Гнев Божий

If someone was sitting or standing in any place, and a sharp sword on a thin thread hung over his head, everyone would judge him that he was in great danger, for in this case obvious death would hang over him. And anyone, seeing a person in such danger, would call him from that place. Thus, the sword of justice and the wrath of God hangs over every unrepentant sinner. Hangs over the fornicator and adulterer. Hangs over the thief and kidnapper. Hangs over the slanderer and the scolder. Hangs over the ruler, who seeks his own nasty self-interest, and not the common good. Hangs over the shepherd, who does not care about the verbal sheep, redeemed by the blood of Christ, perishing. Hangs over the bribe-taking judge, who judges by bribes and by persons, and not by deeds. Hangs over the master, who either torments his peasants like an animal, or burdens them with excessive taxes or work. It hangs over parents who do not teach their children the fear of God, but seduce and corrupt their children with their lawless lives, and lay the path to destruction for them, having been washed and saved by the bath of rebirth. Finally, it hangs over every lawless person who arbitrarily and fearlessly dares to violate the law of God. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom. 1:18). He hangs, I say, and as soon as he falls, nothing less than eternal death will follow that poor sinner. So the wrath of God fell on the Sodomites - and they perished. He fell on the fierce pharaoh - and drowned in the sea like tin with all his army. He fell on the lawless Israelites in the desert and killed them. The wrath of God came upon them and killed very many of them (Ps. 77:31). A sinner, when he turns to God with all his heart and leaves the path of the wicked and begins to live in true repentance, then he is already free from the proper wrath of God and, instead of God’s wrath, he hopes and waits for God’s mercy. The judgment and wrath of God does not fall on sinners who repent, for this is what God wants and expects from us, so that we turn to Him and repent. So the wrath of God hung over the Ninevites, but when they turned and repented, the wrath of God did not fall on them, but instead of anger they knew the mercy of God. And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked ways; and God regretted the evil which He said He would bring upon them, but He did not bring it (Jonah 3:10). I will hear what the Lord God will say in me: how He will speak peace on His people, and on His saints, and on those who turn their hearts to Him (see Ps. 84:9). God is merciful, and everywhere in Holy Scripture His mercy is preached, but for those who repent and turn from sins to Him. And those who do not repent will certainly experience His truth and His righteous wrath. And the more someone sins, the more he recognizes the wrath of God on himself, according to the false teaching of the Apostle: by your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of righteous judgment from God, who will reward everyone according to his deeds (Rom. 2:5-6). God's wrath against sin is shown through executions sent by God to sinners. For if God is good in such a way that no one is good except God alone (Matthew 19:17), according to the testimony of Christ, however, insofar as he is good, so much is he righteous. And His truth demands that the sinner, as a transgressor of His holy and unchangeable law, be executed. And the fact that a sinner is not executed immediately after committing a sin or not during the very act of sin must be attributed to the goodness of God, which endures the sinner and thus awaits his repentance, as the Apostle says to the sinner: O man! Or do you neglect the riches of God’s goodness, meekness and long-suffering, not realizing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance (Rom. 2:4)? The wrath of God will flare up against ungrateful and unrepentant sinners who do not want to accept and use God’s forbearance for repentance and salvation. For the more a person sins and does not care about God’s long-suffering, the more he accumulates the wrath of God for himself, according to the apostolic word: O man! Do you neglect the wealth of God’s goodness, meekness and long-suffering, not realizing that God’s goodness leads you to repentance? But, due to your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of righteous judgment from God (Rom. 2:4-5). Although God is good and merciful, but also righteous, His truth demands that the unrepentant sinner, as ungrateful and despising the eternal law of God and God Himself, be eternally executed. This will certainly happen to unrepentant lawless people, no matter what they invent to soften and console their evil and gnawing conscience. God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7). The goodness of God and long-suffering are shown in this, that He endures a sinner who breaks His holy law, does not immediately execute him, but waits for him to repent or, as the Apostle teaches, leads him to repentance (Rom. 2:4). But if a sinner despises the wealth of God’s goodness and remains in his unrepentance and bitterness, then the truth of God will enter into its work and reward him according to his deeds (Rom. 2:6). How hard it is for a subject to feel the anger of his sovereign over himself is impossible to explain in words. Nothing pleased him then - neither food, nor drink, nor wife, nor children, nor friends, nor anything else. Therefore, it happens that many, unable to bear such anger, destroy themselves and prefer to die rather than live under such anger. How incomparably harder it is to endure God’s wrath. To the extent that God is distant from man—he is infinitely distant—so much more severe is God’s wrath than the king’s wrath. Therefore, the wicked, on the day of God’s terrible judgment and His righteous wrath, will wish to hide in caves and in the gorges of the mountains, and will say to the mountains and stones: fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath has come, and who can stand (Rev. 6:15-17). The more a person sins, the more he accumulates the wrath of God, as the apostle says: because of your cruelty and unrepentant heart you store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. 2:5).