Theme: Hear
Hymn 58
Elizabeth C. Adams
Father, we Thy loving children
Lift our hearts in joy today,
Knowing well that Thou wilt keep us
Ever in Thy blessed way.
Thou art Love and Thou art wisdom,
Thou art Life and Thou art All;
In Thy Spirit living, moving,
We shall neither faint nor fall.
Come we daily then, dear Father,
Open hearts and willing hands,
Eager ears, expectant, joyful,
Ready for Thy right commands.
We would hear no other voices,
We would heed no other call;
Thou alone art good and gracious,
Thou our Mind and Thou our All.
In Thy house securely dwelling,
Where Thy children live to bless,
Seeing only Thy creation,
We can share Thy happiness,
Share Thy joy and spend it freely.
Loyal hearts can feel no fear;
We Thy children know Thee, Father,
Love and Life forever near.
Readings from the Bible.
Deuteronomy 6:4‑7
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Psalms 51:1,2,6‑8,10‑12
Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash
me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Behold, thou desirest truth
in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know
wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I
shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the
bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Create in me a clean heart, O
God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from
me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation;
and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Psalms 85:1,2 (to 1st .),3‑8
(to 2nd :)
Lord, thou hast been
favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy
people, thou hast covered all their sin.
Thou hast taken away all thy
wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause
thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt
thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all
generations? Wilt thou not revive us
again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, and
grant us thy salvation. I will hear what
God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his
saints:
Proverbs 1:5‑9
A wise man will hear, and
will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise
counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the
wise, and their dark sayings. #The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and
instruction. My son, hear the
instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they
shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.
Proverbs 4:1,2,5‑12
Hear, ye children, the
instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding. For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not
my law.
Get wisdom, get
understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee:
love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom
is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get
understanding. Exalt her, and she shall
promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of
grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee. Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and
the years of thy life shall be many. I
have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be
straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.
Proverbs 8:4‑11
Unto you, O men, I call; and
my voice is to the sons of man. O ye
simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear; for I will speak of excellent things;
and the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall speak truth; and
wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward
or perverse in them. They are all plain
to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. Receive my instruction, and not silver; and
knowledge rather than choice gold. For
wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to
be compared to it.
Ecclesiastes 12:13
#Let us hear the conclusion
of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole
duty of man.
Isaiah 32:1‑3
Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from
the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken.
Matthew 11:1‑6,15
And it came to pass, when
Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to
teach and to preach in their cities. Now
when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his
disciples, And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for
another? Jesus answered and said unto
them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind
receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to
them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall
not be offended in me.
He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear.
Revelation 2:7
He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
26:28
Our Master taught no mere theory, doctrine,
or belief. It was the divine Principle
of all real being which he taught and practised. His proof of Christianity was no form or
system of religion and worship, but Christian Science, working out the harmony
of Life and Love. Jesus sent a message
to John the Baptist, which was intended to prove beyond a question that the
Christ had come: "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and
heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached." In other words: Tell John what the
demonstration of divine power is, and he will at once perceive that God is the
power in the Messianic work.
37:16
When will Jesus' professed followers learn to
emulate him in ^all^ his ways and to imitate his mighty works? Those who procured the martyrdom of that
righteous man would gladly have turned his sacred career into a mutilated
doctrinal platform. May the Christians
of to‑day take up the more practical import of that career! It is possible,‑‑yea, it is the duty and
privilege of every child, man, and woman,‑‑to follow in some degree the example
of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and
holiness. Chris‑tians claim to be his
followers, but do they follow him in the way that he commanded? Hear these imperative commands: "Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect!" "Go ye into all the
world, and preach the gospel to every creature!" "^Heal the^ ^sick^!"
84:19‑23
To understand that Mind is infinite, not
bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight
nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind‑science
by which we discern man's nature and existence.
211:24
If it is true that nerves have sensation,
that matter has intelligence, that the material organism causes the eyes to see
and the ears to hear, then, when the body is dematerialized, these faculties
must be lost, for their immortality is not in Spirit; whereas the fact is that
only through dematerialization and spiritualization of thought can these
faculties be conceived of as immortal.
213:6‑19,30
Mortal mind conceives of something as either
liquid or solid, and then classifies it materially. Immortal and spiritual facts exist apart from
this mortal and material conception.
God, good, is self‑existent and self‑expressed, though indefinable as a
whole. Every step towards goodness is a
departure from materiality, and is a tendency towards God, Spirit. Material theories partially paralyze this
attraction towards infinite and eternal good by an opposite attraction towards
the finite, temporary, and discordant.
Sound is a mental impression made on mortal
belief. The ear does not really
hear. Divine Science reveals sound as communicated
through the senses of Soul‑‑through spiritual understanding.
Before human knowledge dipped to its depths
into a false sense of things,‑‑into belief in material origins which discard
the one Mind and true source of being,‑‑it is possible that the impressions
from Truth were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the
primitive prophets. If the medium of
hearing is wholly spiritual, it is normal and indestructible.
342:16‑28
If Christianity is not scientific, and Science
is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an
accident. Shall it be denied that a
system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?
Christian Science awakens the sinner,
reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless
invalid. It speaks to the dumb the words
of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing.
It causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see. Who would be the first to disown the
Christliness of good works, when our Master says, "By their fruits ye
shall know them"?
467:17
Science reveals Spirit, Soul, as not in the
body, and God as not in man but as reflected by man. The greater cannot be in the lesser. The belief that the greater can be in the
lesser is an error that works ill. This
is a leading point in the Science of Soul, that Principle is not in its
idea. Spirit, Soul, is not confined in
man, and is never in matter. We reason
imperfectly from effect to cause, when we conclude that matter is the effect of
Spirit; but ^a priori^ reasoning shows material existence to be
enigmatical. Spirit gives the true
mental idea. We cannot interpret Spirit,
Mind, through matter. Matter neither
sees, hears, nor feels.
479:8‑15
Matter is neither self‑existent nor a product
of Spirit. An image of mortal thought,
reflected on the retina, is all that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see, feel, hear, taste, nor
smell. It is not self‑cognizant,‑‑cannot
feel itself, see itself, nor understand itself.
Take away so‑called mortal mind, which constitutes matter's supposed
selfhood, and matter can take no cognizance of matter.
485:4‑7
Science declares that Mind,
not matter, sees, hears, feels, speaks. Whatever contradicts this statement is
the false sense, which ever betrays mortals into sickness, sin, and death.
486:23‑12
Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of
man, are eternal. They cannot be
lost. Their reality and immortality are
in Spirit and understanding, not in matter,‑‑hence their permanence. If this were not so, man would be speedily
annihilated. If the five corporeal
senses were the medium through which to understand God, then palsy, blindness,
and deafness would place man in a terrible situation, where he would be like
those "having no hope, and without God in the world;" but as a matter
of fact, these calamities often drive mortals to seek and to find a higher
sense of happiness and existence.
Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never
attainable through death, but gained by walking in the pathway of Truth both
before and after that which is called death.
There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than
materially. There is more Science in the
perpetual exercise of the Mind‑faculties than in their loss. Lost they cannot be, while Mind remains. The apprehension of this gave sight to the
blind and hearing to the deaf centuries ago, and it will repeat the
wonder.
585:1‑4 (to ))
EARS.
Not organs of the so‑called corporeal senses, but spiritual
understanding.
Jesus said, referring to spiritual
perception, "Having ears, hear ye not?" (Mark viii. 18.)
591:8
MATTER.
Mythology; mortality; another name for mortal mind; illusion;
intelligence, substance, and life in non‑intelligence and mortality; life
resulting in death, and death in life; sensation in the sensationless; mind
originating in matter; the opposite of Truth; the opposite of Spirit; the
opposite of God; that of which immortal Mind takes no cognizance; that which mortal
mind sees, feels, hears, tastes, and smells only in belief.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 136
Violet Hay
I love Thy way of freedom, Lord,
To serve Thee is my choice,
In Thy clear light of Truth I rise
And, listening for Thy voice,
I hear Thy promise old and new,
That bids all fear to cease:
My presence still shall go with thee
And I will give thee peace.
Though storm or discord cross my path
Thy power is still my stay,
Though human will and woe would check
My upward‑soaring way;
All unafraid I wait, the while
Thy angels bring release,
For still Thy presence is with me,
And Thou dost give me peace.
I climb, with joy, the heights of Mind,
To soar o'er time and space;
I yet shall know as I am known
And see Thee face to face.
Till time and space and fear are naught
My quest shall never cease,
Thy presence ever goes with me
And Thou dost give me peace.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 374
John Randall Dunn
We thank Thee and we bless Thee,
O Father of us all,
That e'en before we ask Thee
Thou hear'st Thy children's call.
We praise Thee for Thy goodness
And tender, constant care,
We thank Thee, Father‑Mother,
That Thou hast heard our prayer.
We thank Thee and we bless Thee,
O Lord of all above,
That now Thy children know Thee
As everlasting Love.
And Love is not the author
Of discord, pain and fear;
O Love divine, we thank Thee
That good alone is here.
We thank Thee, Father‑Mother,
For blessings, light and grace
Which bid mankind to waken
And see Thee face to face.
We thank Thee, when in anguish
We turn from sense to Soul,
That we may hear Thee calling:
Rejoice, for thou art whole.
