Theme: Illusion
Hymn 359
William P. McKenzie
Trust the Eternal when the shadows gather,
When joys of daylight seem so like a dream;
God the unchanging pities like a father;
Trust on and wait, the daystar yet shall gleam.
Trust the Eternal, for the clouds that vanish
No more can move the mountains from their base
Than sin's illusive wreaths of mist can banish
Light from His throne or loving from His face.
Trust the Eternal, and repent in meekness
Of that heart's pride which frowns and will not
yield,
Then to thy child-heart shall come strength in
weakness,
And thine immortal life shall be revealed.
Readings from the Bible.
Exodus 20:16
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Exodus 23:1,2 (to ;),7
Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. #Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil;
Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
Psalms 27:11-14
Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.
Psalms 35:9-11 my,24
my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation. All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him? False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.
Judge me, O Lord my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.
Psalms 119:97-104,119:124-128
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes. I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies. It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law. Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.
Matthew 7:7-20
#Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. #Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. #Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Romans 13:1,2 (to :),7,8,9 4th Thou shalt (to 5th ,)
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God:
Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
Thou shalt not bear false witness,
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
71:1-9
Nothing is real and eternal,--nothing is Spirit,--but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense.
The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever; but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not in Spirit's formations. Soul is synonymous with Spirit, God, the creative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form, which forms only reflect.
129:22
We must look deep into realism instead of accepting only the outward sense of things. Can we gather peaches from a pine-tree, or learn from discord the concord of being? Yet quite as rational are some of the leading illusions along the path which Science must tread in its reformatory mission among mortals. The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.
168:24
I have discerned disease in the human mind, and recognized the patient's fear of it, months before the so-called disease made its appearance in the body. Disease being a belief, a latent illusion of mortal mind, the sensation would not appear if the error of belief was met and destroyed by truth.
217:15-2
That scientific methods are superior to others, is seen by their effects. When you have once conquered a diseased condition of the body through Mind, that condition never recurs, and you have won a point in Science. When mentality gives rest to the body, the next toil will fatigue you less, for you are working out the problem of being in divine metaphysics; and in proportion as you understand the control which Mind has over so-called matter, you will be able to demonstrate this control. The scientific and permanent remedy for fatigue is to learn the power of Mind over the body or any illusion of physical weariness, and so destroy this illusion, for matter cannot be weary and heavy-laden.
You say, "Toil fatigues me." But what is this me? Is it muscle or mind? Which is tired and so speaks? Without mind, could the muscles be tired? Do the muscles talk, or do you talk for them? Matter is non-intelligent. Mortal mind does the false talking, and that which affirms weariness, made that weariness.
227:21
Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: "Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!" Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world, accept the "glori-ous liberty of the children of God," and be free! This is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being.
287:9-31
We call the absence of Truth, error. Truth and error are unlike. In Science, Truth is divine, and the infinite God can have no unlikeness. Did God, Truth, create error? No! "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" God being everywhere and all-inclusive, how can He be absent or suggest the absence of omnipresence and omnipotence? How can there be more than all?
Neither understanding nor truth accompanies error, nor is error the offshoot of Mind. Evil calls itself something, when it is nothing. It saith, "I am man, but I am not the image and likeness of God;" whereas the Scriptures declare that man was made in God's likeness.
Error is false, mortal belief; it is illusion, without spiritual identity or foundation, and it has no real existence. The supposition that life, substance, and intelligence are in matter, or of it, is an error. Matter is neither a thing nor a person, but merely the objective supposition of Spirit's opposite. The five material senses testify to truth and error as united in a mind both good and evil. Their false evidence will finally yield to Truth,--to the recognition of Spirit and of the spiritual creation.
300:1
Human logic is awry when it attempts to draw correct spiritual conclusions regarding life from matter. Finite sense has no true appreciation of infinite Principle, God, or of His infinite image or reflection, man. The mirage, which makes trees and cities seem to be where they are not, illustrates the illusion of material man, who cannot be the image of God.
303:16-2
Divine Science lays the axe at the root of the illusion that life, or mind, is formed by or is in the material body, and Science will eventually destroy this illusion through the self-destruction of all error and the beatified understanding of the Science of Life.
The belief that pain and pleasure, life and death, holiness and unholiness, mingle in man,--that mortal, material man is the likeness of God and is himself a creator,--is a fatal error.
God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be without a witness or proof of His own nature. Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle. When the evidence before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and Truth.
305:20
The inverted images presented by the senses, the deflections of matter as opposed to the Science of spiritual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God. In the illusion of life that is here to-day and gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in divine Science, destroys all error and brings immortality to light. 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 divine.
380:15-7
The physical effects of fear illustrate its illusion. Gazing at a chained lion, crouched for a spring, should not terrify a man. The body is affected only with the belief of disease produced by a so-called mind ignorant of the truth which chains disease. Nothing but the power of Truth can prevent the fear of error, and prove man's dominion over error.
Many years ago the author made a spiritual discovery, the scientific evidence of which has accumulated to prove that the divine Mind produces in man health, harmony, and immortality. Gradually this evidence will gather momentum and clearness, until it reaches its culmination of scientific statement and proof. Nothing is more disheartening than to believe that there is a power opposite to God, or good, and that God endows this opposing power with strength to be used against Himself, against Life, health, harmony.
Every law of matter or the body, supposed to govern man, is rendered null and void by the law of Life, God. Ignorant of our God-given rights, we submit to unjust decrees, and the bias of education enforces this slavery. Be no more willing to suffer the illusion that you are sick or that some disease is developing in the system, than you are to yield to a sinful temptation on the ground that sin has its necessities.
428:3-29
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 immortality. Man's privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,--this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, "whose builder and maker is God."
We should consecrate existence, not "to the unknown God" whom we "ignorantly worship," but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy. We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.
The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence of man's immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted.
494:15
The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love. Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science. Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man's eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being.
591:8
MATTER. Mythology; mortality; another name for mortal mind; illusion; intelligence, substance, and life in non-intelligence and mortality; life resulting in death, and death in life; sensation in the sensationless; mind originating in matter; the opposite of Truth; the opposite of Spirit; the opposite of God; that of which immortal Mind takes no cognizance; that which mortal mind sees, feels, hears, tastes, and smells only in belief.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s prayer.
Hymn161
Satisfied – Mary Baker Eddy
It matters not what be thy lot,
So Love doth guide;
For storm or shine, pure peace is thine,
Whate'er betide.
And of these stones, or tyrants' thrones,
God able is
To raise up seed--in thought and deed--
To faithful His.
Aye, darkling sense, arise, go hence!
Our God is good.
False fears are foes--truth tatters those,
When understood.
Love looseth thee, and lifteth me,
Ayont hate's thrall:
There Life is light, and wisdom might,
And God is All.
The centuries break, the earth-bound wake,
God's glorified!
Who doth His will--His likeness still--
Is satisfied.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 391
Charles H. Barlow
Why search the future and the past?
Why do ye look with tearful eyes
And seek far off for paradise?
Before your feet Life's pearl is cast.
As deathless as His spirit free,
The Perfect lives and works today
As in the ancient prophets' lay,
Where there's an open eye to see.
Of all that was and is to come
The present holds the Mind and Cause;
For God lives in eternal laws,
And here today upholds His throne.
Then rise and greet the signs that prove
Unreal the ages' long lament;
The "one far-off divine event"
Is now, and that event is Love.
