Responsive Reading: Psalm 37 : 23-26, 35-37

23.     The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.

24.     Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.

25.     I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

26.     He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.

35.     I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

36.     Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

37.     Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

1. Exodus 20 : 1-3

1     And God spake all these words, saying,

2     I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3     Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2. Leviticus 26 : 1 (to 1st ,), 2-8 (to :), 9, 12, 14, 19 (I will break) (to ;), 20 (to :)

1     Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image,

2     Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

3     If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

4     Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

5     And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

6     And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

7     And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

8     And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight:

9     For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

12     And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

14     But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;

19     I will break the pride of your power;

20     And your strength shall be spent in vain:

3. Genesis 13 : 1-3 (to 1st ,), 4-7 (to :), 8-13

1     And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

2     And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

3     And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el,

4     Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.

5     And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.

6     And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

7     And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle:

8     And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.

9     Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

10     And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

11     Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

12     Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

13     But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.

4. Genesis 19 : 1 (to 1st ;), 15 (then) (to 2nd ,), 17 (Escape), 24, 27, 28

1     And there came two angels to Sodom at even;

15     …then the angels hastened Lot, saying,

17     Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

24     Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

27     And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:

28     And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

5. Psalm 91 : 1-16

1     He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2     I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

3     Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

4     He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

5     Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6     Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7     A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

8     Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

9     Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

10     There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

11     For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

12     They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13     Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

14     Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

15     He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

16     With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

1. 228 : 25-27

There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God.

2. 109 : 32-12

The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science, — contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God's creation, in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.

Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought to light another glorious proposition, — man's perfectibility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

3. 194 : 1 (the)-2

…the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will.

4. 103 : 15-28, 32-2

The maximum of good is the infinite God and His idea, the All-in-all. Evil is a suppositional lie.

As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind. It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful. This belief has not one quality of Truth. It is either ignorant or malicious. The malicious form of hypnotism ultimates in moral idiocy. The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the fables of mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe their own wings and fall into dust.

In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific thoughts are true thoughts, passing from God to man.

5. 102 : 1-3, 30-5

Animal magnetism has no scientific foundation, for God governs all that is real, harmonious, and eternal, and His power is neither animal nor human.

Mankind must learn that evil is not power. Its so-called despotism is but a phase of nothingness. Christian Science despoils the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently promotes affection and virtue in families and therefore in the community. The Apostle Paul refers to the personification of evil as "the god of this world," and further defines it as dishonesty and craftiness. Sin was the Assyrian moon-god.

6. 186 : 11-22

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 omni-present. 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.

7. 95 : 28 – 25 (pg. 97)

Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth. Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual understanding; unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds Christendom with chains.

Love will finally mark the hour of harmony, and spiritualization will follow, for Love is Spirit. Before error is wholly destroyed, there will be interruptions of the general material routine. Earth will become dreary and desolate, but summer and winter, seedtime and harvest (though in changed forms), will continue unto the end, — until the final spiritualization of all things. "The darkest hour precedes the dawn."

This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.

Mortal error will vanish in a moral chemicalization. This mental fermentation has begun, and will continue until all errors of belief yield to understanding. Belief is changeable, but spiritual understanding is changeless.

As this consummation draws nearer, he who has shaped his course in accordance with divine Science will endure to the end. As material knowledge diminishes and spiritual understanding increases, real objects will be apprehended mentally instead of materially.

During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection.

In reality, the more closely error simulates truth and so-called matter resembles its essence, mortal mind, the more impotent error becomes as a belief. According to human belief, the lightning is fierce and the electric current swift, yet in Christian Science the flight of one and the blow of the other will become harmless. The more destructive matter becomes, the more its nothingness will appear, until matter reaches its mortal zenith in illusion and forever disappears. The nearer a false belief approaches truth without passing the boundary where, having been destroyed by divine Love, it ceases to be even an illusion, the riper it becomes for destruction. The more material the belief, the more obvious its error, until divine Spirit, supreme in its domain, dominates all matter, and man is found in the likeness of Spirit, his original being.

The broadest facts array the most falsities against themselves, for they bring error from under cover. It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion.

8. 473 : 7-10

The God-principle is omnipresent and omnipotent. God is everywhere, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power.