Слово 29

(1) He who seeks from God, but does not know what he is seeking, seeks in vain. – (2) How to pray for the kingdom of God? – (3) A soul that has been granted the kingdom must feel this with feeling and show it in action. – (4) Who is the evil one, and how can one get rid of his slavery? – (5) How is the resurrection of the soul accomplished? 1. Many Christians think that they bring great benefit to the soul when they read the Psalms of David with troparia and perform other prescribed prayers, by reading them, even simply, as it happens, and believe that they are glorifying God in this way, but they do not know that they anger God and do not receive any benefit for themselves, but on the contrary, they sin a great sin. Whoever only prays with his tongue, God does not hear him, and if he does not hear, he will not give what he asks. What is the use of many of your prayer words? If a hungry and thirsty person comes to someone who can give him something to drink and feed, but, turning to him with a request, utters only incomprehensible words, then he will not only not satisfy his request, but will drive him away with anger for bothering him and not knowing about what. The same thing happens with prayers. God understands only those prayers that, when the person praying says it, understands what he is saying and feeling. Prayer, only pronounced with the tongue, without thought and feeling, only angers God. 2. And not only this is necessary for the success of prayer, but also to prepare to receive what we ask for and, on our part, to use everything in our power to acquire it. So, whoever says to God in prayer: Thy kingdom come, but does not know how this kingdom comes, without knowing, does not prepare to receive it and does nothing that is required on his part to receive it, is it possible for this kingdom to come to him? What is the benefit of saying in prayer: Thy kingdom come? The Lord says in the Holy Gospel: repent, for the kingdom of God is drawing near. So, do you want this kingdom to come to you? Repent. If you do not repent, no matter how much you say: Thy kingdom come, it will not come to you. The Kingdom of God is in us when God is with us in unity, by the grace of the Most Holy Spirit. God was in unity with us from the beginning of the creation of Adam, but when our forefather was deceived and sinned, God withdrew from us, and at the same time His kingdom withdrew from us. For it is impossible for the All-Holy and All-Good God to be in unity with one who loved sin and evil. In order for God to return to us again and His kingdom to come to us again, we had to stop and be cleansed of sins. But just as we could not do this on our own, just as a soiled garment cannot wash itself, even without water, He finally came, able to wash and cleanse us, to cleanse us and, having cleansed us, to open the entrance to God and to instill His kingdom in us. This is accomplished in the sacrament of holy Baptism, and whoever sins after Baptism - in the sacrament of repentance. In both cases, repentance is required from you. When you have fulfilled this, then only will you be ready to accept the gift for which you pray, saying: Thy kingdom come. And God will come and reign in you by His grace, and will fulfill in you and through you all His will. 3. Over whom God has not reigned and who does not experience with the intelligent feeling of his soul that God is doing His will in him through Jesus Christ, he works in vain and lives in vain; The deceiving devil still reigns over such a person, but he does not understand this. If his mental soul has not yet received an intelligent feeling through which it would understand that the kingdom of God has come to him, then he should not flatter himself with the hope of salvation. For the rational soul, over which God reigns, must experience by experience the grace of the Divinity that reigns in it, and in action demonstrate the fruits of the All-Holy Spirit, that is, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and so on. Where God reigns, there is no longer room for any action of the work of the devil, but everything turns to the service of God. 4. Again, those who say to God in prayer: deliver us from the evil one, but do not know who the evil one is and how they are possessed and possessed by this evil one, what are his bonds and the power that he has over those whom he has dominated, such as it is possible for them to be delivered by God from the evil one? For not knowing this, they do not know what they ask of God; not knowing this, they cannot receive what they ask for, no matter how much they repeat: deliver us from the evil one. This evil one is the devil, who mixed the law of sin with human nature. So, all the time that we submit and serve this evil one through the evil deeds that we do, the good God has no part in us and we are unworthy of His kingdom - so that we falsely call Him God and our Father, when we have the devil as our ruler, and our father, and our lord, and our God, of whom we also have similar features in ourselves, revealed in our evil deeds, as the Lord says to the Jews: you are the father of your devil. nature, and you want to do the lusts of your father (John 8:44). For just as a son is like a father, because a son does not come from anywhere but from his father’s nature, so a Christian must have likeness to his Father, that is, Christ, which is usually revealed in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and not have likeness to the evil devil through sinful passions. That's who the evil one is! But we must also know what the power of the evil devil consists of, and how he rules over us with his wickedness and deception, and how we can destroy his power. Knowing all this, we will understand what we ask when we pray: deliver us from evil. And we will be heard. The Lord will deliver us from the evil one and all his works and all his ministry. Having delivered, he will destroy his power in us, and in his place he will install his kingdom. This kingdom of Christ comes only to those who understand what it consists of. When it comes and reigns in them, then it makes them equal to the angels. For just as from the disobedience of the primordial Adam an oath followed on the human race, after the oath - corruption (disorder of nature), after corruption - death, so from the obedience of the second Adam a blessing came to the human race instead of an oath, after the blessing - non-corruption (health of nature), after non-corruption - immortality, after immortality - life similar to the original life, from God and in God, and where God is, the devil and his demons flee from there. Thus, the human race was freed and delivered from working for the devil through Jesus Christ. Thus, until someone else has freed himself from the devil, let him not think that he is a real person - and it would be better for him not to be born. There are two reasons for the fact that others themselves do not know what they are asking of God: either ignorance or insensibility. The unspoken and untaught does not understand what he is saying, and the insensitive does not feel what he is looking for. And which of the wealthy gives alms to that person who, when asking for it, does not know what he is muttering, and treats him with contempt and has already proven more than once that he does not at all feel the mercy being shown to him? Likewise, God does not show mercy to those who in their prayers are like ringing brass and a clanging cymbal. And because of this, the kingdom of the devil is strengthening and his power over Christians is expanding, as a result of which we see among Christians many liars, scolders, slanderers, perjurers, envious people, misers, predators, drunkards, fornicators, proud people and the like; There are also many who, hiding their vices, hypocritically boast that they are Christians, while at heart they are an evil, insensitive, ungrateful, uncompromising, man-hating, friend-hating, brother-hating, price-hating, child-hating race, for which they themselves are hated by God. Woe to such when they too sing psalms to God! Woe to them when they pray! Woe when God is worshiped! Woe when they give alms! Woe when they bring gifts to God! For the song of the wicked is an abomination before God, the prayer of the angry and vindictive is a foul stench, the alms of the proud is the sacrifice of a dog, the charity of the libertine and the fornicator is the bribe of a harlot, the gift of the covetous is an unclean sacrifice and the blood of a swine. 5. Someone will ask, what should such people do? This is what you need to do! Having come to his senses and having recognized his unworthiness and damnation, let each of them repent with all his soul of all his sins and, having flown to his spiritual father, confess everything to him, seek from him the revelation of the word of truth and instruction, which every Christian should know and do, and then accept the life that every true Christian should live. Let him seek instructions on everything, including regarding prayers. Regarding prayers, let him ask what each word means, so that when he begins to pray those prayers, he can understand with his mind and feel with his heart what his lips say. Thus, it is sung in the doxology: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men; ask and find out what is the glory of God, what is peace and goodwill among men. Do you hear: God is the Lord - and appear to us; ask and find out what this phenomenon is. So ask and find out about everything else. Glory to God is doing and keeping His commandments; Every Christian who does not glorify God by fulfilling His commandments and keeping His commandments is worse than an infidel. For thus says God through the prophet: If I am the Father, where is My glory? and if the Lord is I, then where is My fear? (Mal.1:6). Peace is the Son of God who came to earth and became man. Through Him came the favor or favor of God among men; because God the Father, through the incarnation of the Son, was satisfied and fell asleep in men, and through His Son deigned to again be reconciled with man, who had become the enemy of God through sin, and again to fill him with the divine life, which he was deprived of through crime, as the Apostle says: having been justified by faith, the world imams to God by our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1). This is our peace (Eph. 2:14), which sometimes makes us alienated and enemies in evil deeds, now... reconcile us in the body of His flesh by His death, presenting us holy and blameless and blameless before You; even... abide in the faith of the foundation and firmament, and motionless because of the hope of the gospel, which you have heard preached to every creature in the heavens, of which Paul was a minister (Col. 1:21-23). A Christian who resists God and enters into a struggle with Him by breaking the commandments of the Gospel of Christ is an enemy of both himself and God, and such a person cannot have peace with God. We remain enemies and opponents of God (even though we are called faithful and Christians) as long as we submit and are slaves to sinful passions. For the Apostle says: the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all man... so that, having rejected ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live chastely, piously and righteously in this present world (Titus 2:11-12); so that whoever does not live piously is the same as every unbelieving wicked person, and whoever does not live chastely and righteously is far from the revealed saving grace of God. How can one believe that such a Christian is reconciled with God? What does he say to God when he enters the church of God? Thanksgiving or petition? - If he began to express gratitude, he would deceive himself, because he has nothing, has received nothing, and his thanksgiving is in vain. If he began to utter a petition, what kind would it be - when he doesn’t know himself, nor the trouble he’s in? He is the same as an infidel, an infidel and an atheist. He is dead because he has not yet received the power of the Resurrection of Christ. When he sings: Having seen the Resurrection of Christ and so on, he lies, because he still lies in the dead and is not involved in the mental life-giving sprinkling of grace coming from God, which is healing from spiritual death and mental resurrection from the dead. The Glorious Resurrection of Christ is our own resurrection, which is mentally accomplished and manifested in us, mortified by sin, through the Resurrection of Christ, as the church hymn, often proclaimed by us, says: “Having seen the Resurrection of Christ (in ourselves), let us worship the Holy Lord Jesus, the only sinless one.” Christ never fell into sin and never changed in His glory. The most glorified and supreme of all beginning and power and strength, just as He diminished and died for our sake, so He rose again and became glorified for our sake, so that what had come true in His face would later be reproduced in us and thereby save us. Just as then He Himself, having departed from Jerusalem, suffered, ascended to the cross, and, having nailed on it the sins of the whole world with Himself, died, descended into the underworld of hell, then rose again from hell, ascended into His most pure body and immediately rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven with much glory and power, and sat down at the right hand of God and the Father, so now when we come into the heart from this world and with the confession of the suffering of the Lord we enter the tomb of repentance and humility, then Christ Himself descends from heaven, enters us as into a tomb, unites with our souls and resurrects them, clearly in death. The resurrection of the soul is its union with life, which is Christ. Just as a dead body, unless it receives a living soul and merges with it in some unfused way, does not exist and is not called alive and cannot live, so the soul cannot live on its own unless it is united by an ineffable union and is not united unfused with God, Who truly is eternal life. And only then, when she is united with God and thus resurrected by the power of Christ, will she be worthy to see mentally and mysteriously the economic Resurrection of Christ. That’s why we sing: “God is the Lord and appear to us. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Whoever has not yet received and seen the resurrection of his soul is still dead and cannot properly worship the Lord Jesus, together with those who have seen the Resurrection of Christ, as the Apostle says: no one can say the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3), and in another place it says: The Spirit is God, and whoever worships Him is worthy to worship by Spirit and truth (John 4:24). - that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Only Begotten Son, Who is the truth. He is dead because he does not have in his soul God, the life-giving one of all things, and he has not been granted the grace of fulfillment of the promise spoken by the Lord over him: I and the Father, by the Holy Spirit, will come to him who loves Me and keeps My commandments, and will make our abode with him (John 14:23). Christ comes and by His coming resurrects a dead soul, and gives it life, and bestows the grace to see how He Himself rises in it and resurrects it. This is the law of the new life in Christ Jesus, that Christ the Lord, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, comes to us and resurrects our mortified souls, and gives them life, and grants eyes to see Him Himself, immortal and incorruptible, living in us. Before the soul is united with God, before it sees, knows and feels that it is truly united with Him, it is completely dead, blind, insensitive; but despite all that she is dead, she is still immortal by nature. She suffers from lack of faith or lack of faith. If she believed that there is judgment and eternal torment, she would not waste her life in vanity, but would give up everything and begin to work for her salvation and, having begun, would reach her revival and resurrection. However, at the present time, the majority of Christians seem to be in such a disastrous state that even the tongues, who have not heard the name of the true God, were not in such a state, and meanwhile, thinking about themselves that they are not dead in soul, they live in carelessness, and, unfortunate ones, do not see these dead men lying before them, that is, their souls, as our word depicted them. No, such people are not Christians, not Christians. And let them not deceive themselves. They are infidels, wicked, atheists, and especially if they are also monks or priests. Oh, how great is Your forbearance and long-suffering, O Christ the King! How will the earth not open up to swallow us up! How dare any of these enter the church of God, and especially the Holy of Holies! Writing to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says: Do not flatter yourselves: neither harlots, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor defilers, nor harlots, nor sodomites, nor the covetous, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor molesters, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God. And by these things you were not born, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:9-11). He who has been washed, sanctified and justified is either completely immobile to such evil deeds as the Apostle mentions here, or he is immovable. And whoever is moved by them has clearly become defiled again, again lost the grace of the Holy Spirit received in Baptism, again lost justification, and for this reason is not worthy to cross the threshold of the church of God and enter it. So, whoever sees that he is driven to evil deeds and realizes that he is naked from Divine grace, let him take care of himself and the salvation of his soul, convinced from the fact that he is outside the saving power of Christianity and that the name of Christ will not bring him any benefit, but that together with the devil he will go into the hellish fire prepared for him. If any Christian does not know that for salvation it is necessary to be renewed and recreated, to enter into a deified state by the grace-filled power and action of Christ the Savior, to become a new creature and a new man - for which both faith and holy Baptism were designed - he is called a Christian in vain. For if such a change has not yet taken place in him, then everything else serves no purpose, his prayers are in vain, and psalmody is in vain. From which disaster may the Lord, to whom be glory forever, deliver us. Amen. You might be interested in: