14. Благодетель и неблагодарный, от него получающий благодеяние

If someone lived in the house of some kind and merciful gentleman and received food, drink, clothing, protection and other benefits from him, but not only did not show him worthy gratitude as his benefactor, but also showed all sorts of rudeness, disrespect and annoyance, reviled and scolded him, then this would be worthy of regret and everyone would be indignant at such a crazy person. And indeed, such a person would be worthy of all indignation and reproach! Ingratitude is a great evil, madness and blindness, and it is disgusting to every person. Children who do not honor their parents remain in this vice; people who revile and slander their shepherd; students who annoy their teachers; subordinates who do not show worthy honor and love to the authorities, who care about the common benefit of those who care about them; beggars who do not love those who give them alms and do not remember their good deeds, and others. Lawless Christians show God this kind of ingratitude, or even incomparably worse ones. For man, whatever good he does to man, is not his own, but he does God’s good, since God is the Source and Cause of all that is good in the world. God gives us His true goodness. What kindness and benefit God has not shown us, O Christians! He created us, and created us not as beasts, but as people gifted with reason. He created with His special advice: “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). Created in His own image and likeness. What greater honor could a person have than to be created in the image of God! For this alone we will never be able to thank God in any way. But when we sinned, fell and perished, and then our Most Good Creator did not leave us in our destruction. And what means did He not invent to restore us and bring us to Himself! He sent His prophets to us, who turned us, who had departed from Him, to Him. He gave us His holy word, like a message in which He revealed and declared His holy will. And since we were so struck and wounded by the fierce robber, our enemy, the devil, that we could not be healed by anything, our Merciful Creator had mercy on us, the poor, so much so that He did not spare His Only Begotten Son for our sake, but sent Him to us, to seek us, the lost, to heal the wounded and broken, to save the lost, about which the Son of God Himself means The Only Begotten preaches to us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:16–17), who, while living, or rather wandering on earth, did whatever he did! No matter what kindnesses he provided! No matter how much he suffered for us! What reproaches, blasphemy, what insults from His ungrateful people did He endure! Finally he died on the cross for our salvation! Yet our Most Good Lord created this with the good pleasure of His Heavenly Father and His free will. Thus, having shown a wonderful Providence for us, our most merciful God called us to His holy faith, and washed us, sanctified and justified us in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says to Christians: “But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). This and other blessings of God belong to our soul and eternal life. The whole world testifies to the kindness He shows to our body and temporary life. Turn your mind and eyes, O man, to His entire creation and judge: who does it serve? Shouldn't we? Who wants the sun, moon and stars? Shouldn't we? Who wants air and clouds? Shouldn't we? Who wants the land with fruits? Shouldn't we? Who wants livestock, animals and birds? Shouldn't we? Who wants water with fish and others living in it? Shouldn't we, O Christians? All creation serves us by the command of God, since we cannot live without it even for the slightest time. Who can live without bread and water, who can live without clothes? We need air so much that we cannot live even a minute without it. What would our lives be like if God took the light away from us? Wouldn't everyone wander like the blind? Who could remain unharmed from the invisible enemy, the devil, if God, with His almighty hand, did not protect us from the enemy, who rages against our race with the strongest malice, “prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). But why list so many? We must admit that God’s blessings are countless, which any of us is awarded. We are all wrapped up in God’s love and good deeds. Whatever you look at, whatever you turn your mind to, all this shows God’s love for us and good deeds. Gehenna itself, announced to us from Him, benefits us because it frightens us. Let us repent and cry before the Lord, who created us, so that he would have mercy on us and deliver us from it. Our Creator allows the devil himself for our benefit. And he allows it to the extent that it is useful to us, and this enemy tempts us to the extent that it is beneficial to us. How useful? It awakens us from laziness and encourages us to pray. Feeling the presence of this enemy, we resort to God and ask Him for help and protection. And just as a warrior, the more often he fights in battle, the more skillfully he becomes, so a Christian, the more temptations he courageously endures from this enemy, the better and more skillful he becomes in the Christian rank, and the more victories he wins over this enemy, the more beautiful crown he will be awarded by the Hero of Jesus Christ. “Having care,” says St. John Chrysostom, - about our salvation, God left the devil, so that he would awaken us from laziness, and prepare an opportunity for us to receive a crown" (Conversation 23 on the book of Genesis). And Saint Paul says: “A thorn was given to me in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to afflict me, so that I would not become arrogant” (2 Cor. 12:7). Do you see how useful a hostile spirit is to us, do you see how a proud one leads to humility? It's harmful to us so that we don't become arrogant. And so an evil and malicious spirit promotes our good with an evil intention. But when a Christian commits lawlessness, forgets all these blessings of God, and does not honor God, his Benefactor, and is very ungrateful to Him, he becomes like one who reviles and scolds his benefactor, a man, and does not consider the benefit shown to himself to be worth anything. The Christian does not honor and despise God because he does not want to listen to Him. This is a terrible word, O Christian, but true! How? Listen and take heed. God commands: do not swear by My name in vain. But the lawless Christian swears. God commands: Honor your parents and authorities. But the lawless Christian does not honor. God commands: do not be angry, do not be angry with your neighbor, do not hate him. But a lawless Christian holds anger, bears a grudge and hates his neighbor, created in the image of God. God commands: You shall not commit fornication or commit adultery. But a lawless Christian either commits adultery or commits fornication, and thereby defiles his own and another’s soul and body, defiles, I say, the soul created in the image of God. God commands: do not steal, do not kidnap someone else’s property. But the lawless Christian steals and abducts. God commands: do not bear false witness, do not slander, do not curse your neighbor, do not lie, do not deceive, do not condemn or slander. But a lawless Christian does not look at this God’s command, he bears false witness, lies, deceives, reviles, scolds, judges and condemns a person similar to himself, and sometimes even better. Do you see how the wicked does not listen and despises his Creator! What honor is there for the father from the son and for the master from the slave, when the son of the father and the slave of the master do not listen? Is it not obvious contempt and humiliation? Oh, how many despisers and despisers of God are there in the world! How many of God’s enemies are there among those who think that He is revered! Oh, what a poor state Christianity has come to! A Christian, who has received and continues to receive so many mercies and benefits from God, becomes an enemy of God, his Highest Benefactor, the one who knows that both for the sake of everyone, and for his sake, the Son of God came into the world, suffered and died; the one who is called by the word of God to eternal life; the one who is washed by God by the washing of Baptism, sanctified, justified. Oh, how the murderer devil infected the poor man! As the enemy of God himself is, he made man the same. Do you see, Christian, what sin leads you to! You, who should be a lover of God and a worshiper of God, become an enemy of God through sin. It seems sweet to you, but its fruits are bitter! You don’t see this now, but you will see it then, when all the deeds and thoughts of men are revealed. It is hard for you, a human being, to endure when a person similar to you, who has received some small benefit from you, does not show you gratitude. How much more difficult is ingratitude to God, all the best to the Source! From here we see that everywhere God complains about ingratitude: “they have forgotten His good deeds... and His wonders” (Ps. 77:11). And again: “Hear, O heaven, and listen, O earth, because the Lord says: I have begotten and raised up sons, ... but they have rejected Me” (Is. 1:2). And again: “They have sinned, they are not His children in their vices, a crooked and perverse generation. Do you repay the Lord for this?” (Deuteronomy 32:5–6), and elsewhere in Scripture. So, feel yourself, Christian, and, having recognized your ingratitude and sins, fall in humility before the merciful eyes of God and from the depths of your heart cry out to Him: “Those who have sinned, Lord, have mercy on me! Receive me, the lost sheep, and count me among Your chosen flock! Give me a heart, God who knows the heart, that honors You, fears You, loves You, and follows Your will! Guide me on Your path, and I will walk in Your truth! Look upon me and have mercy on me, according to the judgment of those who love Your name!” And when, having converted, you begin to repent and live a new Christian life, your former lawless life will not harm you, and then you yourself will know what you were like in the eyes of God. “When, having returned, you sigh, then you will be saved and understand where... you were" (Is. 30:15). You will understand what a disastrous state you were in, how far you had wandered from the path of truth. You will understand that you were unworthy of the name Christian, although you called yourself a Christian, that in fact you were dead, although you dreamed that you were alive. Everyone living in sin is dead to God, as is he who lives in God is dead to sin. Then what was said about you will also come true: “For this son of mine was dead and is alive, he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:24). And then there will be joy in heaven over you before the Angels of God. Oh, may it come true! “O Lord God of Hosts, turn us, and make Your face shine, and we will be saved” (Ps. 79:20). When a person who is ungrateful to his benefactor comes to reason and repents of his ingratitude, begins to think and say to himself: “What am I, the damned one, doing? Should I repay my benefactor? Is hatred for love, and evil for good? I have truly gone mad!” And he regrets and laments his lawless actions. And he is ashamed to look at his benefactor, falls before him with humility and asks for his forgiveness, not fearing anything from him, but only regretting that the one whom he should have loved and respected as a lover was reviled, scolded and insulted. This is true repentance! Do you see, Christian, what a person does to a person, his benefactor, when he shows him ingratitude and comes to repentance! So a Christian, when he comes to his senses and judges about God’s blessings, both to others, those shown to him and being shown, and about God, his Benefactor, forgotten and despised by him, he is greatly lamented and, oppressed by sorrow for God, like an arrow, he is wounded, and at himself, as at an enemy, he is angry, judging himself as unworthy of neither heaven, nor earth, nor a piece of bread, nor rags. In a word, he doesn’t consider himself worthy of anything, but only one punishment. He sees that He, as His Creator and God, should have been honored, but He was not. Should have listened, but didn't. Should have loved, but did not love. I should have humbled myself before Him, but I didn’t. He should have obeyed Him, but he didn’t. And thereby he insulted the One in whose love and good deeds he is enclosed, the One who is one love and goodness, the One in whose hand are all the ends of the earth and himself, the One whom the Angels worship, honor and sing with fear and love. This is sorrow for God, which transforms unrepentant repentance into salvation! A heart crushed by such sadness cannot help but shed tears. He and the prophet will wish for a source of tears. It is already hard for such a person to sin in the future. He would rather die than sin. This is true Christian repentance, which comes from reflecting on our contempt for God the Benefactor and His good deeds! Oh, if every Christian would consider what good God has done and is doing to him, and how gravely he offends Him through sin, the One from Whom he receives every good deed, and would look at God’s greatness and his own unworthiness, he would never want to sin! But the trouble is that he has closed spiritual eyes and therefore does not see what he himself is doing. “Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). Wake up, oh poor soul! Behold, Satan wants to deprive you of your eternal treasure forever. You might be interested in: