Theme: Comfort
Hymn 9
Violet Hay
All glory be to God most high,
And on the earth be peace,
The angels sang, in days of yore,
The song that ne'er shall cease,
Till all the world knows peace.
God's angels ever come and go,
All winged with light and love;
They bring us blessings from on high,
They lift our thoughts above,
They whisper God is Love.
O longing hearts that wait on God
Through all the world so wide;
He knows the angels that you need,
And sends them to your side,
To comfort, guard and guide.
O wake and hear the angel‑song
That bids all discord cease,
From pain and sorrow, doubt and fear,
It brings us sweet release;
And so our hearts find peace.
Readings from the Bible.
Psalms 23:1‑6
The Lord is my shepherd; I
shall not want. He maketh me to lie down
in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the
paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
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. Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth
over. 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.
Psalms 71:1‑5,9‑12,16,21‑24
In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust: let me never be put to confusion.
Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine
ear unto me, and save me. Be thou my strong
habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to
save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.
Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of
the unrighteous and cruel man. For thou
art my hope, O Lord God: thou art my trust from my youth.
Cast me not off in the time
of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. For mine enemies speak against me; and they
that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, Saying, God hath forsaken him:
persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me: O my God, make
haste for my help.
I will go in the strength of
the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine
only.
Thou shalt increase my
greatness, and comfort me on every side.
I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God:
unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing
unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of thy
righteousness all the day long: for they are confounded, for they are brought
unto shame, that seek my hurt.
Isaiah 40:1‑15,18,21,26,28‑31
Comfort ye, comfort ye my
people, saith your God. Speak ye
comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double
for all her sins. #The voice of him that
crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the
desert a highway for our God. Every
valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth
of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice
said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the
flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the
people is grass. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. #O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee
up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy
voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah,
Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God
will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward
is with him, and his work before him. He
shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm,
and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with
young. #Who hath measured the waters in
the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended
the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and
the hills in a balance? Who hath
directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counseller hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed
him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and
shewed to him the way of understanding?
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the
small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little
thing.
#To whom then will ye liken
God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
Have ye not known? have ye
not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood
from the foundations of the earth?
Lift up your eyes on high,
and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by
number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he
is strong in power; not one faileth.
#Hast thou not known? hast
thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of
the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his
understanding. He giveth power to the
faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and
the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and
not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
II Corinthians 1:3,4
Blessed be God, even the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all
comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to
comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted of God.
Philippians 2:1‑13
If there be therefore any
consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit,
if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the
same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of
mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but
every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself
of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,
and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my
beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much
more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to
will and to do of his good pleasure.
II Thessalonians 2:15‑17
Therefore, brethren, stand
fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or
our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ
himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us
everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and
stablish you in every good word and work.
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
32:28‑17
The Passover, which Jesus ate with his
disciples in the month Nisan on the night before his crucifixion, was a
mournful occasion, a sad supper taken at the close of day, in the twilight of a
glorious career with shadows fast falling around; and this supper closed
forever Jesus' ritualism or concessions to matter.
His followers, sorrowful and silent,
anticipating the hour of their Master's betrayal, partook of the heavenly
manna, which of old had fed in the wilderness the persecuted followers of
Truth. Their bread indeed came down from
heaven. It was the great truth of
spiritual being, healing the sick and casting out error. Their Master had explained it all before, and
now this bread was feeding and sustaining them.
They had borne this bread from house to house, breaking (explaining) it to others, and now it comforted
themselves.
For this truth of spiritual being, their
Master was about to suffer violence and drain to the dregs his cup of
sorrow. He must leave them. With the great glory of an everlasting
victory overshadowing him, he gave thanks and said, "Drink ye all of
it."
78:28
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell
whence it cometh." By it the sick
are healed, the sorrowing are comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the effects of one universal God,
the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science.
196:31
The press unwittingly sends forth many
sorrows and diseases among the human family.
It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long
descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like
a Parisian name for a novel garment.
Every one hastens to get it. A
minutely described disease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! But the price does not exceed the original
cost. God said of the tree of knowledge,
which bears the fruit of sin, disease, and death, "In the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
234:1‑18
Spiritual draughts heal, while material
lotions interfere with truth, even as ritualism and creed hamper
spirituality. If we trust matter, we
distrust Spirit.
Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love‑‑be
it song, sermon, or Science‑‑blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort
from Christ's table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the
thirsty.
We should become more familiar with good than
with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors
against the approach of thieves and murderers.
We should love our enemies and help them on the basis of the Golden
Rule; but avoid casting pearls before those who trample them under foot,
thereby robbing both themselves and others.
If mortals would keep proper ward over mortal
mind, the brood of evils which infest it would be cleared out.
572:23‑574:2
The Revelator had not yet passed the
transitional stage in human experience called death, but he already saw a new
heaven and a new earth. Through what
sense came this vision to St. John? Not
through the material visual organs for seeing, for optics are inadequate to
take in so wonderful a scene. Were this
new heaven and new earth terrestrial or celestial, material or spiritual? They could not be the former, for the human
sense of space is unable to grasp such a view.
The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what
the eye cannot see,‑‑that which is invisible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact
in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that
consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the
unillumined human mind, the vision is material.
This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit
indicates states and stages of consciousness.
Accompanying this scientific consciousness
was another revelation, even the declaration from heaven, supreme harmony, that
God, the divine Principle of harmony, is ever with men, and they are His
people. Thus man was no longer regarded
as a miserable sinner, but as the blessed child of God. Why?
Because St. John's corporeal sense of the heavens and earth had
vanished, and in place of this false sense was the spiritual sense, the
subjective state by which he could see the new heaven and new earth, which
involve the spiritual idea and consciousness of reality. This is Scriptural authority for concluding
that such a recognition of being is, and has been, possible to men in this
present state of existence,‑‑that we can become conscious, here and now, of a
cessation of death, sorrow, and pain.
This is indeed a foretaste of absolute Christian Science. Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality
of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears
will be wiped away. When you read this,
remember Jesus' words, "The kingdom of God is within you." This spiritual consciousness is therefore a
present possibility.
577:32‑18
In the following Psalm one word shows, though
faintly, the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures by
substituting for the corporeal sense, the incorporeal or spiritual sense of
Deity:‑‑
PSALM XXIII
[Divine Love] is my shepherd; I shall not
want.
[Love] maketh me to lie down in green
pastures: [Love] leadeth me beside the still waters.
[Love] restoreth my soul [spiritual
sense]: [Love] leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for [Love] is with me; [Love's] rod and [Love's] staff they comfort me.
[Love] prepareth a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies: [Love]
anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of
[Love] for ever.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 95
Joseph H. Gilmore
He leadeth me, O blessed thought,
O words with heavenly comfort fraught.
Whate'er I do, where'er I be,
Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.
Refrain
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me.
His faithful follower I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.
Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden's bowers bloom,
By waters calm, o'er troubled sea,
Still 'tis His hand that leadeth me.
[Refrain]
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 174
Maria Louise Baum
Like as a mother, God comforteth His children;
Comfort is calm, that bids all tumult cease;
Comfort is hope and courage for endeavor,
Comfort is love, whose home abides in peace.
Love is true solace and giveth joy for sorrow,‑‑
O, in that light, all earthly loss is gain;
Joy must endure, Love's giving is forever;
Life is of God, whose radiance cannot wane.
O holy presence, that stills all our
demanding,
O love of God, that needs but to be known!
Heaven is at hand, when thy pure touch
persuades us,
Comfort of God, that seeks and finds His
own.
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