§ 138. We read in the Holy Scriptures that God sends various plagues on sinners. He cast down the angels who sinned from heaven. Christ speaks of this: "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18); and the Apostle Peter says: "He did not spare the angels that sinned, but bound them with the chains of hellish darkness, and delivered them over to judgment for punishment" (2 Peter 2:4). Our forefathers Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise for disobedience, and are subject to every calamity, and we are with them. For sins, the first world, with the exception of Noah, the righteous preacher, was destroyed by a terrible flood (Gen. 7; 2 Pet. 2:5). Sodom and Gomorrah with the surrounding cities were burned with fire for their abominable impurity (Gen. 19; 2 Pet. 2:6). The proud and hardened Pharaoh with all his army was drowned in the Red Sea (see Exodus 14). Dathan and Abiram, who rebelled against Moses and Aaron, with their like-minded people in the wilderness, were swallowed up alive by the earth (see Numbers 16). The earth opened up, and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the crowd of Abiram (Psalm 105:17).

The other people of Israel are struck by the wrath of God in various ways for various iniquities: some with fire, some with poisonous serpents, some with the sword of foreigners, others in another way, as we read about this in the books of Moses, the prophets, and in the 10th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. When they came to the Promised Land, how many times they were given into slavery to foreigners, how many times they were taken into captivity and otherwise executed – the books of the Old Testament testify. Their sins and iniquities were the cause of all this, as those holy books testify to the same.

After Christ's coming into the world, we also see God's punishments sent upon sinners. We read that Ananias and Sapphira their wife, for lying, for lying to the Holy Spirit, were unexpectedly struck with death (Acts 5:1-10). Herod was suddenly struck down by an angel of the Lord because he did not give glory to God; and he was eaten by worms, and died (Acts 12:23). The city of Jerusalem, which slew the prophets, and stoned those who were sent to it, and with the blood of Christ, the Son of God, crimson, is utterly destroyed, and its children, that is, the inhabitants, are slain with the edge of the sword, as Christ Himself prophesied with weeping: The days shall come upon thee, O Jerusalem, when thy enemies shall entrench thee, and surround thee, and press thee on every side, and destroy thee; and they shall smite thy children in thee" (Luke 19:43-44).

But what we read in books, we see in our times. We note the same terrible judgments of God even now; the same righteous wrath of His now appears upon unrepentant sinners. We see and hear terrible battles, and terrible and weeping worthy of bloodshed; so many thousands who fall in battle, so many widows, orphans, weeping fathers and mothers, so many cities ravaged by foreign weapons, by pestilence, by famine, earthquake and fire, how many lawless people are suddenly taken away and led away from this world.

All these are traces of God's righteous judgment and wrath, which devours the unrepentant like fire. What happened to them according to God's righteous judgment is to be expected by other unrepentant sinners. We read in the Gospel of the holy Evangelist Luke, that when some came to Christ and told Him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, Christ answered and said: Do you think that these Galileans were more sinful than all the Galileans, that they suffered so much? No, I say to you, but if you do not repent, you will all perish in the same way (Luke 13:1-3). From these words of Christ we can conclude that other unrepentant sinners should expect the same destruction that is seen in others. Already the axe lies at the root of the trees: every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matt. 3:10).

From those plagues that have been and are happening, we conclude about future ones, and from temporal ones, we note about eternal ones. There will be eternal punishment for hardened sinners, there will be fiery Gehenna, there will be hell, pitch darkness, gnashing of teeth; the wicked will be rejected from the presence of God and His kingdom. Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God," wrote the holy Apostle (1 Cor. 6:9 and 10).

Christ will proclaim to sinners on the day of His righteous Judgment: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). But the fearful, and the unfaithful, and the filthy, and the murderers, and the fornicators, and the sorcerers, and the idolaters, and all the liars, shall have a portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. This is the second death, says Christ again (Rev. 21:8). We read the same in other places of the Holy Scriptures.

§ 139. God's words and threats, Christian, are not vain or vain, but true and certain: what He has said is certainly so, as it is said, and what He has predicted will certainly be. He foretold to our forefathers the death that was to come from the forbidden tree, and death followed for those who transgressed His commandment. He predicted to the righteous Noah a global flood on the wicked – and there was a flood. He predicted the death of the hardened Pharaoh – and Pharaoh died. He foretold the captivity of the Israelites, and they were taken captive. He foretold the devastation and desolation of Jerusalem, and it came to pass. He declared in His Scriptures that there would be eternal torment for the wicked – it would certainly come, they would know the eternal wrath of the righteous judgment of God, they would drink this cup of sorrow, but they would never drink.

Therefore, let us fear, Christian, the judgment of God and His righteous wrath, and let us repent – let us not fall into the hands of the living God. For it is fearful to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31). Whoever does not believe the words of God will learn the work of God's righteous judgment on himself. God is not mocked. What a man sows, that he will also reap, says the Apostle (Gal. 6:7). The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. For when they say, 'Peace and security,' then destruction will come upon them suddenly, as the pangs of childbirth overtake her with child, and they will not escape" (1 Thess. 5:2-3).

Part two.

About repentance and the fruits of repentance,

or good deeds

Article 1.