April 1, 2015
Hymns 144, 49,99
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The Bible:

Pro. 10:23

It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom.

Prov. 14:8

The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.

Eccl. 10:12-14 2nd the

the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is mischievous madness. A fool also is full of words: a man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?

Gen. 3:1-13

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

John 8:42-44

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

II Cor. 11:3 I

I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

I Cor. 3:18-21, 23

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; … And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

Eph. 5:14 Awake, 15

Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Rom. 13:11 1st now, 12

now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

Gal. 6:7 (to ; )

Be not deceived;

Science and Health:

SH 544:17-27

The first statement about evil, — the first suggestion of more than the one Mind, — is in the fable of the serpent. The facts of creation, as previously recorded, include nothing of the kind.

The serpent is supposed to say, “Ye shall be as gods,” but these gods must be evolved from materiality and be the very antipodes of immortal and spiritual being. Man is the likeness of Spirit, but a material personality is not this likeness. Therefore man, in this allegory, is neither a lesser god nor the image and likeness of the one God.

SH 530:17-1

This myth represents error as always asserting its superiority over truth, giving the lie to divine Science and saying, through the material senses: “I can open your eyes. I can do what God has not done for you. Bow down to me and have another god. Only admit that I am real, that sin and sense are more pleasant to the eyes than spiritual Life, more to be desired than Truth, and I shall know you, and you will be mine.” Thus Spirit and flesh war.

The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real. First, this narrative supposes that something springs from nothing, that matter precedes mind. Second, it supposes that mind enters matter, and matter becomes living, substantial, and intelligent.

SH 529:21

Whence comes a talking, lying serpent to tempt the children of divine Love? The serpent enters into the metaphor only as evil. We have nothing in the animal kingdom which represents the species described, — a talking serpent, — and should rejoice that evil, by whatever figure presented, contradicts itself and has neither origin nor support in Truth and good. Seeing this, we should have faith to fight all claims of evil, because we know that they are worthless and unreal.

SH 538:15

The testimony of the serpent is significant of the illusion of error, of the false claims that misrepresent God, good. Sin, sickness, and death have no record in the Elohistic introduction of Genesis, in which God creates the heavens, earth, and man. Until that which contradicts the truth of being enters into the arena, evil has no history, and evil is brought into view only as the unreal in contradistinction to the real and eternal.

SH 567:18-23

That false claim — that ancient belief, that old serpent whose name is devil (evil), claiming that there is intelligence in matter either to benefit or to injure men — is pure delusion, the red dragon; and it is cast out by Christ, Truth, the spiritual idea, and so proved to be powerless.

SH 306:32-308:4

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, “Ye shall be as gods;” that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth.

Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that there is more than one intelligence or God. It says: “There shall be lords and gods many. I declare that God makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him. Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as God, Spirit, who is the only Life.”

This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an existence which ends in death. Error charges its lie to Truth and says: “The Lord knows it. He has made man mortal and material, out of matter instead of Spirit.” Thus error partakes of its own nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard matter as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin or supposed material pain and pleasure seems normal, a part of God’s creation, and so weighs against our course Spiritward.

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher law of Mind.

Above error’s awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: “Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?”

SH 186:5-24

Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work only evil under whatever name or pretence they are employed; for Spirit and matter, good and evil, light and darkness, cannot mingle.

Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth. It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil.

Evil is self-assertive. It says: “I am a real entity, overmastering good.” This falsehood should strip evil of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of good. Every attempt of evil to destroy good is a failure, and only aids in peremptorily punishing the evil-doer. If we concede the same reality to discord as to harmony, discord has as lasting a claim upon us as has harmony.

SH 357:5-16

We sustain Truth, not by accepting, but by rejecting a lie.

Jesus said of personified evil, that it was “a liar, and the father of it.” Truth creates neither a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar. If mankind would relinquish the belief that God makes sickness, sin, and death, or makes man capable of suffering on account of this malevolent triad, the foundations of error would be sapped and error’s destruction ensured; but if we theoretically endow mortals with the creativeness and authority of Deity, how dare we attempt to destroy what He hath made, or even to deny that God made man evil and made evil good?

SH 681:16; 682:14

When I first heard of Christian Science, seven years ago, I supposed that it was some old fad under a new name. In the little Texas town where we then lived there were two or three Christian Scientists who met at the home of one of their number to read the Lesson-Sermon. Meeting one of them one day, I asked if unbelievers could come to their meetings. She said that they could if they wanted to. I went, expecting them to do something that I could laugh at when telling my friends about it. How surprised I was to find out that they didn’t do anything but read the Bible and another book which they called Science and Health. I still thought it all foolishness, but resolved to go to their meetings until I found out all they believed. I continued to go until I began to understand a little of what they knew, not what they believed; and instead of spending my time telling others what a silly thing Christian Science is, I am now trying to find words to tell what a great and wonderful thing it is. I have been healed of so-called incurable spinal disease of ten years’ standing by studying the Bible and Science and Health. Science and Health has been my only teacher, and I wish to send my thanks to our dear Leader.

— Mrs. M. H., Oleta, Okla.

SH 280:30-6

The only excuse for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, — ignorance which yields only to the understanding of divine Science, the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and supreme. Spirit and matter no more commingle than light and darkness. When one appears, the other disappears.

SH 322:3

When understanding changes the standpoints of life and intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, we shall gain the reality of Life, the control of Soul over sense, and we shall perceive Christianity, or Truth, in its divine Principle. This must be the climax before harmonious and immortal man is obtained and his capabilities revealed. It is highly important — in view of the immense work to be accomplished before this recognition of divine Science can come — to turn our thoughts towards divine Principle, that finite belief may be prepared to relinquish its error.

SH 311:13 (only, to 2nd .)

Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.