ДОБРО И ЗЛО

“I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot; Oh, that you were cold or hot! But because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15, 16). It is necessary for me to be something definite, and not what is called chaos, mixture, fermentation, in which everything is somehow mixed and wanders in disorder. What good can we expect from a person whose soul is a disordered mixture of good and bad, who makes good part of him, but is not averse to evil? This state is dangerous: it means moral impotence, relaxation. Better in this regard is a person with extremes: either cold or hot. Here, at least, there is something definite that can be given a definite place: either eternal tartarus, or the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord speaks of a man neither cold nor hot: “I will spit you out of My mouth.” People seem to be imprisoned in God, who contains some within Himself and casts others out of Himself. The righteous will indeed one day live in God and with God: this explains the inexplicably high degree of bliss that every righteous person will have, even though it was low for some, compared to the greatest righteous people. And now we live in God in some way: “he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). However, this applies to virtuous people (2). “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use force take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). Two invisible forces constantly act on a person: good and evil, the power of God, the power of grace, and the power of the devil, the evil and all-destructive power; man is placed in this world, as it were, between two fires, one of which is life-giving, about which the Lord says: “I have come to bring down fire on the earth” (Luke 12:49), and the other is a scorching and burning fire. A person must make an effort on himself in order to arouse in himself the Divine fire, the fire of faith and love for God and neighbor. Man lost his first Divine dignity, his rightness, holiness, goodness, meekness and filled his soul with all sorts of sins. Now, you don’t have purity of heart - this is a big loss, you need to acquire it; there is no constant sympathy for your neighbor in his sorrow, misfortune, poverty, illness - change yourself, be sympathetic... you do not have zeal in prayer to God, you do not have a spiritual taste for prayer, you do not have a spiritual ear for listening to the Word of God - transform yourself, develop your spirit, taste and spiritual ear in order to listen with love to the Word of God, in order to feel the sweetness of prayer and the sweetness of good deeds. Evil strongly fights a person and forces him to do evil, but good attracts him to himself with his moral beauty, spiritual peace, and spiritual freedom. Good attracts to itself with the promises of eternal life for victory over passions. “To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne” (Rev. 3:21) (4). What controls and reigns in the visible and invisible world: is it visible, material or invisible, a spiritual personal principle, good or evil? The invisible controls the visible. The invisible good principle directs humanity towards good and promotes it, while the evil directs towards all evil and attracts and spreads it. The Good Beginning leads to all virtue and to eternal life; the evil inclination, on the contrary, leads to all lies and sins, to the deprivation of all grace of God and to eternal death. Now let’s put the question on the line: who governs the visible, beautiful, immeasurably great, immeasurably beneficial world for all creatures - heaven and earth and everything that is in them and on them? The Invisible, Almighty and All-Holy Creator, who has demonstrated and is demonstrating His Divine properties and perfections in all of His deeds. Who leads the invisible world or the angelic army of good Angels who protect the universe from hostile forces? All-good, invisible, all-powerful God. But where do the hostile, evil forces in the world come from, striving or directing people towards unrest, sedition, disobedience, destruction and destruction of communities, gatherings, entire cities and states? From the evil invisible power of demons with God's permission for the sins of people. And who rules and reigns in each of us? Either the Lord, the King of creation, or, by His permission, the devil for our sins, as in Judas the traitor. Who do we want to reign in us? God or the devil? Of course, the Lord God, His all-good, most peaceful Creator. Our Father... Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (3). A person who is embittered against us is a sick person; you need to put a plaster on his heart - love; we need to caress him, talk to him with affection, with love, and if there is no anger in him deep-rooted against us, but only a temporary outbreak, see how his heart or his anger melts from our affection and love, how good overcomes evil. A Christian must always be good, wise, so that good can overcome evil (6). How quick we are to do evil and slow to do good! So I want to be kind to the enemy and express my kindness in practice, but before I have time to become kind in my heart, I am already angry, already a fiery arrow of anger is scorching my insides; I want to be patient, but before I establish my heart in patience, I become irritable and impatient; I want to be humble, but satanic pride has already found a spacious corner in me; I want to be affectionate, but when I need to show affection, I turn out to be rude; I want to be not money-loving and generous, but love of money and stinginess at the slightest provocation, like hungry and roaring lions, already demand food for themselves; I want to be simple, trusting, but deceit and doubt are already gnawing at my heart; I want to be sedate, focused and reverent in serving the Almighty, but frivolity and heartfelt inattention have already preceded me; I want to be impartial, abstinent in food and drink, but when I see pleasant food and drink and sit down at the table, I, like a slave, am carried away by my belly into a pleasant captivity, easily allowing myself to eat and drink more than my nature requires: greed and intemperance again precede and overcome my desire to be indifferent to food and drink. I am like that paralytic who lay on his bed for thirty-eight years and no matter how many times he came to the Sheep Font, which healed everyone who was the first to descend into it after the disturbance of its water by an Angel, another had already descended before him (John 5:7). And when I, weakened by my sins, gather my efforts and come to myself with the intention of immersing myself in God and changing for the better, another descends first into my heart, sin, the devil forestall me in my own home, in my own heartfelt font, do not allow me to reach the Source of living waters - the Lord, do not allow me to plunge into the cleansing font of faith, humility, heartfelt contrition and tears. Who is healing me? One Jesus Christ. When He sees my sincere and firm desire for healing from spiritual relaxation, my warm prayer for this, then He will say to me: “Take up your bed and walk” (John 5:8), and I will get up from the bed of heartfelt relaxation and walk, that is: conveniently - by His grace - I will conquer all passions and accomplish every virtue (6). Boys and all adults! Remember that the moral law of God is constantly operating in the world, according to which every good is internally rewarded, and every evil is punished; evil is accompanied by sorrow and tightness in the heart, and good is accompanied by peace, joy and space in the heart. This law is unchangeable: it is the law of the unchangeable, all-holy, righteous, wise and eternal God. Those who do good or do this moral or evangelical law (it is also a moral law, only the most perfect) will certainly be rewarded with eternal life, and violators and those who have not repented of their violation will be punished with eternal torment (6). The rich man received his good in his life, but Lazarus received his evil. What good is yours? That which he considered good, i.e. He ate, drank, dressed elegantly, had fun, but did not think about God and pleasing Him, did not do good deeds and, therefore, lived like dumb cattle, not caring about the immortal soul. Consequently, what he lived for, that’s what he received; what he considered to be his good, he enjoyed; for eternity he did not prepare anything, no good deeds, he did not acquire the desires and needs of spiritual and eternal blessings, he turned out to be alien to the love of God and neighbor - he has nothing to do in paradise, where there is a place only for the righteous and those who love God and each other with pure love; Lazarus, in the crucible of illness and deprivation, was cleansed of his sins and suffered punishment for them in illness and deprivation itself. For this reason, says Abraham, he is comforted here, but you suffer (Luke 16:19–31) (9). Almost every good thought, every good feeling I must defend with a fight, and without a fight there is a danger of losing all good. There is even something not entirely good in the most seemingly good thoughts, feelings and actions! Man is terribly permeated with evil! (10). “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), says the Savior. And certainly, without Him it is absolutely impossible to do anything truly good. If He leaves us only to ourselves, to our weakness, we become completely internally powerless for any good. We become full of evil. This is evidenced by experience (10). You might be interested in: