Readings for February 2nd, 2022

From The Bible

... When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
(Isaiah 59:19 When)

Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, ... I am come into deep waters, ...

... let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, ...

Let not the waterflood overflow me, ...

Hear me, O LORD; ...

... for I am in trouble: ...

Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: ...
(Psalms 69:1, 2 (to 1st ,), 2 2nd I (to 2nd ,), 14 let (to 2nd ,), 15 (to 1st ,), 16 (to ;), 17 for (to :), 18 (to :))

But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, ... Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: ...
(Isaiah 43:1 (to 2nd ,), 1–3 Fear (to :))

The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.
(Psalms 93:4)

... Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: ...
(Luke 4:14 Jesus (to :))

¶ Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: ...

But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.
(Luke 8:22 (to :), 23, 24)

And he spake a parable unto them, ...

Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
(Luke 6:39 (to ,), 47, 48)

¶ And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, ...

And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, ...

When he saw Jesus, he cried out, ... What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? ... torment me not. ...

And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. ...

And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. ...

Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: ... and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city ...

... and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, ... and in his right mind: ...
(Luke 8:26 (to ,), 27 (to 3rd ,), 28 (to 2nd ,), 28 What (to ?), 28 torment, 30, 32 (to 1st .), 33 (to :), 33 3rd and, 34 (to city), 35 and (to 4th ,), 35 3rd and (to :))

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
(II Timothy 1:7)

¶ Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, ... then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, ...

... Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and ... I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
(Matthew 13:24–26 (to 1st ,), 26 then, 27 (to 1st ,), 28–30 Wilt (to 1st and), 30 I)

And Jesus said unto them, ...

... many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

... see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, ...

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
(Matthew 24:2 (to 1st ,), 5 many, 6 see (to ,), 37–39)

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, ...

And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

... and behold a great red dragon, ...

... stood before the woman ... for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

... and her child was caught up unto God, ...

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; ...

... that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: ...

And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. ...

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood ...
(Revelation 12:1 (to 2nd ,), 2, 3 2nd and (to 1st ,), 4 stood (to woman), 4 for, 5 2nd and (to 2nd ,), 7 (to ;), 9 that (to :), 13, 15, 16 (to flood))

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. ...

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: ...
(Romans 12:21; 13:1 (to :))

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
(Psalms 46:1)

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

(Philippians 4:7)

Selections from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as “a very present help in trouble.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 12:31–1)

The author became a member of the orthodox Congregational Church in early years. Later she learned that her own prayers failed to heal her as did the prayers of her devout parents and the church; but when the spiritual sense of the creed was discerned in the Science of Christianity, this spiritual sense was a present help. It was the living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick.

We cannot bring out the practical proof of Christianity, which Jesus required, while error seems as potent and real to us as Truth, and while we make a personal devil and an anthropomorphic God our starting-points, — especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power with Deity, if not superior to Him. Because such starting-points are neither spiritual nor scientific, they cannot work out the Spirit-rule of Christian healing, which proves the nothingness of error, discord, by demonstrating the all-inclusiveness of harmonious Truth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 351:8–26)

The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind, — that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.

To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is. ... All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. ...

Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understanding, shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — that is, all power, all presence, all Science. Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 275:6–12, 14–15, 20)

But what say prevalent theories? They insist that Life, or God, is one and the same with material life so-called. They speak of both Truth and error as mind, and of good and evil as spirit. They claim that to be life which is but the objective state of material sense, — such as the structural life of the tree and of material man, — and deem this the manifestation of the one Life, God.

This false belief as to what really constitutes life so detracts from God's character and nature, that the true sense of His power is lost to all who cling to this falsity.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 283:13–24)

To the five corporeal senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but Christian Science reveals man as the idea of God, and declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring illusions.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 477:9–13 To)

Mortal belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, which are not united by progress, but separated. ...

God, good, being ever present, it follows in divine logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never present.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 72:13, 21–23)

There is no vapid fury of mortal mind — expressed in earthquake, wind, wave, lightning, fire, bestial ferocity — and this so-called mind is self-destroyed. ... Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 293:21–23, 28)

Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the proud wave, “Thus far and no farther.” ...

... We tread on forces. ... Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 124:20, 26 (only), 27)

Controlled by the divine intelligence, man is harmonious and eternal. Whatever is governed by a false belief is discordant and mortal. We say man suffers from the effects of cold, heat, fatigue. This is human belief, not the truth of being, for matter cannot suffer. Mortal mind alone suffers, — not because a law of matter has been transgressed, but because a law of this so-called mind has been disobeyed. ...

A woman, whom I cured of consumption, always breathed with great difficulty when the wind was from the east. I sat silently by her side a few moments. Her breath came gently. The inspirations were deep and natural. I then requested her to look at the weather-vane. She looked and saw that it pointed due east. The wind had not changed, but her thought of it had and so her difficulty in breathing had gone. The wind had not produced the difficulty. My metaphysical treatment changed the action of her belief on the lungs, and she never suffered again from east winds, but was restored to health.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 184:16–23, 27)

To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth, of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material senses. To heal by argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name, and array your mental plea against the physical. Argue at first mentally, not audibly, that the patient has no disease, and conform the argument so as to destroy the evidence of disease.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 412:16–23)

It is recorded that once Jesus asked the name of a disease, — a disease which moderns would call dementia. The demon, or evil, replied that his name was Legion. Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil, and the insane man was changed and straightway became whole. The Scripture seems to import that Jesus caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 411:13)

There are many species of insanity. All sin is insanity in different degrees. Sin is spared from this classification, only because its method of madness is in consonance with common mortal belief.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 407:29–32)

Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. Hence it cannot govern man aright. Christian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man. Will — blind, stubborn, and headlong — cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its powerlessness, since all power belongs to God, good.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 490:3)

The notion that animal natures can possibly give force to character is too absurd for consideration, when we remember that through spiritual ascendency our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 67:18)

Immortal ideas, pure, perfect, and enduring, are transmitted by the divine Mind through divine Science, which corrects error with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine concepts, to the end that they may produce harmonious results.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 259:26)

When the divine precepts are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: “Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” ...

The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is unreal and mortal. ...

Material beliefs and spiritual understanding never mingle. The latter destroys the former. Discord is the nothingness named error. Harmony is the somethingness named Truth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 276:4–9, 12, 25)

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.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 99:23)

Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind governs, and that in Science man reflects God's government.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 393:16–18)

The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 412:13)

Mankind must learn that evil is not power. Its so-called despotism is but a phase of nothingness.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 102:30–31)

Revelation xii. 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. ...

... What if the old dragon should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and old night. In this age the earth will help the woman; the spiritual idea will be understood. ... The waters will be pacified, and Christ will command the wave. ...

At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 570:8–10, 18–23, 24; 571:15)

Hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal

Hymn. 85

God of Truth, eternal good, / Lift our hearts to revelation, / That Thou mayst be understood, / Thou, the Rock of our salvation; / All Thy love we have for loving, / All Thy truth is ours for proving.

Open now our eyes to see, / As the clouds of sense are riven, / We behold reality, / Know the glory of Thy heaven; / So we seek Thy perfect healing / Through the Truth of Thy revealing.

All the way that we must go / We will take at Thy direction, / Where the floods of trouble flow / Find Thy perfect, calm reflection; / On the path that has no turning, / Patience, courage, meekness learning.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 85)

Hymn. 136

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.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 136)

Hymn.207

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power; / O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour, / Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight! / Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye / Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall: / His habitation high is here, and nigh, / His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear, / For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain! / Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear / No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing; / In that sweet secret of the narrow way, / Seeking and finding, with the angels sing: / “Lo, I am with you alway,”—watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain; / No night drops down upon the troubled breast, / When heaven's aftersmile earth's tear-drops gain, / And mother finds her home and heav'nly rest.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 207)