Время

Reasonable and wise farmers do not miss the time when they should sow, but then they work and sow. Thus, reasonable and wise Christians do not miss the time of real life, but work and sow their seeds, repent, do works of repentance, do works of mercy, and so on. The present time is only the time of sowing, and in the next century this will not happen. Now is the favorable time to repent, cry about sins, pray, do good to everyone, but in the next century all this will cease. The time of our life is short and passes like water flowing by, and what is lost does not return like a spoken word. How do you spend it, in what? Is it not idleness? Isn't it in the hustle and bustle? Is it not about festivities and feasts? Is it not about gaining honor, fame, wealth? Look around! Time has been given to you by God for repentance, and not for carnal pleasure. Are you spending it the way God wants? Look around! A person can find everything in this world, but he cannot find lost time. Death follows a person along an invisible path and abducts him when he does not expect him, and where he does not expect him, and in a way that he does not expect him to. Our death is known to us and unknown: known because we will die; unknown, because we don’t know when, where and how we will die. The longer we live, the more our days decrease and we approach the end of our life. You see that for everything there is a time determined, as Ecclesiastes says: for everything there is a time, and a time for every thing under heaven (Eccl. 3:1). Birds build nests and hatch chicks in due course; animals come together in due time and give birth to offspring; fish also in due time; trees and grass turn green, bloom and bear fruit in due time; farmers plow, sow and harvest fruits in their own time - in a word, our Creator God has determined its time for every thing. By this we learn that God has determined the time for us to seek eternal salvation. This time is the present, as long as we can say: “today” (Heb. 3:13), while we are in this world, while we live and are travelers. This time has been appointed for us to seek salvation, which Christ the Son of God deserved with His Blood. Hence this time is likened in Scripture to the time of sowing: whatever a man sows, that will he also reap: he who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, and he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal. 6:7-8). Those who sow in tears will reap with joy. Those who left went away and wept, throwing away their seeds, but those who came will come with joy, gathering their sheaves (Ps. 125:5-6). There will be a time when no one will receive it, although they will seek it with tears and sighing. Just like foolish farmers, having missed the right time, although they sow, they destroy the seed, because they sow at the wrong time; so foolish sinners will once seek salvation, but will not receive it, for then there will be a time of judgment, not repentance. Now is the time to sow, seek, ask, knock on the doors of God's mercy, when God promised to hear and help and listens and helps. For it is said: in an acceptable time I heard you and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a good time, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). Now everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Matthew 7:8), says Christ. Then this won't happen. Another objected: I, they say, at death can repent. With such repentance you can go to hell. O man, do you then want to repent when the time of repentance ends and the time of judgment and torture begins? Then do you want to turn to God when God calls you to answer? Then do you want to search when time is already running out? It is indisputable that one should repent even at death; it is even more important to pray and call upon God diligently, for especially then a great feat awaits the soul. But postponing repentance until death is a deception of the mind, negligence about salvation and the machinations of the devil, who puts such a thought in a person’s heart and teaches to destroy the law of God with fearlessness, to anger God and to put off repentance day by day in order to destroy a person with such cunning. Therefore, if you want to die blissfully, now be what you want to be when you die. Talk about worldly things, honor, fame, wealth and luxury now as the dying talk, who then leave everything. Beware of sin and regret what you have done now, just as you were careful and sorry then. Do you then want to receive remission of sins from God in the name of Christ? Now try about that. Do you want to receive mercy from God then? Look for her now. But whoever wants to receive mercy from the merciful God ceases to anger Him and regrets his former fearlessness. And only the one who stops sinning and produces the fruits of repentance stops angering Him. Think about this, sinful soul, and listen to what the Forerunner said: Even the ax lies at the root of the trees: every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). You see where sinners who do not produce the fruits of repentance are determined: they are cut down like barren trees with the ax of God’s judgment and thrown into the eternal fire like firewood. You see that a wound clock is constantly running, and although we are asleep or awake, doing or not doing, they have an incessant flow until the mechanism stops. So is our life: from birth to death it constantly flows and diminishes. We rest or work, we are awake or asleep, we are talking with someone or we are silent, our life continually moves on and is approaching its end, and is already closer to the end today than it was yesterday and the day before yesterday, at this hour than it was an hour ago. So unbeknownst to us, our life is shortening! Hours and minutes pass like this! And we don’t know when the mechanism will stop and the pendulum will stop striking. The providence of God hid from us the fact that we would always be ready for the outcome, whenever our Lord God calls us to him. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, finds awake (see Luke 12:37). Damned are those whom he finds immersed in a sinful sleep! This incident and reasoning teaches you, Christian: 1. That the time of our life is constantly running out. 2. That the past tense cannot be returned. 3. That the past and the future are not ours, but only that which we now have. 4. That our death is unknown to us. 5. Therefore, we must always, at any hour, be prepared for the outcome if we want to die blissfully. 6. From here we conclude that a Christian must be in constant repentance, the feat of faith and piety. 7. What he wants to be at the end, he must try to be like this at any time of his life, since he does not know in the morning whether he will wait until evening, and in the evening whether he will wait until morning. For we see that those who were healthy in the morning, by evening lie lifeless on their deathbed; and those who fall asleep in the evening will not get up in the morning and will sleep until the Arkhangelsk trumpet. And what happens to others can happen to you and me, for we are all subject to every eventuality. Time is precious, and there is nothing more valuable than it. We can find everything from what is lost, but it is impossible to find lost time, just as words that have been spoken cannot be returned. And this worries me a lot. But let us at least try not to lose what is due and to reward what is lost with what is being rewarded. May God fill with His grace those who repent and pray. God, turn our minds to eternity!..