69. Встань

It happens that a person excites a lazy person and tells him this: “get up,” it’s time to get to work! So God’s saving grace awakens a Christian who is lazy and careless about his salvation: “get up,” and go to the work to which the Lord has called you. Every negligent and unrepentant sinner lies down and “does not work out his own salvation with fear and trembling; he does not labor in the grapes of the Lord” (Phil. 2:12; Matt. 20:1–16, 21:33). There lies a fornicator and an adulterer. There lies a thief, a predator and a robber. Lying there is angry and misanthropic. There lies the slanderer, the scolder, the slanderer and the one who humiliates his neighbor, and who strikes him with his tongue like a weapon. Lying down is a drunkard and a sensualist. In a word, every sinner lies faulty and unrepentant. The grace of God comes to everyone like this, hits him, and says to him: “Get up!” It's time to go to the Lord's work. It's time to repent, it's time to work in the cause of salvation. Get up! Time is running out and will not return. Your life is shortening. Death comes unexpectedly. Satan, like a cunning thief, steals your salvation. Arise and shake the sleep from your eyes. “Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). Get up! God, like a gracious and merciful Father, like a prodigal son, is waiting for you to come to Himself. “When you return and breathe, then you will be saved and you will understand where you have been” (Is. 30:15). Get up! Christ the Lord suffered and died for you. The blood of Christ was shed for you. Not with silver or gold, or at any other price, but with the most precious Blood of Christ, salvation was found for you. Do you want to lose such an expensive treasure through negligence and plunge yourself into the eternal power of the devil, and into eternal torment, from which Christ delivered you with His Blood? Remember that the death and Blood of Christ will not help an unrepentant sinner, like medicine will not help a sick person who does not take care of himself. Get up! Here the Lord threatens execution of the wicked and lawless, so that execution does not befall you either. “If they hide in hell, then from there My hand will pluck them out; and if they ascend into heaven, then I will overthrow them from there too. And if they hide on the top of Carmel, I will find them there and take them; and if they sank from Mine eyes into the depths of the sea, there I will command the serpent and gnaw them. And if they go into captivity ahead of their enemies, I will command weapons there and kill them there. And I will fix My eyes on them for their harm and not for their good” (Am.9:2-4). “If you do not turn, He will refine His weapon; He has drawn His bow and prepared it, and in it He has prepared instruments of death; He has made His arrows for those who are burned” * (Ps. 7:13-14). “Their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them in the day of the wrath of the Lord, and all this earth will be consumed by the fire of His jealousy” (Zeph 1:17-18). Poor man! Repent and you will avoid God’s execution. God’s threats are not vain - they will come true if sinners do not repent. Arise! This is your life. decreases, and every day a certain part of it is taken away, and death comes, and, like a quick messenger, it will come to you. And it is already closer to you today than it was yesterday and the day before. no matter how they wait. Be careful and expect her every day and hour. And get up, be sober and watchful, and be what you want to be at her hour. Remember, where are those who lived in sins, in luxury, in lust, in the joy of the world, in honor, glory and wealth? They died. Their care has also departed from them, and they are now in their places and awaiting the world Judgment of Christ. Get up! Christ the Lord will come to the Judgment and will call everyone to His Judgment, “so that everyone may receive according to what he did while living in the body, good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). You too will be called to that judgment, and you will be rewarded for every ungodly deed, word and thought. There all the people will be divided into two parts, and some will stand on the right side of the Judge, and others on the left. Some will hear from the Righteous Judge: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; others will hear: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:34, 41). Blessed are those who hear: “Come,” the wretched and poor, to whom it is said: “Depart from Me!” Arise, poor sinner, and “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) - so that you may then be worthy to be among the blessed. Get up! Eternal torment awaits careless and unrepentant sinners! What can you expect if you don’t get up and don’t repent with contrition of heart? Nowadays, God’s mercy is promised and given to everyone who repents. Then all mercy will cease to be given. Then the spoken word will be heard: “Child! Remember that you have already received your good things in your life” (Luke 16:25). You will hear this word too. You will suffer endlessly. You will always die, and you will never die. You will live and die. You will burn, and you will never burn out. You will taste the sorrows of eternal death. The fire that torments you will not go out, the worm that eats you will not die, unless you repent. Rising, repent, and with weeping and tears turn to the Lord your God - may he have mercy on you, so that you do not fall into endless evil. Get up! Here, to the righteous, saints, and all sinners who repent with a contrite heart, God promises eternal life, eternal joy and eternal bliss! They will be with God forever. They will see God face to face and enjoy this, like a sweet drink, forever. They will be comforted forever, they will rejoice and rejoice forever. They will reign as kings and lords forever. No sinner will enter that eternal life unless he is washed and cleansed by contrition of heart and hot tears, unless by faith he “makes his robes white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). “And without are dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices iniquity” (Rev. 22:15). Get up, and repent, and work in the cause of your salvation, so that you do not lose that bliss! “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did when you were provoked to anger in the day of temptation in the wilderness, where your fathers tempted Me, tempted Me, and saw My works. For forty years I was indignant at that generation and said: “They always err in heart, but they themselves did not know My ways, and therefore I swore in My anger that they would not enter My rest” (Ps. 95:7-11). “We, as companions, beg you so that the grace of God will not be received by you in vain. For it is said: “In an acceptable time I heard you and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:1-2). Translation by P. Yungerov – Editorial office of “The ABC of Faith” You might be interested in: