Грех

We know and by Your goodness we admit from our hearts that we cannot bring You anything... The angels bring you singing, the heavens bring you a star, the wise men bring you gifts, the desert brings you a manger. What about us? There is nothing, for everything we have is Yours. Yours and we, Your church we are, created by Your hands, renewed by Your most pure Blood, but ah - alas for us - again corrupted by our accursed will and created indecent for You, our Lord and God. What about ours? Our sins are our own fruit, they are our offspring, we are rich in them, we are burdened with them like a burden, we bear this heavy burden without shame. However, we come to You with fear and humility. We come to You as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the whole world (see John 1:29), and with this burden we cast this bodily church, completely defiled, before Your feet and, in the likeness of the gospel harlot, with our intelligent lips we touch Your most pure feet with tenderness (see Luke 7:46), and, not daring, like the publican, Raise our eyes to You (see Luke 18:13), from the depths we call: Lamb of God, take away our heavy sinful burden and, as you are merciful, show mercy to us. And when we look back, look with our smart eyes, what will we see there? Oh, it’s scary for us to even look there! There stand our fierce rivals, holding on tightly to us, unmercifully drawing us to the Judge, trying to betray us into eternal prison. There, I say, our sins, committed throughout our entire life, are like monsters that want to attack us and cast us into the bottom of hell. Our sins, I say, are attacking us, hurting our conscience, stabbing us like a sword. These tormenting enemies cast angels from heaven to the bottom of hell and bound them with chains of darkness. These enemies drove the forefather Adam and all his family out of paradise. They brought a terrible flood to the whole world. These enemies burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. These enemies knocked down so many of God’s people in the desert and did not allow them to reach the promised land. These, finally, tormenting enemies are now destroying cities and great states, shedding so much blood and causing all sorts of other misfortunes and misfortunes. Such, I say, our fierce enemies stand behind us and rise up against us. God is constantly with you and sees everything clearly in what you do and think, and hears what you say, and is angry with every sin. Beware of sinning in the face of God, just as you are afraid of committing outrages and laughing in front of your father. It's scary to anger God. In sin itself, God can strike the sinner and send him to Gehenna. May eternal torment and the Kingdom of Heaven motivate us to avoid sin, for because of sin, a person is deprived of eternal joy and bliss and finds himself in the most severe eternal torment with the devil and his angels. Let sin itself turn us away from ourselves, for sin is the invention and work of the devil. He invented sin, and seduced our forefather Adam into it, and so he destroyed our race. So, run away from sin as from the work of the devil. With every sin, the Trinitarian God, the Great, Holy, Good, Righteous, Infinite and Terrible God, the Merciful and Most Good Father, is offended and angry. It is a pity and hard thing to offend a father according to the flesh, much less God, the Heavenly Father, Who created both your father and you, feeds, clothes, preserves, and supplies with other blessings, and calls everyone to eternal bliss! It is better to die a hundred times than to offend God, our Most Good Father and Creator. Keep yourself from sin as from great evil. Sin is everything that is done in word, or deed, or thought against the holy and eternal law of God and His holy will. About sin, see the passages of Holy Scripture: Mk. 7, 21 and so on; Rome. 1, 29 and so on; 1 Cor. 6, 9 and so on; Gal. 5, 19 and so on; Eph. 5, 3 and so on; Col. 4, 5 and so on; 1 Tim. 1, 9 and so on; 2 Tim. 4, 2 and so on; Open 21, 8; Ps. 49, 18 and so on. Read them yourself. Question: How many deadly sins? 1. Pride, that is, an unruly desire for power and glory. 2. Delicacy (lust), that is, an immense desire for external goods or, in other words, the desire to have wealth and acquisitions. 3. Fornication and uncleanness, that is, disorderly desire for carnal defilement or the very act of fulfilling bodily lust. 4. Gluttony or gluttony, that is, excessive consumption of food and drink. 5. Envy, that is, sadness and heart disease about the good of one’s neighbor, joy and fun about evil. 6. Anger, that is, an immense desire for revenge. 7. Laziness or despondency, that is, coldness and carelessness about spiritual salvation. Q: How many sins are against the Holy Spirit? 1. Despair, in which there is no hope for God's mercy. 2. Excessive reliance on God's mercy. 3. Resistance to the known truth of Holy Scripture and the dogmas of faith approved by the apostles and holy fathers. 4. Envy of the spiritual benefits that one's neighbor receives from God. 5. Staying in sins and growing old in anger. 6. Negligence about spiritual salvation until the end of your life. Q: How many sins cry out to heaven to God and ask for vengeance? 1. Free homicide. 3. Causing harm to the poor, widows and orphans, insult and oppression. 4. Withholding or failure to pay hirers and workers. Here are the reasons why sin is a great evil. 1. Every sin offends the majesty of God. 2. When a person sins, he honors his passion and lust more than the law of God, and therefore angers the Infinite, Most Good, Righteous and Eternal God Himself: how hard this is, everyone can see. 3. For the sake of the destruction of sin, the Son of God came into the world and endured such terrible passions and blasphemous death. For this reason the Son of God appeared, in order to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). 4. Sin separates a person from God and deprives him of God's grace. To such a person God says: behold, your house is left to you empty (Matthew 23:38). 5. A soul that has lost God and His grace dies, according to Scripture: the soul that sins will die (Ezek. 18:4). For just as the body dies when the soul leaves it, so the soul dies when God leaves it. Woe to the soul that has lost God, for it is possessed by the devil and therefore subject to all misfortunes. 6. After committing a sin, the sinner’s conscience incessantly torments him, which is worse than any misfortune; Some kind of internal fear happens, as happened to Cain. 7. For sin there are temporary punishments, such as: famine, fires, wars, illnesses, earthquakes, etc. Death, murder, quarrel, sword, disaster, famine, crushing and blows - all this was created for the wicked (Sir. 40:9). 8. For sin there is eternal torment. A guide to avoiding sin: 1. Prayer is frequent, humble, diligent, with contrition of heart. Watch and pray so as not to fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41), says Christ. 2. Memory of death: in all your deeds remember your end, and you will never sin (Sir. 7:39). After death, the judgment of Christ: from judgment - either into eternal torment, or into eternal bliss will be determined. For the feat of faith, which extols Christ who died and rose from the dead and, with His help, strives against sin - eternal bliss; for sin - eternal torment. 3. Avoid incidents that lead to sin, evil conversations; Protect hearing and vision, keep from temptations. 4. Beware of even the smallest sins, since small ones lead to big ones. 5. Remember that sin is a temporary sweetness, but for it there will be eternal torment. 6. To have God always before you, to think that He is present everywhere, and sees everything, and rewards everyone according to their deeds, and can strike the sinner at the same hour with righteous judgment. 7. Bring to mind examples of punishments for sins, such as: the former global terrible flood, the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Israelites slain in the desert, and so on. 8. To think that for our sins Christ the Son of God was martyred and died. Should you do what Christ suffered such passions for, and crucify the Son of God with sins again (see Heb. 6:6)? It's scary and pathetic. 9 . Look at the current executions of God for sins. 10. Read or listen often and diligently to the holy Word of God and heed it. 11. Not to look at what people do, but at what the law of God teaches and is preached in the Church. 12. Read the lives of the saints who fought against sin, and imitate them in this. 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. The great demon is sin, which lives in the soul and torments the soul. He doesn't give her any peace. Now he breaks and inclines to one thing, then to another, then to a third ungodly and destructive deed. Poison kills the body, sin kills the soul. If you are afraid of bodily death, you must be even more careful of the spiritual death that sin causes. The soul is more honest and dearer than the body, the more it must be protected. Beware or do not beware of bodily death - you cannot avoid it. Everyone needs this - and you too. And if you protect your soul from the deadly poison of sin, then you will live forever, even though you die, for by the grace of God you will rise not into death, but into eternal life. Beware, my soul, of all sin, like a deadly poison, so that it does not kill you. Come, children,” the Holy Spirit tells us, “listen to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who loves life and wants to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful words. Avoid evil and do good, seek peace and strive for it. The eyes of the Lord are turned to the righteous and His ears are turned to their prayer. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy the memory of them from the earth (Ps. 33:12-17). Blessed is the man who listens to the admonitions and warnings of God's Word and is on guard against all sin! Damned is the one who does not heed this soul-saving voice of God! Sin removes from God and separates from him. The angels sinned and withdrew from God and perished. The forefathers sinned in paradise - they moved away from God and died. People still sin today - they move away from God and remain in death. We see how Satan first leads a person into one sin, then into another, and then into other sins. He first put the love of money into Judas’s heart, then the betrayal of his Lord, and then led him into utter despair. That's what he does now. First, he teaches a person to live in idleness and laziness, and in idleness he offers all sorts of evil thoughts to the person living, leading to all kinds of evil and sin. First, the love of money drives a person into the heart, and from that it leads to theft, theft, robbery, violence, lies, robbery, murder and other grave iniquities. The root of all evil is the love of money (1 Tim. 6:10). First, through his efforts, a person becomes arrogant and arrogant, and then he despises, humiliates and condemns his neighbor. He does the same in other sins. Christian! Beware of one sin, lest you fall into another and many other sins and reach the depths of evil. Sin offends and angers the incomprehensible and indescribable majesty of God. There is no greater evil than sin. Man sinned and thereby angered God. But it was necessary for the Son of God to cleanse sins with His suffering and Blood, and to appease God, who was angry with sin, and thus reconcile man with God and deliver him from the eternal punishment that follows sin. For man, having sinned against God and angered Him, subjected himself to eternal punishment. No matter how many diseases, troubles, misfortunes and evils there are in the world, sin is the cause of it all. It is easy for a person to sin, but it is not easy for him to cleanse sin. We must cleanse it with bitter tears and the Blood of the Only Begotten Son of God. Otherwise, a person will experience its bitter fruit - eternal death. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Christian! Beware of nothing more than sin, the all-pernicious evil, if you want to be a true Christian and not perish forever. Choose better, when need demands it, to die than to sin. To sin is a human matter, but to be and lie in sin is the work of the devil. The devil, having sinned, from that time on lies incessantly in sin and bitterness and will remain there forever. Beware of adding sin to sin, lest you be with the devil. Every sin closes the door to eternal life: the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Beware of all sin, lest you perish. A Christian cannot exist without a good conscience. It is better for a Christian to die than to sin and have his conscience disturbed and irritated. This feat against sin is needed by all Christians who want to be saved. Kill, Christian, lawless babies while they are small, so that they do not grow up and kill you (see Ps. 136:9). Kill lust - may it not be fulfilled in reality. Kill small anger so that it does not turn into rage and malice. Kill the prodigal thought - let it not multiply again and defile you. Kill the desire for wealth - so that you will not be a slave to mammon. Kill small arrogance - so that you do not ascend, but, having ascended, you humble yourself. Kill all evil while it is small, so that it does not grow and destroy you. This feat is difficult, truly difficult, but necessary. Fight - and you too will be given the crown of life from the Hero of Christ. You see a man, dressed in rags, half naked, covered in dirt. From him, turn your mind to the sinful soul, which was exposed by the grace of God, like a beautiful garment, and instead became covered with sinful vices, like dirt. A soiled person is vile in the eyes of men, but a soul stained with sinful filth is even more vile in the eyes of God. This incident admonishes you to avoid all sin, by which the soul is defamed and becomes unworthy of the sight of God. You see another man, in wounds, stinking of pus. Turn your eyes to the sinful soul, which emits a much greater stench than the stinking body. As there is pus and wounds on the body, there are sins and iniquities on the soul. Listen to what the prophet says: my iniquities have gone beyond my head, like a heavy burden they have weighed me down. My wounds stinked and rotted from my madness (Ps. 37:5-6). The stench of the body is unbearable to us; the stench of the soul is unbearable to God. We turn away from the stench of the body and run away; from the stench of the soul the Spirit of God turns away and departs. This again exhorts you to avoid sin. If you feel that your soul is infected with sinful leprosy, even if it stops at a distance, lift up your voice, as the lepers once did (see Luke 17:12-13), to Jesus, the Son of God, the Banisher of all mental and physical illnesses, and lift it up with your heart, and not just with your lips, and pray: “Jesus Master, have mercy on me!” Thus, He who cleansed those lepers will also cleanse your spiritual leprosy. For he is merciful and listens to the voices of us, the poor. This is why he came into the world, to save us from our sins. There cannot be such a great sinful leprosy that our wise and all-powerful Physician would not want or could not mercifully cleanse. You see that dirty or smoked glass does not accommodate natural light. Likewise, the human soul, stained and blackened by sins, cannot accommodate the light of God’s grace until it remains in sins. Sins are like a dark darkness or even like an obstacle that does not allow the light of God to reach the soul and divides God and the soul, as the prophet says: your iniquities have created a separation between you and your God, and your sins turn His face away from you (Is. 59:2). As the glass begins to cleanse itself, it will begin to let in light, and the more it is cleansed, the more light it accepts. So is the human soul: just as, having turned from sins to God, it begins to repent and through repentance and faith in Christ to cleanse its sins, it will also be enlightened by the grace of God; and the more diligently he repents, the more he becomes enlightened. This exhorts us to turn to God and repent if we want to receive His mercy. Saliva and other things that come from food and drink, as long as they are contained within, a person does not disdain; and when it is cast out, then everyone abhors what he had inside himself. So it is with sin: while it exists within a person and commits it, a person does not disdain it, but when by the grace of God he gets rid of it and, like vomit, spits it out of his heart, then it becomes vile to him. How does it happen that a person abhors every sin that is visible in others, although he himself has the same sin within himself. Fornication is also detestable to the fornicator, to the predator theft, to the thief theft, to the evil one the wickedness, to the envious the envy, to the malicious the malice, to the slanderer the slander, to the foul language the foul language which is visible in one's neighbor. But although he has this same evil in himself, he does not disdain it; he does not disdain, because he does not know deadly poison. Oh, if only the poor sinner could see this monster and terrible thing within himself and smell its abomination! He would have more abhorred that than he abhors feces expelled from the inside of his womb! But such is our common blindness, poverty and wretchedness that we do not recognize that abomination and do not try to recognize it. This is how, beloved Christian, Satan infected our heart with his poison and darkened our spiritual eye! This case and reasoning teaches us: 1. That our heart is deeply corrupted and without the grace of God nothing more than plots evil. For the serpent's seed, sown in it, bears corresponding fruits. 2. Teaches you to experience it, and the abomination hidden in it, to recognize it, and to abhor it. This happens especially when we retire day or night and penetrate into the depths of our heart and consider what plans, undertakings and intentions are born from it and what they are inclined towards. We also know ourselves from our neighbor, that is, what we see in our neighbor is also in us: when we see our neighbor angry or showing some other spiritual weakness, we must turn our eyes to ourselves, that we are also weak due to the same illness. The seed of all sin is in our hearts. And so, that we notice what we do in our neighbor, then we can, on occasion, do and show evil fruits to the evil seed. For this evil is natural to us, since we are all born with it. 3. Try to clean it without laziness, in the likeness of a gardener or gardener who cuts harmful branches from trees so that they are not harmed. So we must cleanse our hearts from thoughts that harm the purification of our soul and do not allow us to bear fruits worthy of the Christian faith. For example, does the thought of anger, malice, or revenge, or hatred, or fornication, or envy, or pride, or slander, etc. arise? Cut it off or suppress it immediately so that it does not increase and thus damage the soul. And in this we ask Christ our Lord for help. 4. With faith, ask the same Deliverer to free us by His power from this vile tormentor, so that, having freed ourselves from him, we would diligently and blamelessly serve the Liberator, according to His word: if the Son frees you, then you will be truly free (John 8:36). Sin is everything that is done against the holy and eternal law of God, as the Apostle teaches: everyone who commits sin also commits lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). Sin is a crime and destruction of God’s eternal and unchangeable law, disobedience and resistance to God’s holy will. Sin can be deed, word, thought, desire and intention. Cases like this: murder, theft, etc.; in a word, something like: blasphemy, slander, slander, foul language, etc.; thoughts, such as: foul language, pleasure in thoughts that comes from lust, secret hatred, malice, etc.; desire and intention, such as: the lust of uncleanness, the desire for someone else's good, revenge and everything that a person wants to do against the law of God, which is a sin against the tenth commandment of God: you shall not covet (Ex. 20:17). Sin is both that which is prohibited by God’s law and that which is commanded by God’s law is abandoned. It is a sin to kill, but it is also a sin not to give a helping hand to someone in need, for example, someone drowning in water. For God in His law commanded both to avoid evil and to do good: avoid evil and do good (Ps. 33:15); and as he said: Thou shalt not steal (Exodus 20:15), so he commanded: Give to him who asks of you (Matthew 5:42). Therefore, execution from God is determined not only for evil deeds, but also for abandoning good deeds, as it is written: every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Luke 3:9); and the Lord sends into eternal fire those who have not done deeds of mercy, as we read from Saint Matthew in chapter 25, where the image of the judgment of Christ is presented. Therefore, both to do evil and not to do good is a sin. Both the creation of evil and the abandonment of good is against the law of God, which prohibits evil and commands good. Sin is such a great and terrible evil that no one could destroy it except the Only Begotten Son of God. The Almighty Son of God had to come and take it away with His suffering and death. For this reason the Son of God appeared, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Let the meanness and abomination of sin turn a Christian away from sin, for he is the seed and fruit of the devil, because first the devil sinned (1 John 3:8). This life is filled with sins. For we always stumble and fall; Now in word, now in deed, now in mind we are faulty and guilty before the judgment of God. Everyone knows this by himself, who notices and examines his conscience. The righteous man falls and gets up seven times a day. Babies themselves are not without defilement in the eyes of God. Who will be clean from filth? No one, even if he lives only one day on earth (Job 14:4-5), says Job. The chosen vessel of God, Saint Paul, complains about this damnation and sighs: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. Poor man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death (Rom. 7:23–24)? But whoever reposes in a blessed death is freed from this damnation. We all sin so much, so who can understand the Fall? Therefore, we must pray and sigh with the psalmist: cleanse me from my secrets, O Lord (Ps. 18:13)! Our secret falls are those that we do not see in our conscience. Sin is nothing more than lawlessness or resistance to the law of God, as described by the apostle: sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). That is, what God commands in His law, man does not do, and thus opposes the law of God, and by opposing the law of God, he commits lawlessness. So the forefather Adam, not listening to the commandment of God and eating from the commanded tree, sinned (Gen. 3:6). And so by one man sin entered the world (Rom. 5:12). So now, when a person does not listen to God and breaks His holy commandments, he sins against the majesty of God. Since our faith and the Word of God assures us that Christ suffered for our sins, as it is written: He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5), then there is no greater veneration for the Son of God, who suffered for our sins, than when for the sake of His love we hate sins and move away from them. And the more we hate them and run away from them, the more we love and honor Christ, who came into the world and suffered, so that without this, veneration cannot be true, but feigned and hypocritical. Where sins are not abandoned, but are done, there is no true repentance, for repenting and not forsaking sins is disgusting in itself. Where there is no true repentance, there is no faith in Christ. Christ cannot exist without faith. Where there is no Christ, there Christ is not revered, but rejected and despised. According to the reasoning of church teachers, sin is twofold. There is another who owns man, about whom the apostle speaks: Let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey it in your lusts (Rom. 6:12). This sin is called spontaneous, because it is done with desire, advice, intent, and knowledge, and prejudice, and it is committed against the conscience, which it both hurts and worries - for example, to commit fornication, kidnap, steal someone else’s property, deceive, deceive a neighbor, be angry with him, etc. This sin is called mortal, because the sinner, if he does not repent, suffers eternal death, according to the apostolic teaching: the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23); and one more thing: sin committed gives birth to death (James 1:15). With such a sin, faith and the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot be together in a person, but they are expelled through him, and the sinning person is thus deprived of all the benefits acquired through Christ, and Christ does not bring him any benefit until he stops sinning. True Christians guard against such sins, and by faith and the grace of the Holy Spirit strive against them (such sins are mentioned in 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21 and in other places of Scripture). Another sin is a sin that lives in a person, but does not possess a person; it is nothing more than natural weakness, the flesh, with passions and lusts rebelling against the spirit, corruption and anger, born with a person. The pious resist such sin with the strength of faith and spirit and do not allow it to control them. For example, lust arises, inciting to impurity, or revenge, or hatred, or offending one’s neighbor, etc. - they tame this lust, pacify and conquer. And although the pious resist such sin, yet, convinced by weakness, they often do what they do not want and do not know (Rom. 7:19). God not only sees and judges our external deeds and sins, but also our internal thoughts, inclinations, and endeavors of the heart, as one who searches hearts and wombs (Ps. 7:10) clearly sees and judges by them. Man himself does not see many of his sins and does not recognize them in his conscience, but God’s eye, which is brighter than the sun, penetrates everything. Therefore the psalmist says: Who can understand the fall? - that is, no one can know and count them. That is why he prays to God for their cleansing: cleanse me from my secrets (Ps. 18:13), showing that they are not cleansed by anything else than by confession, fervent prayer and faith in Christ Jesus, whose Blood cleanses from all sin those who believe in Him and confess their sins (see 1 John 1:7). And here we do not mean those secret sins that are secretly committed at will and hidden from people, for although they are committed secretly from a person, they cannot hide from his conscience, which denounces more than any external witness and cries out against the sinner, but such sins are understood, which man himself does not see in his conscience, but God sees clearly and purely. For the human heart is deeply hidden (Jer. 17:9; Ps. 63:7) and is so infected with the deadly poison of the serpent’s seed that there is a lot of work to be done to examine it, to mourn, to wash away its uncleanness with faith. For who can boast that he has a pure heart? or who dares to say that he is clean from sins (Proverbs 20:9)? - says Solomon... Therefore, all who live piously must consider their hearts, and reason about their weakness, and confess to God with the prophet: You, O Lord, have righteousness, but we have shame on our faces (Dan. 9:7-8), - and from the truth of God and His righteous judgment, resort to His mercy in the name of Christ: do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for no one will be justified before You. who is living (Ps. 143:2) - and pray: Father!.. Forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12). If we confess our sins, then He, being faithful and righteous, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Think, Christian, what sin is. Christ's suffering teaches us how great its severity is. A person can sin easily, but it is not easy to free himself from it, and without Christ he cannot, but with the weight of it he must plunge into the depths of hell and pay to the truth of God with endless punishment. Beware of sin, which irritates the righteous God. Consider, Christian, where sin began from, and you will see that its leader and inventor is the devil. He is the first apostate, who retreated from God and his Creator with his evil angels (see Jude 6) and turned away our first parents in paradise with his wickedness and drew them away with him (see Gen. 3:1-6). Is it proper for a Christian, reborn by water and the Spirit, who has entered into a covenant with the holy God and has been called into communion with Him and friendship with the holy Angels, to commit sin and so follow the devil, the leader of sin and the adversary of God? Oh, save us, Lord, from such madness! A person who sins against his conscience and willfully does this. Just as true Christians imitate God, like beloved children, when they conform to Him through righteousness, truth, love, patience, meekness, mercy and other things, so unrepentant sinners imitate the devil and conform to him through their evil behavior, hatred, malice, wickedness and other ungodly deeds. The leader of sin is vile before God, and his followers, poor and damned people, are vile. You ask, from what is sin recognized? Answer: from the law and consideration of conscience. The law says: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not slander, do not slander, do not be angry, and so on. But when a person hears or reads this, he looks into his conscience, reasons and considers whether he has done or is not doing what the law prohibits, and thus he recognizes sin. For conscience agrees with the law of God. What the law convicts, so does conscience, and when conscience does not convict a person of something, then the law does not convict him of that. So, put your conscience against the law, as you put your face against a mirror, and so examine the law and your conscience. For example, the law says: do not offend your neighbor - you see what the law commands you. Looking at this prohibition, look into your conscience to see if you have done or are not doing what the law prohibits, and when you see it in your conscience, you will know that you have sinned against God’s law. Thus, from the law and consideration of conscience, you will recognize sin, and so will you understand about other sins. For conscience cannot lie; it testifies to what is in it. A broken law, heard or read by a sinner, strikes the conscience of the sinner, and the conscience, irritated by the crime of the law, convicts the person of sin, and so the law and conscience bring the sinner to the knowledge of sin. In conscience, every sin is written down, as in a book, and even if a person wanted to hide the sin, he cannot hide it from conscience. Read the commandments of God, and look into your conscience, and you will see what you have sinned, and so you will come to the knowledge of sins. And from the knowledge of sins will follow repentance, and from there will follow the fear of judgment, for the law broken by the sinner proclaims the wrath of God. Shame will follow that you will be ashamed of yourself for the fact that, earth and ashes, you did not listen to God, the King and the Lord. Sadness and heart disease will follow, because you did not honor your Creator and Benefactor, Whom you should honor most of all, through disobedience and self-will. All this will follow from the reasoning of the ruined law and the irritated conscience by sin. If, having sinned against the earthly king and having recognized the sin, we are afraid of his judgment, we are ashamed and sad that we have done such a bad thing and insulted his greatness, then all the more will it follow when we recognize our sin, committed against the Heavenly King. For every king of the earth, although high and great in honor, is nevertheless like nothing before God, for he is the same person as we are. Every sin happens against God, for with every sin His holy law is violated - it happens either directly or indirectly. Directly, when we sin against Himself, that is, we either do not believe Him, or we do not honor His name, and so on. It is mediocre when we sin against our neighbor either in word or in deed, for God forbade this too. So, you see from what sin is known. Let us recognize our sins. For this is the beginning of repentance. Beware of any sin as a deadly poison, since every sin offends and angers the great God, and separates the sinner from God and hinders eternal salvation. Beware of sin, lest it kill you forever. There is nothing more useful for a person than to learn how to recognize and recognize one’s sin and for the sins committed, leaving them, true regret, to offer a sacrifice to God - a contrite spirit (Ps. 50:19) - and henceforth to struggle against every sin, and to overcome it with the power and help of God, and to submit one’s will to the will of God. For this is what God especially demands from us in His Word. Without this, neither prayer, nor singing, nor offerings can be pleasing to God. For a person, while he is in sins, remains in anger with God, therefore everything that he does is nothing but an abomination before God, and so God turns away from his prayer, singing and offerings (Isa. 1, 13, 15; Mic. 3, 4). So, a person needs to forsake his sins, and regret that he sinned, and henceforth strive against all sin, and not allow sin to possess him. Sin possesses a person when a person obeys it in his lusts (Rom. 6:12). So, if someone commits fornication, or steals, kidnaps someone else’s property in any way, or is angry with his neighbor and takes revenge on him, or flatters, deceives, is cunning, deceives, or curses, slanderes, condemns his neighbor, or does any other untruth, then this is a sign that he is overcome by sin and sin has possession of him. For whoever listens to whom and obeys whom possesses him, as the apostle says: whoever is conquered by someone is his slave (2 Pet. 2:19). So whoever listens to sin and obeys it, possesses it, and he serves it, according to the word of the Lord: everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34). You ask: “How does a person listen to sin and obey it?” Answer . Evil thoughts come from the human heart (Matthew 15:18) and prompt a person either to fornication, or to malice and revenge, or to kidnapping, and so on; and when a person deigns to do this, he listens to sin and obeys it. You ask: “How can we struggle against sin?” Answer . Do not deign to have an evil thought, and as soon as it arises, suppress it and put it to death. This is the whole Christian feat. And since we cannot do this on our own, since we are very weak and have a corrupted heart, and to strive against sin and overcome it - this is nothing more than our own heart, nature and ourselves to overcome, which is very inconvenient for everyone, as everyone can see - and therefore we certainly need God’s help in this. And for God’s help to come to us and always help us and strengthen us in this feat, we need frequent and humble prayer, petition and sighing. To sin and please the flesh is as convenient as swimming with the flow of a river, but to stand against sin, mortify it and overcome it is as inconvenient for us as sailing against the current without rowers or sails with a fair wind. He who floats against the current of a river must certainly have either oarsmen or a sail with a fair wind, so he who wants to stand against sin, struggle and overcome it and live godly in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:12) needs the power of the Holy Spirit, helping, strengthening and encouraging. For by nature every person strives to please the flesh, to please his will, self-love and every sin; and it is impossible for man himself to resist and overcome this tendency. This requires, as said above, fervent prayer, turning the heart away from love for the world, frequent reminders of death and a blessed and unhappy eternity, reflection on the properties of God, such as His omnipotence, goodness and majesty - with reasoning about who and against whom sins - man, earth and pus, sins against the greatness of God and offends Him. Such reasoning can frighten a person and turn him away from sin and lead him into true contrition. If a person sins voluntarily, then he sins gravely, which is shown in the following paragraphs. 1. Who is a person? Earth and pus. Who is God? Creator of all creation, visible and invisible. How does he sin before God? He does not want to fulfill His will and commands. God commands man: honor your father and mother and all authorities, do not be angry and do not take revenge, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not slander, do not condemn, do not slander your neighbor, do not covet the good of others, but man does not listen to this command of God and stubbornly stands against God and his Creator and His holy commandments, which He commanded firmly to keep (Ps. 118, 4), fearlessly and boldly violates. And what is amazing, or rather worthy of regret: the same sinner does not dare to transgress the commands of the king of the earth or his master, but fearlessly transgresses the commands of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords!.. Look and reason, man, how gravely you sin, for what is a king or a high lord before God? Like nothing, for all people are earth and ashes (Sir. 10:9). God alone possesses everyone, for His sake the king, the lord, and all authorities must obey. It is commendable that you listen to the king and your master, but it is lawless and godless that you do not listen to God, before whom the king, and the master, and every power bows the knee. For what is this but to honor creation more than the Creator and man more than God? 2. Our God is in every place as omnipresent and fulfilling everything, and everything that is done is done before His holy eyes. So His holy commandments are broken before His eyes. Who dares to act outrageously before the king of the earth or his master? Unless he's crazy. But you, man, dare to act outrageously before the majesty of God, destroying His holy law, and do not pay worthy respect to His infinite holiness! You see how grievously you sin against the Lord your God. Oh, if a person were to consider what an annoyance and insult to the goodness of God he is doing and causing destruction to his soul, then he would turn away from every sin with all diligence, tremble, and for the past he would weep and weep inconsolably. But, blinded by the devil’s malice, he does not see or notice this. So, stop, man, destroying the law of God before God, so as not to experience His righteous judgment and taste the legal oath, which strikes the sinner with temporary and eternal execution. If you are careful not to act outrageously before your master and your authority, how much more should you be careful before the omnipresent Majesty of God, to be wary, to be afraid and to act decently. God! Open the eyes of our hearts, that we may see Your terrible glory and give glory to Your terrible and holy name. 3. God holds heaven, and earth, and the whole world, and you, man, in His almighty hand; The Angels worship Him with fear and fulfill His will with all zeal; His demons and all hell tremble, for the demons believe and tremble (James 2:19); before Him the earth shakes (see Ps. 67:9), the sea runs and the rivers return (see Ps. 113:3); and all creation serves Him and fulfills His command. You, man, never cease to anger and irritate such a terrible God! Your great fearlessness, boldness and fury are to irritate the One who has your life and your death in His hand, who can cast you into hell in your very sin! 4. When a person sins, he shows great ingratitude to God. From whom do you have your existence, man? From God. From whom are your body and soul? From God. Who is your entire composition from? From God, as David sings to God: my formation came from You, O God (Ps. 38:8). God did not create you as cattle, beasts, birds, fish, trees and other soulless and dumb things, but He created you as a human being and honored you with a rational soul. From whom do you receive food, drink, clothing, home and other benefits? From God. Whose light, sun, moon and stars enlighten you? God's. Whose water will drink and wash you? God's Whose fire warms you and cooks your food? God's. Whose clouds sprinkle your water? God's. Whose livestock, birds, fish, trees, herbs serve your needs? Everything is God's. Who commanded the earth to bear various fruits and for whose sake? God is for you. Whom does all other creation serve by the command of God? You. For the creature of God does not serve for its own sake, but for our sake. The sun does not shine for itself, the stars shine, but for us. The land does not bear fruit for itself, but for us and so on. Neither is it for the sake of God, for God does not require this service. So, all of God’s creation serves us, so that we bring thanksgiving, praise, verbal service to the Creator and serve with faith and love. For whose sake did that great deed, that is, the incarnation of the Son of God, take place? For whom did He come into the world, was born flesh, suffered and died? For you, and me, and every person. For God does not look at personalities (Deut. 10:17; Luke 20:21), but for the sake of every person, for you and me and for the sake of everyone, He sent His Son into the world, so that all might be saved by His grace. So, for whom was He born, suffered and died? For you and me, man. To whom did He open heaven with all its treasures by His death? Me and you, man. So, if a person sins and is lawless, then he neglects all these blessings of God, and is very ungrateful to God, his Benefactor, and greatly offends Him, angers and irritates Him, and acts like one who scolds and reviles his benefactor, the person who feeds, clothes and preserves him. It is our great madness and fury that we irritate and grieve the One from Whom we receive everything, including our existence. Many people, and even animals, are grateful to their benefactors: a dog honors his master and his nourisher - we read this about the animals themselves in stories. But the accursed sinner is so blinded that he does not honor God, his Creator and the highest Benefactor (for without love and fear it is impossible to honor God), but always irritates Him, and therefore he is worse than the cattle and the beast itself, although he is gifted with reason. Such ingratitude and the good deed of God, despised by him, will expose him on the day of Judgment, and his own conscience will rise up against him and will torment, expose and torment him. What if God took away our light? Wouldn't we wander like blind people? Or would he take away the fire? Wouldn't everyone freeze? Or would he take away food, drink and air? Wouldn't everyone disappear? Without air, a person cannot live for even a minute. Every creature is such a great good that we cannot live without it, and we only know it when we are deprived of it. How great is bread in times of hunger, how great is water in times of thirst, how great is fire in cold, how great is light in darkness, etc. But the sinner, enjoying these and other blessings of God, does not honor his Benefactor God, but does not cease to insult and irritate. God benefits man, but man angers God, his Benefactor. God does not stop benevolence, and man does not stop malice and ingratitude. The poor man is stricken with such blindness! The wondrous goodness of God, which even does good to His enemies! The wondrous blindness and bitterness of a sinner who is not softened by God’s forgiveness or benevolence!.. Therefore, man is guilty of the fact that God takes away His goodness from him. The Lord our God is righteous, and there is no unrighteousness in Him (Ps. 91:16; Deut. 32:4). Whenever we suffer any evil or disaster, it is our own fault that we are deprived of God’s blessings, for we make ourselves unworthy, we, to whom God always wants to do good, even though we are unworthy, do not cease to do good. 5. God, as the Most Good and Lover of Mankind, very much wants and thirsts to save man and make him eternally blessed, as is clear from all of Holy Scripture, so that He did not spare His Only Begotten Son for the sake of our salvation, O people, but the devil, as the adversary of God and our enemy, wants to destroy man and into his eternal destruction, from which Christ delivered man with His Blood, again tries and traps man in that destruction through sweetness, luxury and sin is like a fishing rod. But a blinded person, abandoning the saving will of God, follows the destructive will of the devil and grabs onto sin like a fish onto a fishing rod, and stands in sin, and does not want to truly repent, and thus chooses destruction for himself rather than salvation (for without true repentance it is impossible to be saved), and thus greatly offends God, who loves our soul. Look, man, how your unrepentant life offends God! 6. The devil, being hostile to our Creator and unable to do anything, rushes at man, and through him seeks to blaspheme and dishonor the name of God, and for this purpose attracts man to the crime of God’s commandments, so that the Lawgiver will be so despised. Man, not understanding this, listens to the enemy, destroys the commandments of God and, by transgressing the commandments, dishonors the One who commanded him, as the apostle says: by transgressing the law you dishonor God (Rom. 2:23), - and this is done by an instrument of the devil, by which the name of God is dishonored. So the first parents in paradise, listening to the devil and despising God who gave the commandment, dishonored Him (see Gen. 3). So now a Christian, despising the commandments of God and listening to the devil, dishonors the Commandment. For just as the name of God is glorified by good deeds done in honor of the name of God, so it is dishonored by the evil deeds of Christians. Oh, how difficult and terrible this is!.. Only those who glorify Me will I glorify, and those who humiliate Me will be put to shame (1 Samuel 2:30), says the Lord. Tell me, please, wouldn’t you be dishonored and greatly annoyed if your servant, whom you respect, despised your order, listened to your enemy and adversary? What greater fury could there be? This is what a sinner does, who, having despised the commandments of the Lord his God, listens to the enemy of God - the devil, for he is the first adversary and rebel against his Creator and has cunningly and insidiously attracted man into the same godless deed (see Gen. 3). 7. The devil deceives and leads a person to ruin the commandments of God, but for this he slanderes a person before God, which is why he is called our slanderer (Rev. 12:10). Great are these intrigues, cunning and cunning of a crafty spirit! He seduces into sin and slanderes for sin, seeking nothing other than human destruction. Our God, deliver us from this wicked man! A blind man, without thinking about it, grasps at sin as if it were something pleasant, and as a result he is wounded and perishes, like small children who thoughtlessly grasp at burning coals, get burned and then get sick and cry. 8. Just as the visible enemy, having defeated the enemy and captured him, mocks and laughs at him, so our invisible enemy the devil, having captivated a Christian with sin, holds him as a captive, laughs and laughs at him and often from sin to sin and from whim to whim, like wheat, he sows and throws it to the love of money, now to the love of glory, now to the love of voluptuousness; and thus entangling him in worldly lusts, like a fish in a net, holds him and laughs at him until he plunges him into the ultimate destruction, in which he himself finds himself. 9 . When a sinner feels the grace of God and begins to repent and seek God’s mercy, then the enemy tries to drive him into despair, presenting him with God’s justice, which rewards everyone according to their deeds. “You have done such evil, they say, how can you be saved? God will not accept you because you have violated His commandments. After all, this Righteous Judge will reward everyone according to their deeds, and He will also reward you according to your evil deeds. Why should you hope and expect mercy from Him? "- and so on. So the sneaky spirit, just as before sins the mercy of God presents to a person in order to plunge him into sins, so he presents to the sinner the truth of God in order to bring him into despair, and so tries in every possible way to destroy us. Therefore, the apostle exhorts us: be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks like a roaring lion, seeking whom to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). 10. Holy Scripture speaks terribly about those who commit lawlessness. God said to the sinner: you have cast back My words (Ps. 49:16-17), - that is, My words, which you should have before you, remember, love, honor as the words of My mouth and according to the rule of correcting and leading your life, you, a sinner, have rejected back and do not look at them. This is what a sinner does: he throws back the words of God that he should have in front of him, and look at them like in a mirror, and cleanse his vices! He also says: the wicked have not presented God before them (Ps. 53:5; 85:14). And even more terrible, God says through the prophet: they turned their backs to Me, and not their faces (Jer. 42:33). That is, they, as My creation and My servants, having turned to Me, should honor Me as the Creator, God and their Lord, worship and what I say and command, listen to and do this, but they, the lawless, turned away from Me and turned to the creation, the world, sin and the devil and please him. For whoever listens to whom pleases him. And he also calls the lawless children children of the devil. Your father is the devil; and you want to fulfill the lusts of your father (John 8:44; 1John 3:7-10). Look and reason, man, whose you are, although you bear the name of Christ on yourself. You are certainly the son of the one whom you portray with your morals, as the Lord says to the Jews: if you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham (John 8:39). And to whom you obey and serve, you are his slave. Pay attention to this and reason diligently, if you do not want to be eternally condemned with the devil and suffer in hell! 11. At Baptism, a Christian man renounced Satan and all his evil deeds and promised to serve God in holiness and truth (Luke 1:75) and so, leaving Satan, joined God. And God accepted him into His highest mercy and washed him from the filth of sin, sanctified and justified him, as it is written: you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:11). And the servant of God says to the baptized: “Thou art justified, thou art sanctified, thou art washed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Thus, God accepted the washed, sanctified and justified one as His sons and made him the heir of the heavenly kingdom, as His Holy Word testifies (see Rom. 8:17; Gal. 4:7). A Christian, when he turns to sin and serves the whims of the world, again lags behind God and sticks to Satan and his evil deeds. For no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), says the Lord. And then there is crying for the Angels and all the saints, who previously rejoiced over his salvation and bliss. O sinner! Why did you not like the Lord your God that you left Him? He created you and honored you with a rational soul, nourishes you, clothes you and provides you with other benefits; For your sake He sent His Son into the world and gave him up to death; washed you, justified you and sanctified you with the bath of rebirth and made you heir to eternal bliss; and wants to live in you as in His house and church, if only He sees a place pleasing to Him in your soul. And why do you like the devil, who wants to lead you with him to eternal destruction, that you do his will? For this, as our true enemy, is his constant concern. So, turn to your Father, from whom you have departed, and cast yourself before His merciful eyes, confess to the prodigal son: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before You! He is waiting for you and is ready to receive you, and to dress you in the best clothes, and there will be joy in heaven and for you who repent, according to the word of the Lord. The merciful Heavenly Father will also say about you: this son of mine was dead and is alive, he was lost and is found (Luke 15:7, 10-32). Come, O sinners! Let us mourn before the Lord who created us, for He is our God (Ps. 94:6). 12. You see, sinner, what a grave and destructive evil is sin. Why do you like this evil? Why don’t you want to turn away from it and fearlessly violate God’s holy and eternal law, which was given to us so that we might keep it safe? Do you say in your heart: there is no God (Ps. 13:1)? Or do you think that He does not see your sins and iniquities? Or do you think that He will not reward righteous and sinful deeds? Or do you flatter yourself that God will tolerate you in your sins? Or you don’t know and haven’t yet experienced that there is fire of Gehenna and eternal torment. Or do you dream of something else similar? All this is a lawless thought. How is there no God, Whom the whole world preaches (see Ps. 18:1–7; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:20)? How does He who gave you reason, eyes and ears not know your sins? Doesn't he who made the ear hear? or will He who created the eye not see? Will He not reprove the nations (Ps. 93:9)? How will He who is eternal Truth not reward deeds? Who drowned the wicked with water and preserved the righteous in the ark? Who burned the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah and snatched and preserved the righteous Lot from there? Who led Israel through the sea and drowned Pharaoh and his entire army? Who saved the pious youths in the Babylonian furnace and burned the wicked around the furnace? Who saved the rest of the pious and executed the wicked? God, God, who will reward everyone according to their deeds. He is the Righteous One and in the next century He will reward everyone according to their deeds. Piety will be rewarded and wickedness executed. There will be life for the righteous, but eternal torment for the sinners. If because of this you do not stop sinning, because God will still tolerate you as He did, then what will happen if this hope lies, if it does not tolerate you any longer, if in that very lawless dream it righteously defeats you? It will also happen to you what happened to others: what happened during the flood, or what happened to the Sodomites or to Pharaoh, or what happened to Dathan and Abiron, whom the earth devoured alive (see Ps. 105:17; Num. 16:31), or what happened to Ananias and Sapphira who lied, who suddenly fell lifeless (see Acts 5, 5, 10), or what still happens to the wicked today. If God continues to tolerate you, because not all the lawless people here are executed according to the unknown destinies of God, then you will be more likely to suffer the wrath of God and eternal punishment. O man! Or do you neglect the riches 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 the righteous Judgment from God, who will reward everyone according to his deeds (Rom. 2:4-6), the apostle tells you. Or do you really want to experience what the wrath of God and eternal torment are? You will experience it if you do not stop sinning and repent; you will experience it, but you will not be able to free yourself from it, although you will earnestly desire it, and you will pay in it for all your sins committed endlessly. For then repentance will cease and mercy will end, then the voice will be heard: child! remember that you have already received your good things in your life (Luke 16:25). Nowadays people are either in illness, or in prison, or in exile, or in captivity, or in some other way, but they are freed from these disasters either before death, or by death, but from that disaster, illness, sighing, prison, captivity, torment, suffering, they can never be freed. Then they will wish for death, but will not be able to die. This is where fearlessness and an unrepentant life lead! Therefore, now, before you have experienced this, recognize and acknowledge your sins, and leave them, and repent, so as not to experience and taste that sorrow, but to receive mercy from God, which I wish for myself and for everyone from the heart. You see what a cruel and destructive evil sin is, although people love it. Beware, beloved, of it, like the poison of a snake.