Subject: Man
The scriptural selection is from Psalms
Psalms 8:1,3-6,9
O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Psalms 37:3-5,18,23,24,29-31,34 (to :),37,39 the,40
Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
The Lord knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.
Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land:
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.
Solo: “Behold the Perfect Man”
Subject: Man
Golden Text: I Thess 5:5
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
Responsive Readings: Ps 100:1-5; 95:2,3,6,7 (to .)
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Lesson Sermon
The Bible
I
I John 3:1 (to :)
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:
Rom. 8:14-16
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Isa. 43:10 (to 1st :), 21
Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen:
This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.
Job 36:22 (to :), 24, 25
Behold, God exalteth by his power:
Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold. Every man may see it; man may behold it afar off.
Ps. 17:15
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
From Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
591:5
MAN. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind.
516:9 (only), 21
God fashions all things, after His own likeness.
Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.
515:22-4
All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power.
Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God.
II
Ps. 107:1-7, 14, 15
O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
Ps. 68:6 (to 1St :)
God setteth the solitary in families:
597:16
WILDERNESS. Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence.
266:6-15, 18 Universal
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. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until the lesson is sufficient to exalt you; for "man's extremity is God's opportunity."
Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.
258:31-6
Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.
In divine Science, man is the true image of God.
336:28
God and man are not the same, but in the order of divine Science, God and man coexist and are eternal. God is the parent Mind, and man is God's spiritual offspring.
515:21-22 Man
Man is the family name for all ideas,--the sons and daughters of God.
471:17-18
Man is, and forever has been, God's reflection.
III
Eccl. 8:1, 5
Who is as the wise man? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? a man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.
Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.
Eccl. 9:1 (to :), 14, 15 (to ;)
For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God:
There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city;
Judges 6:6, 11-15, 23 (to :)
And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.
And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour. And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.
And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not:
Judges 8:28 And
And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.
6:5-6
God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows.
299:11
Angels are God's representatives. These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us, and we entertain "angels unawares."
66:6-9 (to 1st .), 10
Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff,--a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity.
Trials are proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.
261:32-7
Good demands of man every hour, in which to work out the problem of being. Consecration to good does not lessen man's dependence on God, but heightens it. Neither does consecration diminish man's obligations to God, but shows the paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but it ascribes to Him the entire glory.
IV
Job 11:7, 13-17
Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him; If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles. For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear: Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away: And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.
Ps. 92:12-15
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; To shew that the Lord is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
Ps. 71:5, 16, 21
For thou art my hope, O Lord God: thou art my trust from my youth.
I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.
Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.
244:23
Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death. He is not a beast, a vegetable, nor a migratory mind. He does not pass from matter to Mind, from the mortal to the immortal, from evil to good, or from good to evil. Such admissions cast us headlong into darkness and dogma. Even Shakespeare's poetry pictures age as infancy, as helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development, power, and prestige.
245:32-6
The infinite never began nor will it ever end. Mind and its formations can never be annihilated. Man is not a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, life and death. Life and its faculties are not measured by calendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal likeness of their Maker.
246:10-13, 17-31
The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun.
Never record ages. Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.
Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.
V
Mark 3:7 Jesus (to :), 9, 10 (to ;)
Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea:
And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. For he had healed many;
Mark 5:1-3, 5-9, 11-15 (to :)
And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind:
II Tim. 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
411:13
It is recorded that once Jesus asked the name of a disease,--a disease which moderns would call dementia. The demon, or evil, replied that his name was Legion. Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil, and the insane man was changed and straightway became whole. The Scripture seems to import that Jesus caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed.
295:25-28
All that is called mortal thought is made up of error. The theoretical mind is matter, named brain, or material consciousness, the exact opposite of real Mind, or Spirit.
294:9, 25
The belief that matter thinks, sees, or feels is not more real than the belief that matter enjoys and suffers. This mortal belief, misnamed man, is error, saying: "Matter has intelligence and sensation. Nerves feel. Brain thinks and sins. The stomach can make a man cross. Injury can cripple and matter can kill man." This verdict of the so-called material senses victimizes mortals, taught, as they are by physiology and pathology, to revere false testimony, even the errors that are destroyed by Truth through spiritual sense and Science.
Man's genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is good and true. Man is neither self-made nor made by mortals. God created man.
325:7-19
Jesus gave the true idea of being, which results in infinite blessings to mortals.
In Colossians (iii. 4) Paul writes: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear [be manifested], then shall ye also appear [be manifested] with him in glory." When spiritual being is understood in all its perfection, continuity, and might, then shall man be found in God's image. The absolute meaning of the apostolic words is this: Then shall man be found, in His likeness, perfect as the Father, indestructible in Life, "hid with Christ in God,"--with Truth in divine Love, where human sense hath not seen man.
397:28
Give up the belief that mind is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and you will quickly become more manly or womanly. You will understand yourself and your Maker better than before.
VI
Col. 3:4
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
I Cor. 12:4-7
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
Eph. 4:4-6, 11-13
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
475:11
Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.
258:21
The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God.
469:30-5
With one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which constitute divine Science.
476:28-5
When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;" that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
Benediction
Psalms 25:21Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.
Hymn 12
Violet Hay
Arise ye people, take your stand,
Cast out your idols from the land,
Above all doctrine, form or creed
Is found the Truth that meets your need.
Christ's promise stands: they that believe
His works shall do, his power receive.
Go forward then, and as ye preach
So let your works confirm your speech,
And prove to all with following sign
The Word of God is power divine.
In love and healing ministry
Show forth the Truth that makes men free.
O Father-Mother God, whose plan
Hath given dominion unto man,
In Thine own image we may see
Man pure and upright, whole and free.
And ever through our work shall shine
That light whose glory, Lord, is Thine.
Hymn 51
Mary Alice Dayton
Eternal Mind the Potter is,
And thought th' eternal clay:
The hand that fashions is divine,
His works pass not away.
Man is the noblest work of God,
His beauty, power and grace,
Immortal; perfect as his Mind
Reflected face to face.
God could not make imperfect man
His model infinite;
Unhallowed thought He could not plan,
Love's work and Love must fit.
Life, Truth and Love the pattern make,
Christ is the perfect heir;
The clouds of sense roll back, and show
The form divinely fair.
God's will is done; His kingdom come;
The Potter's work is plain.
The longing to be good and true
Has brought the light again.
And man does stand as God's own child,
The image of His love.
Let gladness ring from every tongue,
And heaven and earth approve.
Hymn 382
Emily F. Seal
What is thy birthright, man,
Child of the perfect One;
What is thy Father's plan
For His beloved son?
Thou art Truth's honest child,
Of pure and sinless heart;
Thou treadest undefiled
In Christly paths apart.
Vain dreams shall disappear
As Truth dawns on the sight;
The phantoms of thy fear
Shall flee before the light.
Take then the sacred rod;
Thou art not error's thrall;
Thou hast the gift of God--
Dominion over all.
No comments:
Post a Comment