Examinations
Examinations 1
On the occasion of the examinations that students are going through, I want to speak to you today about the examinations in general and practical life with respect to the human being. It is necessary to test the will of the human being to know in which direction it inclines: toward good or evil, and to what extent.
And according to a person’s success or failure in the examinations of life, his destiny in eternity is determined. And these examinations, whatever their type, upon them depends the reward or punishment in the general judgment. And the spiritual person must succeed. And the Lord spoke about the types of “overcomers” and the types of their rewards, in His messages to the angels of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 2–3).
One of the most difficult examinations that a human being faced was the examination of our father Abraham, in offering his only son whom he loved as a burnt offering to the Lord.
It was an examination in obedience and in faith; it was also an examination in the extent of his love for God, and in the Lord’s later statement: “He who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37).
And our father Abraham succeeded in this examination with excellence: he never hesitated, but Abraham rose early in the morning, and took with him the wood and the knife and his only son Isaac. And he built an altar, and bound his son upon the wood, and lifted the knife to slay him (Gen. 22).
And as Abraham succeeded in the examination of obedience and love, Joseph the Righteous succeeded in the examination of chastity. And his success was also with excellence. The sin before him was very easy, and the temptation of this sin pressed upon him every day. Rather, not committing it would cause him trouble, because the one who was asking him was the wife of his master. But he rose above sin, and said his famous phrase: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen. 39:9). And for the sake of his chastity, he endured prison, bad reputation, and the anger of his master…
And as Abraham was rewarded for his success, so Joseph the Righteous was rewarded. Our father Abraham was rewarded with descendants as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea in multitude, and that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:17–18).
And Joseph was blessed in that the Lord brought him out of prison to kingship, and made him a father to Pharaoh, lord over all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt (Gen. 45:8).
Truly, God is faithful and generous in dealing with the faithful among humans who set God before their eyes, and in their hearts a complete commitment concerning obeying Him. But sinners who fail forget God during their sin…
Among the people who succeeded with great excellence in the examination of faith:
All the martyrs and confessors.
Before them were unbearable torments, but they endured them with surpassing courage. Before them were also many temptations they would receive if they denied God and worshipped idols. But they refused them with all exaltation. And they succeeded in the examination of their faith with a success that had its effect on those who witnessed their martyrdom, so they believed because of them.
As for our father Abraham, his examination was in the death of his son. But the martyrs, their examination was in their own death, and in the very severe torments of which death was much easier… And when they succeeded in their endurance and steadfastness, God rewarded them with crowns of glory, and He accepts their intercessions for many after their death.
Among those who also succeeded with excellence: the anchorites, the solitaries, and the ascetics. They succeeded in the examination of complete detachment and complete dedication to preoccupation with God and His love, in a life of contemplation and prayer, and a life of silence and solitude. And they distanced themselves from everything, so that God might become everything to them.
And some of them also succeeded in the examination of fear, and the examination of doubts, like Saint Abba Antony the Great, to whom the demons appeared in the form of savage beasts baring their teeth to attack him, with terrifying frightening scenes. And sometimes the demons beat him with harsh painful blows…
But he endured all this, and succeeded in steadfastness in his solitude. And the time came when the demons themselves became afraid of him. And God granted him awe before them.
Among those who succeeded with excellence in faith: our father Noah. He believed what God told him about the flood. And for many years he built the ark, and by faith he brought into it all the beasts and animals and birds. And he entered it also with his family, and it was closed upon him… Therefore he became, by his success, father of all humanity like our father Adam. And he received the same blessing and authority that Adam received (Gen. 9:1–2).
Among those who succeeded greatly, but with a soul that was bitter in the way: Job the Righteous, who succeeded in the examination of patience. God stripped him of everything: of all his wealth, all his children; and also stripped him of his health, striking him with a severe sore from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head (Job 2:7). And also stripped him of the respect of his friends. And his smell became offensive even to his wife… And the young laughed at him and spat in his face, and he became their song (Job 30:1,11). And he endured all this and would say: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
Thus the Lord rewarded him with a great reward, and lifted his trial from him, and he lived after that 140 years (Job 42:16). And he became an example of patience as the Apostle James said: “You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the outcome of the Lord” (James 5:11).
They succeeded in the second round
There are people who failed in the first round and succeeded in the second. Among them is the prophet Jonah, who in the first round fled from God. God commanded him to go to Nineveh to proclaim against it. But he did not want to obey; rather he boarded a ship heading to Tarshish and fled from the presence of the Lord… So the Lord punished him for this failure: with winds and waves, and being thrown into the sea, where God prepared for him a great fish that swallowed him (Jon. 1:15–17).
In the belly of the fish, Jonah received private lessons through which he learned obedience, as God granted him the second round, in which he went to Nineveh and proclaimed against it, and led it to repentance (Jon. 3:3,10).
The amazing thing is that Jonah—after he succeeded in the second round—fell again. And God did not leave him to his weakness, but gave him a special lesson.
Among those who succeeded in the second round also is the apostle Peter, who was more confident in himself than he should have been, and did not prepare with humility and prayer for the coming examination. The result was that he failed and denied the Lord three times, and wept bitterly (Matt. 26:75).
But Peter succeeded after the Lord’s Resurrection, and did not fear as before. Rather he would say to those who tried to prevent him from preaching the Resurrection: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
And though fear made him fail and then succeed in the second round, yet he ended his life with excellence, especially in the subject of “preaching.” And in his life at times there remained something of fear, for which the apostle Paul rebuked him (Gal. 2:11,14).
Among those who also succeeded in the second round: the group of penitents. They began their lives in sin and continued in it for a long time. Then they left it and repented. Among these examples: Saint Augustine, Saint Moses the Black, Saint Mary of Egypt, Saint Pelagia, and Saint Sarah…
They fell first then rose with great strength, until those who bore these names ended their lives with excellence. They did not move only from sin to a life of repentance, but to a life of holiness. And they gave us an example to follow, so that we do not despair no matter how much we fall, but have hope in a better life. And let us put before us the saying of Scripture: “A righteous man falls seven times and rises again” (Prov. 24:16).
And also the saying of Scripture: “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; for if I fall, I will rise” (Mic. 7:8). David the prophet, though he was a great prophet, a man of prayer and psalms, yet he fell into several falls (2 Sam. 11). Then he rose afterward, and repented a sincere repentance, and watered his couch with his tears (Ps. 6).
Among those who also fell in the first round then rose: Lot the righteous. He fell in the examination of “lack of love of money.” He loved living in the land of Sodom, because it was a well-watered land, a land of irrigation like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt (Gen. 13:10). And he did not care about its spiritual condition.
And he fell a second time, because after he had been taken captive with the people of Sodom in the war of the four kings, he returned and lived in Sodom again. And the apostle Peter said about him: “That righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds” (2 Pet. 2:8)… until God delivered him, for he was “oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked” (2 Pet. 2:7).
Lot the righteous is a type of people who succeeded, not by their own effort, but by grace from God, who had mercy on him (Gen. 19).
How many are those who succeeded by grace and perhaps do not deserve success.
There is an example of a man who succeeded first by cheating and by trickery: Jacob the patriarch, who by deceiving his father succeeded in taking the birthright. And his mother was the one who instructed him in the deception (Gen. 27). And he had before that by trickery bought the birthright from his brother Esau (Gen. 25:29,34). And God disciplined him for his deceit. And Jacob said of his life to Pharaoh: “The days of the years of my sojourning are few and evil” (Gen. 47:9).
Among those who fell then received success by divine salvation: our first parents Adam and Eve. They fell in the examination of “knowledge.” They took knowledge from the devil, the old serpent, who tempted them and deceived them, and they broke the commandment of God…
And the result of the fall was that they were cast out of the garden. But they returned and succeeded when the Lord came, on their behalf and on behalf of the human race in everything, and granted them and all their children salvation by His precious blood.
There is also a man who almost fell in the examination but succeeded through a wise woman who taught him the correct answer in the practical examination: this is David the prophet, who almost avenged himself and killed Nabal the Carmelite and all that belonged to him. Abigail saved him from falling by her wisdom…
She met him before the practical examination, and showed him the dangerous consequences of what he intended to do, and advised him in a polite manner that he could accept. So he thanked her for the correct answer she showed him, and said to her: “Blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand” (1 Sam. 25:33).
And David here was an example of one who succeeded by another’s wisdom, not by his own.
Solomon was also among those who fell but rose at the end. He fell in the subject of women and in the subject of luxury. For he took for himself foreign wives who worshipped strange gods. And concerning luxury he said of himself: “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them” (Eccl. 2:10).
And it was said in Solomon’s fall: “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David… Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David…” (1 Kings 11:4,6).
And Solomon repented and succeeded in the second round, as appears in the Book of Ecclesiastes, in which he said: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and grasping for the wind” (Eccl. 1:2), after the Lord disciplined him according to His promise to his father David, saying: “I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body… If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him” (2 Sam. 7:12,14–15).
Among those who fell in the first round then finally succeeded: Samson the mighty. This mighty man fell in two subjects: “keeping the vow,” and “women.” Because of his love for Delilah, he surrendered to her and revealed to her his secret, and she cut the hair of his head, and thus he broke the vow. And the result was that his enemies humiliated him greatly, and they gouged out his eyes, and he ground grain in the prison like an animal (Judg. 16:21). But he finally succeeded and triumphed. And the apostle Paul placed him among the heroes of faith (Heb. 11:32).
They fell and were expelled
Some faced the examination, failed, and continued in failure, and were expelled permanently. At the top of these is Satan. He was an angel, and a cherub full of wisdom and perfect in beauty (Ezek. 28:12). But he fell in the subject of “greatness and pride,” when he said in his heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13–14). So he fell. And he did not stop at his fall, but worked to cause the fall of others among angels and humans, and continues so until now. He inserts himself into every examination of people to cause them to give the wrong answer, and rejoices in their fall. And he was permanently expelled from the kingdom of God. And after the crucifixion of the Lord Christ he was bound for a thousand years, and will end in the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 20:2,10).
He did not have a second round to succeed in, for he fell in all rounds. And falling became his hobby and his craft!!
Among those who fell permanently: King Ahab, who not only spread idol worship, he and his wife Jezebel, but also fell in the examination of the “lust of acquisition” and the examination of “authority.” For he desired to possess the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. And his wife helped him by fabricating a charge of blasphemy against Naboth, and obtaining false witnesses. And the matter ended with Ahab possessing the vineyard after killing Naboth the Jezreelite.
And the Lord commanded the prophet Elijah to deliver to Ahab the judgment of the Lord: “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick your blood, even yours” (1 Kings 21:19). And Jezebel ended with the same end.
Among those who fell and were permanently expelled: Cain the murderer. He is the first human whom God cursed, saying: “Cursed are you from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand… A fugitive and a wanderer you shall be on the earth” (Gen. 4:11–12). The Lord expelled him from His kingdom. And Cain felt this punishment and said to the Lord: “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face” (Gen. 4:13–14).
Likewise the Lord expels from His kingdom all who spread idolatry like Ahab, all who murder like Ahab and Cain, and die without repentance. Likewise Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:33), Omri (1 Kings 16:25,26), and Ahaziah son of Ahab (1 Kings 22:51,52), and Manasseh (2 Kings 21:1–7), and others of the kings of the Old Testament, and of the kings of the nations, and of all atheists.
Among the examinations that the Lord also presented to people: false visions and dreams, and false teachers or false prophets. And concerning this the Lord said in Deuteronomy: “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Deut. 13:1–3).
Thus all innovators and heretics, from all teachers and great personalities, were an examination for people: would they follow them with all that they offered of teachings that were high in their eyes! Thus Arius was the greatest preacher in Alexandria in his era. And so was Eutyches, the most devout monk in Constantinople. And others of the teachers who astonished the people with their teachings and innovations…
And also He tested people by miracles and visions. For this reason Saint John the Beloved said: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world…” (1 John 4:1).
And perhaps the most dangerous example is the Anti-Christ, whom some call the Deceiver Messiah, who will come at the end of time and will be the cause of the great apostasy, “whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish” (2 Thess. 2:9–10).
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Watani newspaper, 4–5–1997.
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