Spiritual Symbols and the Reassurance of God s Presence and Power April 26, 2017 Hymns 44, 30, 401 The Bible New International Version Genesis 6:9, 11, 13 (to 1 st.) 14 make, 17-19, 21, 22 Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Now the earth was corrupt in God s sight and was full of violence. So God said to Noah, I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark you and your sons and your wife and your sons wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them. Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Genesis 7:11, 12, 17 In the six hundredth year of Noah s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. Genesis 8:1, 6-11 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so, it retuned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself into the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. Genesis 9:12-17 And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to
come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind,. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. So, God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on earth King James Version Isaiah 42:5-8 Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Daniel 4:3 How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation. Ezekiel 1:28 (to 2nd.) As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. John 4:46-53 Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. John 20:30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
Matthew 24:37 as, 45-47 As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. Phil 4:5 The Lord, 7 The Lord is at hand. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy 255:11-14 Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to belittle Deity with human conceptions. In league with material sense, mortals take limited views of all things. 584:26 DOVE. A symbol of divine Science; purity and peace; hope and faith. 502:6-7, 14 Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the history of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal.even thus the crude forms of human thought take on higher symbols and significations, when scientifically Christian views of the universe appear, illuminating time with the glory of eternity. 150:13 Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin, to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world. 320:4-25 Metaphors abound in the Bible, and names are often expressive of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished theologians in Europe and America agree that the Scriptures have both a spiritual and literal meaning. In Smith s Bible Dictionary it is said: The spiritual interpretation of Scripture must rest upon both the literal and moral; and in the learned article on Noah in the same work, the familiar text, Genesis vi. 3, And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, is quoted as follows, from the original Hebrew: And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not forever rule [or be humbled] in men, seeing that they are [or, in their error they are] but flesh. Here the original text declares plainly the spiritual fact of being, even man s eternal and harmonious existence as image, idea, instead of matter (how ever transcendental such a thought appears), and avers that this fact is not forever to be humbled by the belief that man is flesh and matter, for according to that error man is mortal. The one important interpretation of Scripture is the spiritual.
575:13-16 Spiritual teaching must always be by symbols. Did not Jesus illustrate the truths he taught by the mustard-seed and the prodigal? 232:27 It is only when the so-called pleasures and pains of sense pass away in our lives, that we find unquestionable signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life. 247:19-21 Being, 24 Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness. 519:11-16 Human capacity is slow to discern and to grasp God s creation and the divine power and presence which go with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin. Mortals can never know the infinite, until they throw off the old man and reach the spiritual image and likeness. 347:12 Critics should consider that the so-called mortal man is not the reality of man. Then they would behold the signs of Christ s coming. Christ, as the spiritual or true idea of God, comes now as of old, preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the sick, and casting out evils. Is it error which is restoring an essential element of Christianity, namely, apostolic, divine healing? No; it is the Science of Christianity which is restoring it, and is the light shining in darkness, which the darkness comprehends not. 85:22-23 Both Jew and Gentile may have had acute corporeal senses, but mortals need spiritual sense. 238:31-1 The cross is the central emblem of history. It is the lodestar in the demonstration of Christian healing, the demonstration by which sin and sickness are destroyed. 509:29-2 Knowing the Science of creation, in which all is Mind and its ideas, Jesus rebuked the material thought of his fellow-countrymen: Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? How much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense! 233:17-22 Ye who can discern the face of the sky, the sign material, how much more should ye discern the sign mental, and compass the destruction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts which produce them, and by understanding the spiritual idea which corrects and destroys them.
339:20-25 As the mythology of pagan Rome has yielded to a more spiritual idea of Deity, so will our material theories yield to spiritual ideas, until the finite gives place to the infinite, sickness to health, sin to holiness, and God s kingdom comes in earth, as it is in heaven. 511:5 Thus God s ideas multiply and replenish the earth. The divine Mind supports the sublimity, magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation. 280:1 In the infinitude of Mind, matter must be unknown. Symbols and elements of discord and decay are not products of the infinite, perfect, and eternal All. From Love and from the light and harmony which are the abode of Spirit, only reflections of good can come. 503:10-15 In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown. No supposition of error enters there. Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, God is All-in-all, and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe. 98:4-7 The prophet of to-day beholds in the mental horizon the signs of these times, the reappearance of the Christianity which heals the sick and destroys error, and no other sign shall be given. 519:9-11 Thus the ideas of God in universal being are complete and forever expressed, for Science reveals infinity and the fatherhood and motherhood of Love. 468:10-11 All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.