CHAPTER 96.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Levi
The Sermon on the Mount, continued. Jesus considers the Ten Commandments. The philosophy of Christ the spirit of the Commandments. Jesus unfolds the spiritual aspects of the first four Commandments.
God gave the Ten Commandments unto men; upon the mountain Moses saw the words of God; he wrote them down on solid rock; they cannot be destroyed.
2 These Ten Commandments show the justice side of God; but now the love of God made manifest brings mercy on the wings of Holy Breath.
3 Upon the unity of God the law was built. In all the world there is one force; Jehovah is Almighty God.
4 Jehovah wrote upon the heavens and Moses read,
5 I am Almighty God and you shall have no God but me.
6 There is one force, but many phases of that force; these phases men call powers.
7 All powers are of God; and they are manifests of God; they are the Spirits of the God.
8 If men could seem to find another force and worship at its shrine, they would but court illusion, vain,
9 A shadow of the One, Jehovah, God, and they who worship shadows are but shadows on the wall; for men are what they court.
10 And God would have all men to be the substance, and in mercy he commanded, You shall seek no God but me.
11 And finite man can never comprehend infinite things. Man cannot make an image of the Infinite in force.
12 And when men make a God of stone or wood or clay they make an image of a shade; and they who worship at the shrine of shades are shades.
13 So God in mercy said, You shall not carve out images of wood, or clay, or stone.
14 Such idols are ideals, abased ideals, and men can gain no higher plane than their ideals.
15 The God is Spirit, and in spirit men must worship if they would attain a consciousness of God.
16 But man can never make a picture or an image of the Holy Breath.
17 The name of God man may not speak with carnal lips; with Holy Breath alone can man pronounce the name.
18 In vanity men think they know the name of God; they speak it lightly and irreverently, and thus they are accursed.
19 If men did know the sacred name and spoke it with unholy lips, they would not live to speak it once again.
20 But God in mercy has not yet unveiled his name to those who cannot speak with Holy Breath.
21 But they who speak the substitute in idle way are guilty in the sight of God, who said,
22 You shall not take the name of God in vain.
23 The number of the Holy Breath is seven, and God holds in his hands the sevens of time.
24 In forming worlds he rested on the seventh day, and every seventh day is set apart as Sabbath day for men. God said,
25 The seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; remember it and keep it wholly set apart for works of holiness; that is, for works not for the selfish self, but for the universal self.
26 Men may do work for self upon the six days of the week; but on the Sabbath of the Lord they must do naught for self.
27 This day is consecrated unto God; but man serves God by serving man.