1. Date of Lesson

2. Subject, Golden Text, and Responsive Reading

3. Lesson Sermon — The Bible

4. Lesson Sermon — Science and Health

5. The Daily Duties

6. About the preparation of this lesson

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Subject — Unreality

GOLDEN TEXT: Genesis 1 : 31

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”

RESPONSIVE READING: Ephesians 5 : 14-21

14.     Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

15.     See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

16.     Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

17.     Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

18.     And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

19.     Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

20.     Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

21.     Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Lesson Sermon

The Bible

1. Psalm 23 : 1-6

1     The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2     He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3     He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4     Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5     Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6     Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

2. James 1 : 16

16     Do not err, my beloved brethren.

3. Ecclesiastes 3 : 14

14     I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

4. II Kings 4 : 1-7

1     Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.

2     And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil.

3     Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.

4     And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full.

5     So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out.

6     And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.

7     Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.

5. Matthew 4 : 23

23     And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

6. Mark 5 : 25-34

25     And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

26     And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

27     When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

28     For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

29     And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

30     And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

31     And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

32     And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

33     But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

34     And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

7. Luke 7 : 11-16

11     And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.

12     Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.

13     And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.

14     And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.

15     And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.

16     And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.

8. John 17 : 3

3     And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

9. Psalm 119 : 12-18

12     Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes.

13     With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.

14     I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.

15     I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.

16     I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.

17     Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.

18     Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

10. Psalm 103 : 1-4, 12, 22

1     Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

2     Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

3     Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

4     Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

12     As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

22     Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.

Science and Health

1. 472 : 24 (All)-26

All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made.

2. 207 : 9-14

We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence. Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit secondary. Without this lesson, we lose sight of the perfect Father, or the divine Principle of man.

3. 554 : 8 (Error)-22

Error is always error. It is no thing. Any statement of life, following from a misconception of life, is erroneous, because it is destitute of any knowledge of the so-called selfhood of life, destitute of any knowledge of its origin or existence. The mortal is unconscious of his foetal and infantile existence; but as he grows up into another false claim, that of self-conscious matter, he learns to say, "I am somebody; but who made me?" Error replies, "God made you." The first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.

Jesus defined this opposite of God and His creation better than we can, when he said, "He is a liar, and the father of it."

4. 596 : 20 (Valley)-27

VALLEY. Depression; meekness; darkness.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." (Psalm xxiii. 4.)

Though the way is dark in mortal sense, divine Life and Love illumine it, destroy the unrest of mortal thought, the fear of death, and the supposed reality of error. Christian Science, contradicting sense, maketh the valley to bud and blossom as the rose.

5. 495 : 8 (classify)-16

…classify sickness and error as our Master did, when he spoke of the sick, "whom Satan hath bound," and find a sovereign antidote for error in the life-giving power of Truth acting on human belief, a power which opens the prison doors to such as are bound, and sets the captive free physically and morally.

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought.

6. 273 : 1-20

Matter and its claims of sin, sickness, and death are contrary to God, and cannot emanate from Him. There is no material truth. The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and spiritual Truth. Human belief has sought out many inventions, but not one of them can solve the problem of being without the divine Principle of divine Science. Deductions from material hypotheses are not scientific. They differ from real Science because they are not based on the divine law.

Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the material senses, and thus tears away the foundations of error. Hence the enmity between Science and the senses, and the impossibility of attaining perfect understanding till the errors of sense are eliminated.

The so-called laws of matter and of medical science have never made mortals whole, harmonious, and immortal. Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the importance of understanding the truth of being, which reveals the laws of spiritual existence.

7. 393 : 29-4

Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and matter cannot be. A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and its cause. It is well to be calm in sickness; to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding is the universal and perfect remedy.

8. 231 : 3-11

Unless an ill is rightly met and fairly overcome by Truth, the ill is never conquered. If God destroys not sin, sickness, and death, they are not destroyed in the mind of mortals, but seem to this so-called mind to be immortal. What God cannot do, man need not attempt. If God heals not the sick, they are not healed, for no lesser power equals the infinite All-power; but God, Truth, Life, Love, does heal the sick through the prayer of the righteous.

9. 318 : 5-13

Corporeal senses define diseases as realities; but the Scriptures declare that God made all, even while the corporeal senses are saying that matter causes disease and the divine Mind cannot or will not heal it. The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased. They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense.

10. 377 : 26-6

The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal fear, a mistaken belief or conviction of the necessity and power of ill-health; also a fear that Mind is helpless to defend the life of man and incompetent to control it. Without this ignorant human belief, any circumstance is of itself powerless to produce suffering. It is latent belief in disease, as well as the fear of disease, which associates sickness with certain circumstances and causes the two to appear conjoined, even as poetry and music are reproduced in union by human memory. Disease has no intelligence. Unwittingly you sentence yourself to suffer. The understanding of this will enable you to commute this self-sentence, and meet every circumstance with truth.

11. 417 : 21-24

Disease should not appear real to the physician, since it is demonstrable that the way to cure the patient is to make disease unreal to him.

12. 353 : 19-24

We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, "forgetting those things which are behind."

The Daily Duties

by Mary Baker Eddy

Daily Prayer

It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to pray each day: "Thy kingdom come;" let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!

Church Manual, Article VIII, Sect. 4

A Rule for Motives and Acts

Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church. In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness. The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously.

Church Manual, Article VIII, Sect. 1

Alertness to Duty

It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged, — and justified or condemned.

Church Manual, Article VIII, Sect. 6

Take Notice

To Christian Scientists: — See Science and Health, page 442, line 30, and give daily attention thereto.

from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 237

“Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake.”

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 422

This Bible Lesson was prepared by Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent. It is composed of Scriptural Quotations from the King James Bible and Correlative Passages from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 1910 Edition, by Mary Baker Eddy.

Copyright 2023 Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent

Table of Contents

Sunday, April 2nd, 2023 — Subject: Unreality

Date of Lesson

Subject, Golden Text, and Responsive Reading

Lesson Sermon — The Bible

Lesson Sermon — Science and Health

The Daily Duties

About the preparation of this lesson