Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?

Transcription

1 Golden Text Ephesians 5:11 have... have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Responsive Reading Psalms 18:28 the, 32; 103:1 6; 71:1 3, 21; 108:1, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. 32 It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. 1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; 5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle s. 6 The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. 1 In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. 2 Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me. 3 Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress. 21 Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. 1 O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory. 2 Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. 1 Jeremiah 29:8 thus, 9, 11 Section 1 8 thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. 9 For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 2 Psalms 57:2, 8 2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. 8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. This copy of a Weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly is licensed for your own personal use and may not be distributed electronically or in print, except as described in the Copyright Terms and Conditions at. Christian Science Quarterly is a trademark owned by The Christian Science Publishing Society. Study references are from the Bible (King James Version) and the Christian Science textbook, with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. The Golden Text is from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

2 3 Psalms 121:1, 2, 4, 7 (to :) 1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: 1 414:21 23 Section 1 21 The Scripture declares, The Lord He is God [good]; there is none else beside Him. Even so, harmony is universal, and discord is unreal :4 5 Sin, disease, and death have no foundations in Truth. Matter is not inflamed 3 188:11 15 Mortal existence is a dream of pain and pleasure in 12 matter, a dream of sin, sickness, and death; and it is like the dream we have in sleep, in which every one Disease recognizes his condition to be wholly a state of a dream 15 mind :24 30 All 24 All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore 27 the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not 30 true, because they are not of God. Section 2 4 I Corinthians 15:33 (to :), 34 (to ;) 33 Be not deceived: 34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; 5 Romans 6:12 14, 16 Unrealities that seem real 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 6 Isaiah 1: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18 Come now, and let us 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 2

3 reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 7 Psalms 4:4 (to :) 4 Stand in awe, and sin not: Section :26 Sin should become unreal to every one. It is in itself 27 inconsistent, a divided kingdom. Its supposed realism has no divine authority, and I rejoice in the apprehension of this grand verity : Sensualism is not bliss, but bondage. For true happiness, man must harmonize with his Principle, divine Love; the 9 Son must be in accord with the Father, in conformity with Christ :23 Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and to 24 proclaim the right. But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good? 27 Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of Moral courage his mistake in seeking material means for gaining happiness. Reason is the most active human faculty. Let 30 that inform the sentiments and awaken the man s dormant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense 1 and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or corporeal. Then he not only will 3 be saved, but is saved. 8 Leviticus 19:2 Ye Section 3 2 Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy. 9 I John 3:7 (to :), 9 7 Little children, let no man deceive you: 9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 II Corinthians 4:6 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 11 Romans 6:22 now 22 now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 3

4 8 475:7 9, 28 1 (to 1 st.) Section 3 The Scriptures inform us that man is made in 9 the image and likeness of God. Fleshly factors unreal 12 Psalms 17:6 (to :), 15 I will Section 4 6 I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: 15 I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor 30 can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not 1 God s man :3 7 3 The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal 6 selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship :7 12 Being is holiness, harmony, immortality. It is already proved that a knowledge of this, even in small degree, 9 will uplift the physical and moral standard Man unfallen Jesus as mediator Mind one and all of mortals, will increase longevity, will purify and elevate character. Thus progress will finally destroy 12 all error, and bring immortality to light. 13 Matthew 4:23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. 24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. 14 Mark 1: And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. 42 And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 4

5 11 xi:9 14 Section 4 9 The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their real- 12 ity in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation :28 10 It is the transgression of a belief of mortal mind, not of a law of 30 matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sickness. The remedy is Truth, not matter, the truth that disease is unreal. 1 If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, 3 or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth? But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, 6 holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick. This is the sal- 9 vation which comes through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus :17 28 In infinite Life and Love there is no sickness, sin, nor 18 death, and the Scriptures declare that we live, move, and have our being in the infinite God. Think less of the enactments of mortal mind, and you 21 will sooner grasp man s God-given dominion. You must understand your way out of human theories relating to health, or you will never believe 24 that you are quite free from some ailment. The harmony and immortality of man will never be reached without the understanding that Mind is not in matter. 27 Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony, God s law : The necessity for uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it; for Mind can impart purity instead of impurity, strength instead of weak- 30 ness, and health instead of disease :15 18 (to 2 nd.) God-given dominion 15 Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside 18 Him. There is no disease. 15 Psalms 37:37 Section 5 37 Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace. 16 Psalms 43:5 hope 5 hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 5

6 17 Isaiah 57:19 Peace 19 Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him. 18 Isaiah 58:6, 8 (to :) 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: :15 Section 5 15 Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health. The Science of Mind-healing Health and the senses 18 shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testi- 21 mony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows 24 false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic :20 Truth, and 21 not corporeal will, is the divine power which says to disease, Peace, be still :16 18, 23 To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth, of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material 18 senses. Mentally insist that harmony is the fact, and 24 that sickness is a temporal dream. Realize the presence of health and the fact of harmonious being, until the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health 27 and harmony : God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression 24 of God s being :3 5 3 God s being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 19 Romans 13:11 now Section 6 Indestructible relationship 11 now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 6

7 20 Luke 8:40 42, (to :) 40 And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him. 41 And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: 42 For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a-dying. But as he went the people thronged him. 49 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. 50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. 51 And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. 52 And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. 53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. 54 And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. 55 And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. 56 And her parents were astonished: 21 Romans 13:12 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light :6 Section 6 6 Death will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light : Thought will waken from its own material declaration, I am dead, to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, There 1 is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor reaction. 3 Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and 6 immortality. A belief in death Vision opening :14 The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still 15 overcomes death proves the king of terrors to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys Death but with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this an illusion 18 shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process :6 8 6 Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Renewed selfhood 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 7

8 25 218:32 2 When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, 1 pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease. 22 Isaiah 60:1, 2, 19 Section 7 1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 23 Job 11:17 17 And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning. 24 Revelation 21:3 6 3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely :27 Section 7 27 Because man is the reflection of his Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, decay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not 30 divine :27 Beatific presence 27 Man is the idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He 30 is above sin or frailty. He does not cross the barriers of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with God and the universe :9 9 Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God, and man is the idea 12 of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not subject to decay and dust. The Psalmist said: Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy 15 hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet. A mortal not man 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 8

9 29 428:22 The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold 24 forever the consciousness of existence, and The present immortality sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence 27 of man s immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted :26 We must form perfect 27 models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, 30 health, holiness, love the kingdom of heaven reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear. Perfect models 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights reserved. 9