“Sometimes you have to play by the rules that you don’t set, but that life imposes on you.” God hates us all. Hank Moody

Do you still believe that God loves you and sends you trials on purpose? That you are loved by him, and all your troubles will soon end? This is wrong. God hates you or doesn't care about you. But you can influence your destiny yourself.

Many people know about the book “God Hates Us All” or have even read it. Some people only heard about her in the TV series “Californication”. Its author is considered to be the character from the series Hank Moody, but who is hiding behind the cover of the bestseller? According to many experts, the author is a modern American writer Bret Easton Ellis. He is known for such works as “American Psycho”, “The Rules of Sex”, “The Informers”. All these novels have been filmed. Who wrote this? Bret Easton Ellis or fictional character Hank Moody? The main thing is the text of the book. Therein lies the truth.

Have you had many situations like this where you got into trouble or trouble? What is the reason for your problems, defeats, difficulties in personal life? Why were you haunted by failure, betrayed by friends, or had health problems? Why did your significant other leave you or betray you? Why did you get your heart broken or not reciprocated? Why were things going or going badly for you? Why do you have difficulties with finances, apartment or loans? Why are you having so many problems? God hates you. Deal with it.

If God exists, why does he allow war, injustice, or the death of children? Are these tests? Come on! Everything is much simpler. There is either no God or he hates us all. Hank Moody was absolutely right when he called the book “God Hates Us All.” If you're not doing well, then you're one of the people he hates. God loves some people, but not all. Those whom he loves are doing well: they are rich, successful, happy. They also have problems, but not like yours. Is your life one long black streak? God hates you...

God doesn't test you, he doesn't have time for you, he doesn't care about you. What to do if God hates you?

God hates you

1. Don't hope for a miracle

“Maybe in some sense we are all truly alone, drifting in the dark and emptiness.” God hates us all. Hank Moody

Do you think God will help you in difficult times? No! There is no guarantee that you will be lucky. Everything will go wrong. God hates you. Your problems are your problems. As long as you rely on God, nothing will happen. Everything is just in your hands. A guardian angel and even God will not help you. There is no hope. Lose it and believe in yourself. Stop relying on others. Only you can solve all your problems. Only you. Only your strength and intelligence can influence the situation. God hates you, but you have you...

2. Be bad

I remember a film where a cartoon rabbit acted along with the actors. “I’m not bad at all, they just painted me that way,” he said.

Are people born good or bad? Does he make this choice himself? No. Society raises us to be good. It imposes this label on us. But is it good for you? Give in to others, make compromises, help. It makes you weak and uncompetitive.

You have one life. Be bad if necessary. Be selfish. Walk straight. Give up pity, thirst for justice and a sense of proportion. You will regret that you were good all the past years and missed a sea of ​​opportunities. Be bad! You will not be patted on the head for good behavior, but will only be pushed off the path of opportunity by more aggressive individuals.

Were you painted as good at birth? Or maybe they painted you as bad? Be yourself. Don't let yourself be controlled. Repeat to yourself: “I’m not bad at all, I’m just painted that way.” Be bad if necessary. (see Bad Boys)

3. Love as best you can

“All these sugary stories about love are nonsense. Real love- one that is practically unthinkable in real world“-causes only pain and suffering.” God hates us all. Hank Moody

Love hurts. You will drink from this full cup of pain. Be abandoning you, betraying you, not reciprocating. But you will understand this pain and come to terms with it. Love as best you can. Don't think 100 years ahead. Be happy in this moment, because “tomorrow” does not exist. Meet, confess your love, have sex today. Don't put off happiness until tomorrow. There may not be tomorrow. Do everything today and don't pay attention to others. Love as best you can...

God hates you and doesn't care about you? Nobody knows this. Does he exist at all? Perhaps God has a very strange sense of humor? Don't hope for a miracle. Be bad if necessary. Love as best you can...

To the question What should I do if God doesn’t love me? given by the author Flush the best answer is He sends trials to those he loves. This is your feat. Learn to be patient. More than you can bear will not fall to your lot. Pray for patience and strengthening of faith. May God grant that everything will work out for you!
Maria
Enlightened
(39520)
Don't think. The point is that you can know happiness and spirituality only by passing many tests with dignity.

Answer from roast beef[newbie]
Don't worry... He doesn't love anyone))

Answer from Porfiry Razuvaev[guru]
Stop doing good, loving your neighbors, keeping the commandments and tearing your hair out... body
Live normally. Well, what's stopping you? You need to remove this from your life.

Answer from Eun Svarog[guru]
He doesn't like anyone who lies

Answer from Special[guru]
Perhaps - to train,
And if not, then don’t question nonsense? o_O
Is this a complaint or a boast?
What came into existence for the question? O_O

Answer from Max Stirlitz[guru]
It can not be.
You will understand yourself, maybe you don’t love yourself or you don’t selflessly do good deeds expecting a return. But you can only answer for yourself.
PS On this page at the very bottom there is a book of chakravidya, read a lot there on your question

Answer from Diamonds are best friends[guru]
You don’t have to try... you just have to do it... if it disgusts you... then don’t do it...
Perhaps then the balance will be restored.

Answer from G0 t0[guru]
Change God. There are others that are better.

Answer from Winter Snowy[guru]
No need to try. Let go of the situation. It will become easier.

Answer from Lisa[newbie]
This means only one thing - YOU don’t love yourself, you left YOURSELF. So draw conclusions, look for information.
You can look for the link.
God (the universe, the Absolute - whoever wants it) loves everyone, therefore fulfills all desires: you want to do good to people, and not to yourself - please receive and sign...
But when you are satisfied with yourself, happy, beautiful, then the people around you will feel good :)

Answer from Gill Smith Muslim[guru]
When you do something good, don’t ask for anything in return...Remember how the Lord tested the pious Job...
Job (oppressed, or hostilely persecuted) is the name of two persons: Gen 46:13 - the third son of Issachar, called in Numbers 26:24 and 1 Chronicles 7:1: Jashub.
Job 1:1 - Job the pious, Old Testament sufferer, from the country of Uz (now Huaran), whose history is set out in the teaching book of V.Z., which bears his name. In Ezekiel 14:14-20 he is mentioned along with Noah and Daniel. The apostle also mentions him. James in his epistle (5:11). In the book of Job, he is portrayed as a man blameless, just, fearing God, and shunning evil (1:1). Job lived in patriarchal times, even before the time of Moses. He had seven sons and three daughters and very great wealth, so that, according to the book, he was more famous than all the sons of the East (v. 3) in the land of Arabia. Satan explained Job's piety before the Lord by the prosperity that Job enjoyed in abundance. “But stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, will he bless You?” Satan said to the Lord (1:11). In a short time, Job lost all his property and all his children. No matter how difficult the trial was, Job endured it patiently and did not sin or say anything foolish about God (1:22). “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!” said Job after all the hardships. Then Satan received permission from God to test Job further - to infect his body with fierce leprosy, from the sole of his foot to the very top of his head (2:7). Despite this, Job remained firm and unshakable in his faith in God and integrity, although even his own wife tempted him with the words: “blaspheme God and die” (2:9). In his suffering, he sat in the ashes outside the village, with tiles in his hands to scrape himself with them. His three friends, who came to him for consolation, looked at him silently for seven days and seven nights with grief and sobbing. And each of them tore his outer garments and threw dust over their heads toward heaven (v. 12). After seven days Job finally opened his mouth and cursed his day (3:1). “Perish the day,” he exclaimed, on which I was born, and the night in which it is said: “man was conceived!” Why did I not die when I came out of the womb, and did I not die when I came out of the womb? There is no peace for me, no peace, no joy , misfortune befell" (4). This was the subject of a most remarkable and sublime conversation between Job and his friends, which occupied most of the book and ended with Job’s humble and deep repentance before the Lord in dust and ashes, which the Lord accepted and blessed him again. For this, prosperity returns to Job again - he receives a large family, lives 140 years and dies “in old age, full of days and saw his sons and sons of his sons to the fourth generation” (42:16-17).

Answer from Yolava Boyko[guru]
God loves his children, a boy and a girl, long before the birth of priests Krishna, etc. God is the same as us. HE rejoices, grieves, etc.! HE is among us, in us! Would you like to pet him please? His creations are all around us! Trees, water, wind, fire! Stroke them, scoop it up, feel it, feel its warmth!!!

Answer from Sergiy[guru]
First, figure out what is essentially good for a person and what is bad.
Perhaps after this my opinion will change.

Answer from Lu Mai[guru]
Don't say that. Everything has a meaning and sometimes the Lord tests us and sometimes simply leads us away from evil so that we do not destroy our soul. Cheer up! Those people to whom you have done good will definitely think of you with warmth, and believers will pray for your health.

Answer from Natalia Vnukova[guru]
If you are offered immortality, you will believe in God. . Tomorrow they will come and say: here, Ksyusha, is the medicine, now you will live forever. . It seems like God... Well, now you need it - the Love of God. . You don't depend on anyone now. Heaven is an empty word, just like hell... So believe in your immortality, because you don’t know when your path will end - that means to some extent you are immortal. .
Free yourself from illusions...

Answer from Marina Dyadkova[guru]
Christ said: “They persecuted me and they will persecute you.” Do not expect good where evil reigns.

Answer from Hereical Dog[guru]
Finally stop believing in him, but believe in yourself, become free and act.

Answer from Alexey Efimov[guru]
There are all sorts of reasons to justify your own inadequacy, God doesn’t love you, fate is wrong, your neighbor has jinxed you. Where did you even see a pattern between your life and something like “God’s love”, where did you get the idea that there is a relationship in this!

Inna Stromilova: Hello, Father Nektary. In the earthly life of the Savior, what attracts attention is the fact that around Him, in addition to the believing disciples and followers, there were so many opponents. But isn’t the Incarnate God, who came to save the world, the One Whom it is impossible not to love?

The fact is that if the world were righteous and holy, then, probably, this resistance to God would be unnatural. But since the Lord came to convict the world of sin - of the sin that they do not believe in Him, it is unlikely that this same unbelieving world running from God could rejoice and triumph.

Because indeed the world lay in evil then, and even today it lies in evil, according to the word of the Apostle (John 5:19) - and this very evil, which people loved, just as they loved darkness more than light, and became in them the heart is the main obstacle to loving God.

We can look at what happens in the life around us when a person, who is wholeheartedly devoted to some passion, is separated from this passion by someone: something comes between the person and the opportunity to satisfy this passion.

What comes between a person and his passion becomes his most terrible and fiercest enemy. And a person is sometimes ready to do anything and is ready to deal with this obstacle in any way, just to once again get the opportunity to serve his passion. And when the Lord came into the world, He exposed the most intimate, secret passions living in human hearts: the passion of lust for power, the passion of pride, and the passion of vanity.

And could people, in whom the Lord exposed these passions by the very fact of His existence, love him? Could they accept Him? Of course, they became His opponents. The Lord, in essence, with His teaching - and moreover, not so much even with His teaching as with His very life - refuted everything that these people were accustomed to consider in life as unshakable, main, fundamental.

They strove for power, they strove for primacy - and the Lord suddenly says that the one who wants to be O the greatest among people, must be their servant (Mark 10:43–44). And vice versa: the one who wants to be everything sometimes becomes nothing.

Of course, this caused terrible irritation, and since none of these people wanted to change, did not want to become better, did not want to accept the word of Christ, the only way they saw for themselves in this situation was to silence Christ. And they could force Christ to remain silent only by killing Him. This is precisely why their hatred reached the point of fighting against God, which led to deicide.

– It is amazing that the common people - we are not talking about the Jewish elite now - met Christ as a King when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey; greeted with shouts of “Hosanna!” - and less than a week later these same people shouted “Crucify!” with the same zeal. Where does this change come from and why is it so lightning fast?

– One might not believe in the reality of all this if we had not quite regularly encountered similar examples in our own lives - when people first exalt someone, and then overthrow the exalted one with all the inhumanity of which they are capable.

A person tends to extol the one on whom he places his hopes. What kind of hope? No hope for bliss in eternal life, not even hopes for this eternal life itself, but purely earthly, worldly hopes. In fact, there are very few people who are able to think about eternity - most people are looking for well-being, looking for joy, happiness, as they understand it, in this life.

And they honor the one who can give them all this now. But most often not the one who can give them all this, but the one whom they think can give them all this. And as soon as people see that in fact they have once again been deceived, hatred takes the place of love, and reproach takes the place of praise.

We can see all this in the earthly life of Christ the Savior. Most of the people who surrounded Christ in His earthly life looked forward to the consolation of Israel (See: Luke 2:25): these were people who hoped that someone had come who would return its glory to the Jewish people.

But it turned out that everything was completely wrong. It turned out that no one promises them either earthly dominion or superiority over other nations, that the Kingdom of Christ is A kingdom not of this world(Cf. John 18:36), and no one needed a kingdom not of this world. And that’s why love is so easily replaced by hatred, that’s why it’s so easy instead of shouting “Hosanna!” cries of “Crucify!” are heard. It was terrible anger: “We thought, but it turns out...”.

I remember such an episode from the life of the holy martyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. When they brought him to the trial and demanded that he blaspheme Christ, he, already a very old man, said: “I have served Him for so many decades and have never seen anything bad from Him, how can I blaspheme Him?”

These people also saw nothing bad from Christ. They saw only good things: they saw how He healed, they saw how He cast out demons, they even saw how He raised the dead - and at the same time, they all saw His love, they saw His mercy, they saw His compassion.

And yet, they hated Him. Why - and this is exactly what the apostle is talking about: it means that their hearts loved darkness more than light (See: John 3:19).

This is a secret, this is a terrible choice that is made in the depths of the human heart. And, probably, when we say that it is very difficult for us to comprehend how this happened, then thank God, because we can only comprehend this through experience.

The one who understands this in its entirety is precisely the person who is able, instead of “Hosanna!” shout “Crucify Him!” - maybe even understanding who he is shouting about. And when we are perplexed, in the depths of our hearts we cannot understand this.

And this is a very great consolation for us: it means, after all, that our hearts love light more than darkness, which means that our hearts are able to strive for God, despite the fact that the Lord exposes our passions and hinders their fulfillment. And it does not promise us the well-being that we, due to our human weakness, would like to achieve in this life - which means, despite all this, we still strive to be with Him and He is more precious to us than everything else.

The path to betrayal is open to each of us, and it is very easy to walk along this path without noticing it. Every compromise we make, every time we act against our conscience, every time we suddenly understand that the Lord now expects a certain action from us, and we commit a different action - all this removes us from God and puts us into a position in which it is very easy to end up completely betrayed.

And, of course, we definitely need to watch how we act towards people. Because we can invent a lot of things for ourselves. A person can sometimes get confused in three pines - even more so he can get confused in thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

But there are specific people around us who need our help, protection, support - and the true judgment of whether Christians depends on how we behave with them, how we act towards them. or we don't.

Why does the Lord say that Last Judgment- will this be a judgment that first of all considers how we treated people, our neighbors, those whom the Lord loves most? Because if we saw Christ in them, it means that we lived with Christ all our lives and served Him, and if we saw in them just some kind of hindrance, just some random circumstances of our life, then it means that we missed Christ all our lives passed, even though we had been saying the Jesus Prayer all our lives and even if it seemed to us that we had succeeded in it.

– Tell me, is it possible to return to the path of this procession towards the light for such a person whose heart chooses darkness?

- In fact, as they say in Holy Scripture, a man will come, and the heart will be deep(Ps. 63:7), that is, no one is given the ability to comprehend this depth except the one God. And we can see people who rebelled against Christ, and then turned to Him, like the Apostle Paul.

But in the case of the Apostle Paul, the basis of both the rebellion against Christ and the appeal to Him was the same thing - the desire for the truth of God, which the apostle initially did not understand, but after the appearance of Christ it was revealed to him.

If a person saw something good from Christ, saw the light that He brought into the world, and which He Himself was, and then rebelled against Him, then it is probably more difficult to talk about the possibility of change, repentance.

But I am convinced that such cases also happened, because if Judas, who betrayed his Teacher, repented and cried, and ultimately hanged himself from those pangs of conscience that were unbearable, then, probably, there were other people who did not were just as close to Christ, who, perhaps, shouted, carried away general example, “Crucify!”, and then they left, as it is said in the Gospel, beating yourself in the chest(Luke 23:48), and thought: “What have we done, what have we done?” I think that there certainly were such examples.

When we talk about such a terrible thing as man’s hatred of God, we should probably remember that sometimes the human heart really is likened to a real hellish abyss.

And as he says St. Augustine that the human heart is a kind of abyss that can only be filled by the abyss of the Divine; so if the Lord does not become the filling of the human heart, then a person tries to fill his heart often with something terrible, something dark, something completely terrible - because a person is looking for the feeling of flight, and flight can be either a flight upward, an ascension , ascension, or it could be a fall.

A person strives for this feeling of flight, and if he does not achieve it in one way, then he tries to achieve it in another way, such a terrible one. And in the depths of this fall is precisely that hatred of God, which is incomprehensible, which is unnatural, but which nevertheless can be observed so often by us.

Not long ago I encountered the following situation: a certain young man came to the temple, found me as the rector and asked the question: “What needs to be done in order to renounce?” I ask: “Renounce what – faith?” - “From everything - from faith, from the Church and from God.”

I realized that he was probably feeling very bad, I sat down to talk to him and tried to ask him what was the reason for such a terrible desire. He said that he knows that God exists and is sure of it.

“But I,” he said, “hate Him because He gave me this life. I don’t need this life, I don’t want it; Moreover, I know that if I commit suicide, then there will be another, eternal life, in which I will also suffer. And I hate God for all this, I don’t need any of this. I hate Him because He loves us, I hate Him because He keeps me alive. The only thing I want from Him is non-existence. Maybe you can somehow renounce God so that you no longer exist?”

Then he burst into tears, I tried to calm him down, console him, he somehow came to his senses, but still stood his ground. He did not give the impression of a madman, he did not give the impression of a sick person, he spoke quite consciously about all this - and this, probably, was some kind of the most terrible, most extreme expression of the rejection of God.

Man, understanding everything, seeing everything, did not want to use anything from God so much that his whole life turned into a single lump of hatred towards God. He's bright expressed desire enjoy life - but it is not possible to enjoy life, life is not some kind of continuous holiday, as he would like it to be; you have to endure something, you have to work hard somehow, but he categorically does not want to do any of this.

And because God gave him just such a life, he hates Him. And he hates Him even more because there is nowhere and no way to hide from Him. And any words about the love of God, about the gifts of God, about the gift of existence itself cause him even greater irritation and even greater anger.

And, probably, the secret of salvation lies precisely in what a person wants and determines his existence. He either wants life with God and God as the one true Life - or he wants some other life that he likes, and in which there is no place for God. Strictly speaking, this desire for a different life, in which there is no place for God, is the desire that leads a person to hell.

Because hell is a place where there is no God. But, at the same time, God cannot but exist anywhere, because He created everything. And that is why hell is called a certain place of oblivion, and the torment of hell lies in the fact that there a person nevertheless comprehends that God is everything and in everything, but this also causes him torment.

The grace and love of God torment a person there, and do not delight him, because he does not want to accept it - just like this young man about whom I spoke. This man, no matter what you give him, no matter where you put him, there will be hell for him everywhere, because he doesn’t want to be with God.

– Father Nektary, we talked about the reasons for hatred of Christ, but does hatred for the Church of Christ have the same reasons, or is there something else here?

- There are very different people, which are very various reasons They hate the church. And among these people, you can probably find those who were looking for holiness, purity, innocence in the Church - looking for this purity, holiness and innocence not in the Church as such, but in the people who make up the Church, including you and me .

And, not finding it, he became bitter, embittered, and decided that he had become a victim of some terrible deception, and this was the cause first of irritation, annoyance, grief, and then, perhaps, even hatred of the Church. I admit that such people exist. I'm not saying that they are right, I'm not saying that their feelings have any real justification, but, nevertheless, this is one category of people.

And there is a completely different category of people - these are people who hate the Church not for the bad things that are found in it on a human level, but because it is Christ’s, who hate it for the same reasons that the Jews hated Christ.

The fact is that the Church, even if she is silent, even if she does not preach, but lives her own life, without trying to evaluate what is happening either on a political plane, or on a social plane, or in any other way, simply the very fact of its existence becomes an exposure of the evil that is literally spilled in this world.

Because the Church represents a certain ideal unattainable by this world, and even if this ideal is again not achieved by the members of the militant Church themselves, that is, we, Orthodox Christians, then, nevertheless, this ideal constantly shines through everything that is life Churches.

He appears in worship, he appears in the prayers of the Church, he appears in her Sacraments, he appears in her teaching. And therefore the Church, of course, causes terrible irritation. In addition, there are people who expect from the Church - just like the Jews who followed Christ in large numbers - either healing or a change in their earthly fate here; someone is looking for political, economic, social benefits from the Church, trying to use it in one way or another - but it turns out that it cannot be used in this way.

There are many such attempts, but in the end the Church follows its own path, which is outside of politics, outside of economics, outside of society, even in some situations, because society is something earthly, but the Church is still a completely different dimension : The Church is what should transfer a person from this earthly life to eternal life, heavenly life.

And therefore, these people, whose expectations in relation to the Church also turn out to be “deceived”, because they were initially mistaken in relation to it, can also hate the Church - just as their predecessors hated Christ.

– The Church in the 20th century in Russia was persecuted, but nominally not for Christ, but for counter-revolutionary activities, as they usually said. Nevertheless, we honor the victims of terror as new martyrs. Why?

– Because, probably, the Church was persecuted not for counter-revolutionary activities, which it primarily did not engage in, but was persecuted precisely because it was the Church.

One can, of course, say that for some the Church was associated with the tsarist regime, for others the Church was associated with the possibility of restoring the monarchy in Russia, but primarily the Church was persecuted because the spirit Christian life and the spirit of that life that reigned - in Russia, and then in the Soviet Union - were mutually exclusive, opposite.

And therefore, the Church was persecuted not only as an ideological opponent - not to mention, not only as a political one - but also as a strictly spiritual opponent. And this is persecution for Christ: when you are persecuted because you are not of the same spirit as this world; when you show something in yourself that is contrary to this world and unpleasant to the prince of this world. This is exactly what happened to the Church.

– If we return to consider the last days of the Savior’s life, we will see that Christ was betrayed by His disciples: Judas because of the love of money, the rest out of fear. Did they - the closest, the most faithful - simply not have enough love?

– Probably, we can only talk about betrayal in the case of Judas, because he betrayed Christ in the full sense of the word: he actually betrayed Him to his enemies. If we talk about the other disciples, then they rather showed a certain cowardice and weakness: they fled, they were afraid to go to death with Him.

"Peter's Denial" Dmitry Vasiliev

Although it’s probably not entirely correct to say that either. In a sense, they were ready to die together with their Divine Teacher. We see the Apostle Peter, who draws his sword and rushes at the one who came to take Christ; we hear before the words of the Apostle Thomas, who says: come and we will die with Him(John 11:16).

But all this was human, all this was not yet enlightened by the understanding of Whom they see before them. Before their eyes, there is an overthrow of what they already seemed to believe in, what they seemed to be convinced of - but only “it would seem.”

They were people just like us, and the idea that the Son of God could be delivered into the hands of sinners, could suffer from them and be judged and killed by them was inconceivable to their consciousness. They were shocked by this, they were amazed. And, probably, this is precisely the reason why they turned out to be so cowardly at some point.

Because we still don’t find such cowardice in them: they were afraid, they were afraid, but in many ways they were ready to go to the end. And here the shepherd was struck, and the sheep were scattered - what the Lord spoke about (See: Matt. 26:31). Therefore, I still would not call this a betrayal in any case - I would not want to sin both before God and before the holy apostles, before those, thanks to whose works, strictly speaking, we are today who we are.

– Father Nektarios, behind the figures of Christ’s disciples the images are a little lost Mother of God, Mary Magdalene and several other women who were not afraid, followed Christ to Golgotha ​​and were present at the execution. They are an example of what?

– They are, even in this case, evidence rather than an example. Because the disciples, as I said, tried to understand what was happening, and their minds were exhausted from the inability to understand this, and as for the Mother of God, as for Mary Magdalene and other righteous women who followed Christ in the days of His earthly life, they did not try to understand anything – they acted at the behest of their hearts.

And often the dictates of the heart in such a situation lead a person to a much more correct decision. They were possessed at that moment by the pain caused by their love for the One who was in danger, who was being killed, and therefore they did not think about anything else. They simply followed their feeling.

And the apostles thought and reasoned, and these thoughts and reasoning gave rise to this cowardly fear in them. Although in this case we can still talk about an example that we can draw from this situation for ourselves, because the Holy Scripture contains the life of virtually each of us, and there each of us can really find examples or answers to questions, that life puts before us.

And sometimes events happen in our lives when, through other people, we can either serve Christ and find ourselves close to Him, or, in the person of these people, reject Him and find ourselves without Him and outside of Him. It very often happens that in our time someone is unjustly persecuted, someone is unjustly persecuted - and sometimes it is precisely for the sake of truth that they are unjustly persecuted and persecuted.

And in this situation, finding ourselves as if on the sidelines, we find ourselves among those who stood aside from the Cross. And by interceding for a person, defending a person unjustly persecuted, we find ourselves close to Christ, we find ourselves precisely among these righteous wives who, despite fear, were ready to follow Him.

A person who is exposed to danger, who is persecuted, who is unjustly oppressed and hurt, should never become for us some kind of secondary factor in our existence. No, these are situations in which we must see Christ in this person. And either find yourself with Him, or find yourself in a crowd far removed from Him - silent, and perhaps even shouting “Crucify!”

It probably makes sense to say more about righteous Joseph and Nicodemus. This is an amazing thing: throughout the entire earthly ministry of Christ the Savior, they were His secret disciples, and it was precisely “fear for the sake of the Jews” - they were afraid to reveal themselves, to put themselves in a vulnerable position among their compatriots.

And the apostles at the same time followed Christ without fear; at the same time, they saw that the evil gaze that was turned to their Teacher was certainly ready to incinerate them too.

And then the disciples run, and Joseph and Nicodemus, forgetting fear, go to Pilate and ask for the body of Christ. And it is clear that they are dooming themselves at this very moment to becoming outcasts in their own way, to becoming second-class citizens forever, to be persecuted, and maybe even to die outright.

But they don’t think about it at all, because at this moment they are experiencing the most terrible loss: they are deprived of the One whom they loved; they are deprived of the One who was dearer to them than anyone else on this earth - and this becomes clear to them precisely at the moment when they are deprived.

Sometimes a person is forced to experience something similar in his life - to understand that the loss of Christ is something that nothing can be worse than - and after that he becomes completely fearless, because nothing else frightens him so much and he is ready for anything anything, just to be together with Christ.

– Why was the redemption of humanity so difficult? Incredible physical suffering for several days was aggravated by mental suffering - anguish, struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane; we know that the drops of bloody sweat that appeared on the Savior’s brow during night prayer– this, according to medical evidence, is the result of damage to the walls of blood vessels, which occurs under very strong mental stress; all this was aggravated by the feeling complete loneliness, when they left Him, everyone fled, and the worst thing, probably, was aggravated by the feeling of being abandoned by God...

– Probably, here, in earthly life, we will never be able to find for ourselves the answer to the question of what happened then in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the moments of this prayer and that struggle that you are talking about.

We will not be able to understand in its entirety what happened on Golgotha; only in eternity will this mystery be revealed to us. We know how difficult it can be to be responsible for at least one person in life, to bear at least one person in the full sense of the word. Let it be a son, daughter, brother, father, mother, just close person- It is very difficult. And I don’t have enough strength to carry myself.

And here the Lord lifts up the entire human race - both those who came before and those who will come later. We cannot understand how this happens, how this lifting is accomplished, but what we are talking about - this struggle, this suffering - is the result of lifting this huge number of lost sheep on our shoulders. We can only peer into it and again feel it with our hearts - to the extent that it is given to us.

But it is very important, thinking about this and looking closely at it, to understand that our own weight is also present in this huge burden. I understand that this may be strange to hear, because it has already happened, and we live now. But time is something that is perceived as something divided into past, present and future only by us, but for God time is something completely different - it is a category of this existence. And then the Lord saw our present life, and then He suffered for us today, and we today have some freedom to choose: the Lord suffered more personally for us or a little less, because we are ready to reduce His suffering - there, on the Cross...

- Thank you, Father Nektary. Today we talked about the last days of the Savior’s life, about the Sacrifice of the Cross and the reasons for hatred of God with the head of the information and publishing department of the Saratov diocese, the rector of the Peter and Paul Church in Saratov, Abbot Nektariy (Morozov). Thank you for your attention goodbye.

Sergey Khudiev

In response to one of my latest articles I received a question that seems very important to me - and I will try to answer it. Does God love evildoers? Or, as this question is formulated in more detail by the person who poses it:

“You state: “God loves all people - teetotalers and drunkards, respectable fathers of families and fornicators with homosexuals, ascetic doctors and hired killers, they are all His creations, and He wishes them all temporary and eternal good. There is no person so terrible that God does not love him. This man would not exist if God did not love him.”

Please tell me how what you said is consistent with the words from Ps. 10:5, where does it say about God that “His soul hates the wicked and the lover of violence”?

And further. In your opinion, is Hitler a terrible person? And Pol Pot? And Stalin and Lenin, in addition, who with one stroke of the pen sentenced thousands of people to death? What about Satanists who perform ritual sacrifices? What about sexual perverts and child abusers? What about modern politicians who, in order to satisfy their ambitions and desire to stay in power, make decisions that result in innocent people suffering? What about the religious leaders, modern Sadducees and Pharisees, who hypocritically say one thing, think another, and act in a third way (or are you not familiar with them?)?

Does God love them too?

So, does God love bad people? Definitely, yes, God loves all of His creation. Everything that exists is maintained in existence solely by the power of His love - no one and nothing could exist for the next moment if not for the love of God. Every next breath that a person takes - even the worst person - is a gift of God's love. “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Creation is a work of love, and Redemption is a work of love - Christ dies for evil, vicious sinners hostile to God and each other. As the apostle says:

“For we too were once foolish, disobedient, erring, we were slaves to lusts and various pleasures, we lived in malice and envy, we were vile, we hated one another. But when the grace and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:3-6).

God loves lost souls in hell, God loves Satan and demons. God does not hate any of His creations.

Absolutely everything created is immersed in the ocean of His love and could not exist otherwise.

At the same time, Scripture says that God hates evildoers and will punish them severely. What does it mean? The same reality looks like love and anger, depending on where we look at it from.

Now he remembers with gratitude that he was sent to prison

I once spoke with a man who, as a young man, took the slippery slope and became a professional criminal. It ended, predictably, with the fact that the authorities, who bear the sword not in vain, got to him, and the guards took him to the judge, and the judge threw him into prison - which, undoubtedly, was an extremely difficult and painful experience, the wrath of God and the wrath of man, who came to his iniquities. But in prison he heard the preaching of the Gospel, repented of his former life and was released into freedom as a completely different person.

Now he remembers with gratitude that he was sent to prison and thereby saved from further growth in evil. He understands that it was the love of God, seeking his salvation, that arranged his arrest. “Before I suffered, I was mistaken; and now I keep Your word... It is good for me that I suffered, that I might learn Your statutes” (Ps. 119:67, 71).

From the point of view of the embittered criminal in custody, he suffers rage and anger and severe punishment; from the point of view of a repentant criminal who learned to look at things from the point of view of his true good, and this too was a work of God’s saving love.

But what if the criminal had not repented, but had become stubborn in a stubborn hatred of God and people, and certainly would not have seen his imprisonment as a matter of love? Alas, this also happens. Would his punishment be a work of love for him from Divine Providence? Yes, of course - in any case, Providence would have restrained his growth in evil and protected other people.

What from the side of God (and the person who sided with God) looks like a matter of love and mercy, from the side of the villain looks like a manifestation of hatred and anger - until recently, he, proud and pleased with himself, spent time in expensive restaurants with luxurious women - and now he walks along the prison corridor, holding his hands back.

God's judgment will be a work of love

I once worked in an organization where one of the employees constantly found fault, criticized, humiliated others and created an unbearable atmosphere. They tolerated him for a long, too long time - and then they fired him, which should have been done much earlier. But he himself did not see himself as a person who extremely abused the kindness, peacefulness and patience of others - he saw himself as a fair and pious person who suffered from scoundrels for the truth.

What is actually an act of love and patience is seen by the embittered sinner as hatred, rage, and anger.

Of course, any human judgment is fallible - I am simply using this analogy to show that love towards a villain can manifest itself in the fact that he suffers, and that he himself can refuse to see this as a manifestation of love.

The Last Judgment of God will be a work of love - and the saved souls, angels, and everyone who sees it from God’s side will see it exactly like that. In the psalms, judgment is an incredibly joyful event. “Say to the nations: The Lord reigns! Therefore the universe is solid and will not be shaken. He will judge the nations with justice. Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar and fill it; let the field rejoice and all that is in it, and let all the trees of the grove rejoice before the face of the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world according to righteousness, and the nations according to His truth” (Ps. 95:10-13).

From the side of embittered, unrepentant sinners, everything will look completely different: “And the kings of the earth, and the nobles, and the rich, and the captains of thousands, and the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in the caves and in the gorges of the mountains, and they say to the mountains and stones: fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; For the great day of His wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:15-17).

The love of God will put a limit to incurable evil, will show the last mercy to those who do not allow themselves to be shown another mercy, will give them as much good as they are able to accept. Because existence is a good, knowing the truth is a good, being stopped on the path of growing in evil is a good. The fact that the evil themselves will perceive this as a painful punishment will not be the result of the fact that God hates them and wants to torment them - this is by no means the case, but of the fact that sin has so distorted their perception of reality.

But usually they don't consider themselves villains at all.

From the fact that God loves evildoers, it does not in any way follow that the evildoers will be pleased - they will just be dissatisfied. Such is the tragedy and monstrous stupidity of sin.

But villains have one more feature - they usually do not consider themselves villains at all; The worse a person’s spiritual state is, the more difficult it is for him to notice that something is wrong with him.

Villains are always different, and when we are unpleasantly scratched by the thought that God can love villains, it is because we do not consider ourselves to be one of them.

The Bible says it's wrong - we are all sinners, guilty, corrupt and deeply rebellious. But God unfailingly loves us and seeks to save us - that is, to restore us to a relationship with Him and change us so that we become heavenly rather than hellish beings.

To do this it is necessary to recognize that bad people- it's not just them. This is us too, and we must humble ourselves, repent, place our trust in Christ, and trust the Holy Spirit to make profound changes in our lives.

Ilchenko Yu.N.

Plan:

I. Introduction

At the last service we saw what God loves and values ​​most. Today we will talk about what God does not love, hate, does not accept, does not accept. We must unite with God in this. We must not only love what God loves, but also hate what God hates.

General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, said that a time was coming when there would be salvation without regeneration, faith without repentance, heaven without hell, and love of God without hatred of sin.

II. God hates sin, evil

What God has created is wonderful. You can't stop admiring this. But what a person does without God, God does not like. Often these are evil, sinful deeds that a person justifies: “I love God, and love covers everything.” But sin destroys, kills, degradation comes (Rom.6:23).

Hebrews 1:9 Jesus loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. When you do what pleases God, it brings joy to the Lord and joy comes to you. Love purity, holiness, do not put up with sinful things in your life. God loves man and hates sin. He does not identify a person with his actions. He wants to separate man from sin and change his thinking and actions so that man can be with God.

III. Examples from the Bible

Ps.100:3-4 If you hate sin and evil, they will not cleave to you. When you hate what God hates, it protects you.

2 Peter 1:12-13 The Holy Spirit reminds us of what we know but do not do, what we hear but do not do. Through reminder, God's truth is established in our hearts.

Zach. 8:17 God hates it when we do evil to others and act against our neighbors.

IV. Two systems: God's world system and the demonic system

1 John 2:15-17 What God created, He loved it. The whole earth and everything that fills it was created by God and is subject to God. After the Fall, the devil created another system of the world in opposition to God, which obeys him. His system is against God, so that people do not follow God. But pride and lust do not come from God. The values ​​of this world go against the values ​​of God, and they are temporary. God's values ​​are eternal. If we love God's values, we will be with God always.

Eph.2:1-3 The customs of this world formed a man who did not know God.

Eph.6:10-13 Now that we are saved, we should not love worldly values ​​and compromise. God has given us the whole armor of God so that we can resist the influence of the world's system, to fight the sin, the curse, the darkness in our lives. We cannot drive away the enemy if we are standing on his territory (we allow a compromise).

2 Cor.6:14-18 We cannot make a cocktail with our values. You cannot combine God and what this world offers. You cannot combine good and evil, light and darkness. Separate yourself from the values ​​of the system of this world and live according to God's laws. We cannot live in two systems at once. We must choose to love God. Your state is in the light. We are children of light and must learn to understand where darkness and evil lie.

James 4:4-8 If you are friends with the world, you are cheating on God. God wants you to be with Him. We defeat the enemy when we submit to God, when we are not double-minded.

V. Our priority is to love God

Deut.6:1-11 The Lord commanded to teach this to the people: first, to fear - to respect the Lord in order to listen to Him. When you respect, you listen, react, perform differently. Secondly, you must teach this to children. God looks to the future, to his descendants.

Listen Israel - this was a strong call. God attracts attention to say the main thing: love God. These words must enter your heart: write them everywhere so that you and your children can absorb them. Put this first in your prayer. Children will not leave God if they love Him. If these words have value in your heart, you can pass them on to others. God wants to give you everything you need to feel good - this is in the heart of God. Do not forget about it.

IV.What is an abomination to God

Proverbs 6:16-19- this is an abomination to God, and this He hates.

Deut.7:1-4 Remove everything from your life that God hates, otherwise it will destroy you. Little fox cubs spoil the entire vineyard.

Isaiah 5:20 Do not participate in the works of darkness.

Prov.8:13 The fear of the Lord helps us to hate evil and have an irreconcilable attitude towards it. Check your heart so that evil does not start in it.

Let there be a clear boundary between darkness and light, good and evil in your heart. Pray that God will cleanse your heart from all abomination. Set guards at the gates of your heart. The guard warns when an enemy appears. The watchman is the word of God.

God wants us to learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates. Put on the full armor of God so that you can fight and defeat the enemy and not be influenced by the system of this world. Let there always be a guard on the walls of your heart who will warn you in time about danger.

Sermon:

Today we will talk about what God loves and what He hates. This issue needs to be seriously looked into. What God loves is clear to us. It is wonderful to know what God loves. How will we please God if we don't know what He loves? How will we please His heart if we don’t know what pleases Him? At the last service, we talked about David, who studied His heart, explored in order to understand what pleases God, how to bring Him joy. God said, “This is a man after My own heart. This is the person who will fulfill My desires. All people pray that I will fulfill their desires. At last I have found a man who will fulfill My desires.” There are few people on earth who say: “Lord! I want to fulfill your wishes, I want to know your heart, I want to please you.” God says: “Behold, I have found a man after My own heart!”

It is so important, so necessary, so necessary to know what God loves, what He likes. Also, it is no less important to know what He does not like, what He does not love, and, moreover, what He even hates.

The Lord wants us to love what He loves, what pleases Him. If we like something, we take care of it. My wife really likes flowers. She adores them, plants them everywhere; where do they not grow? But that's one thing. The second thing is that she constantly has to weed them, pull out the weeds. Do we enjoy doing this? We don't like to pull out weeds. We don't like weeds because they cover up the beauty, they cover up the flowers. So the Lord says: “I don’t like weeds in your life either. I don’t like evil, I don’t like pride, lies, etc.” All these weeds need to be weeded out.

Let us pull out the weeds so that the beauty that the Lord has planted will have even more opportunities for growth and blessings. About Jesus Christ the Scripture says:

Hebrews 1:9 “You loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” Opposite feelings! He loved truth, righteousness, that which is from God, and hated lawlessness and weeds. They always get in the way, they ruin everything.

If your children are sick, how do you feel about your children’s illness? Do you love their illness? Do you like that they get sick? No! You love your children, and you hate their illness. The Lord says: “I love people, but I hate sin.” Sin, like disease, like a virus, has its consequences. It brings death, destruction, degradation, destruction. The wages of sin is death. Do you love death? Do you like retribution? Of course not! We must have this in our hearts because if we love God, we must love what He loves. And we must also hate what He hates.

IN Lately, V last days there will be many different teachings, and people will choose only what they like: teachers who they like; teachings they like. What they don't like they will reject. But this will not be completeness, because God is love and judgment. He says: “Whom I love, I punish. Whom do I not love? Who are not My children. Who am I not raising? I cannot educate strangers, but I will educate My own, because I love them.”

Ps. 100:3“I will not place indecent things before my eyes”. What are these obscene things? These are the wrong things.

Ps. 100:3 “I hate criminal matters.” How does the Lord feel about this? Does He say: “Love covers everything?” No! Love covers, but it hates evil.

Ps. 100:3“It will not cleave to me.” If I hate sin, it will not stick to me. If I love him, he will cleave to me. This state protects you, it shows you what God loves and what He doesn’t love. By connecting with God, you experience the same thing as God. The Apostle Paul prayed: “For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:5), the same emotions, the same feelings. What God loves, I love too. What God hates, and I hate it. We are one with Him, we are together with Him. Then evil will not cling to me.

Ps. 100:4 “A corrupt heart will be removed from me; I will not know evil".

What does the Apostle Peter write about this? If we have already heard some information, we do not have fixation, concentration of attentiveness, because we think: “I have already heard this!” But the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Peter tells us:

2 Peter 1:12, 13“For this reason, I will never cease to remind you of this, although you know it and are established in the real truth. I consider it fair, as long as I am in this bodily temple, to excite you with reminders.”. God reminds us. When something is often reminded, I hope, and God so hopes, that it will do some work on us. What does the Lord remind us of? He says: “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world; whoever loves the world does not have the Father’s love in him.”(1 John 2:15).

Many people get confused here: “I live in the world!” People begin to think - what is Christian and what is not Christian? Christian food is not Christian food. Christian clothing is not Christian clothing. Christian music is not Christian music. We read and often do not understand this context - “don’t love the world.” Today we will talk to figure out what to do, where to look, what to love.

1 John 2:16“For whatever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of this world.”. Where should I go? Where should I look? What should I do? Or people rush to one extreme - into monasteries, into caves. There were even hermits who asked to be walled up in some caves, in some wells. They were so walled up that there was not even light there. It was the most severe hermitage - to serve 20 years in the dark! But wherever you go, you will take your world there, what is in your head. Plant you in a well, on a tree, or underground. We carry our world with us. What kind of world is in you?

There is God's world, and there is not God's. God's peace is beyond understanding, but what is your peace? There is what the Lord created, and there is what He did not create. How to understand: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” (John 3:16). Why then – “don’t love the world”? How can “He loved”, but in this “there is no love of the Father”? Somehow it doesn't fit. What kind of world did He love? What kind of world should I love? Where is this distinction written?

The difference is that what God created is what He loves. When God did something, He gave an assessment of His quality. He said: “This is good.” And on the sixth day, when He had already done everything, the result is summed up: “and behold, it’s very good” (Gen. 1:31). How then can you not love what God has done? Does God love this? God loves what He has done. He likes it. He says: “I did it well, and I love it.” What didn't God do? God did not make sin, death, evil. This is a different system of the world.

Peace is a polysemantic word. The word "world" appears 247 times in the Bible. Every world is different. Just like the word "love". Love is written all over it. They don’t write in Greek: agape, phileo, eros. Perhaps we would understand what we are talking about. “Love” is written everywhere. We need to translate, find out. The word “peace” is the same. It is written: do not love this world, but love this world. This world is not from God, but this one is from God, and in each case there is its own meaning. Today we are figuring out what we should love and what we should hate.

Ps. 23:1 “The earth is the Lord’s and what fills it, the universe and everything that lives in it.”. The Lord created the world and said: “Behold, it is very good!” When we look at what the Lord has done, it truly makes us happy. Nature, animals, rivers, seas, lakes, stars, volcanoes - list and list! That's what's amazing - everything that God created always looks good. On green grass You always look with pleasure, but you can’t look at the green fence for a long time. It seems to be the same color, but it doesn’t look right.

Everything a person does is temporary. Today it seems wonderful, but several years have passed and everything is no longer the same. Release new car, people are delighted with its design and capabilities. Once upon a time, the Moskvich 412 delighted everyone. “Zaporozhets” pleased the eyes and body of the car enthusiast. Now what can you say about these models? This is rubbish, some kind of scrap metal! But at one time it was the height of perfection. A few years will pass and today's coolest cars will lose their shine.

What a person does gets old quickly. I'm not talking about buildings. Once upon a time, “Khrushchev” buildings were super housing. Everyone who received an apartment was happy. And now we say: “what is this?” What God creates has the remarkable quality of not becoming obsolete. God's values ​​will never become obsolete. He says: “Love what I love, and you will always be modern, fashionable.” What is fashionable today is retro tomorrow. What you like today, no one will appreciate tomorrow. What God has is always modern, beautiful, cool. The more you look at it, the more surprised you become. How can we not love this? We need to love it, admire it.

Behind creation is the Creator. We know Who is the Author, Who is the Artist, Who is the Sculptor, Who sculpted it all, Who did it all. Creation speaks about the Creator. How can one worship creation? But many worship creation. They do not understand that there is a Creator behind the creation. Who should we worship? To the Creator! “Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him alone” (Luke 4:8). Is He not worthy of worship, is He not worthy to be served? Worthy! But through the Fall, the enemy created his own system of values, created another world that opposes the values ​​of God, which not only opposes, but actively does it.

For example, at work people tell each other all sorts of stories, everything is fine, and suddenly you decide to talk about God. Immediately everything changes. People tense up: “Why are you saying this? Why do I need this? People immediately feel nervous. Why? Because the system of this world is against God. The Lord says: “Don’t love this world, this system. In this system, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life - this is not from the Father.” The enemy rules through pride, through lust, through lies. This is aimed at preventing man from knowing God. If he does not know Him, he will not love Him. If he does not love Him, he will not obey Him. As a result, he will end up in eternal hell, from where there is no way out. That is why it is said here that God loved the world he created. He loved man whom He created and gave His Son to save him. This is a different understanding of the world. We must distinguish between good and evil. We must understand whether this comes from God, or whether it works against God. Does it bring you closer to God, or takes you away from Him.

If, for example, an unbeliever watches a film, he sees one thing. A believer watches and sees a different movie. They watched the same movie, but they draw different conclusions. The values ​​are different, the worldview is different, and the conclusions are different. God asks: “What are you tuned in to, what value system, what do you love?” God calls: “Love God, and your values ​​will change: worldview, attitude, behavior, words, life. All this will change." If you don’t love this, you will love another system that will always drag you away from God, because it works against God. The devil is the enemy. It is written that there is a spirit of rebellion. This is a specific spirit that works like this.

Eph. 2:1,2 “And you, dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, according to the course of this world.” Again the word "peace". There are customs of this world - religious customs, Orthodox customs, rules of behavior when meeting and others. If you do not act according to the customs of this world, confrontation ensues, an explosion of emotions. The customs of this world were established by the devil so that you do not know the living God. It is written: “you once lived.” Thank God that we no longer live there, that we are in a new kingdom, in God’s kingdom.

Eph. 2:2“according to the will of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who is now working in the sons of disobedience.” God says: “Do not love this world, the system of this world, which is set up by the devil and his servants to do everything against God.” The devil is the enemy. Don't be surprised that there is resistance. What does the Lord tell us? Just put up with this resistance and not notice it? Ephesians tells us to resist this opposition, this spirit.

Eph. 6:11“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” How can you stand against the wiles of the devil if you love the world? How can you be against impurity if you love impurity? How can you be against lies if you love lies? You can be against it when you're on the other side. You can be against it when you hate it. Then you will be against it, and the Lord will help you in this, give you strength, weapons, so that you can win this confrontation, this spiritual conflict. We are not deluded, we are not mistaken, we do not think that there is nothing. This is, and this is reality: a state of war, a state of conflict.

There are two systems: God's and demonic. We must fight. If you love God, you will fight, because God is a great Warrior. He is the Lord of hosts, the Lord of hosts. “...our struggle is not against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6:12). We are not against people. It can be difficult for us to distinguish evil from an evil person. We say: "This evil person, bad person”, because we combine what a person does with the person himself. But God sees things differently. He says there is someone behind this man. There is a spiritual force behind this person. If you don’t see this, you will fight against the person, and the power behind him will simply rejoice. You are directing your efforts in the wrong direction.

The enemy does just that - so that everyone punches each other in the jaw. A conflict comes, a confrontation, and a person wants to solve it by force. But God tells us: “If you love Me, you will not be stupid. I will reveal to you the laws, the secrets - how this world works, and how you need to fight, fight, resist.” The devil takes our focus from himself to specific person Therefore, we do not hate the devil, but this man. We are angry with a person. He came to annoy us. We put it together. But God says we must look differently. We must love what God loves. But God loves man and hates the devil. He hates evil, demonic force, so he says we need to fight this force. Don’t just be angry with the devil, but fight him with weapons that you can put on and overcome.

Eph. 6:12“for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places.” Our battle is against the power that influences these people. If we understand this and believe in this, then we discern the rulers of the world of darkness, the spirits of wickedness in high places. We say: “Dark man, evil man,” as unbelievers, because unbelievers do not see this. But the spiritual one understands everything. The spiritual considers this to be madness, but the spiritual judges it. How does our love show itself for God? In faith, in obedience, in union with God. What He loves, we love too. What He hates, we hate. We are fighting the enemy. We don't close our eyes, we don't turn away - we see the reason, and God works with us.

2 Cor. 6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” There are many interpretations about this. It may be a marriage, it may be a job, but most main meaning- that this yoke is not from God. God wants you to differentiate between these two systems, so that you understand, so that you have a spiritual difference.

2 Cor. 6:14 “For what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity?” If you read it literally, you can decide that you need to stop communicating with non-believers. But the Pharisees accused Jesus of walking with sinners. They did not understand this spiritual truth that Jesus loves man but hates sin. Communion of righteousness with lawlessness here means that you hate sin, lawlessness. You cannot have two in one - you have both righteousness and lawlessness. It can not be so!

2 Cor. 6:14 “What does light have in common with darkness?”. There is nothing in common. This is the opposite - light and darkness. There is absolutely nothing in common.

2 Cor. 6:15 “What agreement is there between Christ and Belial?”. Do they agree? Absolutely not. We understand what God loves and what He hates. We will not agree with sin, with lawlessness, with lies, with theft, etc. The devil came to steal, kill and destroy; he is the father of lies and pride. You don't agree with him. You won't compromise. Otherwise, you will be tempted to deceive, steal, and disobey. How can you agree with the devil? After all, you love God! You hate what God hates. You won't have consent.

Many people make compromises because they are not united in what God hates. They continue to be loyal to this. They say: "It's no big deal." They justify themselves, justify their sins, their iniquities. God asks: “What agreement can there be?” By definition, there can be no agreement. Light and darkness cannot be together. Either light or darkness. God gives us purity. There is white paint. Someone dropped another paint - and that’s it! She is no longer white. Any compromise, no matter how small, will compromise integrity. Little foxes spoil the vineyards (Song of Songs 2:15). Many believers were freed from great sins, only “little foxes” remained. Cute little ones. What is their task? They spoil the vineyard. They ruin your life. Why do you need a ruined life?

2 Cor. 6:16,17 “What is the relationship between the temple of God and idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean.”. When people literally read this scripture, they went into the forests, dug dugouts, climbed trees, lived in caves. They wanted to separate themselves from the world. God speaks of two world systems, and we should not unite with darkness, with sin, with uncleanness, because the Lord hates this.

2 Cor. 6:17,18 “and I will receive you. And I will be your Father". When will He be your Father? When you are completely His. You can't run here and there. Jesus told the Jews, “Your father is the devil,” because that’s how they lived. This is a strong contrast.

James 4:4 “Adulterers and adulterers! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity against God?”. James calls people adulterers. Adulterers are those who cheat on their legal spouses. When we go to the side of God, when we choose not God, but something else, other values, work with a different system, God calls it “adultery.” This is betrayal of Him. This is what the heart of God says. When you cheat on your spouse, you are called adulterers. God does not allow you to commit fornication. If you have chosen God, then love Him with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. “Friendship with the world” is friendship with another value system, with a system that is directed against God. The Lord says: “This is enmity against Me.”

James 4:4“So whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” What do we choose in our lives? Always think about what value system you choose. Whose side are you on? There are people: here today, there tomorrow. "Adulterer! Traitor!" - says God.

James 4:5 “Or do you think that Scripture says in vain: “The spirit that dwells in us loves with jealousy”?” Do you think it’s in vain that it’s written like that? We cannot be jealous if we don’t love, if we don’t care. But God is not indifferent to us. God loves us with all his heart and all his soul and all his strength. God cares.

James 4:6“But grace gives all the more”. God gives grace to those who love Him.

James 4:6“Therefore it is said: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”. Everyone needs grace, everyone needs God's power.

James 4:7 “Submit yourselves therefore to God; Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” You can't be in enemy territory and confront him and make him run away. When there is a war, the troops are on opposite sides of the barricades, that is, he is on one side, you are on the other side. You cannot fight the devil with his methods and on his territory. He is the owner there and runs the show. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters,” please, etc. When you submit to God, love Him, and have the power to overcome, then He will run away from you!

James 4:8“Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you; Cleanse your hands, you sinners; straighten your hearts, you double-minded.” God does not like double-minded people. Whose side are you on? On whose side is it more profitable, will I be there? God says, “You must be on My side.” When Jesus was asked: “Teacher! What is the greatest commandment in the law?” He answered without hesitation: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” (Matt. 22:37). He quoted Deuteronomy 6:1. The Lord wants to teach us.

Deut. 6:1,2“These are the commandments, decrees, and laws which the Lord your God commanded that I should teach you, that you should do these things in the land which you are going to take possession of it; that you may fear the Lord your God". The very first thing the Lord wants to teach us is that you respect God. Remember your school. There were teachers whom you respected, and often you were afraid of, and whom you did not respect. There was order in the lessons of those you respected. You sat, listened carefully and memorized, and you did well in the subject. I remember such teachers, the memory remains for the rest of my life. You prepared for these subjects better than for all the others. You feared them, respected them. If you don't respect, then you don't listen carefully, homework you won’t do it, and you won’t know anything at all on this subject. When God speaks, one must respect God in order to learn from Him. If you don't respect God, you don't respect, you don't value, you don't fulfill His word. For you it's just like that.

Deut. 6:2 “That you may fear the Lord your God, and may keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your sons and your sons’ sons all the days of your life, that your days may be long.”. God always thinks ahead. God looks forward, not just to now. He looks at how your children will live, how your children’s children will live. "May your days be long."

What does lust do? Why man walking to a compromise? Lust says: “I want it now.” I don’t care what others think about it, what God thinks about it, I want it now!” And lust, having conceived, gives birth to sin. Lust does not think about the future. Then comes retribution, punishment, judgment. God teaches us to take the long view. If you go down this path, what is your perspective? If you have a relationship with this person, what prospect awaits you? Not only for you, but also for your children. It doesn't matter that they aren't there now. How will they live when they are born? If they don't love God, how will your children's children live? What can you convey to them?

Deut. 6:3 "Hear Now, O Israel". In Hebrew it is pronounced "Shema Yisrael." This phrase is like a military alert. This is super important. At the same time, they blew trumpets to attract attention. This was a very important message.

Deut. 6:3 “Therefore, listen, O Israel, and try to do this, so that it may go well with you.” Who is God thinking about? He thinks about you, and not just like that, but to make you feel good. He thinks so because He loves you with all of His heart and with all of His mind.

Deut. 6:3“And so that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, told you that He would give you a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Deut. 6:4.5“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.” God gets the incredible attention of His people to tell them what matters most. For God this is the most important thing. Is this the most important thing for us, or not? Is this a priority for our prayer needs, is it in first place? God doesn't just say it.

He knows why He says this. Because for Him this is the most important thing in the relationship of the Father with the Son, the Son with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit with the Father, that is, this is what happens inside the Trinity. These are relationships that take place within God. Therefore, they have agreement, harmony, love, wisdom, strength. There is no chaos, disorder, anger, hatred, selfishness, lies and everything else. He says: “If you have this, then we will be together, nothing will separate us.” This will give God the opportunity to release His overflowing love. He is this love, this is agape. He has so much strong love, it burns so much, it rushes out so much that He needs to pass it on, to share it generously.

Deut. 6:6“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.” God says this not just so that the Jews will know, but so that they will have it in their hearts, so that it will capture their heart, their soul.

Deut. 6:7 “and teach them to your children”. What do we instill in our children most? God tells us the answer - that the most important thing in raising our children should happen.

Deut. 6:7-9“And talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up; And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as a blindfold over your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”. Where else should you write these words so that you take it into your heart? If you don't have the love of God, what will you give to your children? We can only give what we have. God says, “I want you to pass on to your children the love of God.” The Lord wants you to feel good.

Deut. 6:10 “to give you large and good cities that you did not build”. God wants to give us cities so that the influence of the kingdom of God can come there. He will give you cities, because the devil can only be defeated by one force - by force God's love. That is why the devil is so afraid and so opposed.

Deut. 6:11“And with houses filled with all good things, which you did not fill, and with wells hewn out of stone, which you did not hew, with vineyards and olive trees, which you did not plant, you will eat and be satisfied.” This is good, and it would be quicker! But first, what should you write on your forehead? On the hand, on the doors. What needs to happen first? So that you love. We become animated when we are touched. At home with goodness all over the earth, our mood immediately rises, we feel good. God says: “It will be good for you when you love God. And you will have houses, and vineyards, and olive trees, and wells, and whatnot you will have! But so that you don’t forget the main thing.”

Deut. 6:24 “And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, that we might fear the Lord our God, that it might go well with us always.”. We always like to read books from the end. But God says: “First you love Me, and as a result, you will feel good.” To be good, you must hit all enemies. Don't spare them! Who are our enemies? What God hates. Don't let it stay.

Deut. 7:2-6 “Consign them to the curse, do not enter into an alliance with them and do not spare them; and thou shalt not enter into kinship with them: thou shalt not give thy daughter to his son, and thou shalt not take his daughter to thy son; for they will turn your sons away from Me to serve other gods, and then the wrath of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. But do this to them: destroy their altars, break their pillars, cut down their groves, and burn their images with fire; For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be His own people above all the nations that are on the earth.”

Deut. 7:7,8“It was not because you were more numerous than all the nations that the Lord accepted you and chose you, for you are the fewest in number among all the nations, but because the Lord loves you.”

This is what God hates.

Proverbs 6:16 “These are the six things that the Lord hates, even seven, which are an abomination to His soul.”. When we say the word “hates”, it is even more or less so. But the word “abomination”. What is an abomination to you? This is something that God cannot stomach, so to speak. David knew this, and he spoke about it so that we would know what God loves and what He does not tolerate, what is an abomination to Him.

Proverbs 6:17"Proud eyes, lying tongue". We read this, but imagine what God is going through. These are His emotions described. What an abomination is to His soul, understand.

Proverbs 6:19 “a false witness who speaks lies and sows discord among brothers”. Sometimes even believers like to listen to all sorts of gossip. But God says: “This is an abomination to me. It is an abomination to lie, an abomination when there is discord among My children.” If we felt how God feels, we wouldn’t do it ourselves, and we wouldn’t encourage others. But sometimes we don’t notice how this abomination smells, and we do it ourselves. Learn to love what God loves and hate what He hates. This is very important, this is very valuable.

Many people who have departed from God, who were in ministry, if you meet them somewhere, they say: “Everything is fine with me, I am with God! I love God". Do you love God? Show me how? You live in sin, in what God calls abomination. This is not completeness. The devil wants us to be so half-hearted. So that we say what is pleasant to us, and what is unpleasant is kept silent. “I’m fine, everything’s fine!” These people fell away from God because they did not hate lawlessness. For them this was not an abomination, and therefore, step by step, they moved away from God and plunged into this lawlessness, into this abomination. If they had hated lawlessness, they would not have fallen away, left, or been lost.

We need to preach two things: what God loves and what He hates. If we speak only one part and do not touch the other, this is not completeness, this is not the whole heart of God, this is not all His emotions, feelings. David searched the heart of God, he wanted to know him, and God said: “This is a man after My own heart.” What God hates we should hate. What is an abomination to Him must also be an abomination to us.

Is. 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who call darkness light and light darkness, who call bitter sweet and sweet bitter!”. This is a perversion - it's the other way around. The world is full of this - everything is the other way around, everything is upside down. The Lord says: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.” Do not cover up evil, but hate it. Because evil kills and destroys the person himself, his family, his loved ones and affects his children. God always looks to the future. Not only are you moving away from God, not only are you sinning, but this will affect your children and your children’s children. God says what is important to Him. Let's make this the most important thing for you too.

Let's pray, friends. Solomon reminds us, as if speaking to us: “Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.” (Proverbs 1:29) Just as we must develop and cultivate love for God, in the same way we must cultivate hatred for evil, for darkness, for sin. We talked about fox cubs, but we also talked about sourdough. “Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”(1 Cor. 5:6). Because it is a process, it acts like a virus, it takes over more and more.

God tells us: “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have placed watchmen who will not be silent, day or night.”(Isa. 62:6). You must have this guard in your heart that shouts: “Trouble! The enemy is coming! Don’t oversleep, don’t miss it!” If the guards are sleeping, come in, good people, take whatever you want. Silence - it can also be an enemy, because if you don’t speak up, don’t even warn yourself, then the enemy will calmly enter.

Prayer

Lord! We thank You. We pray that You would put into us, Lord, Your desires, Your understanding, Your vision. So that we unite with You, Lord, with Your word, with Your purity, with Your holiness. So that we may love Your purity, Your holiness, Lord, as it is written, “I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will not depart from Me.”(Jeremiah 32:40). Invest in us, Lord, this fear - the fear of God - to respect You, love You, obey You. Let this multiply in us, let it grow, let us be established, as it is written: “establish my heart in the fear of your name”(Ps. 85:11).

Is. 11:2,3“And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and he will be filled with the fear of the Lord, and will not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide matters by the hearing of his ears.”

We thank You, Lord! Fill us, Your people, Your church, Lord, because with You comes wisdom. We can see ahead. We can understand. The Spirit of counsel, strength, knowledge, piety comes when we are established and filled with the fear of the Lord. When we love You, Lord. We pray, Lord, that “so that our love may increase more and more in knowledge and in every feeling”(Phil 1:9). May our love for You increase, Lord! Let it increase, grow, because God says that everything must grow and bear fruit.

We must pray for this, because Paul also prayed for us to put number one in our prayer needs the first commandment. The first commandment is what God considers the main, absolute priority, the very main value, the most important. Let this be the most important thing for me, Lord! Let my heart be soft, obedient, sensitive, so that we look at You and through Your eyes at ourselves. You said, “Love yourself and you will love your neighbor when you love God.” May You pour out this love, Lord! You have it in abundance.

You are the God of abundance. So that through us, Lord, this will flow to other people, to many other people. Jesus said: “These are the rivers of God’s love that will flow from our bellies,” so that we ourselves will be watered and can give water to others. They had it themselves and could give it to others. This is God's dream, God's desire, God's commandment. Let this be as strong in our hearts as it is in your heart, Lord. We know that the enemy opposes this, and he will resist, because Your love, Lord, has overcome the devil. Your love has saved us, set us free, cleansed and healed us, blessed us. The enemy will always go against what is most important, what is most valuable. Let us say: “Lord! For You this is the most important and valuable thing, even if for me it will be the most important and most valuable thing in my life!” In the name of Jesus Christ! Amen!

I appeal to all people who have not yet accepted Jesus. If you haven't accepted Jesus yet, open your heart and when He comes in it will be noticeable. It is not visible how He comes, because God is Spirit, but when He comes, it becomes noticeable. Change comes into life because with His coming you are born again, you become a new creation. Let's pray. Everyone who looks in live, we also ask you to join in this prayer. We believe that the Holy Spirit works. He touches us wherever we are.

Prayer of repentance.

Dear Lord! I thank You for this great love, which You showed to all humanity and proved Your love. I believe in Your love, Lord, and I want You to become my Master, to become my Savior. I ask You: “Forgive me! All my sins and iniquities, my unbelief, my dislike for You, Lord!” Today Your love knocks on my heart, and I open it with joy. I joyfully call You, Lord: “Come into my life, be my Lord, my Savior, my Beloved!” I want to love You the way You love me. I want to love You with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. I thank You that You hear me, Lord, answer, come into my life. All glory to You, all praise to You, all worship to You. In the name of Jesus Christ!