So I guess about myself! To such indisputable, tangible conclusions lead me the experiences of my life and everything that has happened and is happening to all mankind. Divine Revelation depicts me in this way, it depicts me with greater certainty, opening to me the gates to the realm of knowledge by the gift of my God, the gates that I could only reach, before which I could only stand by the action of my own reasoning. It will be revealed by Divine revelation that the first man was created by God out of nothing, created in the beauty of spiritual grace, created immortal, alien to evil. This story cannot but be just: I feel myself immortal, and evil is alien to me; I hate him, I am tormented by him, I am carried away by him as a flatterer and as a tyrant. The first man created on earth is taken to the division of heaven called paradise. Here, in the midst of undisturbed bliss, he poisoned himself spontaneously by the taste of evil; in himself and with himself he poisoned and destroyed all his descendants. Adam, as this man was called, was stricken with death, that is, with a sin that irretrievably upset man's nature, making him incapable of blessedness. Slain by this death, but not devoid of being, and death all the more terrible as it is felt, he is cast down to earth in chains: in coarse, much-pained flesh, transformed into such a body from a passionless, holy, spiritual body. The earth is cursed for the transgression of man: having lost its primitive state (Gen. 2:5,6), it has been transformed into the state that the abode of the exiles from heaven should have for trampling on the commandment of God in heaven. We meet the hostile mood of all visible nature towards us at every step! At every step we meet her reproach, her censure, her disagreement with our behavior! Before man, who rejected obedience to God, the soulless and animate creature rejected obedience! She was submissive to man as long as he remained obedient to God! Now it obeys man by force, persists, often breaks obedience, often crushes its master, cruelly and unexpectedly rebelling against him. The law of the multiplication of the human race, established by the Creator after creation, has not been abolished; but he began to act under the influence of the fall; He has changed, he has become perverted. Parents were subjected to hostile relations with each other, despite their carnal union (Gen. 3:16); they were subjected to the sickness of birth and the labors of education (Gen. 3:16-19); children, conceived in the bosom of corruption and in sin (Psalm 50:7), come into being victims of death. Sojourn on the surface of the earth, amidst various and numerous languors, is given to each person urgently. After the expiration of the period determined by the incomprehensible God, each person must descend into eternal prison, into hell, formed by the vast interior of the earthly planet. What is humanity, filled with proud dreams about itself, maddened by this vain and false dream? Mankind is rubbish, useless for heaven, swept from heaven, thrown first to the mouth of the abyss, then gradually, as it multiplies, into the abyss itself. The abyss is called the abyss: such is it in relation to people. There is no way out of it: the chains thereof and the rivets of the ages (Jonah 2:7), says the Scriptures.

I heed the message of Divine Revelation and recognize it as true. It is impossible not to recognize it as fair! The infinite God is all-perfect good; man differs from Him in infinite difference in essence, but in properties and direction he has placed himself in a position of opposition to God. If man, who is so insignificant before God, is at the same time an adversary of God, then what significance should he have before the holiness and majesty of the Godhead? The meaning of contemptible impurity and defilement, according to the testimony of the Scriptures (Rev. 22:11,15). He must be expelled from the presence of God, as if hidden from the eyes of God.

Divine Revelation teaches man that he is a creature of God and a servant of God, a criminal slave, a creature rejected, creeping and perishing in his fall (Gen. 2:7,22; 3:11,12; Psalm 143, 125, 99, 13, 16, 37, etc.). Poisoned by communion with the chief and parent of evil, with the frenzied and stubborn enemy of God, with the fallen angel, deprived of natural freedom by subjection to this all-evil spirit, man has perverted his natural relationship to God, has become, like the fallen angel, the enemy of God (Romans 5:10). Some of the people were satisfied with this state, not understanding and not assuming another state, finding pleasure in the service of sin; others, guided by God and the remnant of their good will, entered into an intensified struggle with sin, but could not cleanse nature from unnatural admixture, from evil, could not break the shackles of slavery and throw off the yoke of sin and death. Only the Creator of nature could restore nature. Mankind languished in terrible slavery for more than five thousand years, according to the incomprehensible judgment of God; it languished in slavery, abundantly filled the prisons of hell, having received from God the promise of liberation at the very hour of falling into slavery. There is one day before the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8). The promise is pronounced together with the utterance of the punishment for the transgression. Mankind has been vouchsafed this promise, because the cause of the fall was deception and infatuation, and not a deliberate and deliberate plan. At the end of five thousand years, the Redeemer, the incarnate God, descended to earth to the exiles, to the land of their exile. He visited both the threshold of our prison – the surface of the earth, and the prison itself – hell. He granted salvation to all men, leaving it to their free will either to accept salvation or to reject it. He freed all those who believed in Him: those imprisoned in the subterranean abyss, He raised up to heaven, and those who wandered on the earthly surface He brought into communion with God, breaking their communion with Satan. The God-Man, having taken upon Himself all the consequences of man's fall, besides sin, also took upon Himself the image of earthly life, corresponding to the fallen and outcast, punished by the justice of God, aware of his fall, confessing God's justice with good-natured patience of all allowances. In His activity He showed a model for the activity of each person in the field of his earthly life.

The Gospel presents to our eyes two distinctive features in the activity of the Saviour: the most precise fulfillment of the will of God in matters that depend on arbitrariness, and complete obedience to the will of God in the destinies of God. "I have come down from heaven," said the Lord, "that I may not do My will, but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 6:38). The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it? (John 18:11) The God-Man expressed the most exact fulfillment of God's will and obedience to God's destinies with His entire life. The great virtue, the beginning of all virtues, lost by Adam in heaven, the virtue of obedience to God, was brought by the God-Man from heaven to earth to people languishing in perdition caused by disobedience to God. This virtue was especially manifested in all its greatness when the Lord perceived the fierce sufferings. He, in the image of God, without ceasing to be God, humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, being in the likeness of a man, and was found in the likeness of a man, humbled Himself, being obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:6-8). Because of such complete obedience to God, the Lord was the only true Servant of God by His human nature [25]. He was an all-perfect Servant of God, who never deviated from fulfilling the will of God and from obedience to this will. Not one of the righteous people has fulfilled this most sacred duty of man before God satisfactorily and unfailingly.

To the assembly of the Jews the Lord declared: "I seek not My will, but the will of Him who sent Me the Father" (John 5:30). Before His descent into the life-giving sufferings and death on the Cross, the Lord revealed in Himself the weakness of fallen man before the fates of God punishing him. He began to grieve and grieve (Matt. 26:37). He was pleased to reveal the anguish of His soul to His chosen disciples: "My soul is sorrowful unto death" (Matt. 26:38), He said to them. He fell on His face (Matt. 26:39), and was raised up in mankind to such an intensified podvig, that His sweat was like drops of blood dropping on the ground (Luke 22:44). In spite of such a tense state into which the human nature of the God-Man was led, His prayer expressed both the presence of the human will in Him and the complete submission in Him of the will of man to the will of God. The prayer of the God-Man, pronounced by Him before His departure to suffering, is a spiritual, precious heritage for the entire Christian race: it is capable of shedding consolation on the soul languishing under the burden of the most grievous sorrows. "My Father," said the Lord in His prayer, "if it is possible to eat, let this cup pass from Me: "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (Matt. 26:39); For it is not My will, but Thine be done" (Luke 22:42). The Lord called the chalice of God's destiny. This cup is given by God to man for his salvation.

The God-Man deigned to take upon Himself the death on the cross and the scolding, torment, and torture that preceded it arbitrarily. As the Son of God and God, having one will with the Father and the Spirit, He laid the punishment on Himself, on the innocent of sin, on the Son of man and together with the Son of God, for the redemption of the guilty of the sins of mankind. To him who attempted to use human means in His defense, in opposition to the destinies of God, He said: Return Thy sword to its place. Or do you think that I cannot now beseech My Father, and will present Me to me, if an angel is twenty years old? How will the Scriptures be fulfilled, in which the decree of God is depicted, as it befits it? [26] The Lord expressed the same concept of the action of God's immutable destinies before Pilate. The proud Roman, offended by the silence of the Lord, said, "Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that it is the power of the Imam to crucify Thee, and the power of the Imam to let Thee go? The Lord answered him: "Have no power against Me, except it be given from above" (John 19:10,11). The destinies of God are at work, the power of God is at work: you are an instrument that does not understand yourself. But the instrument is endowed with reason and free will: of this it is convinced, it expresses it with impudence and vanity. It acted without any understanding of the fate of God, it acted freely and arbitrarily: its action is declared a sin, which has its weight and measure at the judgment of God (John 19:11).

Resistance to the destinies of God is reckoned among satanic undertakings. When the Lord foretold to His disciples about the sufferings and violent death that awaited Him, Peter began to sing Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying: "Thou art merciful, O Lord, Thou shalt not have this to be." And he, turning, said to Peter: "Follow me, Satan, thou art a stumbling block: for thou thinkest not, which is God's, but man's" (Matt. 16:22,23). Peter was moved, apparently, by a good feeling; but it acted from the way of thinking and from the good that belong to fallen human nature. Hostile to the will of God and to the all-holy good that proceeds from God are the reason and good of fallen human nature; they condemn and condemn the destinies of God. The human mind and will, in their blindness, are ready to oppose and oppose the destinies and decrees of God, not understanding that such an undertaking is an absurd undertaking, it is a struggle of the most limited, insignificant creature with the omnipotent and all-perfect God.

"Ye know not the times and the years, which the Father hath set in His power" (Acts 1:7), said the Lord to the Apostles, when they asked Him about the time in which the kingdom of Israel was to be formed. This answer of the Lord is the answer to all the questions of human curiosity and pride about the fate of God. It is not yours, O men, that which God hath placed in His power! It is characteristic of you to understand the understanding corresponding to your mind: it is not characteristic of you to understand the thought of the Infinite Mind.

Your activity, people, should consist entirely in the fulfillment of the will of God. The model of this activity is shown, the rules of this activity are taught to mankind by perfect man, God, who took upon Himself humanity. Moved by the power of the most correct faith in God, carefully follow the commandments of the Gospel and reverently submit to the fate of God. What leads to the violation, to the trampling of Christ's commandments, to opposition to the destinies of God, to opposition by vain efforts, murmuring, blasphemy, despair? Forgetfulness of eternity, forgetfulness of death, forgetfulness of the fact that we are short-term pilgrims on earth, rejection of the idea that we are exiles on it, the desire to satisfy lusts and passions, the desire to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh and sin, pernicious deception and deception of oneself, under the charm of which man insanely abuses his power over himself and his own will, sacrificing himself entirely to earthly vanity, killing himself for the bliss restored by the suffering feat of the Redeemer, preparing for himself in hell an eternal grave, a grave for both body and soul.

This is what is wise in you, even in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5-8), the Apostle Paul exhorts Christians, pointing to the obedience of the God-Man to the destinies of God, to the unquestioning obedience that stretched out to the point of taking upon Himself the punishment to which some criminals from the barbarian nations were subjected, from which criminals from the citizens of Rome were free. Putting aside all pride and sin, which conveniently stumbles us, let us flow with patience to the podvig set before us, looking to the author of faith and finisher Jesus, Who, instead of the joy set before Him, endured the cross, negligent for shame (not paying attention to the dishonor inflicted on Him)... Consider this: Thou hast suffered a reproach upon Thyself from a sinner, that ye may not be cold, that ye may be weakened in your souls (Hebrews 12:1-3). Jesus, may He sanctify people with His blood, deigned to suffer outside the gates. Wherefore let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach (Hebrews 13:12,13). The renunciation of peacefulness is called the departure from the camp and the postponement of all pride. The Apostle reminds us of the Divine consolation pronounced by God to those of His chosen ones, whom He adopted as His sons and whom, as proof of adoption, He visits with sorrows: "My son! Do not despise the chastisement of the Lord, weaken less, we rebuke from Him, for the Lord loveth him, chastens him, and scourges every son, whom he receiveth (Hebrews 12:5,6).

Christ suffered for us, says the holy Apostle Peter, "leave us an image, that we may follow His footsteps" (1 Peter 2:21). If you do good and suffer, endure, it is pleasing in the sight of God: for for this you are called (1 Peter 2:20,21). Such are the destinies of God! Such is God's decree! Such is the calling of true Christians for the entire time of their earthly pilgrimage! Beloved Christians of God and Heaven! Do not be surprised, as if by a strange, unusual, out-of-order adventure, that fiery temptation which is sent to you for trial (1 Peter 4:12). Rejoice at the onslaught of temptations! As here on earth you are made partakers of Christ's sufferings: so in the future life you will become partakers of His glory and triumph (1 Peter 6:13). The house of God is subject to the judgment of God, needs this judgment (1 Peter 4:17). The entire Church of Christ and every Christian are called the house of God. This house requires God's visitation and purification, as one that is subject to constant defilement and damage. And with great help from sorrows, which humble the spirit of man, so inclined to exaltation, salvation is difficult, very difficult. The righteous will hardly escape! (1 Peter 4:18) If so, what awaits those who oppose the Gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17) Where will the wicked and sinful appear? (1 Peter 4:18) Acquire humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). At the onset of temptations, do not give yourselves over to sorrow, hopelessness, despondency, murmuring, these manifestations of pride and unbelief: on the contrary, being quickened and inspired by faith, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that ye may exalt in due time, all your sorrow, that is, all your care and all your solicitude have been cast on Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:6,7). Sufferers! Know that you are suffering according to the will of God; be convinced that without the will of God, without God's permission, no sorrow would have touched you. The Lord looked mercifully upon you, was pleased with you, recognized your heart and life as pleasing to Himself, and therefore stretched out a helping hand to you in His destinies. He has sent or allowed your sorrows to cleanse you, to protect you, to be a means to attain perfection. Suffering according to the will of God! At the onset of sorrows, surrender yourselves entirely to the will and mercy of God, and with special care be diligent in fulfilling the commandments of God (1 Peter 4:19). The time of sorrow is that blessed time in which God builds up the soul of His beloved chosen one from among men. God has established a narrow and sorrowful path from earthly life to heaven: it is commanded to walk along this path under the cross; on this path, under the burden of His cross, the Leader of the Christian tribe, the incarnate God, passed. The cross is the patience in the Lord of all sorrows and misfortunes that will be allowed by God's providence. Such is the judgment of God. What is it based on? On the fact that a person on earth is a criminal in an exiled place. This criminal is given a short period of earthly life solely in order that he may see his state of fall and rejection, realize the necessity of salvation, and obtain salvation through the Redeemer of men, our Lord Jesus Christ. A criminal who has confessed himself to be a criminal, who seeks mercy, must express his confession of sinfulness by his very life. Confession cannot be recognized as sincere when it is not attested by appropriate behavior. The criminal is obliged to prove the truth of his conversion to God by fulfilling the will of God and submitting to this will: he is obliged to offer before God, who is just and in mercy, the patience of God's punishing allowances, to offer humble patience, as fragrant incense, as an acceptable sacrifice, as a reliable testimony of faith. All the saints, all without exception, partook of the way of sorrow (Hebrews 12:8). All of them ran the field of earthly life on thorns, feeding on unleavened bread of various deprivations, sprinkling themselves with bitter hyssop, constantly drinking the cup of various trials. This was necessary for their salvation and perfection: sorrows served them as a means of spiritual education, healing, and punishment. Damaged nature has not been left without its proper fruitfulness to a greater or lesser degree; our damaged nature is constantly in need, as an antidote, of sorrows: they extinguish in it sympathy for the sinful poison of the passions, especially for pride (2 Corinthians 12:7), for the most poisonous and pernicious passion among the passions; by them the servant of God is led out of a pompous, incorrect opinion of himself into humility and spiritual understanding. A pompous opinion of oneself must of necessity deprive a life which appears to be outwardly satisfactory of correctness and dignity. O Lord, His holy prophet confesseth to God that Thy destiny is righteous, and Thou hast truly humbled me (Psalm 118:75,71,30). Thy destinies are good (Psalm 118:75, 71, 30), in spite of their austere outward appearance. Their consequences are beneficial, life-giving and delightful is their fruit. It is good for me, for Thou hast humbled me, that I may learn by Thy righteousness (Psalm 118:75, 71, 30). I have willed the way of truth, and have not forgotten Thy destiny (Psalm 118:75, 71, 30), have not deviated from Thy destinies (Psalm 118:102, 52, 43, 175, 105), because without obedience to them it is impossible to please Thee. In grievous temptations and misfortunes, finding no help from anywhere, I have remembered Thy destiny from eternity, and have been comforted (Psalm 118:102,52,43,175,165). I trust in Thy destinies! (Psalm 118:102,52,43,175,105) Thy destinies will help me! (Psalm 118:102,52,43,175,105) On the day of the week, that is, we praise Thee unceasingly for the destinies of Thy righteousness (Psalm 118:102,52,43,175,105): the action of man, corresponding to the action of God in His incomprehensible destinies, is the unceasing or, if possible, frequent praise of God. By glorifying God, thoughts of unbelief, faint-heartedness, murmuring, blasphemy, and despair are driven away, and holy, Divine thoughts are introduced. The Apostle says: "We are judged by the Lord, we are punished, lest we be condemned with the world" (1 Corinthians 11:32). Amen.

CONSULTATION OF THE SOUL WITH THE MIND

Soul. I grieve unbearably, I find no consolation anywhere. I find no consolation or consolation either outside or within me. I cannot look at a world full of continuous deception, deception, and murder. Careless contemplation of the world, a few careless glances at its temptations, ignorance of the poisonousness of its impressions, childish, inexperienced credulity in it, attracted its arrows to me, filled me with mortal wounds. Why should I look at the world? Why be curious about it, study it in detail, or become attached to it when I am only a short-lived wanderer in the world? I will certainly leave him, and I do not know when I will leave him. Every day, every hour, I must be ready for the call to eternity. No matter how long my wandering in the desert of the world may be, it is insignificant before the immeasurable eternity, before which hours, days, years, and centuries are equal. The world itself, with all its great pandemonium, is passing by: the earth and the works therein shall be burned up (1 Peter 3:10). These deeds will be burned up – the fruits of the fall and rejection of men. The wounds inflicted on me by the world have made this world disgusting to me, but they have not protected me from new wounds. I don't want to be in the middle of the world! I don't want to obey him! I don't want to take any part in his service! I don't even want to see him! But he pursues me everywhere: he forcibly invades; in charming beauty appears to the eyes; it relaxes, hurts, strikes, destroys me. I myself, constantly bearing and containing within myself the principle of self-deception and deception thrown into me by sin, continue to deceive myself with the world: hating it, I am involuntarily attracted to it and greedily drink its poison, piercing deeply into myself the arrows it shoots at me. I turn my longing and inquisitive gaze from the world to myself. I don't find anything comforting in myself. Countless sinful passions are boiling in me! I am constantly defiled by various sins: now I am tormented by anger and rancor; then I feel that I am burning with the flame of fornication. My blood is agitated, my imagination is inflamed by some action, alien and hostile to me, and I see seductive images before me, drawing me to dream of sin, to delight in a destructive temptation. I have no strength to flee from seductive images: involuntarily, forcibly, my painful eyes are riveted to them. And there is nowhere to run! I fled into the wilderness: pictures of sin came with me into the wilderness, or preceded me in it, I do not know; in the wilderness they appeared to me with a special, murderous vividness. These images do not exist: both images and their existence, and beauty are deception and seduction; but together they are alive, and nothing, neither time itself, nor decrepit old age, can kill them. They are washed away from my imagination by a tear of repentance: I have no tears of repentance. They are smoothed out from the imagination by humble prayer, combined with the weeping of the heart: I do not have such a prayer. My heart is devoid of tenderness, deprived of salvific weeping: it is motionless in me, like a fragment of an insensible stone. In spite of my terrible sinfulness, I seldom see my sinfulness. In spite of the fact that in me good is mingled with evil and has become evil, just as fine food is made by poison mixed with poison, I forget the plight of the good given to me at creation, damaged and distorted by the fall. I begin to see in myself my goodness whole, immaculate, and to admire it: my vanity carries me away from the fruitful and fat pasture of repentance to a distant land! To a stony and barren country, to a land of thorns and tares, to a land of lies, self-deception, and destruction. I abandon the fulfillment of Christ's commandments and begin to fulfill the promptings of my heart, to follow its feelings, its will; I boldly call the sensations of fallen nature good, its deeds virtue — this good and this virtue are worthy of earthly and heavenly rewards, human and God's. When I tried to fulfill the commandments of Christ, not heeding the will of the heart and forcing it, I recognized myself as a debt before God and man, an unfaithful and useless servant! Following self-deception, sorrow, despondency, and a kind of terrible darkness appear in me. Sorrow deprives me of moral activity, despondency deprives me of the strength to fight sin, and darkness is the consequence of sorrow and despondency, thick darkness hides God from me, His impartial and formidable judgment, the promised rewards for Christian virtue, the promised punishments for the rejection of Christianity and all its holy statutes. I begin to sin fearlessly, with the silence of my conscience, as if it were dead or asleep for that time. Rarely, very rarely, there is a moment of tenderness, light and hope. Then I feel different. But a bright minute is short. My sky is not often clear. Like black clouds, passions again come upon me and again plunge me into darkness, confusion, bewilderment, and destruction. My mind! You are the leader of the soul! Instruct me! Bring blissful calm into me! Teach me how to close the entrance to the impressions of the world, how to curb and suppress the passions that arise in myself. The world and passions tormented me, tormented me.