Leniency with sin
The Lord Christ said to the angel of the Church of Ephesus, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” What are the reasons that make a person lose his first love?
Perhaps among the foremost of them: leniency with sin, through lack of precision and seriousness.
Leniency with sin
Many begin with God a good beginning, inflamed with love, but they do not continue, and this first love in them grows cold. What is the reason?
Among the prominent reasons: leniency with sin and with oneself…
There are people who are extremely strict and do not tolerate themselves at all.
They exercise strict watch over themselves: over every thought, every feeling, every sense, every behavior, every word…
Sometimes a person begins with this firmness at the start of his relationship with God, but after a while he becomes lenient. He allows things to enter into himself, and these things grow, and he searches for his spirituality and does not find it.
The spiritual person does not tolerate even the things that seem simple.
He who is careful about small things does not fall into great ones.
Saint Sarah said in asceticism: “A mouth that is prevented from water does not ask for wine; and a stomach that is prevented from bread does not ask for meat…”
A person needs to be very precise in every action, not to widen his conscience and say: this matter is simple and has no effect…
Many have fallen as a result of leniency and lack of precision, as in the Book of Judges.
This book tells us how the children of Israel fell into idol worship, and worshiped the gods of the nations, and the kings of the nations, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of their enemies who humiliated them. How did this happen?
We search for the cause of this fall and humiliation, and we find that when they entered the land, they kept some of the Canaanites in it. Mere negligence, or leniency, or a desire for some benefit…
Then they mingled with them, the relationship increased, and they intermarried… and the matter developed until they worshiped their gods… and all this problem was caused by leniency in mixing with the nations!
Do not think that when the devil causes people to fall, he begins with a fatal blow. No, rather he may begin with something simple, then gradually leads him on…
One of the fathers said about him that he is a “rope twister,” and his ropes are extremely long. He may draw a plan for ten years, in which he causes a person to fall after this period, with a long-term gradual policy, in a way that may seem imperceptible…!
Many spiritual thefts come through slow gradualness that is not felt.
A sudden, severe fall is noticed by a person. But he may not feel the slow gradual descent, and thus a plan of the devil steals him.
That is why how beautiful is the saying of the Book in the Song of Songs:
“Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines…”
The large cunning fox may attract your attention and may find it difficult to break into your walls, but the little foxes may find for themselves an entrance to you through any small opening inside yourself that you are not paying attention to.
In the words of Mar Isaac about the reverence and modesty of the body, he said that the one who is modest within himself, in his closed room where no one sees him, it is difficult for him to lose his modesty before people.
Yes, he who is precise in little things cannot fall into great ones.
He who is faithful in little can be set by God over much, and does not fall.
You may be lenient with a thought, accept it, discuss it. Then it takes hold of you, and you try to get rid of it but cannot, because it has established its footing within you through your leniency. No doubt you were able to overcome it at the beginning.
Many have fallen because they fell into what we call late awakening.
That is, they did not wake up to themselves and realize their condition except late, after sin had taken hold of them. We will give examples:
Let us take the example of Lot, and how he awoke very late and fell greatly…
The devil’s plan began by separating him from our father Abraham, from the good example, from the man of God, and from the altar and divine guidance. Lot was lenient in this point, and agreed to dwell far away, then agreed to choose for himself. In his choice he fell into the love of the well-watered land, and thus chose Sodom despite its فساد.
In dwelling in Sodom, he also progressed gradually: he did not enter its depths at once. But he soon mingled with its people, then intermarried with them. He was taken captive with them and his conscience did not awaken. He remained in the city, and the righteous man tormented his soul day by day by mixing with these wicked people.
And when did he awaken? Finally… when the two angels came to warn him of the destruction of the city and he went out of it.
He lost everything he had, even his wife…
Lot was a lesson.
Let us take an example of the precision of the saints from the saying of the Book:
“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment.”
The saints did not understand the phrase “idle word” as meaning evil words such as lying, insults, blasphemy, and condemnation, but rather they understood the idle word as every word that is not for benefit, not for edification, that does not build the soul of the hearer nor build the kingdom… thus they kept silent, speaking only with حساب when they saw that their speech would be for spiritual edification.
Undoubtedly, the one who is precise in his speech, so that he utters only beneficial spiritual words, it is not easy for him to utter an evil word…
Let us take another example of gradual fall, which is Samson the mighty.
He is a man of God, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord came. He lived in Jerusalem, and was lenient in going sometimes to Gaza. In Gaza he found pleasure for himself, so he went there often, stayed, and took a woman. Then his sinful relationships progressed until he finally met Delilah, and progressed with her until he eventually revealed to her his secret and his vow, and fell the great dangerous fall.
And when did he awaken? Finally… after he lost his sight, and his enemies humiliated him, and he asked the Lord that his soul might die with them…!
Precision is very important. We see an example of it in the commandment of the Lord:
“If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out… If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off…” To this extent the Lord asked us to be precise.
Jacob, the father of the fathers, was lenient in one mistake that became a habit in him.
He was lenient with himself in using human wisdom instead of God’s will. He relied on his own intelligence and cunning and brought woe upon himself.
He used his cleverness when he found his brother hungry and asking for food, and took it as an opportunity to buy his birthright. Then he used deceit when he deceived his father and took the blessing. He used the same method in taking the sheep of his uncle Laban, and used human thinking in escaping from his brother Esau. This became a habit in him.
The Lord disciplined him by letting him taste from the same cup: his uncle deceived him in marrying Leah, and his sons deceived him by saying that Joseph had been devoured by a wild beast.
Jacob did not leave the management of his affairs to God from the beginning, and was lenient in using human tricks until this habit took hold of him.
Many fell into the same sin: they left the commandment aside and resorted to human wisdom and personal intelligence, hoping to achieve through it!
Among the examples of leniency with sin is leniency with thoughts…
While the Apostle Paul says, “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” we find a person being lenient with a thought, and it turns into a feeling. He is lenient with the feeling, and it turns into a desire.
He is lenient with the desire, and it tries to find an outlet to express itself in practical things. If he is lenient with these practical things, they gradually uproot all his spirituality…!
How did the first man fall? He fell through leniency with sin.
He allowed himself to sit with the serpent and listen to words against the commandment, which led him to temptation, then weakness, then fall.
Eve was not firm with the wrong thought presented by the serpent. Rather she accepted it, discussed it, then surrendered to it, and the thought overcame her… then it developed into many other sins, and she lost her simplicity and purity…
Whenever a person is lenient with sin, his will weakens accordingly, his love grows cold, his caution decreases, and he loses his firmness.
You are at your full strength at the beginning of the spiritual war, and the more you are lenient, the more you weaken. You find your resistance has decreased, and the effect of sin has increased upon you. When you try to escape, you find obstacles within you, you fall into conflict, and things become confused.
The reason for your weakness when you are lenient with sin is that you fall into betrayal. By betraying God and His love, and betraying your spiritual covenants, you relinquish the grace given to you, reject the spiritual weapon, extinguish the Spirit, and grieve the Holy Spirit within you… and you collapse and fall.
When you are lenient with sin, your ideals weaken, and your spiritual levels decline.
You forget the firmness that Joseph said: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
By your leniency with sin, you lose your spiritual authority before the demons…
The devil fears the true children of God, because they are the image and likeness of God, and because they are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and because God works in them and His grace is with them. Therefore the devil used to flee in fear before the saints…
When Saint Anba Macarius was exiled to the island of Philae, as soon as a demon saw him (who was in the daughter of a pagan priest), the demon cried out saying, “Woe to me from you, Macarius! We left the desert for you, and you have come to this island to drive us out of it also!”
The stories of the fear of the devil from the saints are many and numerous.
But he tests the ordinary believer to see what kind he is: if he finds him lax, accepting his thoughts, opening his doors to him, and betraying the Lord because of him, then this person loses his authority, and the devil plays with him!
When a person hands himself over to the devil, he distances himself from the angels who guard him, and rejects the divine work within him.
Therefore, stay away from the first step. Be firm, and walk with precision. Do not allow the devil to drag you even one step. Be a fortified city and an iron wall; they will fight you, but they will not prevail against you.
Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Eight (Issue Forty-Four) – 4-11-1977.
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