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.
Readings from the Bible.
Psalms 17:1‑8,15
Hear the right, O Lord,
attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned
lips. Let my sentence come forth from
thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal. Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast
visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am
purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from
the paths of the destroyer. Hold up my
goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear
me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou
that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those
that rise up against them. Keep me as
the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
As for me, I will behold thy
face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Psalms 57:1‑5,8‑11
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 soul is among lions: and I lie even among
them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and
arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all
the earth.
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 108:1‑6
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; That
thy beloved may be delivered: save with thy right hand, and answer me.
Psalms 139:1‑12,14,17,18
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. Thou hast beset me behind
and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto
it. 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.
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 51:9‑11
#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.
Isaiah 52:1 (to:),2,3
Awake, awake; put on thy
strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city:
Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself
from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold
yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Isaiah 60:1,2
Arise, shine; for thy light
is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 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.
Romans 13:1‑8,10‑12
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. Whosoever therefore
resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall
receive to themselves damnation. For
rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be
afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the
same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which
is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the
minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only
for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers,
attending continually upon this very thing.
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.
Ephesians 5:1,2,8‑14 ye
Be ye therefore followers of
God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath
given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling
savour.
ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye
light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is
in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto
the Lord. And have no fellowship with
the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those
things which are done of them in secret.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for
whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light.
Colossians 3:1‑4
If ye then be risen with
Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on
things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Maey Baker Eddy.
4:12‑26
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.
190:14‑31
Human birth, growth, maturity, and decay are
as the grass springing from the soil with beautiful green blades, afterwards to
wither and return to its native nothingness.
This mortal seeming is temporal; it never merges into immortal being,
but finally disappears, and immortal man, spiritual and eternal, is found to be
the real man.
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.
230:1
If sickness is real, it belongs to
immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth.
Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or
condition of Truth? But if sickness and
sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will
bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of
Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the
sick. This is the salvation which comes
through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.
291:19‑12
"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.
Truth will be to us "the resurrection
and the life" only as it destroys all error and the belief that Mind, the
only immortality of man, can be fettered by the body, and Life be controlled by
death. A sinful, sick, and dying mortal
is not the likeness of God, the perfect and eternal.
323:6‑6 np
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.
The effects of Christian Science are not so
much seen as felt. It is the
"still, small voice" of Truth uttering itself. We are either turning away from this
utterance, or we are listening to it and going up higher. Willingness to become as a little child and
to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced
idea. Gladness to leave the false
landmarks and joy to see them disappear,‑‑this disposition helps to precipitate
the ultimate harmony. The purification
of sense and self is a proof of progress. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."
327:29
Reason is the most active
human faculty. Let that inform the
sentiments and awaken the man's dormant sense of moral obligation, and by
degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense and the
grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or
corporeal. Then he not only will be
saved, but is saved.
417:20
To the Christian Science healer, sickness is
a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened. Disease should not appear real to the
physician, since it is demonstrable that the way to cure the patient is to make
disease unreal to him. To do this, the
physician must understand the unreality of disease in Science.
442:16‑32
Neither animal
magnetism nor hypnotism enters into the practice of Christian Science, in which
truth cannot be reversed, but the reverse of error is true. An improved belief cannot retrograde. When Christ changes a belief of sin or of
sickness into a better belief, then belief melts into spiritual understanding,
and sin, disease, and death disappear.
Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the
material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed
spiritually. St. Paul says, "Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling:" Jesus said, "Fear
not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom." This truth is Christian
Science.
Christian
Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you
either when asleep or when awake.
493:28‑24
If Jesus
awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the
Christ could improve on a false sense.
Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of
divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern
man's entire action? Jesus said:
"Destroy this temple [body], and in three days I [Mind] will raise it
up;" and he did this for tired humanity's reassurance.
Is it not a
species of infidelity to believe that so great a work as the Messiah's was done
for himself or for God, who needed no help from Jesus' example to preserve the
eternal harmony? But mortals did need
this help, and Jesus pointed the way for them.
Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. It is not well to imagine that Jesus
demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited
period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies
all good.
The miracle of
grace is no miracle to Love. Jesus
demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of
Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and
seek safety in divine Science. Reason,
rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin,
sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping
dream seem real) until the Science of man's eternal harmony breaks their
illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being.
552:32
Naturalists
describe the origin of mortal and material existence in the various forms of
embryology, and accompany their descriptions with important observations, which
should awaken thought to a higher and purer contemplation of man's origin. This clearer consciousness must precede an
understanding of the harmony of being.
Mortal thought must obtain a better basis, get nearer the truth of
being, or health will never be universal, and harmony will never become the
standard of man.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of
the Lord’s Prayer.
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.
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.
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