearts, are inspired by them. Therefore, spiritual life is a struggle with these spirits, a constant spiritual battle.

The Holy Church, addressing God on our behalf, says: "The riches which thou hast given me, the accursed one, departed, needlessly dependent on evil, O Saviour, having lived in fornication, flattering the demon; Receive me, O generous Father, and save me." We are talking about the wealth that the younger son squandered – the wealth of God's grace. "Where your treasure is, there is your heart," said the Lord. This means that he who owns a person's heart is a slave to him. That is why Satan, through the spirits that obey him, seeks to take possession of our hearts. And the Lord, Who wants to save us, also wants to possess our hearts. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky said that in the world Christ fights with Satan, and the battlefield is the heart of man. Invisible to us (and most people living on earth do not notice this at all), a constant battle is going on in our hearts – the battle of the spirits of darkness with the grace of God.

How do dark spirits end up in our hearts? Through thoughts. It never happens that a person commits a crime before he has conceived it. Sin is always preceded by a thought: a person first imagines a crime in his mind, and then commits it in deed. First, an image or idea appears in your head. If a person begins to consider this idea, to immerse himself in it, to cling to it, then gradually it begins to attract him, that is, he already likes it, his heart inclines to it. And when a person's heart desires to fulfill what is in his head, we can say that the Fall has already taken place, because the thought that Satan put into his head, the person has accepted in his heart.

Now, if the Lord allows it, the crime can be committed immediately, and if the Lord does not allow it, it may not actually be committed at the moment, but in fact the fall has already occurred. That is why the Apostle John the Theologian said: "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer" – completely regardless of whether he killed or did not kill. If you are angry with someone, hate him and wish him death – you did not kill him on the spot, but only hate him – then you have already committed this murder. Before God, it does not matter whether this act is committed at the moment or not, because in his heart a person already agrees to kill, that is, he has let a murderer into his heart, he has let Satan in.

And in the parable of the Prodigal Son, which we will read tomorrow, it is described in detail how a person goes "to a far country" and loses the grace of God. A certain man had two sons: the younger and the eldest. And the younger said to his father: "Give me the part of the estate due to me, I will dispose of it myself, according to my own will." The father divided the property, and the son went to a distant country, where he quickly spent everything, for he lived in fornication. On the spiritual plane, this means that a person has accepted in his heart the idea that he can dispose of his life in his own way, as he pleases, apart from the commandments of God.