Sermon on the Mount - Overcoming persecution by false theology

Wednesday Readings List

May 25, 2016

“Blessed are the persecuted for righteousness sake”

V – Overcoming persecution by false thology

[There will be 5 lessons on this topic]

Hymn 337

Theories, which thousands cherish,
Pass like clouds that sweep the sky;
Creeds and dogmas all may perish;
Truth Herself can never die.

 

Worldlings blindly may refuse Her,
Close their eyes and call it night;
Learned scoffers may abuse Her,
But they cannot quench Her light.

 

Thrones may totter, empires crumble,
All their glories cease to be;
While She, Christlike, crowns the humble,
And from bondage sets them free.

The Holy Bible – New Living Translation

Ps. 119:13-140, 157,
O lord, you are righteous, and your regulations are fair. Your laws are perfect and completely trustworthy. I am overwhelmed with indignation, for my enemies have disregarded your words. Your promises have been thoroughly tested; that is why I love them so much. Many persecute and trouble me, yet I have not swerved from your law.

 

Ps. 120:1
I took my troubles to the lord; I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.

 

John 5:1-9, 16-20, 24; 6:51, 66-68
Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

 

“I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath.

 

So the Jewish leaders began persecuting Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God. So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son. I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.

 

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.” At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?”
Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.

 

John 8:12, 28-29, 31-34, 52, 58-59
Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life. . . . When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.”

 

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

 

“But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

 

The people said, “. . . . Even Abraham and the prophets died, but you say, ‘Anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!’ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am! At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple.

 

John 10:22-28, 30-31; 17:1, 22-23; 4:23-24
It was now winter, and Jesus was in Jerusalem . . . The people surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

 

Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. . . . The Father and I are one.” Once again the people picked up stones to kill him.

 

After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

 

The time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

 

Matt. 27:1-2, 22-26
Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

 

Pilate responded, “What should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”

 

They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

 

“Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?”

 

But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”

 

Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”

 

And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!” So Pilate . . . turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

 

Matt. 28:1-2, 5-6
Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen.

 

Mark 16:14, 15, 17, 18
Still later he appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating together. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead. And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will . . . place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”

 


SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy

SH 138:27
Our Master said to every follower: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature! . . . Heal the sick!” It was our Master’s theology which the impious sought to destroy.

 

SH 28:4
If the Master had not taken a student and taught the unseen verities of God, he would not have been crucified. The determination to hold Spirit in the grasp of matter is the persecutor of Truth and Love.

 

SH 315:3-24
That saying of our Master, “I and my Father are one,” separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis. His better understanding of God was a rebuke to them. He knew of but one Mind and laid no claim to any other. He knew that the Ego was Mind instead of body and that matter, sin, and evil were not Mind; and his understanding of this divine Science brought upon him the anathemas of the age.

 

The opposite and false views of the people hid from their sense Christ’s sonship with God. They could not discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts were filled with mortal error, instead of with God’s spiritual idea as presented by Christ Jesus.

 

Jesus’ spiritual origin and understanding enabled him to demonstrate the facts of being, — to prove irrefutably how spiritual Truth destroys material error, heals sickness, and overcomes death.

 

SH 18:10-12
Jesus acted boldly, against the accredited evidence of the senses, against Pharisaical creeds and practices, and he refuted all opponents with his healing power.

 

SH 41:28
The truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at. Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing to practise. It was enough for them to believe in a national Deity; but that belief, from their time to ours, has never made a disciple who could cast out evils and heal the sick.

 

SH 51:24
The motives of his persecutors were pride, envy, cruelty, and vengeance, inflicted on the physical Jesus, but aimed at the divine Principle, Love, which rebuked their sensuality.

 

Jesus was unselfish. His spirituality separated him from sensuousness, and caused the selfish materialist to hate him; but it was this spirituality which enabled Jesus to heal the sick, cast out evil, and raise the dead.

 

SH 52:2-10
From early boyhood he was about his “Father’s business.” His pursuits lay far apart from theirs. His master was Spirit; their master was matter. He served God; they served mammon. His affections were pure; theirs were carnal. His senses drank in the spiritual evidence of health, holiness, and life; their senses testified oppositely, and absorbed the material evidence of sin, sickness, and death.
Their imperfections and impurity felt the ever-present rebuke of his perfection and purity.

 

SH 33:18
When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: “Not my will, but Thine, be done!” — that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me.

 

SH 25:17-19
By his obedience to God, he demonstrated more spiritually than all others the Principle of being.

 

SH 41:22-24
Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science would have before it was understood, but this foreknowledge hindered him not.

 

SH 43:17, 22-23, 27-12
The final demonstration of the truth which Jesus taught, and for which he was crucified, opened a new era for the world. Those who slew him to stay his influence perpetuated and extended it.

 

Human law had condemned him, but he was demonstrating divine Science. 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.

 

Truth and Life must seal the victory over error and death, before the thorns can be laid aside for a crown, the benediction follow, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and the supremacy of Spirit be demonstrated.

 

The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being. His three days’ work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time. He proved Life to be deathless and Love to be the master of hate. He met and mastered on the basis of Christian Science, the power of Mind over matter, all the claims of medicine, surgery, and hygiene.

 

SH 134:28-30
There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance.

 

SH 45:6-10
Our Master fully and finally demonstrated divine Science in his victory over death and the grave. Jesus’ deed was for the enlightenment of men and for the salvation of the whole world from sin, sickness, and death.

 

SH 484:24-27
Science must triumph over material sense, and Truth over error, thus putting an end to the hypotheses involved in all false theories and practices.

 

SH 165:12
Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since man-made material theories took the place of spiritual truth.

 

SH 466:23-26
Heathen mythology and Jewish theology have perpetuated the fallacy that intelligence, soul, and life can be in matter; and idolatry and ritualism are the outcome of all man-made beliefs.

 

SH 134:14-17
Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Christ-power, how can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of grace?

 

SH 168:15
Because man-made systems insist that man becomes sick and useless, suffers and dies, all in consonance with the laws of God, are we to believe it? Are we to believe an authority which denies God’s spiritual command relating to perfection, — an authority which Jesus proved to be false? He did the will of the Father. He healed sickness in defiance of what is called material law, but in accordance with God’s law, the law of Mind.

 

SH 132:14-24
The Pharisees of old thrust the spiritual idea and the man who lived it out of their synagogues, and retained their materialistic beliefs about God. Jesus’ system of healing received no aid nor approval from other sanitary or religious systems, from doctrines of physics or of divinity; and it has not yet been generally accepted. To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the reappearing of the spiritual idea, blind belief shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sinning if it is wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal theory.

 

SH 52:19-23
The “man of sorrows” best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love.

 

SH 31:14-22 (to .)
It is the living Christ, the practical Truth, which makes Jesus “the resurrection and the life” to all who follow him in deed. Obeying his precious precepts, — following his demonstration so far as we apprehend it, — we drink of his cup, partake of his bread, are baptized with his purity; and at last we shall rest, sit down with him, in a full understanding of the divine Principle which triumphs over death.

 


Hymn 297
Science, the angel with the flaming sword,
God’s gift, the glory of the risen Lord;
Light of the world, in whose light we shall see
Father and perfect Son, blest unity;

 

Calm of Shekinah where hope anchors fast,
Harbor of refuge till the storm be past;
Sweet, secret place where God and men do meet,
Horeb whereon we walk with unshod feet;

 

Place of communion with the Lamb of God,
Fold where the sheep must pass beneath His rod;
Ark where the dove may close her faltering wings,
Love’s law divine that makes us priests and kings;

 

Loosener of prison bands at midnight hour,
Of self-forged chains that fall through Love’s all-power;
Christ’s morning meal by joyous Galilee:
Science, thou dost fulfill all prophecy.

 

Hymn 437
Father, Thou art very near us,
Well we know that Thou dost hear us,
And dost answer ere we call:
May the prayer of faith now heal us,
May the vision true reveal us
One with Thee, and Thou our all in all.

 

Christ, the way of our salvation,
Rends the veil of separation,
Shews our life in Spirit, free—
Shews the glory of creation,
God and man in true relation:
Now, beloved, sons of God are we!

 

Father, this most wondrous union
We would prove in blest communion:
Take Thy Truth, our bread from heaven,
Drink the wine of inspiration,
Rise in holy exaltation,
One in Thee, redeemed, restored, forgiven.

 

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