January
26, 2025 The
canonical writings, together with the word
of our textbook, corroborating and
explaining the Bible texts in their
spiritual import and application to all
ages, past, present, and future,
constitute a sermon undivorced from truth,
uncontaminated and unfettered by human
hypotheses, and divinely
authorized. Subject:
TRUTH Responsive
Reading: Nehemiah 6:1 (to 1st
;), 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10-12. The
following Citations comprise our Sermon.
From
the Christian Science Quarterly, January 23,
1916
Originally published in the early
years of the Christian Science movement,
these lessons are comprised of citations
from the Bible (King James Version) and
the Christian Science textbook, Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy.
EXPLANATORY NOTE:
Friends:
The Bible and the Christian Science
textbook are our only preachers. We shall
now read Scriptural texts, and their
correlative passages from our
denominational textbook; these comprise
our sermon.
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Golden
Text: Deuteronomy 32:3, 4. Ascribe
ye greatness unto our God . . . a God of
truth and without iniquity, just and right
is he.
1 Now it came to pass, when
Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the
Arabian, and the rest of our enemies,
heard that I had builded the wall, and
that there was no breach left therein;
2 That Sanballat and Geshem sent
unto me, saying, Come, let us meet
together in some one of the villages in
the plain of Ono. But they thought to do
me mischief.
3 And I sent messengers unto them,
saying, I am doing a great work, so that I
cannot come down: why should the work
cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to
you?
5 Then sent Sanballat his servant
unto me in like manner the fifth time with
an open letter in his hand;
6 Wherein was written, It is
reported among the heathen, and Gashmu
saith it, that thou and the Jews think to
rebel: for which cause thou buildest the
wall, that thou mayest be their king,
according to these words.
8 Then I sent unto him, saying,
There are no such things done as thou
sayest, but thou feignest them out of
thine own heart.
10 Afterward I came unto the house
of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah the son of
Mehetabeel, who was shut up; and he said,
Let us meet together in the house of God,
within the temple, and let us shut the
doors of the temple: for they will come to
slay thee; yea, in the night will they
come to slay thee.
11 And I said, Should such a man as
I flee? and who is there, that, being as I
am, would go into the temple to save his
life? I will not go in.
12 And, lo, I perceived that God
had not sent him; but that he pronounced
this prophecy against me: for Tobiah and
Sanballat had hired him.
Section
One
Section
Two
Section
Three
Section
Four
Section
Five
Section
Six
This lesson
was prepared by early students of Christian Science to
reinforce the class teaching given by Mary Baker Eddy in the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880s and 1890s.
Consistent with the outline used in her teaching, the six
sections of the early lessons usually followed a general
outline: Section
One: The relation of the subject to
God.
Section
Two: The relation of the subject to man or Christ Jesus.
Section Three: The presentation of Christian Science
through a relative law, as related to the
subject.
Section
Four: The application of the relative law presented in
section three. Section Five: The demonstration of the
relative law from section three. Section Six: The
triumph or victory of the relative law, leaving the student
in the kingdom of God. For more information, visit our
Bible
Lessons
information page.
Study Guide
(2) Eph
5:9 (3) Ps
40:10, 11 (4) Ps
86:11, 14, 15 (5) Ps
146:5, 6 (2)
viii:12-15 (3)
224:28-29 (4)
226:5, 25 (5)
142:31
The Holy Bible
King
James Version
(1) Ps
31:1, 5
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me
never be ashamed: deliver me in thy
righteousness. Into thine hand I commit my
spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God
of truth.
(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all
goodness and righteousness and
truth;)
I have not hid thy righteousness within my
heart; I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation: I have not concealed
thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the
great congregation. Withhold not thou thy
tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy
lovingkindness and thy truth continually
preserve me.
Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in
thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy
name. O God, the proud are risen against
me, and the assemblies of violent men have
sought after my soul; and have not set
thee before them. But thou, O Lord, art a
God full of compassion, and gracious,
longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and
truth.
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for
his help, whose hope is in the Lord his
God: Which made heaven, and earth, the
sea, and all that therein is: which
keepeth truth for ever:
Science
and Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by
Mary Baker Eddy
(1)
20:25
The truth is the centre of all religion.
It commands sure entrance into the realm
of Love. St. Paul wrote, "Let us lay aside
every weight, and the sin which doth so
easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us;"
that is, let us put aside material self
and sense, and seek the divine Principle
and Science of all healing.
The question, What is Truth, is answered
by demonstration, by healing both
disease and sin; and this demonstration
shows that Christian healing confers the
most health and makes the best
men.
Truth brings the elements of liberty. On
its banner is the Soul-inspired motto,
"Slavery is abolished."
The voice of God in behalf of the African
slave was still echoing in our land, when
the voice of the herald of this new
crusade sounded the keynote of universal
freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of
the rights of man as a Son of God,
demanding that the fetters of sin,
sickness, and death be stricken from the
human mind and that its freedom be won,
not through human warfare, not with
bayonet and blood, but through Christ's
divine Science. The lame, the deaf, the
dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual,
the sinner, I wished to save from the
slavery of their own beliefs and from the
educational systems of the Pharaohs, who
to-day, as of yore, hold the children of
Israel in bondage. 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.
Truth is God's remedy for error of every
kind, and Truth destroys only what is
untrue. Hence the fact that, to-day, as
yesterday, Christ casts out evils and
heals the sick.
(7) II
Tim 3:1-5, 8, 9 (8) II
Cor 13:8 (7)
472:17-19 (8)
130:26-2 (9)
474:24-2 (10)
292:1
(6)
Jer 4:1, 2
If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the
Lord, return unto me: and if thou wilt put
away thine abominations out of my sight,
then shalt thou not remove. And thou shalt
swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in
judgment, and in righteousness; and the
nations shall bless themselves in him, and
in him shall they glory.
This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come. For men shall
be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without
natural affection, trucebreakers, false
accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers
of those that are good, Traitors, heady,
highminded, lovers of pleasures more than
lovers of God; Having a form of godliness,
but denying the power thereof: from such
turn away. Now as Jannes and Jambres
withstood Moses, so do these also resist
the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate
concerning the faith. But they shall
proceed no further: for their folly shall
be manifest unto all men, as theirs also
was.
For we can do nothing against the truth,
but for the truth.
(6)
282:26
Truth is the intelligence of immortal
Mind. Error is the so-called intelligence
of mortal mind.
Error is the contradiction of Truth. Error
is a belief without understanding. Error
is unreal because untrue. It is that which
seemeth to be and is not.
If thought is startled at the strong claim
of Science for the supremacy of God, or
Truth, and doubts the supremacy of good,
ought we not, contrariwise, to be
astounded at the vigorous claims of evil
and doubt them, and no longer think it
natural to love sin and unnatural to
forsake it, no longer imagine evil
to be ever-present and good absent? Truth
should not seem so surprising and
unnatural as error, and error should not
seem so real as truth.
Despite the hallowing influence of Truth
in the destruction of error, must error
still be immortal? Truth spares all that
is true. If evil is real, Truth must make
it so; but error, not Truth, is the author
of the unreal, and the unreal vanishes,
while all that is real is eternal. The
apostle says that the mission of Christ is
to "destroy the works of the devil." Truth
destroys falsity and error, for light and
darkness cannot dwell together. Light
extinguishes the darkness, and the
Scripture declares that there is "no night
there." To Truth there is no error,
all is Truth.
When the last mortal fault is destroyed,
then the final trump will sound which will
end the battle of Truth with error and
mortality; "but of that day and hour,
knoweth no man." Here prophecy pauses.
Divine Science alone can compass the
heights and depths of being and reveal the
infinite.
(10)
Eph 4:7, 14, 15 (12)
37:22-25 (13)
43:27 (14)
350:6-11, 24
(9)
John 1:14, 17
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us, (and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth. For the
law was given by Moses, but grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ.
But unto every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of
Christ. That we henceforth be no more
children, tossed to and fro, and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the
sleight of men, and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But
speaking the truth in love, may grow up
into him in all things, which is the head,
even Christ:
(11)
30:19
As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ
Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error and
all sin, sickness, and death, to
point out the way of Truth and Life. This
ideal was demonstrated throughout the
whole earthly career of Jesus, showing the
difference between the offspring of Soul
and of material sense, of Truth and of
error.
It is possible, yea, it is the duty
and privilege of every child, man, and
woman, to follow in some degree the
example of the Master by the demonstration
of Truth and Life, of health and
holiness.
The divine must overcome the human at
every point. The Science Jesus taught and
lived must triumph over all material
beliefs about life, substance, and
intelligence, and the multitudinous errors
growing from such beliefs.
To understand all our Master's sayings as
recorded in the New Testament, sayings
infinitely important, his followers must
grow into that stature of manhood in
Christ Jesus which enables them to
interpret his spiritual meaning. Then they
know how Truth casts out error and heals
the sick. "The Word was made flesh."
Divine Truth must be known by its effects
on the body as well as on the mind, before
the Science of being can be demonstrated.
Hence its embodiment in the incarnate
Jesus, that life-link forming the
connection through which the real reaches
the unreal, Soul rebukes sense, and Truth
destroys error.
(12) Ps
25:10, 12-14 (13)
John 8:31, 32 (16)
296:23-28 (17)
482:26 (18)
406:11-16 (19)
135:12-15 (15) Ps
119:29, 30 (16)
James 3:13-15, 17 (21)
322:31 (22)
368:10 (23)
286:6 (24)
446:20 (18) Ps
119:142 (19)
John 16:12, 13 (20) I
Pet 1:22-25 (26)
279:16 (27)
303:30 (28)
258:11-16
(11)
Ps 91:1, 4-6
He that dwelleth in the secret place of
the most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. He shall cover thee with
his feathers, and under his wings shalt
thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield
and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for
the terror by night; nor for the arrow
that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence
that walketh in darkness; nor for the
destruction that wasteth at
noonday.
All the paths of the Lord are mercy and
truth unto such as keep his covenant and
his testimonies. What man is he that
feareth the Lord? him shall he teach in
the way that he shall choose. His soul
shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall
inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord
is with them that fear him; and he will
shew them his covenant.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which
believed on him, If ye continue in my
word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And
ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free.
(15)
183:26
Truth casts out all evils and
materialistic methods with the actual
spiritual law, the law which gives
sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf,
voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. If
Christian Science dishonors human belief,
it honors spiritual understanding; and the
one Mind only is entitled to
honor.
When the evidence of Spirit and matter,
Truth and error, seems to commingle, it
rests upon foundations which time is
wearing away. Mortal mind judges by the
testimony of the material senses, until
Science obliterates this false
testimony.
Sickness is part of the error which Truth
casts out. Error will not expel error.
Christian Science is the law of Truth,
which heals the sick on the basis of the
one Mind or God. It can heal in no other
way, since the human, mortal mind
so-called is not a healer, but causes the
belief in disease.
The Science of being unveils the errors of
sense, and spiritual perception, aided by
Science, reaches Truth. Then error
disappears. Sin and sickness will abate
and seem less real as we approach the
scientific period, in which mortal sense
is subdued and all that is unlike the true
likeness disappears.
This is "the beauty of holiness," that
when Truth heals the sick, it casts out
evils, and when Truth casts out the evil
called disease, it heals the
sick.
(14)
Isa 25:1
O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt
thee, I will praise thy name; for thou
hast done wonderful things; thy counsels
of old are faithfulness and
truth.
Remove from me the way of lying: and grant
me thy law graciously. I have chosen the
way of truth: thy judgments have I laid
before me.
Who is a wise man and endued with
knowledge among you? let him shew out of a
good conversation his works with meekness
of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not, and
lie not against the truth. This wisdom
descendeth not from above, but is earthly,
sensual, devilish. But the wisdom that is
from above is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of
mercy and good fruits, without partiality,
and without hypocrisy.
(20)
11:27
Prayer cannot change the unalterable
Truth, nor can prayer alone give us an
understanding of Truth; but prayer,
coupled with a fervent habitual desire to
know and do the will of God, will bring us
into all Truth. Such a desire has little
need of audible expression. It is best
expressed in thought and in
life.
It is easier to desire Truth than to rid
one's self of error. Mortals may seek the
understanding of Christian Science, but
they will not be able to glean from
Christian Science the facts of being
without striving for them. This strife
consists in the endeavor to forsake error
of every kind and to possess no other
consciousness but good.
Against the fatal beliefs that error is as
real as Truth, that evil is equal in power
to good if not superior, and that discord
is as normal as harmony, even the hope of
freedom from the bondage of sickness and
sin has little inspiration to nerve
endeavor. When we come to have more faith
in the truth of being than we have in
error, more faith in Spirit than in
matter, more faith in living than in
dying, more faith in God than in man, then
no material suppositions can prevent us
from healing the sick and destroying
error.
The understanding of Truth gives full
faith in Truth, and spiritual
understanding is better than all burnt
offerings.
To understand God strengthens hope,
enthrones faith in Truth, and verifies
Jesus' word: "Lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the
world."
(17)
Ps 117:1, 2
O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise
him, all ye people. For his merciful
kindness is great toward us: and the truth
of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye
the Lord.
Thy righteousness is an everlasting
righteousness, and thy law is the
truth.
I have yet many things to say unto you,
but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when
he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will
guide you into all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall
hear, that shall he speak: and he will
shew you things to come.
Seeing ye have purified your souls in
obeying the truth through the Spirit unto
unfeigned love of the brethren, see that
ye love one another with a pure heart
fervently: Being born again, not of
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth
for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of man as the flower of
grass. The grass withereth, and the flower
thereof falleth away: But the word of the
Lord endureth for ever. And this is the
word which by the gospel is preached unto
you.
(25) 288:31-2
The eternal Truth destroys what mortals
seem to have learned from error, and man's
real existence as a child of God comes to
light. Truth demonstrated is eternal
life.
In proportion as the belief disappears
that life and intelligence are in or of
matter, the immortal facts of being are
seen, and their only idea or intelligence
is in God. Spirit is reached only through
the understanding and demonstration of
eternal Life and Truth and
Love.
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.
Man reflects infinity, and this reflection
is the true idea of God. God expresses in
man the infinite idea forever developing
itself, broadening and rising higher and
higher from a boundless basis. Mind
manifests all that exists in the
infinitude of Truth.