Theme: Awake
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.
Readings from the Bible
Psalms 57:1‑3,7‑11
Be merciful unto me, O God,
be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy
wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth
all things for me. He shall send from
heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. God
shall send forth his mercy and his truth.
My heart is fixed, O God, my
heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake
early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among
the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and
thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou
exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.
Psalms 108:1‑5
O God, my heart is fixed; I
will sing and give praise, even with my glory.
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people:
and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great above the heavens: and
thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. Be
thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and thy glory above all the earth;
Psalms 139:1‑4,7‑12,14,16‑18
O Lord, thou hast searched me,
and known me. Thou knowest my
downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways. For
there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it
altogether.
Whither shall I go from thy
spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy
right hand shall hold me. If I say,
Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about
me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from
thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both
alike to thee.
I will praise thee; for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul
knoweth right well.
Thine eyes did see my
substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O
God! how great is the sum of them! If I
should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am
still with thee.
Isaiah 51:1,4,7,9‑11
Hearken to me, ye that follow
after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are
hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
#Hearken unto me, my people;
and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will
make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
#Hearken unto me, ye that
know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the
reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
#Awake, awake, put on
strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations
of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the
waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the
ransomed to pass over? Therefore the
redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and
everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy;
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
Romans 13:1,7,8,10‑12
Let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be
are ordained of God.
Render therefore to all their
dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear;
honour to whom honour. Owe no man any
thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the
law.
Love worketh no ill to his
neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is
high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we
believed. The night is far spent, the
day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put
on the armour of light.
I Thessalonians 5:1‑11 of,15‑23
of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye
have no need that I write unto you. For
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the
night. For when they shall say, Peace
and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman
with child; and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you
as a thief. Ye are all the children of
light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of
darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as
do others; but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are
drunken in the night. But let us, who
are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for
an helmet, the hope of salvation. For
God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus
Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live
together with him. Wherefore comfort
yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
See that none render evil for
evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves,
and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Quench not the Spirit. Despise
not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold
fast that which is good. Abstain from
all appearance of evil. And the very God
of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and
body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
4:12‑2
The habitual struggle to be always good is
unceasing prayer. Its motives are made
manifest in the blessings they bring,‑‑blessings which, even if not
acknowledged in audible words, attest our worthiness to be partakers of
Love.
Simply asking that we may love God will never
make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily
watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will
mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness. We reach the Science of Christianity through
demonstration of the divine nature; but in this wicked world goodness will
"be evil spoken of," and patience must bring experience.
Audible prayer can never do the works of
spiritual understanding, which regenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness,
and devout obedience enable us to follow Jesus' example. Long prayers, superstition, and creeds clip
the strong pinions of love, and clothe religion in human forms. Whatever materializes worship hinders man's
spiritual growth and keeps him from demonstrating his power over error.
190:21‑15
The Hebrew bard, swayed by mortal thoughts,
thus swept his lyre with saddening strains on human existence:
As for man, his days are as grass:
As a flower of the field, so he
flourisheth.
For
the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;
And the place thereof shall know it no
more.
When hope rose higher in the
human heart, he sang:
As for me, I will behold Thy face in
righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with
Thy likeness. . . .
For with Thee is the fountain of life;
In Thy light shall we see light.
The brain can give no idea of God's man. It can take no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infinite Mind.
As mortals give up the delusion that there is
more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God's likeness will appear, and
this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element.
As a material, theoretical life‑basis is
found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle
of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to "where the young child
was," ‑‑even to the birth of a new‑old idea, to the spiritual sense of
being and of what Life includes. Thus
the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing
away the darkness of error.
249:18‑13
Life is, like Christ, "the same
yesterday, and to‑day, and forever."
Organization and time have nothing to do with Life. You say, "I dreamed last night."
What a mistake is that! The I is
Spirit. God never slumbers, and His
likeness never dreams. Mortals are the
Adam dreamers.
Sleep and apathy are phases of the dream that
life, substance, and intelligence are material.
The mortal night‑dream is sometimes nearer the fact of being than are
the thoughts of mortals when awake. The
night‑dream has less matter as its accompaniment. It throws off some material fetters. It falls short of the skies, but makes its
mundane flights quite ethereal.
Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct opposite of material
sensation, and there is but one Ego. We
run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiply Mind into minds and
suppose error to be mind, then mind to be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver,
unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mortality to be the matrix of
immortality.
Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence
has no real entity, but saith "It is I." Spirit is the Ego which never dreams, but
understands all things; which never errs, and is ever conscious; which never
believes, but knows; which is never born and never dies. Spiritual man is the likeness of this
Ego. Man is not God, but like a ray of light
which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God.
291:12‑6
Universal salvation rests on progression and
probation, and is unattainable without them.
Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the
manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there
and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of
"the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.
"In the place where the tree falleth,
there it shall be." So we read in
Ecclesiastes. This text has been
transformed into the popular proverb, "As the tree falls, so it must
lie." As man falleth asleep, so
shall he awake. As death findeth mortal
man, so shall he be after death, until probation and growth shall effect the
needed change. Mind never becomes
dust. No resurrection from the grave
awaits Mind or Life, for the grave has no power over either.
No final judgment awaits mortals, for the
judgment‑day of wisdom comes hourly and continually, even the judgment by which
mortal man is divested of all material error.
As for spiritual error there is none.
When the last mortal fault is destroyed, then
the final trump will sound which will end the battle of Truth with error and
mortality; "but of that day and hour, knoweth no man." Here prophecy pauses. Divine Science alone can compass the heights
and depths of being and reveal the infinite.
323:6‑27
Through the wholesome chastisements of Love,
we are helped onward in the march towards righteousness, peace, and purity,
which are the landmarks of Science.
Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause,‑‑wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought
walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine
glory.
In order to apprehend more, we must put into
practice what we already know. We must
recollect that Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not
understood until demonstrated. If
"faithful over a few things," we shall be made rulers over many; but
the one unused talent decays and is lost.
When the sick or the sinning awake to realize their need of what they
have not, they will be receptive of divine Science, which gravitates towards
Soul and away from material sense, removes thought from the body, and elevates
even mortal mind to the contemplation of something better than disease or
sin. The true idea of God gives the true
understanding of Life and Love, robs the grave of victory, takes away all sin
and the delusion that there are other minds, and destroys mortality.
427:26‑14
Called to the bed of death, what material
remedy has man when all such remedies have failed? Spirit is his last resort, but it should have
been his first and only resort. The
dream of death must be mastered by Mind here or hereafter. Thought will waken from its own material
declaration, "I am dead," to catch this trumpet‑word of Truth,
"There is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor
reaction."
Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstration of the facts of Soul in
Jesus' way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and
immortality. Man's privilege at this
supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: "If a man keep my
saying, he shall never see death."
To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that
the spiritual facts of being may appear,‑‑this is the great attainment by means
of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or
body, "whose builder and maker is God."
490:28‑26
Sleep and mesmerism explain the mythical
nature of material sense. Sleep shows
material sense as either oblivion, nothingness, or an illusion or dream. Under the mesmeric illusion of belief, a man
will think that he is freezing when he is warm, and that he is swimming when he
is on dry land. Needle‑thrusts will not
hurt him. A delicious perfume will seem intolerable. Animal magnetism thus uncovers material
sense, and shows it to be a belief without actual foundation or validity. Change the belief, and the sensation
changes. Destroy the belief, and the
sensation disappears.
Material man is made up of involuntary and
voluntary error, of a negative right and a positive wrong, the latter calling
itself right. Man's spiritual
individuality is never wrong. It is the
likeness of man's Maker. Matter cannot
connect mortals with the true origin and facts of being, in which all must
end. It is only by acknowledging the
supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay
off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man
forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.
The belief that matter and mind are one,‑‑that
matter is awake at one time and asleep at another, sometimes presenting no
appearance of mind,‑‑this belief culminates in another belief, that man
dies. Science reveals material man as
never the real being. The dream or
belief goes on, whether our eyes are closed or open. In sleep, memory and consciousness are lost
from the body, and they wander whither they will apparently with their own
separate embodiment. Personality is not
the individuality of man.
491:28‑12
When we are awake, we dream of the pains and
pleasures of matter. Who will say, even though he does not understand Christian
Science, that this dream‑‑rather than the dreamer‑‑may not be mortal man? Who can rationally say otherwise, when the
dream leaves mortal man intact in body and thought, although the so‑called
dreamer is unconscious? For right
reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual
existence. In reality there is no other
existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality.
Being is holiness, harmony, immortality. It is already proved that a knowledge of
this, even in small degree, will uplift the physical and moral standard of
mortals, will increase longevity, will purify and elevate character. Thus progress will finally destroy all error,
and bring immortality to light.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 5
Irving C. Tomlinson
A voice from heaven we have heard,
The call to rise from earth;
Put armor on, the sword now gird,
And for the fight go forth.
The foe in ambush claims our prize,
Then heed high heaven's call.
Obey the voice of Truth, arise,
And let not fear enthrall.
The cause requires unswerving might:
With God alone agree.
Then have no other aim than right;
End bondage, O be free.
Depart from sin, awake to love:
Your mission is to heal.
Then all of Truth you must approve,
And only know the real.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 181
Rosemary B. Hackett
Loving Father, we Thy children
Look to Thee in fear's dark night
While the angels of Thy presence
Guide us upward to the light.
Then we feel the power that lifts us
To Thy holy secret place,
Where our gloom is lost in glory
As we see Thee face to face.
We would learn, O gracious Father,
To reflect Thy healing love.
May we all awake to praise Thee
For Thy good gifts from above.
Make us strong to bear the message
To Thy children far and near:
Fear shall have no more dominion.
God is All, and heaven is here.
