About soul-destroying drunkenness, and about the terrible judgment of God

Word about. John of Kronstadt How sad it is to see that on the feasts of the Lord the enemy takes his dues from Christians, an extremely large dues, and the greater the holiday, the more dues Christians pay to the enemy, for what do we see on holidays? Complete idleness, unbridledness of the flesh, drunkenness, debauchery, fights, thefts, amusements. My God! What a delight for the flesh! What zealous service to the devil! Are these people Christians, just think, redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Son of God? Do you live in Christian times, or in pagan ones? Are these communicants of the Life-Giving Mysteries? Are these the people who visit the church of God and pray to the Lord with you? If it was them, why did they come to the church? Apparently, by habit alone, and not by the attraction of a heart grateful to Christ the Savior. Apparently, they did not pray to God, did not approach Him with their hearts, but only approached Him with their lips - unless they approached Him with their lips - and they did not enter into the power of the holiday, they generally do not understand the essence and purpose of Christian holidays, but participate in them as children participate in the family holiday of their parents. Thin children from such a loving, kind, holy mother - the Church? A holy mother means sinful children, a spiritual mother means carnal children, a heavenly mother means earthly children; the mother wants to give her children eternal, spiritual blessings, instead of corruptible and temporary ones - the children reject them and choose earthly, sinful, transitory pleasures for themselves. However, among people who are drunk and devoted to various vices on holidays, you meet more people who have not been to church (and do not know the holiday at all, because they have never thought about it). For such there is only one holiday - the holiday of the flesh. Oh! How long will we priests not rise up against all the outrages on the feasts of the Lord? Which of the priests of God will have the zeal of Elijah, or Phineas, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah (to rise up with the power of the Holy Spirit against all these outrages on the feasts of the Lord in the new Israel), so as to use all their strength, their whole life for the glory of God - to eradicate these indecencies among Christians? God! When will we hallow Thy feasts, as befits a shrine? When will we console our holy mother, the Church, by obeying her statutes? When will we be drunk with her spirit? How long, starting in the spirit, will we finish with the flesh the celebration of the great, saving events of the Orthodox faith? How long will the enemy mock the members of Christ, who are Christians? How long will people of other faiths and confessions point to us and say: look - here are the Christians who call themselves Orthodox - how they live! What faith they have in their hearts! What knowledge do they have about faith! What kind of priests they have! How badly they teach the people the faith, how little they explain to them the holidays, their object and purpose of establishment! How little they teach them to live by faith! My God! What a criticism of our Orthodox faith and of us shepherds! Or, however, perhaps what they say about us shepherds is fair? There is also a lot of our fault in the fact that Christians do not spend holidays as they should, we do not reprove, do not forbid, do not beg them, with all patience and teaching, to spend holidays and generally live like Christians. We talk little about idleness, drunkenness, debauchery; We do not thunder in the Church of God with the word of God against these vices that have terribly taken hold of Christians. We do not always excommunicate, out of fear, from St. The cups of persons known for their drunkenness and adultery and through this we allow these contagious and vile vices to increase more and more; we give weak penances in confession to persons who deserve strict church punishment; We do not monitor, as we should, the fulfillment of these penances that we impose on them! Good God! Both shepherds and flock are irresponsible before You. All evaded, together with indecency there was. Do not do goodness among us, not even one of us 1. What will finally happen given the current chaos in our lives? Lawlessness is spreading across the earth, the kingdom of the enemy is spreading, Your kingdom is shrinking, there are few of Your chosen ones, in whose hearts You rest, - many slaves of the devil, in whose hearts, like a thief, sits the original murderer. What will you do to us, Lord? The blood of Your covenant cries out from the earth, but Your gospel voice does not penetrate the hearts of Christians. Your commandments are neglected, church statutes are trampled upon - what will you do to us, Lord? God! Send zealous workers to Thy city, not seeking their own, but seeking Thy Christ. Grant them prophetic zeal, apostolic strength and wisdom, so that they tirelessly cultivate the fields of human hearts day and night. Words about. John of Kronstadt February 25, 1907 The Lord is coming to judge the earth He will judge the universe in truth and the nations according to His truth (Ps. 95:13). I had occasion to attend earthly sessions called district courts. The decor of the main courtroom is impressive. A large portrait of the sovereign on the wall, tables, seats, a heterogeneous audience, docks and the defendants themselves, tense anticipation of the judges. Now the doors open; the herald loudly says: the trial is coming! The members of the court come out with the chairman; sit down; the court record is read; the defendants are announced; the jurors are seated; witnesses are called; an oath is read - to tell only the truth. The investigation of the case begins. All this is decorous, in order - and makes an impression on the public. This is the situation of the earthly court, the human one. For the defendants it is somewhat scary. After determining the degree of guilt of the defendants and a meeting of judges, a decision is made and announced - punishment or freedom from trial. This is the earthly court in a brief outline. Human judgment presupposes God's judgment, just as the internal court of conscience presupposes the eternally righteous Lawgiver and Judge - God, who has placed the law of conscience in every person. The judgment of judges is the judgment of God. Judge righteously, says Moses to the judges of Israel, for the judgment of God is (Num. 25:5). Judges are people, and defendants are the same sinful people as those who judge, and judges tend to make mistakes and sometimes judge not rightly, but crookedly - to justify the guilty and condemn the innocent. This is not the judgment of God: it is right, precise, eternal. The prophet says: The Lord will judge the world in righteousness, and the people in His truth. Now let us delve into the description of the Last Judgment of God, the final judgment of people for all eternity. When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy Angels with Him, says the Evangelist, then He will sit on the throne of His glory and all nations will be gathered before Him; and will separate one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:31–34). What is the Kingdom of Heaven for? For love of God and neighbor, for the work of mercy, as the Divine response reveals. Then He will also say to those on the left side: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). For what? For dislike of God and neighbor, for selfishness, for insane blind attachment to earthly goods and for neglect of spiritual, eternal goods; for unbelief, coldness, ingratitude towards the Creator and trampling on his righteous laws, as shown by the same answer of the righteous Judge. And these, says the end of the Gospel of the day, will go away into eternal torment, but the righteous into eternal life (Matthew 25:46). Here, in brief words, is a description of the terrible final Judgment of God over people of all times and all places on the earth’s planet. To make a greater impression on the souls of this formidable, terrible judgment, let us go into some details. The Evangelist preaches that the Son of Man, that is, Christ, will come to judgment in His glory and all the holy angels with Him and will sit on the throne in His glory. Let us pay attention to the words “he will come in his glory.” Can you imagine this terrible, unprecedented glory of the Beginningless One, the Almighty Creator Judge, by whose word everything was created: all the angels, heaven and earth, and by whose word everything is contained in being and wonderful harmony, to whom everything obeys? At Tabor, He showed His three disciples in a small form the radiance of His glory, and even then they could not bear it, falling on their faces to the ground. The Lord, who had already ascended into heaven, appeared to the Apostle John the Theologian on the island of Patmos on Sunday, in His glory, commensurate with the capacity of the apostle’s still mortal eyes. And when I saw Him, says John himself, I fell at His feet as if dead, for His face shone like the sun in its power. And He laid His right hand on me and said to me: Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last, and the living; and he was dead, and behold, he is alive forever and ever, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and death (Rev. 1:17–18). This is how He appeared on earth to the chosen disciples, reviving, and not striking with His light, and showing a little of His Divine nature and incorruptible, incomprehensible light. Now imagine in what glory He will appear to all peoples of all ages, so that everyone will immediately see His terrible, unbearable, Divine glory and without any hesitation become confident in His Divinity and Divine power - including the Jews who crucified Him and still do not believe in Him and mock Him! In what, I say, terrible glory will He appear at His second coming, in order to at once take away from all nations every possibility of unbelief and force them to recognize His Divine power? In addition to His own, natural, eternal glory, He will be surrounded by the terrible glory of all the countless angelic powers, strong in strength and terrible in their heavenly glory. Here will appear intelligent flaming thrones, and many-eyed cherubim, and terrible seraphim, whose glory even righteous people could not see. How will unrepentant sinners and the Jewish unbelieving multitude feel, who pierced Him and are still persecuting Him in the person of faithful Christians! The seer John answers: Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the families of the earth will mourn before Him. Yes, Amen (Rev. 1:7). Pay attention to these final words “hey” and “amen”, i.e. surely, surely this will happen. In what position then will our present, past and future unbelievers, the so-called intellectuals, and all the decadents appear - unbelievers and malicious writers who have made the printed word an instrument of slander, deception, temptation, trade and mockery of every sacred thing and of well-intentioned people? What they mocked, what they rejected here, what they mocked will be too real (real) before them. The obvious truth will amaze them, make them dumb, unresponsive; and in what they considered themselves irresponsible, they will see themselves guilty and responsible, for the word of the Lord will not pass by, that for every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36). At that trial, the king and the warrior, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the learned and the ignorant, the man and the woman will appear together in equal dignity; each one will either be glorified or disgraced by his own deeds (Matthew 12:37). Then eternity will open for people who did not believe in it, in all its terrible grandeur and horror; and for believers and devotees of the Lord - in all the desired beauty and glory and indestructible bliss. As long as we have time, we will use it for repentance and correction. Amen. Brothers, Orthodox Christians, accept the above words of the venerable, true shepherd, righteous Father John of Kronstadt about the terrible approaching, future judgment of God; these words are true, relative to everyone living on earth from the beginning; God forbid that we should hear them from the Divine righteous Judge: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Brothers, we always rejoice when we remember the saints. You know for sure that the great prayer book of the Russian land, the true shepherd, Fr. John of Kronstadt, our patron, was called righteous by the Sovereign Emperor in a rescript given to His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg dated January 12, 1909. The Lord glorifies the righteous. Thanks be to His all-merciful Providence that He, the Merciful, placed His advice in the heart of the king. Our most pious monarch Nikolai Alexandrovich gave worthy glory to the great lamp of the Church of Christ, Father Fr. John of Kronstadt, calling him a worthy righteous man. For this, millions of people loyal to the king were consoled with abundant joy. Many in their prayers give glory to God and thanksgiving to the king. That’s why we, according to the Tsar’s word, call the venerable shepherd Fr. John of Kronstadt, righteous; may he be a righteous man in eternal memory, for we, as followers of the great righteous man of God, Fr. John, we proclaim the truth to the world: we speak what our eyes have seen and what our ears have heard. When he turned his face to us, and wherever his voice came out of his mouth, the heart of everyone who heard his voice burned with the love of Christ. From the voice of the Lord in him, thunder came and lightning flew, the waters began to rustle, and abundant springs of living water flowed. They watered the earth, as if with rivers, and the earth became fruitful. The Lord God sent His abundant rain to the earth, early and late. Brothers, Orthodox Christians, these words may not be so clear to many. I'll explain what they mean. During the liberation movement, the great righteous man, Fr. John of Kronstadt, at the inspiration of God, began to speak threatening words in his sermons, also denouncing the world for evil and the wicked for their iniquities. Glory and thanksgiving for everything to the Lord God, that He, the Merciful, does not abandon us with His grace, and shows us the righteous to enlighten us with the word of truth. Without saints, people would become worse than animals, everyone would become an instrument of slander, sale, trade and persecution, with impunity. It is said: God is marvelous in His saints, for the Lord, through His saints, does His wondrous, wondrous works before our eyes. We cannot describe everything in books, how many miracles the Lord God performed through the said righteous man, Father Fr. John of Kronstadt, for we were witnesses to all this and therefore we proclaim the truth to the world. From his words, many were enlightened by the light of the teachings of Christ. Wherever he was, he was always surrounded by people. For example, when Father Fr. John of Kronstadt in the city of Kharkov, performed a service in a vast cathedral, behind many people, the singers had to sing in the altar. The crowd of people was extraordinary. The whole city was shocked, and in many places where Fr. John of Kronstadt, peasants abandoned their fields, merchants closed their shops, rushing to receive the blessing. In many places they welcomed him and sang Easter irmos with joy and greeted him with the ringing of bells. We consider ourselves happy with these memories and always rejoice in the same spiritual joy that God gave us through his servant, God’s chosen one. Holiness and righteousness are known by holy works. There is no salvation in any faith or sect except the right-wing Orthodox Holy Faith. Listen, brothers, listen to what holiness is recognized. The Law - the Holy Gospel - is our guide. This is what the holy Apostle Paul says regarding the saints of God: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from Him, but everything is naked" (Heb. 4:12–13). Brothers, these words of the holy Apostle Paul apply to all the saints, pleasing to God, who fulfilled the Holy Gospel. Many of you have witnessed that in the venerable pastor, Fr. John of Kronstadt, the word of God lived: he judged us, knew the thoughts of our hearts and often denounced them. I often heard that when thousands of miles away they sent telegrams to the righteous Father John of Kronstadt and asked him to pray for a sick person, then through the prayer of the holy righteous man the sick person received healing. You know, Orthodox Christians, in St. The Gospel says that God does not listen to sinners; but whoever honors God and does His will listens to him (John 9:31); That’s why we consider Father John of Kronstadt to be a righteous man, but since he is not canonized according to the rank of the Church of Christ, we do not paint icons in his honor, we do not light candles and lamps before him, we do not have prayers or akathists, and by this we do not deviate from the statutes of our holy mother, the Orthodox Church. You might be interested in: