The Promised Land ANNIE M. KNOTT, CSD          Religious people in general are acquainted with the phrase "the promised land," and are accustomed to think of it in the first place as Canaan in the days when the children of Israel under the leadership of Moses and of Joshua were seeking to take possession of it. In the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy we find wonderful promises to those who would keep the divine commandments, and they read as follows: "The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." As we read these words we might apply them to many countries besides the Canaan of that older day; indeed, they would be specially applicable to this great country, America, for all the conditions here mentioned exist, so far as material sense goes; but those who are willing to look below the surface realize fully that all these things and many more — everything, indeed, of which material sense gives evidence — would never reveal to humanity the promised land of human hope and faith.          In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews we find that Abraham, a great spiritual idealist, left the place of his birth because he must have freedom in which to find God and serve Him, and we have this remarkable passage: "He went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country." We thus see that even when he reached Canaan it was to him a strange country, and the reason for this immediately follows, "For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Students of the Bible cannot fail to see that after the children of Israel had overcome many enemies and proved in very wonderful ways the infinite power of good when spiritually understood, when they were in complete possession of the land of Canaan, they yet failed to realize the land of promise for which Abraham looked; and those of them who were spiritually minded confessed, as we read in the chapter already quoted, "that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."          The student of Christian Science would have no difficulty in identifying the promised land as the realm of infinite Mind, and would see that those who look for it in any material place, or expressed through material conditions, would fail to find it, and this for the reason that we must escape from the bondage of mortal and material belief before we even start on this great journey, where we find fresh hope and strength at every step of the way. On page 226 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged." It goes without saying that the land of promise must be governed by the one perfect Mind, and that it must be the realm of law. It should also become clear to us that we shall not be ready to realize the ever presence of this land of promise so long as our highest desire is to think of it as confined to any one country or people; and happily for the hopes of humanity, this is becoming more fully recognized.          The little Scotch lad was right who said that he did not want God to love him unless he was sure that God loved every one; and until our hope and faith have grown great enough to desire that all the blessings for which we pray may reach no less all the nations of the earth, we shall have but the limited return which a limited sense of faith necessarily involves. We cannot forget that Christ Jesus began his glorious ministry in what was regarded by so many as the promised land; but John says, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." But the very failure to find the land of promise established on the basis of material belief led him to show his followers that they must seek that for which real Christianity provides, in the understanding which lifts thought above mortal and material conditions and reveals spiritual realities.          This brings us to John's apocalyptic vision, as given in the book of Revelation, which leaves no question as to the greatness of the struggle needed on the plane of mortal belief before the kingdom of God, with all it implies, it brought to the consciousness of humanity. We find in this book no intimation that the struggle would ever end except for the appearing of the warrior whose armies never know defeat, the one who is called, "Faithful and True," and who is also spoken of as "The Word of God," and who goes forth as the representative of Him who is "King of kings, and Lord of lords." Before this mighty warrior the kings, captains, and mighty men of the earth flee; and the beast and the false prophet, representing lust, sorcery, and hypocrisy, are utterly annihilated. It is deeply significant to read that towards the close of this tremendous struggle a "great white throne" appeared, that men and nations were called to stand before God and to be judged according to their works, and that then "the sea gave up the dead which were in it."          Following this we have presented to us the new heaven and the new earth so often mentioned in the Scriptures; but we shall not be ready even to look for them until like John we are lifted up in the spirit to a great and high mountain were we can see the city of our God coming down to men. In the hour of the world's greatest need it would seem that the grandeur and beauty of the city as described in Revelation count for far less than do the conditions which have never yet been realized in any land or clime, at any time or by any race, but which are none the less awaiting all who understand God and love Him. We are told that sickness and sorrow, pain and death, shall be forever destroyed; and that in the blessed land of promise can never be found "the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers," for these, with "all liars," shall have been cast into the fire which utterly consumes all that is unlike God.          In this wonderful prophecy there is perhaps nothing of deeper import to the student of Christian Science than the promise that "the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it" — in the light of Truth and Love, and that these nations which are saved cannot in the very nature of things bring any evil into the land of promise, but "they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it," — the honor and glory of righteousness, which honors God and blesses men. As we look out upon the years before us we may be tempted to think that the task is a long one, but we must never forget that one day with God, infinite Mind, counts for more than a thousand years of mortal belief; and it is good to remind ourselves of the poet's words, "Men are weak, but Man is strong," and there is no task too great for God and for man as His image and likeness.   "The Promised Land" by Annie M. Knott, CSD The Christian Science Journal, July, 1918

 

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