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(1) How do we understand: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom? – (2) What are the signs and deeds of faithful and God-fearing people? – (3) What are the signs and deeds of people who are unfaithful and do not fear God? – (4) Who is the dead man who does not live according to God? – (5) Just as we have existence from God, so we can only receive well-being from Him. 1. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, says Scripture (Proverbs 1:7). There is only one God who is wise. Why is everyone who wants to enter the kingdom of heaven and be under the King God, so that his mind, his wisdom, and his thoughts are controlled by God Himself, the only truly King, everyone must first of all have the fear of God. But how can you have fear of Him Whom you do not see? - Therefore, it is necessary to first see God in order to then have fear of Him. How can you see God, Whom no one has ever seen? To do this, it is necessary to seek the intelligent light of God, so that the mind, enlightened by it, can intelligently see God. And when someone sees God in this way, he can also have the fear of God, and having had the fear of God, he can see and understand himself, and this temporary and vain world, and all the affairs of this world. Further, he who sees himself and the vanity of this world, having the fear of God always inherent in himself, cannot unjust anyone and, when he himself suffers untruth from another, does not take revenge, but, expecting help coming from God, complacently endures untruth, and marvels and glorifies God that, seeing untruths, He is long-suffering and bears with the unjust, while being zealous to bear all kinds of fruits of the Holy One. Spirit. 2. So, we need intelligent divine light, may it make us partakers of the grace of seeing God. - But what is this light? About this Christ Himself says: I am the light of the world (John 8:12). The Evangelist John says the same thing: in Him was life, and life was light of man (John 1:4). Explaining this, John the Baptist says: he who believes in the Son will have eternal life, but whoever does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36). Anyone who transgresses one and only one commandment does not believe in Christ, as Christ Himself says: whoever destroys one of these little commandments... he will be called in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19). He who is unjust is a little, and he is unrighteous in many (Luke 16:10). But what kind of anger is there on such a one? The wrath of the oath that fell on Adam for breaking the commandment of God, that is, corruption and death. But those who remain in corruption and death will also remain in hellish hell. Why does our Lord Jesus Christ say: His commandment is eternal life (John 12:50), and: if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death forever (John 8:51). Whoever, it turns out, does not fulfill God’s commandments deprives himself of eternal life. So, first of all, you must believe in Christ, Who is the light of man, in order to see God. How can he see God? From the creations created by God, he can see and know the Creator, that is, the sky, earth, sea and other creatures, especially man himself, who is a rational animal, beginning so inconspicuously and then becoming such a wondrous creature that imagines himself to be the god of all visible things, due to the rationality that distinguishes him. Whoever sees God in this image, how can he not have fear of Him? And whoever has fear of Him, is it possible for him not to be in reverence before Him, not to look strictly after himself and not to live as He commands and determines in His law? 3. From here it goes without saying that whoever does not live according to the law of God does not fear God; and whoever does not fear God has not seen Him; He who does not see God does not have light (smart) in himself; whoever does not have this light does not believe in Christ; He who does not believe in Christ has no life in himself. Since he obviously did not begin with the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, he is a bull, blind, dead. And the Evangelist John says well that everyone who sins does not see or know God (1 John 3:6). Good and the Prophet Jeremiah paints - who is he who does not know God? He who commits fornication, who commits crime, who strains his tongue like a bow, in whom lies and unfaithfulness are strengthened, who moves from evil to evil, who laughs at his friend and does not speak the truth, who has taught his tongue to speak only lies, who acts wrongly and does not want to turn, who has interest for interest and flattery for flattery, whose tongue is a wounding arrow and the flattering words of his mouth, speaks peace to his friend, but speaks peace within himself. has enmity. Such a one did not know Me and did not want to lead Me away, says the Lord (Jer. 9: 3-8). If such is the one who does not know God and does not want to know Him, how does he differ from those who do not confess Christ and do not believe in Him? A Christian who does not believe in Christ, what kind of Christian? He who believes in Christ does His commandments, and he who does not do His commandments does not believe Him. Isn’t someone who doesn’t believe in Christ the same thing as an infidel? So, all those who are called Christians, but do not live according to His law and commandments, let them know that they have not yet believed in Christ, although they confess Him as God. For whoever truly believes in Christ will not live lawlessly and violate the commandments of God, just as someone who sees an abyss in front of him cannot throw himself into it, unless he has lost his mind. 4. Let such people seek to believe in Christ as they should and thus begin to live according to God, to receive the intellectual light and see God, to acquire the fear of God and lay the beginning of wisdom, since the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. Faith without works is dead, like a body without a soul. For faith that does not have works does not have God who gives life to it, and is dead, for it has not acquired what Christ says: He who loves Me will keep My commandments, and I and the Father will come to him and make an abode with him (John 14:23), so as to raise the soul from the dead by His presence and give life to the one who is worthy to acquire this. That is why such faith is dead, those who have it without works are dead. Whoever lives in Christ has the character of Christ, and whoever does not have the character of Christ is dead, and let him not deceive himself, as Christ says: Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do the things I say? (Luke 6:46). The sign of death is inaction, since everyone who is dead is inactive. Why is it that anyone who does not act according to God is dead to God; there is no life according to God in him. And whoever does not live for God and according to God, it would be better for him not to live at all. Our bodily life is simply life, like the life of all animals. But a rational soul must accept the life that God gives and which is the light of man, given from above from God. Whoever is deprived of this life lives like all irrational animals, but as he falls to this, being rational, he will be condemned along with incorporeal rational creatures who have lost such life, that is, with demons, to eternal death, or to endless torment in hell. From all that has been said, it is clear that our most important task is to live a life pleasing to God. Those Christians who do not lead a life befitting Christians are weak in their nature, in their strength, in their life, and in their deeds. The strength of Christianity lies in the fact that through Jesus Christ it receives complete goodness from God, who gave existence. Why are they naturally not honored to live as they should, both in relation to God and in relation to people who have not sought to receive from God through Jesus Christ the goodness that was lost in the primordial Adam? 5. So, a Christian who does not live as Christ commands takes the name of a Christian in vain. He does not have blessings, either because he did not believe in Christ at all, or because, having believed, he despised faith and lost the gift, or because he was not taught as he should and did not know this great and mysterious gift of grace. As for being, we know that it, having at the beginning been bestowed directly by God according to the law of creation, now does not come directly from Him, but from husband and wife comes man, as He, the Creator of all things, laid down the law when He said: and the two will become one flesh, which flesh is the flesh of the child born of both; in the same way, well-being is clearly the work of both God and ours, because if it were only God’s work, then all people would have it. Our participation in this is to recognize that we do not have well-being and cannot obtain it by ourselves, because from the time of Adam, even until now, there has not been a single person who would have acquired well-being by himself, whether he is wise or understanding of himself, as the prophet Isaiah says: woe to those who are wise in themselves, and understanding in themselves (Is. 5:21). Why is it that we have existence from God and His creative power, and well-being from Him. Good-being in us from God is something higher than simple being, because this being, if it does not become good-being, then becomes corrupted and perishes. And just as the omnipotent God, having once creatively created man, no longer gives existence to any of the people except through a husband and wife, because this would be unblessed, so again He does not give good-being to a person unless that person himself desires it with all his soul and with all his thoughts, so as not to otherwise violate the rational dignity of human nature, that is, autocracy. Therefore, whoever desires this goodness, let him seek it from God with a strong cry and tears, as Christ Himself did, Who, being God and man, as a man, offered up prayers and supplications to God, with tears and a strong cry, to deliver Him, as a man, from death, as the Apostle says: Who is in the days of His flesh, supplications and supplications to Him who is able to save Him from death, with He brought with a strong cry and tears, and was heard with reverence... He became the cause of eternal salvation to all who listened to Him (Heb. 5:7,9). What kind of salvation is this that He gives to all who listen to Him? This very being is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is, says the divine Paul, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control: against such there is no law (Gal. 5:22-23). For there is no law for the righteous (1 Tim. 1:9). God the Word and the Son of God, the Creator of natures, became naturally (physically) human for this purpose, in order to naturally (physically) bestow well-being on people. So that people could receive this blessing, He came, became incarnate, suffered and died, so that believers could receive it as something natural (physical), that is, so that they would be loving, joyful, long-suffering, kind, merciful, faithful, meek, self-controlled. For these are precisely the properties that constitute well-being. And woe to him who does not have such goodness as is bestowed by Christ, because in this case he is deprived of that great good for which God alone became man, died and rose again. He (the fake Christian) is also deprived of this, just as those who do not believe in Christ are also deprived, not to say that he becomes even worse than them. May we not be deprived of this good in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory forever. Amen. You might be interested in: