Sunday, May 18th, 2025 Roundtable
God Requireth That Which is Past
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Mortals And Immortals
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Morning Prayer
The great truth that man is spiritual because he is the image and likeness of God heals sickness and sin. This scientific fact denies the belief of man’s materiality, and should be kept before the thought continually. Mortal man must sacrifice the good that seems to be in matter if he would escape the evil that matter produces, for the one is as real as the other, and no more so.
from Lessons of the Seventh Day, (the “Brown Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 130
Declare continually your own perfection and freedom, and let the true and divine destroy the mesmerism that argues that you are sad and unhappy. This idea is your Saviour.
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 226
Daily Watch
198 — WATCH lest you adopt as your goal the effort to steer harmonious mortality into a divine and permanent anchorage. Such a thing can never be done, since mortality at best is but a fading dream. The only remedy and permanent anchorage is to get out of matter and mortality, by destroying the belief that man was ever in it.
Once Mrs. Eddy said, “When you seem to be surrounded by materiality, rise above it, for you were never in it; and this will take you out of the belief.”
Discussion points
Proverbs 8 : 22-31
22 The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
24 When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
26 While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
29 When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
30 Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
31 Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.
Is it possible to know why we are put into this condition of mortality?
It is quite as possible to know wherefore man is thus conditioned, as to be certain that he is in a state of mortality. The only evidence of the existence of a mortal man, or of a material state and universe, is gathered from the five personal senses. This delusive evidence, Science has dethroned by repeated proofs of its falsity.
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 64 to 65
If it’s not good, it’s not from God. — Doris White Evans
God is over all. He alone is our origin, aim, and being. The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal good.
from Retrospection and Introspection, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 22
In Him we live, move, and have being. Man’s origin and existence being in Him, man is the ultimatum of perfection, and by no means the medium of imperfection. Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of infinity. If God is upright and eternal, man as His likeness is erect in goodness and perpetual in Life, Truth, and Love. If the great cause is perfect, its effect is perfect also; and cause and effect in Science are immutable and immortal. A mortal who is sinning, sick, and dying, is not immortal man; and never was, and never can be, God’s image and likeness, the true ideal of immortal man’s divine Principle. The spiritual man is that perfect and unfallen likeness, coexistent and coeternal with God. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 79
When I let my thought down, I can hear the mental arguments of error, or the devil (there is no devil); it cannot hide from me when I want to know what it is doing.
I can lift my thought right above it and shut it all out, or I can find out what it is doing. If there was an assassin which could overpower you, it would be better for you to know what he was doing, so as to be better prepared to meet it. If the work had been done in the time of Jesus, it would not have to be done now; but the disciples did not do their part; they were not obedient to him; they questioned what he was doing; did not understand, and it was not done. So it must be done now.
We can enter into immortality here on earth, and now, and overcome death. We must do it. ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.’
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 29 and 30
Immortality Brought to Light by Dorothy Rieke
Right Activity By Howard E. Greene
Philippians 3:13, 14
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Ecclesiastes 3:15
That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.
Requireth — To demand; to ask, as of right and by authority.
from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
Revise — To review; to re-examine; to look over with care for correction;
from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
Expunge — To blot out, as with a pen; to rub out; to efface, as words; to obliterate.
from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error, and man’s real existence as a child of God comes to light.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 288 to 289
When these things cease to bless they will cease to occur.
from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 143
The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged.
from Retrospection and Introspection, by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 21 to 22
One’s human history, the sum of one’s past daily experience, appears to be a blending of good and evil elements, with each side struggling for dominance. But this sense of life needs to be revised — literally, seen again. We need to take a different view of the thoughts, deeds, and events that constitute our human record. And as we do, we’re able to correct and redeem that record. …
When dark thoughts knocked, I revised my sense of myself on the spot. I let God, divine Truth, lift my consciousness above the dust of mistakes and expunge them — expose them as unreal. …
One thorny problem I was facing was what I call “flashbacks” — sudden, unsummoned memories of past difficulties that would send me into a panic. They usually struck just when things were going pretty well, as if to say: “Just wait. It’ll be the same old story again!” Well, I learned to revise the flashbacks. Instead of panicking, I’d look hard at the memory, asking: How were God’s ever-present goodness and power operating right then? I’d demand to see that. …
So the flashbacks from the past became lessons for the present. They made me defend my spiritual identity more firmly. They reminded me, when I was tempted to act out some of the old character flaws, to revise my view of myself and expunge belief in those flaws on the spot before they could take shape in present experience. I guess you could say I began to reform. But in order to reform, I first revised and expunged:
Excerpts from “You can revise the past” by Elaine R. Follis