Late Coming to Church or Leaving It Early 45

Idle Conversations in Church During the Service 46

Attention Bored for Service 46

Disorderly Reading or Singing in Church 47

Honor God with Your Word

The first manifestation of our soul is the gift of speech. Therefore, the inner worship of God: faith (it relates primarily to the mind and constitutes the content of the first commandment of God), hope and love (relate to the heart and will, and constitute the subject of the second commandment)—inner worship of God, of course, must also be expressed in our word, which can be "oral, written, and printed." And this is what the third commandment of the Decalogue requires of us! Everything that relates to the verbal worship of God and His saints, and which constitutes an insult to Him and the saints by our word, as well as to the glorification or blasphemy of the divine and sacred in the same way, all this enters into the domain of the third commandment, in the first case as its fulfillment, and in the second as a violation. And so

Sins Against the Majesty of God and the Dignity of the Saints

Blasphemy

"Open thy mouth to blaspheme against God, blaspheme His name... and they that dwell in heaven" (Rev. 13:6). The object of someone's blasphemy can be: the Lord God Himself, revered in the trinity of persons, the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Most Pure Lady Mother of God, the holy angels and the holy saints. But why are blasphemous speeches against the Mother of God and the saints also called blasphemy?—Because "God is wondrous in His saints" (Psalm 67:36): as He is glorified and revered among the saints, so He is offended for them when they are blasphemed; — because they are always with them and they are always in Him.—The blasphemy of which we are speaking is not blasphemous thoughts, to which other believing souls are subjected against their will, and which are not imputed to them, as exclusively impudent whisperings into the soul on the part of the devil. No, these are deliberate and deliberate slanders and insults against God or against the saints of God, pronounced either publicly, i.e., more or less in a crowded assembly, or in front of some persons alone (the degree of the latter blasphemy is "written" blasphemy, as being read only by a few persons). This is a monstrous sin. He expresses a kind of hatred for God and the saints, shows the absence of any faith. His first indicator was the devil. When the devil said to Eve in paradise: "What has God spoken" (Gen. 3:1), then here we hear slander against God Himself. What a terrible impudence it is: for a man who is a worm, before God, to utter blasphemy against the Most High Being! What ungodliness it is to lift up one's tongue to the divine purity of the actions of Jesus Christ, Who is the eternal benefactor of men, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world! what impiety it is to blaspheme the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, Who always prays for sinners, what impudence it is to slander the saints of God or to cite as an example from their earthly life their actual falls, but only to humiliate them, and not for the purpose of teaching or warning themselves! They—the saints of God—have already completed their podvig, are glorified by God Himself, and all in general are "worthy of the whole world" (Heb. 11:38); but even the least of them, for example, who repented not long before his death (like the Martyr Boniface (Thursday under Dec. 19)) and others), is already the appointed judge of the "world" (1 Corinthians 6:2), together with the holy angels and apostles. By his blasphemy he produces universal indignation at faith, which is the sanctity of man, the highest of all blessings. He does significant harm to weak souls, because these souls, after his blasphemy, will sometimes think: "Really, isn't it...?" But even people who are firm in the faith, but also deeply reverent for God and the saints, must strengthen their feelings, so as not to weaken their reverence, for example, for Jesus Christ or the Mother of God, whom the atheist blasphemed in their eyes (Titus 3:10). He is a dangerous member of the state: what evil deed can not be expected from one who is not afraid to blaspheme God Himself and the saints? – In the Old Testament, the death penalty was prescribed for blasphemy: for example, Naboth was stoned for a false accusation of this sin (1 Kings 21:13); in the New Testament this sin is one of the signs of the end times (1 Timothy 1:2, 20). "What can correct a blasphemer?" If blasphemy is uttered out of foolishness, or as a violent abuse in a drunken state, or out of error, as the Apostle Paul called himself a "blasphemer" in the latter sense (1 Timothy 1:13), then it will pass away with the return of a rational consciousness to man, and will not be deprived of mercy. But to bring a conscious, but deliberate and repeated blasphemer to reason and correct only the punishment of God; thus King Antiochus was once punished for his pride and blasphemy: Antiochus began to rot while still alive; the stench from it came over the whole army and was unbearable for all (2 Mac. 9:17, 28, 9).

Murmuring against God

"In this wilderness shall fall the men who murmur against Me," God once said and fulfilled concerning the murmuring Jews (Num. 14:29). Some people murmur for themselves in some extraordinary misfortune or sorrow; for example, they even say: "Why were we born into the world?" Others murmur for others: "Why does God take away (through death) the mother of so many young children?" Still others are confused by the providential actions of God in the history of all mankind at any given time: "Why were wars allowed..., why are there needs of people"? Murmuring does not yet contain hatred of God: but it expresses anger and vexation against God Himself. Obviously, it is vain and reckless; "Who understands the mind of the Lord? or who was His counselor?" (Rom. 11:34). It is impudence before the boundless greatness of God: how can a person who is completely dependent on God demand an account of God's actions? However, murmuring is sometimes excusable. Thus sometimes a deeply believing person murmurs. In his sorrow, this man also seems to be angry with God, saying, for example, to the Mother of God: "Why hast thou forsaken me..."? But his plaintive speeches are more likely to arise from an excess of hope in God than from unbelief. Such, for example, is the state of a person when a grave sin is committed, not by himself, but by a person close to him, and when his oppressed thought involuntarily turns to God with a cry: "Why is this misfortune allowed, why are my merits not mentioned this time?" Righteous Job was in such a state when he struggled with the great horrors of his sufferings (Job ch. 3). If we compare their bitter complaint about a bitter misfortune, the latter will be heavier and their complaint will be even more moderate (Job 6:1). Here a man expresses by murmuring words only his excessive sorrow, and, as it seems to him, undeserved by him (Job 6:26).—How, however, can we restrain ourselves from murmuring against God or against the saints in some sorrow?—By the thought that the greater our misfortune, the less we should judge it—whether it is useful or harmful to us—to judge it only by the present life; we must look at this misfortune in connection with our future life. Another simple but true means: when in misfortune our soul seems to be petrified or deaf, when words of murmur are ready to come from our tongue, we must force ourselves to say aloud and many times "Glory to God." Let us pronounce these words mechanically and with one tongue: but little by little they will revive and soften our soul, and will call it to such a consciousness: "It is good for me, for thou hast humbled me!" (Psalm 118:68).