Tag Archives: Retribution

A Warning from Minsk

On 28 September, President Lukashenko of Belarus, strangely enough better known for his atheism than his Orthodox Christianity, spoke at the United Nations in New York. Addressing himself to Western leaders, he issued a stark warning in the following words:

‘You the guilty could have said that you had made a mistake and you must stop right there. But no, once again you went even further. You started in Tunisia and ended in Libya. The scenario was the same. You crucified President Khadafy, you destroyed a state. Did things get better in Libya afterwards? No. And does Libya even exist now as a unitary state? No. Gentlemen, was that not enough for you? No. You pounced in Syria. Why? Why are you killing people? Why are you overthrowing the acting President? How did he displease you? Worse still, through the slaughter in that country you are wiping out the last traces of civilization from yourselves. Tell the international community what you want and what your aims are. Now, at the tribune of the UN General Assembly’.

Speaking of the humanitarian disaster the Western world has now created in the Ukraine, he added:

‘Let us take another step towards worldwide conflict and perhaps to a new world war, in the very heart of the advanced, civilized world. Surely, in this new millennium, we have understood just how fragile peace and human civilization are? I am not saying this in order to go over the events are already well-known to us, but in order to bring the powers that be in this world to think. Understood. Today there is no force that can stop you. But all who have religious faith, and many of them publicly, are praying for all those heads of state who are committing blasphemies. The Lord sees everything. And He is just. And what if He is angered and punishes the guilty? You and your peoples who are innocently suffering because of your adventures?’

Retribution

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be (Matt. 24, 37)

I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish (Lk. 13, 5)

A local politician in the UK has suggested that the current incessant heavy rain and flooding, very severe in some southern parts of England, Cornwall and Wales, is happening because of the Prime Minister’s and Parliament’s favouring of homosexual ‘marriage’.

On the one hand, such an Old Testament view of God as a punisher and avenger, especially for sexual transgressions, typical of Calvinistic Protestantism (not to mention the kindred Old Testament religions of Judaism and Islam), reminds us that many have not yet received the New Testament revelation that God is Love. On the other hand, such a view does contain truth. The fact is that we have to pay for what we do, we are responsible for our actions. Our God is Merciful, but He is also the only Just Judge. In other words, there is such a thing as retribution. If we are, as Mr Cameron and those with him appear to be, without principles, reality will one day catch up on us. God does not punish us; we punish ourselves.

If we distance ourselves from the Creator, then we distance ourselves from the grace of God and the protection of the Holy Spirit. God does not leave us, but we leave Him. To abandon God is to be like a soldier who goes into battle without any body armour; it means inviting mortal wounds. To live our lives without God in them is to subject them to the ‘elemental’ forces of the fallen Cosmos, to the ‘elemental’ forces of fallen Nature, to the ‘elemental’ forces of fallen mankind. And what are ‘elemental’ forces? They are simply demonic forces. All ‘natural’ and ‘manmade’ catastrophes, so-called ‘acts of God’ come from this. The demons want only one thing – our suffering, for they are the source of all suffering, whether through corruption, crime, war, disease, hurricane, earthquake or flooding.

Water is for baptism and blessing; but a deluge comes from unrighteousnesss. Over 150 years ago the Russian Orthodox theologian, A.S. Khomyakov, who knew England very well, warned in his poem ‘The Island’ that for considering worldly glory higher than the courts of God the day would come when in England ‘the grace of clear thought will leave your sons’.

It has now come.