Everlasting Punishment - 5/6/1917

EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT
May 6, 1917

Golden Text
Prov 11:21
Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. 


Responsive Reading
Hab 2:1,2,4,9,11,12,14,15,19,20
I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. 

And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. 

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. 

Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! 

For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. 

Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! 

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 

Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! 

Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach!  Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. 

But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. 


Section I
( 1)   John 8:1-4 
Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 

( 2)   Num 32:6,16,17,20,22,23 
And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here? 

And they came near unto him, and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones: But we ourselves will go ready armed before the children of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place: and our little ones shall dwell in the fenced cities because of the inhabitants of the land. 

And Moses said unto them, If ye will do this thing, if ye will go armed before the Lord to war, 

And the land be subdued before the Lord: then afterward ye shall return, and be guiltless before the Lord, and before Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the Lord. But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out. 


( 1)   41:10 
The pampered hypocrite may have a flowery pathway here, but he cannot forever break the Golden Rule and escape the penalty due. 

( 2)   105:22-27 
    Whoever uses his developed mental powers like an escaped felon to commit fresh atrocities as opportunity occurs is never safe. God will arrest him. Divine justice will manacle him. His sins will be millstones about his neck, weighing him down to the depths of ignominy and death. 

( 3)   542:21 
Sin will receive its full penalty, both for what it is and for what it does. Justice marks the sinner, and teaches mortals not to remove the waymarks of God. To envy's own hell, justice consigns the lie which, to advance itself, breaks God's commandments. 

( 4)   535:10-15 
    Divine Science deals its chief blow at the supposed material foundations of life and intelligence. It dooms idolatry. A belief in other gods, other creators, and other creations must go down before Christian Science. It unveils the results of sin as shown in sickness and death. 

( 5)   447:12-14,20-27 
    Ignorance, subtlety, or false charity does not forever conceal error; evil will in time disclose and punish itself.  

Expose and denounce the claims of evil and disease in all their forms, but realize no reality in them. A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove its unreality. 


Section II
( 3)   John 8:5-9 
Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 

( 4)   Is 1:1,4,5,9 
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 

Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 

( 5)   Judg 10:15 
And the children of Israel said unto the Lord, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day. 


( 6)   447:30-3 
    A sinner is afraid to cast the first stone. He may say, as a subterfuge, that evil is unreal, but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offence. Blindness and self-righteousness cling fast to iniquity.  

( 7)   218:12 
What renders both sin and sickness difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the sinner, disinclined to self-correction, and believing that the body can be sick independently of mortal mind and that the divine Mind has no jurisdiction over the body. 

( 8)   242:15 
    Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, - self-will, self-justification, and self-love, -  which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death. 

( 9)   203:25-27 
The so-called sinner is a suicide.  Sin kills the sinner and will continue to kill him so long as he sins. 

(10)   151:24 
The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth. 


Section III
( 6)   John 8:10,11 
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord.  And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. 

( 7)   I John 4:9 
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 

( 8)   I Cor 3:13,15 
Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. 

If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 

( 9)   Prov 3:11,12 
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. 

(10)   Is 14:1 
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. 


(11)   40:8-14 
    Divine Science adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted it. Science removes the penalty only by first removing the sin which incurs the penalty. This is my sense of divine pardon, which I understand to mean God's method of destroying sin. If the saying is true, "While there's life there's hope," its opposite is also true, While there's sin there's doom. 

(12)   22:20 
Love is not hasty to deliver us from temptation, for Love means that we shall be tried and purified. 

(13)   10:31-20 
Do you ask wisdom to be merciful and not to punish sin? Then "ye ask amiss."  Without punishment, sin would multiply. Jesus' prayer, "Forgive us our debts," specified also the terms of forgiveness. When forgiving the adulterous woman he said, "Go, and sin no more." 
    A magistrate sometimes remits the penalty, but this may be no moral benefit to the criminal, and at best, it only saves the criminal from one form of punishment. The moral law, which has the right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitution before mortals can "go up higher." Broken law brings penalty in order to compel this progress. 
    Mere legal pardon (and there is no other, for divine Principle never pardons our sins or mistakes till they are corrected) leaves the offender free to repeat the offence, if indeed, he has not already suffered sufficiently from vice to make him turn from it with loathing. Truth bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the most effectual manner. Jesus suffered for our sins, not to annul the divine sentence for an individual's sin, but because sin brings inevitable suffering. 

(14)   448:17-19 
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." 


Section IV
(11)   John 8:12 
Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. 

(12)   Mal 3:1-3 
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. 

(13)   John 1:4,5 
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 


(15)   215:12 
Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life. 

(16)   503:12-15 
Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, "God is All-in-all," and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe. 

(17)   558:10 
To mortal sense Science seems at first obscure, abstract, and dark; but a bright promise crowns its brow.  When understood, it is Truth's prism and praise. When you look it fairly in the face, you can heal by its means, and it has for you a light above the sun, for God "is the light thereof." Its feet are pillars of fire, foundations of Truth and Love. It brings the baptism of the Holy Ghost, whose flames of Truth were prophetically described by John the Baptist as consuming error. 

(18)   xi:9-14 
    The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. 

(19)   251:24 
This process of higher spiritual understanding improves mankind until error disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to perish or to be punished. 


Section V
(14)   John 8:13-16,18,23 
The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. 

I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. 

And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 

(15)   Ps 19:8,8,11 
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 

Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. 


(20)   5:3,29 
    Sorrow for wrong-doing is but one step towards reform and the very easiest step. The next and great step required by wisdom is the test of our sincerity,  - namely, reformation. To this end we are placed under the stress of circumstances. Temptation bids us repeat the offence, and woe comes in return for what is done. So it will ever be, till we learn that there is no discount in the law of justice and that we must pay "the uttermost farthing." The measure ye mete "shall be measured to you again," and it will be full "and running over." 

    An apostle says that the Son of God [Christ] came to "destroy the works of the devil." We should follow our divine Exemplar, and seek the destruction of all evil works, error and disease included.  We cannot escape the penalty due for sin. The Scriptures say, that if we deny Christ, "he also will deny us." 

(21)   6:17-24 
    "God is Love." More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go. To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love and to make prayer the safety-valve for wrong-doing. 
    Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before he cast it out. 

(22)   7:1 
    The only civil sentence which he had for error was, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Still stronger evidence that Jesus' reproof was pointed and pungent is found in his own words, - showing the necessity for such forcible utterance, when he cast out devils and healed the sick and sinning. The relinquishment of error deprives material sense of its false claims. 


Section VI
(16)   John 8:31,36,50,51 
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. 

And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. 

(17)   Prov 11:3,6,7 
The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. 

The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth. 

(18)   Prov 12:28 
In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death. 


(23)   183:23-29 
Obedience to Truth gives man power and strength. Submission to error superinduces loss of power. 
    Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods with the actual spiritual law, - the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. 

(24)   227:21 
    Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: "Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!" Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world, accept the "glorious liberty of the children of God," and be free! This is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being. 

(25)   569:11-21 
He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing, - in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love. Alas for those who break faith with divine Science and fail to strangle the serpent of sin as well as of sickness! They are dwellers still in the deep darkness of belief. They are in the surging sea of error, not struggling to lift their heads above the drowning wave. 
    What must the end be? They must eventually expiate their sin through suffering. 

(26)   340:23 
One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, - whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.