Theme: “Everlasting”
Hymn 53
Based on a hymn by John R. Macduff
Everlasting arms of Love
Are beneath, around, above;
God it is who bears us on,
His the arm we lean upon.
He our ever-present guide
Faithful is, whate'er betide;
Gladly then we journey on,
With His arm to lean upon.
From earth's fears and vain alarms
Safe in His encircling arms,
He will keep us all the way,
God, our refuge, strength and stay.
Readings from the Bible
Deuteronomy 33:27 (to :)The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms:
Psalms 24:3-6 (to 1st .),7,10 (to 1st .)
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.
Psalms 90:1,2,4,14,16,17
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
Psalms 103:15-19
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. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
Psalms 119:142-144
Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy commandments are my delights. The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.
Psalms 145:3-5,8-13
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.
The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power; To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.
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 55:3,6-12
Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
#Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. #For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isaiah 60:19,20
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. 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.
Jeremiah 31:3,7-9 (to 2nd :)
The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
For thus saith the Lord; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble:
Daniel 4:1-3
Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.
Habakkuk 1:12 (to 1st .),13 (to :)
#Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die.
Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:
John 3:16
#For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Galations 6:7,8
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
II Thessalonians 2:16,17
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
22:23-11Final deliverance from error, whereby we rejoice in immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense, is not reached through paths of flowers nor by pinning one's faith without works to another's vicarious effort. Whosoever believeth that wrath is righteous or that divinity is appeased by human suffering, does not understand God.
Justice requires reformation of the sinner. Mercy cancels the debt only when justice approves. Revenge is inadmissible. Wrath which is only appeased is not destroyed, but partially indulged. Wisdom and Love may require many sacrifices of self to save us from sin. One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of sin. The atonement requires constant self-immolation on the sinner's part. That God's wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son, is divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made. The atonement is a hard problem in theology, but its scientific explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting Love.
44:20-5
Could it be called supernatural for the God of nature to sustain Jesus in his proof of man's truly derived power? It was a method of surgery beyond material art, but it was not a supernatural act. On the contrary, it was a divinely natural act, whereby divinity brought to humanity the understanding of the Christ-healing and revealed a method infinitely above that of human invention.
His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while he was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas he was alive, demonstrating within the narrow tomb the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense. There were rock-ribbed walls in the way, and a great stone must be rolled from the cave's mouth; but Jesus vanquished every material obstacle, overcame every law of matter, and stepped forth from his gloomy resting-place, crowned with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory.
99:23
The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God's spiritual, perfect man.
256:13-23
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be understood aright through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of small importance in comparison with the sublime question, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?
Who is it that demands our obedience? He who, in the language of Scripture, "doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?"
289:25-2
The spiritual fact and the material belief of things are contradictions; but the spiritual is true, and therefore the material must be untrue. Life is not in matter. Therefore it cannot be said to pass out of matter. Matter and death are mortal illusions. Spirit and all things spiritual are the real and eternal.
Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit,--of Life, not of matter. Because Life is God, Life must be eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I AM, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase.
390:4
We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, simply because, to the mortal senses, there is seeming discord. It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony. Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sense for the joys of Soul.
410:4-21
"This is life eternal," says Jesus,--^is^, not ^shall be^; and then he defines everlasting life as a present knowledge of his Father and of himself,--the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The Scriptures say, "Man shall not live by bread ^alone^, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," showing that Truth is the actual life of man; but mankind objects to making this teaching practical.
Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger. The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love. The Apostle John says: "There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casteth out fear. . . . He that feareth is not made perfect in Love." Here is a definite and inspired proclamation of Christian Science.
428:15-29
We should consecrate existence, not "to the unknown God" whom we "ignorantly worship," but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy. We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.
The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man ^is^, not ^shall be^, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence of man's immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted.
489:3
If the Science of Life were understood, it would be found that the senses of Mind are never lost and that matter has no sensation. Then the human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster's claw,--not with an artificial limb, but with the genuine one. Any hypothesis which supposes life to be in matter is an educated belief. In infancy this belief is not equal to guiding the hand to the mouth; and as consciousness develops, this belief goes out,--yields to the reality of everlasting Life.
568:24-30
For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain.
594:19
SPIRIT. Divine substance; Mind; divine Principle; all that is good; God; that only which is perfect, everlasting, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 246
Isaiah 40 – From Dutch Version
O Thou who spreadest the heaven like a tent,
He who depends on Thee, ne'er is forspent,
Still for his might on Thee he ever counteth,
On wings of eagles he, unwearied, mounteth.
Refrain
Have ye not heard, have ye not known
The everlasting God
Creator is of heaven and earth,
And He alone is Lord.
So shall the glory of God be revealed,
All flesh shall see it and all shall be healed;
In word and deed declare Him and adore Him.
God's will is done, and all is plain before Him.
[Refrain]
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.
