Sunday, April 2nd, 2017
“I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause.”
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9. Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number.
12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
14. They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night.
15. But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.
19. He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
20. In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.
21. Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.
24. And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace.
Lesson Sermon
1. Psalm 37 : 39 (the salvation), 40
39 ...the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.
40 And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.
2. Proverbs 3 : 5-8
5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
3. Isaiah 7 : 1-3 (to 2nd ,), 4-7
1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz,
4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
7 Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
4. Isaiah 8 : 10, 19-22
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?
20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.
5. Isaiah 31 : 1
1 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!
6. Matthew 15 : 21-28, 31 (and they)
21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.
22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
31 ...and they glorified the God of Israel.
7. Isaiah 59 : 1, 2, 9, 20, 21
1 Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.
21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
8. Isaiah 60 : 1-3, 19, 20
1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.
20 Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
1. 71 : 1-2 (to 1st .)
Nothing is real and eternal, — nothing is Spirit, — but God and His idea.
2. 468 : 12-13
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.
3. 143 : 26-27
Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived from Mind.
4. 202 : 24-30
Our beliefs about a Supreme Being contradict the practice growing out of them. Error abounds where Truth should "much more abound." We admit that God has almighty power, is "a very present help in trouble;" and yet we rely on a drug or hypnotism to heal disease, as if senseless matter or erring mortal mind had more power than omnipotent Spirit.
5. 143 : 5-12
It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing. The sick are more deplorably lost than the sinning, if the sick cannot rely on God for help and the sinning can. The divine Mind never called matter medicine, and matter required a material and human belief before it could be considered as medicine.
6. xi : 9-21
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. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or "God with us," — a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense],
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised.
7. 169 : 29-6
Whatever teaches man to have other laws and to acknowledge other powers than the divine Mind, is anti-Christian. The good that a poisonous drug seems to do is evil, for it robs man of reliance on God, omnipotent Mind, and according to belief, poisons the human system.
Truth is not the basis of theogony. Modes of matter form neither a moral nor a spiritual system. The discord which calls for material methods is the result of the exercise of faith in material modes, — faith in matter instead of in Spirit.
8. 353 : 2-12, 22-24
Sin, disease, whatever seems real to material sense, is unreal in divine Science. The physical senses and Science have ever been antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science.
How can a Christian, having the stronger evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin? All must admit that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that omnipotent Truth certainly does destroy error.
When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, “forgetting those things which are behind.”
9. 186 : 5-16
Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work only evil under whatever name or pretence they are employed; for Spirit and matter, good and evil, light and darkness, cannot mingle.
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 omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil.
10. 215 : 15-21
We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.
11. 203 : 13-16
Spiritual perception brings out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in deed and in truth.
12. 192 : 4-10 (to 2nd .), 17-26
We are Christian Scientists, only as we quit our reliance upon that which is false and grasp the true. We are not Christian Scientists until we leave all for Christ. Human opinions are not spiritual. They come from the hearing of the ear, from corporeality instead of from Principle, and from the mortal instead of from the immortal. Spirit is not separate from God. Spirit is God.
Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds the “wind in his fists;” and this teaching accords with Science and harmony. In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, and the physical senses must give up their false testimony. Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.
13. 167 : 22-31
It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There is but one way — namely, God and His idea — which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind.
It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.
14. vii : 1-2
To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings.
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