168. Беседа о благодарности к Богу

(Printed in Chr. Cht. 1842 and in collections 1844 and 1848) 623 We pray that you will not receive the grace of God in vain (2 Cor. 6:1). The Apostle Paul, pointing out to his Corinthian disciples the greatest of God’s blessings to the human race - deliverance from the realm of sin through the descent into it of the Only Begotten Son of God, in order to destroy the malevolent and deadly power of sin by the all-penetrating and all-conquering life-giving and beneficial power of God: “For we have no sin for sin”, that is, the sacrifice for sin, God the Father “do that we may be the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21); - Having pointed out, I say, this greatest of God’s blessings, the holy Apostle immediately adds an admonition, which, out of love for those admonished and out of a strong desire for it to be accepted, gives the form of a request: “We pray that you will not receive the grace of God in vain.” Are we not all participants in the grace of God indicated by the Apostle, fellow Christians? Therefore, we have a duty and we repeat to you the word of the Apostle: “We pray that the grace of God will not be received by you in vain.” We ask you that the blessings that you have received and are receiving from God are not received in vain. Show yourselves faithful to His grace, worthy of His benefits. Let us explain this in a little more detail. Man lives by the continuous blessings of God: he is entirely composed of the gifts and blessings of God; he is immersed in the blessings of God, as in an abyss. The existence and life of man, in its beginning, is a free gift from the Creator - a gift that no one could force from Him, no one had the right to demand; consequently, the continuation of being and life is a continuous continuation of the same gift of God. Temporary life is a moment-to-moment blessing of God. The immortality of man is an immortal, endless blessing of God. Let's look at our composition. The soul, the basis of life, is the breath of God the Creator. The body, home and instrument of the soul are the work of God. The mind, without which neither truth nor wisdom would exist for you, the heart, without which there would be no good or bliss for you, feelings, without which the universe surrounding you would be closed and inaccessible to you - isn’t all this also God’s work, God’s gifts to you, a nonentity? Exactly, you are entirely made up of the gifts and blessings of God. Let's look around the universe. Who laid the earth under us, which holds us above the abyss, gives us shelter, clothing, food? Who shed the water on earth that gives us water and washes us? Who lit up the luminaries in the heavens that give us the opportunity to see the universe with its wonders, which from the dead earth bring forth for us life, beauty, fragrance, sweetness, food, medicine, and which feed our own earthly life with subtle, but no less earthly essential food? Whose air is this that we breathe? Who gave us the day, which stimulates us to activity, and the night, which favors our rest? Who gave the grain a law that is beneficial for us - to produce an overabundance of seeds for our bread, in addition to the small number of seeds needed for procreation? Who commanded the tree, in addition to the seed grain it needed, to bear fruit for us, and not for it? Who ordered the proud horse to humble himself under our weight, and the humble sheep, even the little worm, to spin our clothing from its body? Who, in case of the stinginess of the sun, prepared for us treasures of light and fire in flint and steel, in wood and oil? Isn’t all this and other innumerable things God’s dispensation, God’s property, and, when provided for our benefit, God’s benefit to us? Exactly, we are immersed in the blessings of God, as in an abyss. Perhaps someone who is inattentive to the blessings of God will say: I use what in my nature and in the nature around me, through my own efforts, or with the assistance of other people, I processed, found, produced, acquired. To this we answer with the Apostle: “Neither planteth nor watereth, but God giveth the increase” (1 Cor. 3:7). This denunciation of the insignificance of human actions, in comparison with the beneficial assistance of God, is just as true literally, in relation to the processing of visible nature, as allegorically, in relation to the formation of the spiritual nature in man. You made a rough furrow, or dug a hole, threw in some grain or planted a root, and maybe also sprinkled some water if it was in a small garden. What limited, dead, insignificant things! But what is the heavenly Farmer doing in the meantime? In the grain or root He has already prepared, imperceptibly, and even more surprisingly, the whole future plant and all the fruit that you hunger for; in the ground into which you throw the seed as into a grave, He also prepared a mother’s womb for it; further He commands his sun, through dark and cold blocks, to break through with light and warmth, and to extract from a buried seed a sprout, from a sprout a stem, from a stem a flower and a fruit; to facilitate this, He again sends alternately warmth and cold, humidity and dryness, rain and dew, winds and silence; and of course, it is not man who plants and waters, but God who grows, from the same things - earth, water, air, light - who produces bread in an ear of wheat, and wine in a berry. We notice our insignificant deeds because they are limited and small, because we begin them and finish them, become stronger for them and get tired of them; and on the contrary, sometimes we do not notice the blessings of God for the very reason that they are great, because they are ready without effort, universal, everlasting. Sometimes it is necessary to temporarily and locally remove the beneficial hand of God, so that people can more fairly evaluate the good deed of God, which they have enjoyed for a long time without attention. Hunger explains God's blessing of bread, pestilence - the blessing of the air, drought - the blessing of rain, poverty - the blessing of the sun, which is not expensive because the all-good 624 God shines on them every day on evil and good. When considering human societies, the thought of the beneficent hand of God is often obscured by the thought of human free will. But God, the beneficent Creator of the world and man, can he not also be the beneficent Creator of human society? For human society independent of Him and uncontrolled by Him would prevent Him from fulfilling beneficent intentions for the world and man and would limit God, which contradicts the fundamental concept of Divinity. No one who recognizes God the Creator and Provider will argue that the society of bees or ants is God’s dispensation in nature, because no elected members of the hive made a social decree for it, and no philosopher of the anthill invented the fable of a social contract. Well? Is the society of men less worthy to be the dispensation of the all-wise God and the everlasting subject of His beneficent administration? There is human rule over people - and this does not in the least contradict the fact that each of them has, by nature, free will; in the same way, the existence of this freedom does not in the least contradict the existence of the supreme rule of God over the human race 625, and over the family, and over the state. This government of God is not ineffective because it is invisible, and it is, without a doubt, richer in means of achieving its goals than any human government. How quickly we believe that we, in the social as well as in the natural state, are under the all-good and all-wise control of God: then everything good and beneficial in the community - good parents, prudent educators, enlightened mentors, truthful judges, caring leaders, and most of all the wise and beneficent Sovereign and his blessed successes in good intentions for the state, victory over the enemy, destruction sedition, achievement, preservation, affirmation of peace, exaltation or fencing of public internal improvement - all this multiplies the never-ending count of gifts and benefits of the King of kings, Lord of lords, the Father, “of which the whole family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:15). “I will sing of Thy mercies, O Lord, forever” (Ps. 88:2), the Psalmist cries, and sings of God’s “covenant” to David, as King and ancestor, beneficial for the kingdom and people, and prays for the renewal of these “ancient mercies” of the Lord. If anyone thinks that it was among the Jews; then I say to the Apostle: “Or is the God of the Jews only, and not of the tongues? her, and tongues" (Rom. 3:29). Is God really a royally beneficent God only for the Jews? right, and for Christians; right, and for Russians. No matter how many and great the benefits of God are to man in natural and civil life, the benefits of God that relate to man’s spiritual and eternal life are predominantly great, important, innumerable, indescribable. The first two types of benefits can only be considered preparatory and conducive to the latter. There being is granted to nothingness and prosperity to being; here purity is given to the sinner, forgiveness to the condemned, life to the spiritually dead, salvation and bliss to the lost. There the created is prepared and used for the benefit of the created; here the Creator Himself comes to the aid of the creature, serves it, betrays Himself to it; The Son of God is not spared, but given up for us all; the flesh and blood of the God-man is offered as food and drink, as medicine, as a source of life: the heart of God is opened; the love of God is poured into our hearts; The Holy Spirit is given; Many mansions in heaven are opened to earthly beings, and in the heart of man the abode of God is created. Who understands that the human soul can truly live only by God, just as the body lives by the soul, but that God cannot live in an unclean soul; who has enough self-knowledge to notice how unfortunately and how almost inevitably the deception of the serpent and the seduction of Eve are repeated in us by the pride of the mind and the lust of the flesh; how every unrighteous deed, even every unclean desire and evil thought, expels the soul from the paradise of a peaceful conscience; how, finally, one’s own efforts are insufficient to arise from hell of an irritated conscience: he can somewhat understand how great the benefit of grace-filled redemption, cleansing and forgiveness, how wonderful is also the benefit of preserving a person in a state of grace. As for the highest gifts of grace: enlightenment, sanctification, union with God, about this even one who knows the other blessings of God can say so little, just as one who has seen only small alms given to the poor on the porch cannot say what generous, precious, sweet gifts the King distributes in the interior of his palace to his entourage, the ruler of the house to his friends, the father filled with love to his relatives. children. I stop in expounding the blessings of God not because I have already said enough, but because it is never possible to say enough. I stop and listen to what your conscience tells me, what your heart says? Is there any special relationship between man and God the Benefactor? Is any correspondence required to His good deeds? Or is there none at all and is not needed? I don’t think anyone would dare say this last thing. And if one were to be found, then I would doubt whether his heart is in his chest, and whether it is not a hard and cold stone, or some kind of lip, greedily drinking someone else’s moisture, without thirst, without taste and without satiety; and whether he has reason in his head, or something worse than bestial instinct, because “the ox has known him who acquired it, and the donkey has known his master’s manger” (Is. 1:3); The dumb ones recognize a person by his good deeds and correspond to them. But if there must be correspondence to the blessings of God on the part of man, then what could it consist of? Merit, request, gratitude: these are three possible correspondences to benefits. Merit is possible between people, one of whom has a need for the services of the other, and the other can diligently present his services to the first: but a self-satisfied God has no need for anything, and a person has nothing to present to God that would not be a benefit received from God; Consequently, there is no place for merit here. It is possible to ask for good deeds from God, and it is good if a person does this with confidence and humility. But most of God’s blessings happen before our request, better than our request and above our concept: you cannot ask for something that has already been done, you cannot ask for something that is not even in your mind. Therefore, it remains the most common way to correspond to the benefits of God - gratitude, true, as the benefits of God are true, active, as God actively does good to us. And therefore “we pray that you will not receive the grace of God in vain.” Prove yourself to be faithful to the grace of God in your heart, worthy of His grace 626 in reality. Has the Lord done a sign for you for good by delivering you from trouble or danger: remember the past, rely on the Lord in the future, use the present for good. Does God extend to you a beneficent hand in earthly blessings: stretch out your grateful hand to help your neighbor in need. Is the benevolent providence of God upon us in a good Sovereign, in a reign that promotes a quiet and silent life: let us offer our gratitude to the King of those reigning in joyful praises and in earnest prayer for His anointed, and we will show the fruits of gratitude in the zealous fulfillment of every duty of loyalty. Do you find in your heart the gift of God's grace - forgiveness of sins, peace of conscience, joy of salvation: thank God with a firm and constantly renewed determination to flee from sins, with deep inner attention to maintaining peace of conscience, with modest, but not lazy, assistance in the salvation of your neighbors. Has the heavenly hero honored anyone with the distinction of the cross, the feats of temptation, sorrow, suffering: let this one also think that punishment from the all-good Father is a blessing, and even the chosen gift “for the benefit, that we may partake of His holy things” (Heb. 12:10), and therefore let him learn not only not to murmur, not to be faint-hearted, not to complain, but also to bless the name of the Lord with Job, or cry out in gratitude with the Psalmist: “It is good for me, because you have humbled me, that I may learn through Your justification” (Ps. 119:71). In everything give thanks: “For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus in you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Amen. In the index in the Readings of O. L. D. Pr. listed as spoken in 1842. In Chr. Read: all-beneficent... In Chr. Read: both over man and over the human race... In Chr. Read: His blessings.... You might be interested in: