Golden Text Psalms 119:121 leave, 174

Transcription

1 Christian Science Quarterly Oct Golden Text Psalms 119:121 leave, 174 Responsive Reading Psalms 35:9 my; 19:7, 8; 9:2 4, 9 11, 14 I will... leave me not to mine oppressors.... I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord; and thy law is my delight.... my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation. 7 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony SUBJECT of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High. 3 When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence. 4 For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right. 9 The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. 10 And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. 11 Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion: declare among the people his doings I will rejoice in thy salvation. SECTION ONE: God s law of harmony, health, and life is supreme! Page 2 SECTION TWO: The presence of God s law makes sin unreal. Page 3 SECTION THREE: Walk in God s law and prove sickness unreal. Page 4 SECTION FOUR: Because God s law is life, death is unreal. Page 5 SECTION FIVE: God s law means salvation is now! Page 6 Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?

2 THE BIBLE t Section 1 SCIENCE and HEALTH with Key to the Scriptures 1 Isaiah 51:3 the (to :), 4, 7 (to ;), 8 my, 11, 12 (to :) he Lord shall comfort Zion: 4 Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. 7 Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; 8 my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. 11 Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. 12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: Mary Baker Eddy 1 473:7 10 Christ the ideal Truth The God principle is omnipresent and omnipotent. God is every9 where, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power :15 15 God is the lawmaker, but He is not the author of barbarous codes. 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.... The whole earth 2 Psalms 103:2 4, 6, 19 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; 6 The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. 19 The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. 3 Psalms 119:142 Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth. 4 Psalms 98:3 all all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. has seen God s salvation of his people. Psalms 98:3 The Living Bible hearken: listen; pay attention iniquities: sins; wrongdoings barbarous: cruel; merciless codes: laws constituted: made bind: tie customary: popular; traditional conjectural: based on incomplete information speculative: based on guesswork 3 229:15 15 By universal consent, mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death. This customary belief is misnamed material Self-constituted law 18 law, and the individual who upholds it is mis taken in theory and in practice. The so-called law of mortal mind, conjectural and speculative, is made void 21 by the law of immortal Mind, and false law should be trampled under foot :3 3 Truth makes no laws to regulate sickness, sin, and death, for these are unknown to Truth and should not be recognized as reality :27 Annihilation of error Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God. 27 Christian Science proves that we are governed by spiritual law, not barbarous codes. You can read about a demonstration of that starting on p. 694 of Science and Health in the chapter Fruitage. Everlasting arms of Love Are beneath, around, above; God it is who bears us on, His the arm we lean upon.* Archers, loose your arrows! Which beliefs will you destroy? God s law of harmony, health, and life reigns supreme. belief in belief in belief in Listen to me, my people. Pay attention, my nation. My law will go out to the nations. I make everything right. That will be a guiding light for them. Isaiah 51:4 New International Reader s Version Visit mybiblelesson.com Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real? 2 Oct. 6 12, 2014

3 2 THE BIBLE Section SCIENCE and HEALTH with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy 6 5 Hebrews 8:10, 12 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. A 6 Luke 19:1 9 nd Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. 2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchæus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. 3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. 4 And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house. 6 And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. 8 And Zacchæus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. 9 And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. 7 Romans 6:14 (to :) For sin shall not have dominion over you: An artist s idea of what Zacchæus may have looked like. 230:11 15 It would be contrary to our highest ideas of God to 12 suppose Him capable of first arranging law and causation so as to bring about certain evil results, and then punishing the helpless victims of His vo- 15 lition for doing what they could not avoid doing. God never inconsistent 7 231:12 12 If God makes sin, if good produces evil, if truth results in error, then Science and Christianity are helpless; but there are no antagonistic powers nor laws, spiritual or 15 material, creating and governing man through perpetual warfare. God is not the author of mortal discords. Therefore we accept the conclusion that discords have 18 only a fabulous existence, are mortal beliefs which divine Truth and Love destroy :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 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. Moral courage 9 458:23 24, 28 The Christianly scientific man reflects the 24 divine law, thus becoming a law unto himself. The panoply of wisdom He must prove, through living as well as healing and teaching, that Christ s way is the only one 30 by which mortals are radically saved from sin and sickness :14 The perfect man governed 15 by God, his perfect Principle is sinless and eternal. press: crowd stature: height fourfold: four times volition: will antagonistic: opposing; conflicting; hostile fabulous: unreal; fictional; mythical meet: face; stand up to; overcome Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real? 3

4 3 8 Habakkuk 3:18 I will, 19 (to 1 st.) 11 I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. 19 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. J9 John 5:1 9 Jesus (to :) esus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? 7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. 8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. 9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: THE BIBLE Section SCIENCE and HEALTH with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy 10 Psalms 119:1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. He our ever-present guide Faithful is, whate er betide; Gladly then we journey on, With His arm to lean upon.* The LORD gives me strength. He makes my feet as sure as those of a deer, and he helps me stand on the mountains. Habakkuk 3:19 Contemporary English Version hinds : deer s tongue: language annul: cancel; overrule; make nothing banish: drive away forever; expel permanently dispute: contradict; challenge 230:20 22 Does a law of God produce sick- 21 ness, and can man put that law under his feet by healing sickness? :23 10 If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, 24 and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He makes is good and will stand forever. If the Sickness from transgression of God s law produces sickness, it mortal mind 27 is right to be sick; and we cannot if we would, and should not if we could, annul the decrees of wisdom. 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 :27 27 Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony, God s law. It is man s moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never 30 inflicted by divine authority :12, When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the testimony of the material senses with divine Science. Let your higher sense of justice destroy the false Unnecessary 15 process of mortal opinions which you name prostration law, and then you will not be confined to a sick-room nor laid upon a bed of suffering in payment of the last far- 18 thing, the last penalty demanded by error. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him. Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon 21 the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no 24 law of His to support the necessity either of sin or sickness, but you have divine authority for denying that necessity and healing the sick. You are an outlaw, banished from God s kingdom, never to return! Ta-ta! Rise in the conscious strength of the 1 spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit. 3 Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Then, when thou art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, Thou 6 art whole! Sickness Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real? 4

5 4 11 Psalms 13:3, 5 I have 15 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; 5 I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. A 12 Acts 20:7 12 nd upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. 8 And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. 9 And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. 10 And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. 11 When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. 12 And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted. THE BIBLE Section SCIENCE and HEALTH with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy 13 Psalms 119:41, 55, 77 Let thy mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even thy salvation, according to thy word. 55 I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night, and have kept thy law. 77 Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight. Paul had stopped at Troas, a Greek city in what is now Turkey, on his way back to Jerusalem after visiting Christian communities in Greece. Troas TURKEY Fishing boat in the Aegean Sea near Troas. 253:25 Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, disease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God 27 never requires obedience to a so-called material law, for no such law exists. The belief in sin and death is destroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life in- 30 stead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit instead of the flesh :5 11 Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, 6 and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense Accidents unknown to God 9 of God s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony. Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection :27 27 Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his 30 high estate. Individual permanency :17 25 If you or I should appear to die, we should not be 18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality miscalled life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 24 remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from sin, disease, and death :2 9 Life is 3 the law of Soul, even the law of the spirit of Life not Truth, and Soul is never without its represent- contingent on matter ative. Man s individual being can no more 6 die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal. If man believes in death now, he must disbelieve in it when learning that there is no reality 9 in death, since the truth of being is deathless :16 18 If man is governed by the law of divine Mind, his body is in sub- 18 mission to everlasting Life and Truth and Love. Mediterranean Sea km mi EGYPT CYPRUS GALILEE ISRAEL Jericho Jerusalem SYRIA Sea of Galilee Dead Sea divine Providence: God s provision; God s guidance and loving care estate: status; standing; rank assassins: killers; murderers paramount: supreme; foremost Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real? 5

6 THE BIBLE Section I 5 SCIENCE and HEALTH with Key to the Scriptures 14 Isaiah 61:10 Mary Baker Eddy 21 39: Now, cried the apostle, is the accepted time; be hold, now is the day of salvation, meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salvapresent salvation 21 tion, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life. Now is the time for so-called material pains and material pleas24 ures to pass away, for both are unreal, because impossible in Science. will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. 15 Psalms 119:97 (to!) O how love I thy law! : Psalms 3:8 (to 1st.) Sin, disease, and death have no foundations in Truth. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord: thy blessing is upon thy people :9 17 Isaiah 52:9, 10 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. 18 II Corinthians 6:2 now now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. LEBRATING CE Matter is not inflamed Deliverance belongs to the LORD; thy blessing be upon thy people!... Psalms 3:8 Revised Standard Version GOD S L A 9 I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the under standing of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed har mony, that, as you read, you see there is no Heavenbestowed 12 cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sense prerogative which is not power) able to make you sick or sinful; and I hope that you are conquering this false sense. 15 Knowing the falsity of so-called material sense, you can assert your prerogative to overcome the belief in sin, dis ease, or death :32 The relations of God and man, divine Principle and 1 idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine 3 order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He cre ates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history. W In the Bible, God s power is often symbolized by an arm or hand his holy arm, as here, his outstretched arm (for example, Deuteronomy 26:8), or his mighty arm (Psalm 89:13). F rom earth s fears and vain alarms Safe in His encircling arms, He will keep us all the way, God, our refuge, strength and stay.* decketh: adorns; elegantly dresses waste: barren; desolate heaven -bestowed: God -given prerogative: special right or privilege lapse: fall; slip; departure; interruption Visit mybiblelesson.com Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real? 6 Oct. 6 12, 2014

7 A life turned It was so dark as I walked along the street that I couldn t see the ground. Then I heard a voice, as if someone were talking right next to me. You are God s loved child, it said. I was 15 years old, and I was walking with my friends to the closest convenience store so we could find someone to buy us beer. We had smoked all the marijuana we had, and we were thirsty. Smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, and consuming other illegal drugs had become a regular activity for us. But this night was different. As we walked in the dark, I heard the voice. I turned to see who was speaking, but no one was there. This angel message from God began to wake me up. It had been two years since I had attended a Christian Science Sunday School. I had been taught from a young age that God is Love, and that this Love would always be with me and guide me. However, I had never felt or experienced this Love myself, though I had heard other people tell about its presence in their lives. That night, it was suddenly about me. I had completely rejected the teachings of Christian Science and I was in a druginduced stupor, but I still heard God speaking directly to me, in my own thinking, so strongly that it sounded like a voice. This angel message from God began to wake me up. My friends and I didn t get any alcohol that night, and I immediately sobered up. While I continued down the around BY road of drugs and alcohol for another two years, trying to ignore what I had heard, questions nevertheless started coming to me, like, How can I act and think so badly if God still loves me? What does God s love mean to me? What am I going to do about it? Finally, one Sunday morning, I went to Sunday School. I arrived very early and sat in my assigned class all by myself. After only a few minutes, I felt so agitated that I left. But I returned the next Sunday, and this time the teacher of the college-age class invited me to sit with his class even though I was younger than the other students. He had seen me come and go the week before, and he must have known something of what was at work in my thinking because he was quickly able to put me at ease. In fact, I eventually took Christian Science class instruction from him the next summer, which is a two-week course about how to heal in Christian Science. I discovered that no matter how long I had participated in immoral, self-destructive activities, I could never change the eternal fact that God loved me. God didn t love the foul actions, nor did He love me in spite of those actions, but He loved me because God simply could not help loving what He saw of Himself. In the first chapter of Genesis we read that man is made in the image and likeness of God (see verses 26, 27). To me, this meant I was what God saw when He looked at the reflection of Himself, which is only good. What had before appeared to be my actions and my thoughts, when I drank and did drugs, never actually belonged to my true identity. Through this understanding, all the past wrongs dropped away. What s more, I felt as if I had never lost anything, not even God s love or my closeness to God. It was as if all the years of drugs and alcohol, and the absence from Sunday School, never affected me. For a short time, though, I lost friends. My former friends had no desire to follow DAVID me in my new spiritual journey, and I found myself socially isolated and alone. But as I prayed, I found a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that was very helpful. It reads: Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love (p. 266). Right where I didn t have friends, divine Love had already filled the void. How could it be otherwise? God had already told me that I was loved! How could infinite Love fall short and leave me? I discovered that true friendship was an expression of God, Love. And God was already giving me new friends, with people who held the same understanding of God that I was learning about. Every Sunday and Wednesday, when I attended Sunday School and church, I was in the presence of friends. My social interactions with these individuals quickly increased, and I soon found myself with what became lifelong friendships. Looking back, I have come to a couple of conclusions: First, God is always speaking to me and to all. We just need to listen for God s angel messages. Second, no matter how far we may think we have strayed from God, we haven t. God never changes. What was true about the love of God yesterday is still true today. No one is ever beyond the loving embrace of God. We are all being constantly guided to a fuller, happier expression of who we are as God s loved child. This article was originally published in the February 2014 issue of The Christian Science Journal. You can find this piece (and thousands more!) at jsh.christianscience.com. PHOTO ATTRIBUTIONS: Page 2: Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Thinkstock: aerial photo of clouds Page 4: Photodisc/Digital Vision/Thinkstock: fields and mountains Page 5: Jean Wheeler: Troas, Turkey Page 6: Mawuena Davies: 20-somethings, mod. Page 7: Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Thinkstock: up against a wall *Based on a hymn by John R. MacDuff, Christian Science Hymnal No. 53, adapt. CSBD. Used by permission of The Mary Baker Eddy Collection. All nonattributed graphics, photos, and digitally modified images by mbl staff. Pearl Hint: Blessings to you and all. Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real? 7

8 mybiblelesson INFO PAGE we d love to hear from you! mybiblelesson is for you! So send us your feedback on how it s helping you get more out of the Bible Lesson when you study. We want to know what s working... and what s not! We also love to publish your photos and artwork whenever they work well with the lesson ideas. If you d like to contribute, contact us at staff@mybiblelesson.com for details. BIBLE INFO: TRANSLATIONS: All Scriptural quotations used in the text of mybiblelesson are taken from the King James Version of The Holy Bible, unless otherwise indicated. MAWUENA DAVIES The following are verbally equivalent translations used for In Other Words. These translations tend to use the oldest available and most recently discovered manuscripts to translate the literal meaning of the text word-for-word. Amplified Bible: Scriptural quotations marked Amplified Bible are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. 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