WEDNESDAY EVENING READINGS MAY 30, 2012 “THE NOTHINGNESS OF ERROR”

GENESIS

1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

PSALMS

117:1 O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people. 146:8 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous: 117:2 … his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.

PROVERBS

1:33 … whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. 14:22 Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good.

16: 6 By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. 26:2 As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

HABBAKUK

1:12 Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? 13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:

LUKE

4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. 7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. 8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

13:11 And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. 12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

13 And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

MATTHEW

5:1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

JOHN

8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.

42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; 44 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.

JAMES

1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

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REVELATION

12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

20: 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES BY MARY BAKER EDDY

SH 71:1-4

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.

SH 186:11-16, 19-20

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. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of good.

SH 287:9 (only), 22-31

We call the absence of Truth, error. 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.

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SH 584:17-19 (to 1st ;)

DEVIL. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death;

SH 351:16-21

We cannot bring out the practical proof of Christianity, which Jesus required, while error seems as potent and real to us as Truth, and while we make a personal devil and an anthropomorphic God our starting-points, — especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power with Deity, if not superior to Him.

SH 469:13-21 The

The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind — called devil or evil — is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality.

SH 16:15-19

In the phrase, “Deliver us from evil,” the original properly reads, “Deliver us from the evil one.” This reading strengthens our scientific apprehension of the petition, for Christian Science teaches us that “the evil one,” or one evil, is but another name for the first lie and all liars.

SH 537:9-13

A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil has no local habitation nor name. Creation is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good.

SH 357:4-9

God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil.” 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.

SH 108:19-29

When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all- powerful and ever•present; that the opposite of Truth, — called error, sin, sickness, disease, death, — is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter; that this false sense evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this same so-called mind names matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit.

SH 555:6-15

An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian Science: “I like your explanations of truth, but I do not comprehend what you say about error.” This is

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the nature of error. The mark of ignorance is on its forehead, for it neither understands nor can be understood.

SH 367:30-2

Because Truth is infinite, error should be known as nothing. Because Truth is omnipotent in goodness, error, Truth’s opposite, has no might. Evil is but the counterpoise of nothingness. The greatest wrong is but a supposititious opposite of the highest right.

SH 466:13

Truth is immortal; error is mortal. Truth is limitless; error is limited. Truth is intelligent; error is non-intelligent. Moreover, Truth is real, and error is unreal. This last statement contains the point you will most reluctantly admit, although first and last it is the most important to understand.

SH 472:18-19

Error is a belief without understanding. Error is unreal because untrue. It is that which seemeth to be and is not.

SH 218:32-2

When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease.

SH 288:10-18

When the final physical and moral effects of Christian Science are fully apprehended, the conflict between truth and error, understanding and belief, Science and material sense, foreshadowed by the prophets and inaugurated by Jesus, will cease, and spiritual harmony reign.

SH 475:2 (only)

To Truth there is no error, — all is Truth.

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