You know that immediately after His baptism in the Jordan, the Lord Jesus Christ was led by the spirit into the wilderness and there He spent forty days without food or drink, preparing for His greatest ministry. And there, when on the fortieth day He hungered, Satan took advantage of it. He knew that a person who has been starving for a long time loses his willpower, loses the ability to resist, and therefore he waited until the fortieth day, and when the Lord Jesus Christ hungered, then he approached Him with his devilish temptation.

I will not talk about all three temptations, I will dwell only on the last and most powerful one. "Again the devil takes Him up to a very high mountain, and shews Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, and saith unto Him, All these things I will give unto Thee, if thou shalt fall down and worship me" (Matt. 4:8-9). Do you understand the nature of this temptation, its power and danger? Satan offered Him power, indivisible, absolute, complete power over all the kingdoms of the earth, if only He would worship him.

Of course, the Lord rejected this temptation as well. Why did he reject it? Because Satan offered the power that any government has. And no state power can in any case do without coercion, without violence. By its laws it compels obedience, for non-observance it punishes them, it punishes severely, it forces it, it coerces, and without coercion no authority, even the best, the most perfect one, can act.

Coercion is a necessary attribute of state power. And how could the Lord, did He want to act by coercion? Oh no, oh no! He did not want, He rejected all power connected with coercion. And one of the people came to Him, and said to Him, Teacher! tell my brother to share the inheritance with me. And he said unto the man, Who hath appointed me to judge or to divide you?" (Luke 12:13-14).

He needed another power: He sought another power, He wanted to rule over the free hearts of men. People are created with free will, they can choose their own path in life as they like: either the path of truth and suffering for the sake of truth, the path of mercy, the path of love – or the path of rejection of all truth and service to their lusts and passions, they can choose the path of sin.

God does not force anyone to choose one path or another, for He has given us free will. And precisely because we are created with free will, Christ does not want to influence us by coercion, to act in the way that the state power does. He, as God, could force all people to obey Him with heavy punishments; He could force everyone to abandon the path of evil and unrighteousness, He could destroy even the devil himself, but He does not want to force us.

He seeks free, loving submission to Himself. He seeks in the hearts of men faith in Him and love for Him. If He finds faith and love, then by His Divine grace He saves such a person. Our Lord and God Jesus Christ once said the most important words, which none of you will forget: "... out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, blasphemy..." (Matt. 15:19).

He says that the source of all our actions, good and evil, is our heart, and knowing this, he wanted to purify the hearts of people. Through His great apostle Paul, He says, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Your hearts, according to the will and desire of the Saviour, must be temples of the Holy Spirit, your hearts must be pure, full of love for God, full of hatred for all evil.

And such completely purified hearts can correct all social disasters. And under the best political and social system, under the best, most just laws, there are a large number of people with impure, evil hearts. They are afraid only of coercion, they are afraid of punishment, but they do not want to, do not want to obey good, just laws, they try to circumvent them, and the demons teach them how to circumvent even just laws.

And until human hearts are corrected, this will inevitably be repeated. Those who are perplexed as to why Christ did not care about social calamities, why He rejected political power, I will ask you to think about what I am saying. Do you not know that the Lord has always taught mercy, pity, compassion, love, do you not know that at the Last Judgment He will judge by one sign: whether they did works of mercy and love or not.

This is the only yardstick by which the All-Righteous Judge will be guided. And the Christians of apostolic times received the teaching of Christ in this way. They were full of sorrow for the misfortunes experienced by their needy brethren, full of sorrow for social inequality. And these ancient Christians took care with all their might so that there was no inequality, there was no poverty.

They sold their possessions and brought the proceeds to the feet of the apostles to be distributed among the needy. They were all of one soul and one heart, and there were no needy among them. Isn't this a cure for social injustice? Yes, of course, healing, the only radical, radical healing, for only when people are imbued with pity and mercy for their brothers in need, when all people are united by Divine love, only then will the calamities of social injustice and social inequality be cured.

Only then will the life of people be grace-filled, when in all their aspirations all people will be guided by the law of love, the law of truth. You know from the newspapers what the Americans are doing in unfortunate Korea, striving to acquire world power, imposing their own laws, ready to enforce them with atomic bombs. And do they not consider their own state system to be perfect and just, better than that of all other states?

If they commit such monstrous untruths everywhere, what shall we say of their social system? Let us say that he is wicked, unrighteous, unjust, that their hearts are full of malice and unrighteousness. It is precisely evil and untruth that Christ wanted to eradicate from human hearts. By His call to love and mercy, to compassion for the unfortunate, He wanted to heal social ailments.