Слово в день Успения Пресвятой Богородицы. Св. Тихона, епископа Воронежского и Задонского

Be careful how dangerously you walk (Eph. 5:14). Imagine a man who, sitting on a decorated throne, having all the pleasures in his hands, would see a flaming fire under him, a very sharp sword hanging above his head on the thinnest thread, and those armed against him on all sides. Consider: in such danger, in such horror, will all the pleasures and amusements constitute the calm of this person? There is death from everywhere: from above - death, from below - death, from all sides - death. Will not this danger and fear overcome all his pleasures? When I depict such a state of a person, I am describing with it the state of our life. We all living on earth are in the same danger as this man. I will offer this word about this to the glory of God, and in honor of the present triumph, to the end, so that all of us, surrounded by such dangers in this world, may live with danger, according to the admonition of the God-wise teacher, St. Paul: be careful how dangerously you walk. Listeners! When we open our intelligent eyes and look at the circumstances of our life, we will certainly see that it is similar to the state of this person, and no beauty of this world can amuse us. We will see God above us, rebuking us with the sword of righteousness; We will see beneath us the pit of hell prepared for sinners; we will see behind us our sins, which constantly torment us in our conscience; we will see death before us, constantly approaching us; We will see on the right and on the left the enemies of our souls plotting intrigues against us and seeking destruction. God, who is above us, is omnipotent, so that no one can resist Him; there is our Creator and Lord, who in one minute can crush us, like meager vessels made by His hands, and therefore He is terrible, which is why Christ commands us to fear Him: fear Him who is mighty to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. (Matthew 10:28). And again Jeremiah cries out to Him: who will not fear You, O King of the tongues (Jer. 10:7)? He is all-seeing and sees all our deeds, all plans, all thoughts of the heart; He also sees our undone: and Your eyes can see my undone (Ps. 139:16), says the Psalmist. And since He is infinite good, He hates even the slightest evil, and punishes for it: for He is just. Among the children of Israel who came out of Egypt, He had no one more pleasant and kind than Holy Moses, with whom He conversed as with each other, for whose prayer He turned away the sword of His wrath from the rebellious and stiff-necked people, to whom, finally, He Himself declared, saying: I know you above all; however, he also punished him for a certain crime: he did not allow him to reach the promised land, although he desired it with great zeal. And when God punishes His friends for their crime, what do you think, fearlessly and openly daring against God’s law? You who touch another's bed unlawfully; you who shed your brother's blood; you who secretly and openly offend your neighbor; you who drink the bloody tears of widows, orphans and the poor; You, who are laborers and hired servants, do not devour your labor; you, who with blasphemous lips touch Him who sits on the heavenly throne; you who break your oaths and oaths; you who seek to destroy from the land of the living the one who saddened you with a word, and other similar sinners - what do you think about yourselves? Do you think that you will escape the righteous judgment of God? Will a great crime remain tuna in you, when in the saints a small one is punished? God punishes the small, but will He leave the great? Isn't God right? It won't happen. Let it not even be thought that the Lord is righteous, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. The more iniquity you add to iniquity, the more you accumulate for yourself the wrath and wrath of God, if you do not quickly resort to God’s mercy with repentance and contrite tears. Behold, listeners, what a sword hangs over us! The sword of God's justice, sharpened by our sins... But look down at yourself with your smart eye, and you will see under you a deep ditch, a gaping hell, wanting to devour sinners - and it would immediately devour it if it were not for the mercy of God, the grace of God, awaiting the repentance of the sinner. This abyss is terrible even for holy men. Saint Cyril of Alexandria said: “I am afraid of Gehenna, since it is endless; I'm afraid of tartar, because it has no warmth; I’m afraid of darkness because it doesn’t belong to the light.” Yes, and other saints contained the same fear. If the saints of God, who spent their whole lives in such repentance, worked for God in such a way that they were afraid to transgress even His slightest commandment, and trembled at that abyss: then should we sinners be fearless? Well, Saint Chrysostom compares such people to small children who are afraid of faces, and not afraid of fire, on which they are burned. Likewise, people who have an infant mind are afraid of temporary misfortune, temporary troubles, which are all sent from God, for the most part for correction, and do not tremble at Gehenna, which even the demons themselves are terrified of, as the Holy Gospel teaches: and praying to Him, that is, Christ, may He not command them to go into the abyss, although it is prepared for them. Here is the second danger, above us. And when we look ahead, we will see no less danger, we will see death, which leaves no one; and the more we live, the more it approaches us. This limit of God is both unknown to us and very terrible. It is not known, because it abducts indiscriminately old and young, ready and unready, righteous and sinful. Terrible, because here begins an endless, ever-present eternity. When we leave, we depart either into eternal bliss, or into eternal torment, - either into a place of joy, or into a place of crying; From now on we begin to either live forever, or die forever, or reign forever in heaven with Christ and His saints, or suffer forever in hell with Satan and his angels. Oh, death, death, how terrible is your memory! But a wonderful thing; This necessary fate awaits us all; and we live as if it did not exist. Damn our blindness! Everyone is not unaware of the condition of the one who is shrouded in iron, and, having been thrown into prison, sentenced to death. Then he does not need a wife, nor children, nor friends, nor relatives, nor wealth; food and drink do not come to mind; He has only one thought that he is sentenced to death; he is waiting for the day and hour to come when he will die. The righteous judgment of God, back in paradise, sentenced all of us and our forefather to death: you are earth, and you will return to earth (Gen. 3:19); and no matter how many centuries have passed, there has never been anyone who has passed this limit, and everyday examples show this. Why do we not live like someone sentenced to death? Why are we not afraid of that hour? Why are we not preparing for this? Why do we always indulge in drunkenness, luxury, games, and amusements? Why do we offend, rob, and deceive each other? Why do we admire contrived bows and the deceit of the devil? That we collect wealth through unjust incomes, so as not to part with it forever? After all, we are sentenced to death by the judgment of God, just like the one sitting in prison; and the judgment of God will certainly bring us out of the prison of this body, when the appointed time comes, and the dust is given over to dust: you are earth, and to earth you will go! Would anyone say that “death is not equal: for those, that is, those sitting in prison, it is dishonorable, and for others it is ordinary.” But God alone knows what the end will be for you, who thinks so. Do you have a revelation from God about how He has determined for you to end your life? It may be that you too will be executed; It may be that you will either sink into the depths of the sea, or be killed by robbers, or die in some other similar way. We are all born in one way, but we die in different ways. Some fall while standing and are lifeless; others stumble while walking and lie without a soul; another bends down while sitting and is raised dead; another - in the evening he will go to sleep on his bed, and in the morning he is supposed to be on his deathbed; another sits at the table having fun, and at that hour rushes to the coffin sobbing. And what happens to others can happen to you and to me (we are all people of the same nature, so we are subject to the same cases): and when it happens, it is closed from us; Therefore, one must expect this at every hour. But when and no matter how one ends one’s life, the books of conscience will be opened to everyone; here deeds will appear to everyone, even with the body he has done either good or evil, here two roads will appear, one of which leads to life, and the other to eternal death. But one thing we must admit is that the prince of darkness has blinded our eyes, so as not to see that limit of God, and not to think about it; and without thinking, to fulfill his evil and destructive will, and thus lose salvation. This is what is addressed to us, listeners! And what we see behind us, we will look at with our smart eyes. Oh, it’s scary for us to look there! There stand our fierce rivals, holding tightly to us, and mercilessly dragging us to the Judge, and trying to put us in eternal prison; there, I say, are our sins, committed throughout our entire life, like some monsters who want to fall on us and cast us into the bottom of hell; our sins hurt our conscience, they gore us like a sword. These tormenting enemies cast the angels from heaven into the depths of hell and bound them captives of darkness; these enemies drove the forefather Adam and all his family out of paradise; these enemies brought a terrible flood over the whole world, burning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; these enemies did not allow so many of God’s people to reach the promised land; These tormenting enemies ruin cities, great states and cause all sorts of other troubles and misfortunes. Such, I say, our fierce enemies stand behind us and rise up against us. And if we look around even more carefully, and with spiritual eyes we look at the right and left sides, we will see no less danger. We will see, on the one hand, a world with charms, and on the other, the prince of darkness with the principles, the powers of evil in high places, armed against us. And so, when one side evades, disaster strikes on the other. Hear what Isaiah cries about this: fear and destruction and a snare are upon you who live on the earth. And he will, fleeing from fear, fall into an abyss: and crawling out of the abyss, he will be caught in a snare (Isa. 24:17–18). Like the beasts in the forests from the hunters, so the people in this world are persecuted and caught by the spirits of wickedness in high places. When the animals are freed from their snares, they fall into pits; and if they free themselves from there, they fall to the dogs: the same thing happens to a poor person. When he has escaped from one intrigue, he falls into another; seeks solitude, falls into greater temptation (since Satan fights more in solitude); leaving solitude, he treats his neighbors and his corrupt friends: with their malice he is blackened like tar. So, wherever he turns, a snare of destruction is laid before him. Anthony the Great, as we read in church history, saw the whole world filled with snares from earth even to heaven, which is why he cried out to the Lord with sighs: “Lords, who can get rid of these snares”?! And truly, none of us would have escaped if the grace of God had not saved everyone. Now, listeners, looking with intelligent eyes at all these circumstances, judge whether our life is not in such danger as that of the royal brother, whom we mentioned at the beginning of the word? We see the sword of God's righteousness hanging over our head; We see below us the opening abyss of fiery Gehenna, prepared for sinners; We see death before us, approaching us from hour to hour and wanting to capture us; We see behind us our sins, oppressing our conscience, and in memory they gore like a sword; We see on both sides the world and the devil, our enemies, throwing their arrows at us and wounding us. On top of all this, we also have a wavering throne, that is, an unstable nature, prone to any fall. Can it really be, brothers, that I, too, will tell you, sitting on this shaking throne, surrounded by these troubles, that we will begin to put on purple and fine linen every day, like the rich man of the Gospel? Let's gather friends, gather tables, warm up and have fun with rich food, sweet and expensive wines, when there is fear above and below, behind and in front on both sides?! What should we do in such a situation? How can we get rid of all these evils? Let us also look for a model by which we can evade these dangers. But this is the method that comes to our mind: let us rid ourselves of our sins through true and tearful repentance, which the merciful God gave to us sinners for our weakness. And so, we will free our conscience from their torment, and with humble repentance we will turn away the righteous wrath of God, and we will bow to God’s mercy, and we will extinguish Gehenna under us, kindled by our sins. For the man-loving God does not bow down to anything so much as through human tears, from a heart broken by what is happening. The Ninevites, who escaped the wrath of God by repentance, encourage and encourage us to do this; encourages Manasseh, the king of Judah, who was freed from the bonds of sin by contrition of heart. The harlot, who washed the feet of Christ with her tears, and was thus washed from the defilements of sin, encourages. Saint Peter, the Supreme Apostle, sets himself up as an example, having denied Christ three times and through bitter weeping again been brought into the apostolic ranks. Imitating this, let us also resort with tenderness to our Master: He, like a much-merciful Father, bowing to mercy, will cleanse us from sins, and turn away His righteous anger, and deliver us from the abyss of hell with His love for mankind. And once God is reconciled with us, then we will no longer be afraid of death. But we will also get rid of other circumstances, that is, the slander of the devil and the world, if we pray with tears to the same merciful Provider God, so that He would open our rational eyes, with which we could see the networks of the enemy spread out for us. And when we see them, then by the grace of the same Lord we can avoid them: for the obvious slander of the enemy is not as dangerous, and therefore can be easily avoided, as the secret ones. We will also always resort to the help and protection of, firstly, our Lady Theotokos, the common Representative of all Christians, whose honest Dormition we now celebrate; Then, with zeal, we will call on all the saints of God to help us, since, just as they themselves were tempted, they can help us who are tempted. Let us try to imitate them in the caution of their lives: they avoided the slander of the enemy, remembering the last four: death, judgment, hell, and the kingdom of heaven. And we will take this into our minds, and we will always maintain mortal memory. This will not allow us to boast of nobility, and to despise others, our brethren: since, remembering death, we will remember that we are earth and will go to earth. Remembering death, let us turn our hand away from covetousness, robbery, and also from our own estates we will replenish those who demand our hand, knowing that everything worldly will remain for the world, and we, just as we entered the world naked, so naked will we depart. Remembering death, let us not burden this bodily skin with gluttony and drunkenness, but let us take as much food and drink as we can without weakening, and work, hoping to be eaten by worms ourselves. Remembering death, let us not wish for various and rich clothes, knowing that during burial only a shirt is needed to cover nakedness. Remembering death, let us not get many lands with evil machinations, knowing that after death no more than three arshins of land will be needed. So, remembering death, we will have great fear of avoiding the machinations of the hostile. And when we remember death, then the terrible judgment that follows death will come to mind, where we will be tortured for a bad word and thought. Remembering death, we will prepare for the Last Judgment and appease the righteous Judge by all means. For if, called to human judgment, we prepare how to act in it, what to say, how to justify ourselves: then much more to the judgment of God, at which all our thoughts will be revealed. From the Last Judgment, two roads will appear in the mind: one by one, poor sinners, with crying, screaming and useless sobbing, go into eternal torment; according to the other, the blessed righteous go to the eternal belly with inexpressible joy. The everlasting memory of these four will not allow us to be seduced by sinful sweetness, according to Scripture, which tells us as a precaution: remember your last four, and you will never sin (Sir. 7:39). Amen 193. Creations like the saints of our father Tikhon of Zadonsk. Fifth edition. Moscow. 1889, vol. 1, countries. 72–77. You might be interested in: