Sunday, October 27th, 2024 Roundtable
God’s Medicine
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Probation After Death
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayers
God is All, and in all: that finishes the question of a good and a bad side to existence. Truth is the real; error is the unreal. You will gather the importance of this saying, when sorrow seems to come, if you will look on the bright side; for sorrow endureth but for the night, and joy cometh with the light. Then will your sorrow be a dream, and your waking the reality, even the triumph of Soul over sense. If you wish to be happy, argue with yourself on the side of happiness; take the side you wish to carry, and be careful not to talk on both sides, or to argue stronger for sorrow than for joy. You are the attorney for the case, and will win or lose according to your plea.
from Christian Healing, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 10
Probation, progress, goes on, until there is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter.
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 195
Daily Watch
19 — WATCH lest you endeavor to interpret the Bible with any sense of God being separated from man, or operating in the universe except through man. It might even be helpful to declare that man is the expressed activity of God, or God in action, if such a statement would aid one in eliminating any sense that God operates apart from His reflection, man. When the Bible says, “Thus saith the Lord,” it means that divine Mind was expressed through the demonstration some individual made to voice God. To trust in the Lord means to trust in one’s ability to demonstrate God’s presence and power. Whenever the Bible speaks of God, if the text involves more than a definition of Him, it must include the fact that God is being reflected by man, or as man. The Lord is our Shepherd through our ability to reflect His protecting presence. Thus the Lord must mean the everpresence of divine Love demonstrated or reflected by man.
from 500 Watching Points, by Gilbert Carpenter
Discussion points
Take time each day to say: ‘What is the most powerful
thing in the world? It is God saying “I am” in His own creation.’
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 51
Surely the probation of mortals must go on after the change called death, that they may learn the definition of immortal being; or else their present mistakes would extinguish human existence. How long this false sense remains after the transition called death, no mortal knoweth; but this is sure, that the mists of error, sooner or later, will melt in the fervent heat of suffering, mortality will burst the barriers of sense, and man be found perfect and eternal.
from No and Yes, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 27 to 28
Man’s probation after death is the necessity of his immortality; for good dies not and evil is self-destructive, therefore evil must be mortal and self-destroyed. If man should not progress after death, but should remain in error, he would be inevitably self-annihilated. Those upon whom “the second death hath no power” are those who progress here and hereafter out of evil, their mortal element, and into good that is immortal; thus laying off the material beliefs that war against Spirit, and putting on the spiritual elements in divine Science.
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 2
A suppositional gust of evil in this evil world is the dark hour that precedes the dawn. This gust blows away the baubles of belief, for there is in reality no evil, no disease, no death; and the Christian Scientist who believes that he dies, gains a rich blessing of disbelief in death, and a higher realization of heaven.
My beloved Edward A. Kimball, whose clear, correct teaching of Christian Science has been and is an inspiration to the whole field, is here now as veritably as when he visited me a year ago. If we would awaken to this recognition, we should see him here and realize that he never died; thus demonstrating the fundamental truth of Christian Science.
from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 297
As the Christian Scientist you know that there is no law of death. Why then bow down to the suggestion of such a law? The only law of death there is, is the law of Life which is the law of death to everything unlike itself.
from “No Law of Death” by Herbert Eustace
3. 430 : 2-3, 7-9
Jesus demonstrated this, healing the dying and raising the dead. … When man gives up his belief in death, he will advance more rapidly towards God, Life, and Love.
from “There Is No Death” a letter sent to Herbert Eustace from one of his students
One of the blessings which the writer has derived from this steadfastness of thought is the understanding that all of the good which divine Love gives us is ours for all eternity; therefore we can never be deprived of it by any erroneous belief of evil. If error tries to suggest to us that the belief of death has deprived us of some of our dear ones, by turning persistently to the truth we learn that we have not really lost them at all, but have only lost the false human concept of them; and the Godlike quality, which is all that we ever really loved, is still ours to love, and will live on in the one true consciousness throughout all eternity.
The same truth can be applied when those whom we love seem to be living away from us, and, indeed, when any false belief of human limitation tries to separate us from God. We have this assurance from Paul: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
from “Steadfastness” by Mabel Ernst, from the August 7, 1920 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel
2. 246 : 27 (Life)-28 (to 2nd .)
Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal.
[Mrs. Eddy] tells us, “The government of divine Love derives its omnipotence from the love it creates in the heart of man; for love is allegiant, and there is no loyalty apart from love.” Thus we find that the love of God has a twofold meaning. It is divine Love loving, and Love loved; or Love, and man reflecting love…
Surely no human sacrifice could be too great, no effort too earnest, no desire too fervent in the purpose to win the goal of divine Love’s reflection. How certain it is that finding this truth of man’s real existence we shall come to realize that, as Paul says, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
from “The Love of God” by Ella Hoag from the January 12, 1924 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel
“Hold sacredly to your joy, your gratitude. It will keep the door of spiritual revelation open and unfold to your receptive thought the white Christ light of unselfishness, of joy and activity, for ministry is gratitude and compassion.”
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 126
I tell you truth when I say there is only one source of all good — God. The conscious recognition and acceptance of this fact acknowledged by every activity of the mind, not two or three times a day — but every few moments all day long — no matter what the outer self is doing, and this maintained, will enable anyone to express his perfect freedom and dominion over all things human.
from “Day” as found in Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 34-35 of the Addenda
The Christian Scientist keeps straight to the course. His whole inquiry and demonstration lie in the line of Truth; hence he suffers no shipwreck in a starless night on the shoals of vainglory. His medicine is Mind— the omnipotent and ever-present good. His “help is from the Lord,” who heals body and mind, head and heart; changing the affections, enlightening the misguided senses, and curing alike the sin and the mortal sinner. God’s preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities. His therapeutics are antidotes for the ailments of mortal mind and body. Then let us not adulterate His preparations for the sick with material means.
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 268
Final Readings
The vital message given in the fifth chapter of John, “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live,” is a prophecy which was proved true when the dead did hear and heed the voice of Jesus. The widow’s son and Lazarus caught the Master’s words and arose from the dream of death to life and activity. Those “dead in trespasses and sins” were awakened, the publican and the Magdalen heard the divine message and experienced a resurrection to truer, better living. Even so today the healing truth contained in the Bible and interpreted by the Christian Science text-book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mrs. Eddy, is discerned by those morally and spiritually dead and it uplifts them into useful, helpful, joyous living.
The needful condition for the restoration of those who are deadened to health and peace is simply that the voice of Truth be heard and assimilated. … The action of Truth upon the unawakened is like the raising of a curtain to let in the sunshine, when the darkness necessarily vanishes. So to the open ear and receptive heart of the needy comes the stimulating and corrective voice of Truth, and the work of banishing the darkness of error is silently but surely accomplished. The psalmist says of God, “He spake, and it was done :” that is to say, the spiritual universe, including man, is the speech, the word, of divine Mind, eternal Truth, the one omnipotent God. Because the utterance of the father is clear, distinct, and powerful, so the voice of the true man is spiritual, truthful, and loving. When a son of God so speaks, those apparently dead to Truth hear his voice and live.
from “The Life-giving Voice” by Irving C. Tomlinson from the September 18, 1915 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel