ЖИЗНЬ ВЕЧНАЯ

Each person will have two existences, two lives: one temporary, and the other eternal and endless. Eternal life will be completely different from this temporary, planetary life; we inherit it after death, which serves as the end of our earthly existence, and that is why it is called rebirth. The apostles are appointed as judges for the twelve tribes of Israel in accordance with their concepts of the Kingdom of the Messiah. What a multitude of defendants! The entire nation of Israel, from the time of its division into twelve tribes and destined to exist until the end of the world, will come to the judgment of the twelve fishermen. But this is not what awaits the faithful followers of Christ, who sacrifice for the Lord everything that is dear to them in this life. They will receive a hundred times (it is said vaguely) more than what they left, and in addition they will inherit a blissful eternity. That life will be different in everything from the present: many who were first here will be last there. Here, primacy depends on merit to the king and society, on origin, on brilliant natural talents, on an adventurous character, on cunning, cunning and other conditions. It won't happen there. Whose moral perfection is higher than others, he will be higher, he will prevail. On earth, and primacy, so to speak, is earthly, elemental, determined by the conditions of life on this planet on which we live, where untruth often sets its throne and where external virtues often take precedence over internal ones (2). Many Christian people do not believe that, in addition to time, there is an imperishable eternity and, in addition to this visible and transitory world, there is an invisible, imperishable, infinite and imagine that this life is given to satisfy the highest needs of man, spiritual, to prepare for eternity, to fight evil and defeat it, to cultivate in oneself all virtue and to strengthen the union with God, for the triumph over sinful corruption, for acquisition an incorruptible crown through love and fidelity to the righteous and all-good Creator, through the fulfillment of His commandments. How pitifully unbelievers and insane freethinkers perish! Let them come to their senses while there is still time for them to come to their senses. “We have work to do... while it is day; the night comes when no one can work” (John 9:4). Test yourself and ask yourself whether you loved the truth and hated lawlessness with all your soul as absurd, senseless, ungodly and disastrous (3). Two centuries are determined by the Creator for every person: the present - short, preparatory and the future - eternal, spiritual, blissful or painful. Do not slumber or sleep, O man, in this age, but constantly prepare for the future with prayer, repentance and good deeds. Believe firmly in God the Creator, Father and righteous Judge and in His Church, created on earth for our preparation, for teaching, purification, healing, sanctification and confirmation. Thank God for everything prepared for you, use all the gifts of God for your good and bliss (3). Everyone wants to live! What is more valuable than life? Life is sweet to everyone. And life from Who? From one God! Do you want to die, do you want to suffer forever or not? Oh, no, no, and one hour of torment is sometimes unbearable! What is it like to suffer forever! And faith, truth, repentance, virtue, self-denial, and mortification of passions lead to eternal life. Do you want to live, and live forever? How can you not want to! So repent immediately and correct yourself, call on the Lord God for help - He is near us, like a mother near her nursing child (4). “Come... inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). What do you say, Lord, come and inherit... Your words are completely correct and true. The immeasurable goodness of God has prepared for us an eternal, incorruptible kingdom, where there is no need, illness, sorrow and sighing, corruption and death, but eternal pleasure, eternal joy and truth. And we, of little faith and vainness, are not jealous, we do not desire this kingdom, in which the righteous will reign forever with God and in God. Oh, how blind we are, partial to the visible and temporary! How pathetic and stupid and senseless we are! We renounce eternal bliss, cohabitation with God and the saints and cleave to dust, to dreams, to darkness and spiritual stench (4). Is it not because we are so lazy to conquer our passions and evil inclinations because we have little faith in the life of the future century? But it is as undoubted as our real life. Will not the One who gave us the firstfruits of life here on earth give us full, perfect life in heaven?! Yes, this inevitably must be, and it is more difficult not to be than to be. And the true Word of God assures us of this. “All who are in the tombs,” it says, “will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who have done good will come forth into the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil into the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28, 29) (9). Brothers! Eternal life beyond the grave is beyond any doubt. But there is also not the slightest doubt that it can be twofold: for the righteous it is blissful, and for hardened sinners it is painful. Death is the limit, the boundary between present and future life, and we do not know whether it is far or close from us. Let us always be ready to stand on this formidable border between two lives (9). In view of the inevitability of death for each of us in the body, it is very important and necessary for each of us to satisfactorily resolve the question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Eternal life beyond the grave is undoubtedly, just as there is undoubtedly eternal torment, and this short life here is given to us by God to prepare for the future life, but there will be no end to it forever and ever. The Lord decides this most important question of life for the completely rich young man, and with him for all of us. If you want, he says, to enter eternal life, then keep the commandments. "Which?" - asks the young man. And the Lord answers him: do not kill, do not commit adultery, and so on, as you have already heard. Not many words, not many commandments, but how important they are, because the eternal life of each of us depends on their fulfillment (9). You don’t believe in the future life and say: no one has been in the next world (meaning the living) and no one has come from there to tell us about it. How was there no one? How did you not come from there? But didn’t the Son of God come from there, didn’t He assure us with His true word and even with His own example in the reality of the afterlife? You believe, for example, that there is America, although you yourself have not been to it, because you see that, for example, ships come from there. Why don’t you also believe that there is another world besides the earthly one - a heavenly one, since from there the Son of God came and assured us of its reality in His word, showing it in reality? Because, having risen from the dead, He ascended into heaven in the sight of His disciples, from where He will come again. And the apostles say: “Seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; Set your mind on things above, and not on earthly things” (Col. 3:1, 2). Fight for eternal life, they also say (10). If we are people of little faith, we live on earth not for heaven, not for God and the salvation of our souls, but for the earth and everything pleasant on earth, in a word, we live for the flesh, for its pleasures, and not for our immortal soul, not for its future life - isn’t this a great sin? Have we forgotten the suffering for us of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, His most pure Blood shed for us on the Cross, His glorious resurrection! Was it not for us, that is, to raise us to heaven, removed from heaven by sin, that His descent to earth, His divine teaching, His miracles, His prophecies, for example, about the future Last Judgment, about the resurrection of the dead on the last day of the world, about the bliss of the righteous and the eternal torment of sinners? Finally, His suffering, His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven? So, if it is true that we must live here for the life of the next century, then is it not a sin not to live for that life, but to live with all our thoughts and with all our hearts on earth and for the earth? And how much sin happens because we only want to live well on earth and do not believe with all our hearts in the future blissful life? How much anger, hatred, love of money, envy, stinginess, deception comes from? Hence all the vices, all the carnal lusts, all the passions of the soul. So let us repent of this, that is, we will repent that we have little faith, if not disbelief, and that for God and for the salvation of our souls we either do not live here or live very little; also that there is little hope in our hearts, if not none at all, for a future life (14). You might be interested in: