Service for Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011

Subject: Everlasting Punishment

 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.

The scriptural selection is from Isaiah.

Isaiah 58:1‑11

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.  Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.  #Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.  Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.  Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?  Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?  Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?  #Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.  Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Silent prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s prayer, with its spiritual interpretation as given in the Christian Science textbook.

Our Father which art in heaven,

Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Adorable One.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Enable us to know – as in heaven, so on earth

God is omnipotent, supreme.

Give us this day our daily bread;

Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections;

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And Love is reflected in love;

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;

And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

 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.

 Solo:  "Great Peace Have They Which Love Thy Law"

The lesson-sermon from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, read by the First and Second Readers.

The content of the Lesson Sermon may be found in the Christian Science Quarterly. You may also read the Lesson-Sermon for this week online by clicking here.

 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.

"The Scientific Statement of Being" (S&H p. 468} and the correlative scripture according to I John 3:1-3.

There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.468

1John.3

[1] Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

[2] Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

[3] And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Benediction

Psalms 73:24

Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.