Sermon on the Mount - Deliverance from temptation of disease and death

Wednesday Readings List

November 30, 2016

Sermon on the Mount – Deliverance from temptation of disease and death


Hymn 8
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death’s sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.


THE HOLY BIBLE (NLT)

Matt. 6:9, 13
Our Father in heaven, . . . don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

Gen. 11:1, 4-5, 8-9

At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.” But . .. the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages

Psalm 119:165
Those who love your instructions have great peace and do not stumble.

Deut. 8:1, 12-14
“Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. . . . When you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.

Deut. 13:1-3, 6, 4-5
Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come, let us worship other gods’—gods you have not known before— do not listen to them. . . . Suppose someone secretly entices you—even your brother, your son or daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend—and says, ‘Let us go worship other gods’—gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known. Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him.

Ex. 15:26
I am the Lord who heals you.

II Chron. 16:12-13
In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a serious foot disease. Yet even with the severity of his disease, he did not seek the Lord’s help but turned only to his physicians. So he died in the forty-first year of his reign.

Jer. 8:22
Is there no medicine in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why is there no healing for the wounds of my people?

Jer. 10:19, 21
My wound is severe, and my grief is great. My sickness is incurable, but I must bear it. The shepherds of my people have lost their senses. They no longer seek wisdom from the Lord. Therefore, they fail completely, and their flocks are scattered.

Is. 38:16
Lord, your discipline is good, for it leads to life and health. You restore my health and allow me to live!

II Kings 19:9; 20: 1, 7, 2-5, 7
King Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah in Jerusalem with this message: “This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don’t let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you with promises.” After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and . . . .prayed this prayer before the Lord: O Lord, God of Israel, You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth.
About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill . . . . So Hezekiah’s servants spread ointment over the boil. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord. “Remember, O Lord, how I have always been faithful to you and have served you single-mindedly, always doing what pleases you.” Then he broke down and wept bitterly. [T]his message came to him from the Lord . . . “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you. [A]nd Hezekiah recovered!

Prov. 14:30
A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones.

Prov. 15:4, 24
Gentle words are a tree of life; The path of life leads upward for the wise; they leave the grave behind.

Matt. 4:1, 8-10, 17
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. . .. The devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.” “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.'” From then on Jesus began to preach, Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.

Ps. 91:1-3, 5-7, 9-11, 14-16
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. . . .
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease.
Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
If you make the Lord your refuge,
if you make the Most High your shelter,
no evil will conquer you;
no plague will come near your home.
For he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
The Lord says, “When they call on me, I will answer;” . . .
I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”]

Matt. 4:23-24
Jesus . . . healed every kind of disease and illness. News about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick. And whatever their sickness or disease, or if they were demon possessed or epileptic or paralyzed—he healed them all.

John 14:15-17, 12
If ye love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works.


SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy

SH 17:8-11
[L]ead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

SH 381:4
Be no more willing to suffer the illusion that you are sick or that some disease is developing in the system, than you are to yield to a sinful temptation on the ground that sin has its necessities.

SH 393:29-32
Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and matter cannot be. A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and its cause.

SH 581:17-22
Babel. . . material knowledge. The higher false knowledge builds on the basis of evidence obtained from the five corporeal senses, the more confusion ensues, and the more certain is the downfall of its structure.

SH 218:24
Treat a belief in sickness as you would sin, with sudden dismissal. Resist the temptation to believe in matter as intelligent, as having sensation or power.

SH 153:16-15
You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply manifests, through inflammation and swelling, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its own pain — that is, its own belief in pain.
We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our mental conditions, and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish error in any form, and certainly we should not be error’s advocate.
Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from association. Since it is a law of mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious, this law obtains credit through association, — calling up the fear that creates the image of disease and its consequent manifestation in the body. This fact in metaphysics is illustrated by the following incident: A man was made to believe that he occupied a bed where a cholera patient had died. Immediately the symptoms of this disease appeared, and the man died. The fact was, that he had not caught the cholera by material contact, because no cholera patient had been in that bed.

SH 420:10-13
Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims, for if they will only accept Truth, they can resist disease and ward it off, as positively as they can the temptation to sin.

SH 107:1-3, 7-10
In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science. This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of Immanuel, “God with us,” — the sovereign ever-presence, delivering the children of men from every ill “that flesh is heir to.”

SH 620:18-7
RELIEF FROM MANY ILLS
Paul said, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In my own case deafness has been overcome by an enlarged understanding of God’s word, as explained by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health. Many times I have been enabled to turn to God, to know it was His will to help in trouble, and obtained the needed benefit. Catarrh has disappeared; tonsilitis, which very frequently laid me aside from duties in the schoolroom and home, is no longer manifest. When temptation comes (for Christian Science is both preventive and curative), I turn to that wonderful book, Science and Health, and my precious Bible, grown dearer since read in the new light of spiritual understanding, until I know that my mind is renewed, because the action is changed and the inflammation has abated. Thus in my experience in Christian Science, I have seen the transformation begun, and Truth is able to perfect that which is begun in me so gloriously.  — Mrs. C. A. McL., Brooklyn, Nova Scotia.

SH 145:31-9
The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our Master’s first article of faith propounded to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony have been sacrificed.

SH 155:3-6, 8, 16-25
When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith, which heals; and according to this faith will the effect be. . . . The chemist, the botanist, the druggist, the doctor, and the nurse equip the medicine with their faith, and the beliefs which are in the majority rule. When the general belief endorses the inanimate drug as doing this or that, individual dissent or faith, unless it rests on Science, is but a belief held by a minority, and such a belief is governed by the majority.
This erroneous general belief, which sustains medicine and produces all medical results, works against Christian Science; and the percentage of power on the side of this Science must mightily outweigh the power of popular belief in order to heal a single case of disease. The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale.

SH 146:13-14
Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of God — even the might of Mind — to heal the body.

SH 142:26-2
If Mind was first and self-existent, then Mind, not matter, must have been the first medicine. God being All-in-all, He made medicine; but that medicine was Mind. It could not have been matter, which departs from the nature and character of Mind, God. Truth is God’s remedy for error of every kind, and Truth destroys only what is untrue.

SH 42: 15-18, 21-23, 28-31
The resurrection of the great demonstrator of God’s power was the proof of his final triumph over body and matter, and gave full evidence of divine Science, — evidence so important to mortals. Because of the wondrous glory which God bestowed on His anointed, temptation, sin, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus. Jesus had taught his disciples the Science of this proof. He was here to enable them to test his still uncomprehended saying, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.”

SH 450:19
The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death; and he will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good. Sickness to him is no less a temptation than is sin, and he heals them both by understanding God’s power over them. The Christian Scientist knows that they are errors of belief, which Truth can and will destroy.

SH 495:14
When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.


Hymn 99

He that hath God his guardian made,
Shall underneath th’ Almighty’s shade
Fearless and undisturbed abide;
Thus to myself of Him I’ll say,
He is my fortress, shield and stay,
My God; in Him I will confide.

His tender love and watchful care
Shall free thee from the fowler’s snare,
From every harm and pestilence.
He over thee His wings shall spread
To cover thy unguarded head.
His truth shall be thy strong defense.

He gives His angels charge o’er thee,
No evil therefore shalt thou see;
Thy refuge shall be God most high;
Dwelling within His secret place,
Thou shalt behold His power and grace,
See His salvation ever nigh.

Hymn 298

Saw ye my Saviour? Heard ye the glad sound?
Felt ye the power of the Word?
‘Twas the Truth that made us free,
And was found by you and me
In the life and the love of our Lord.

Mourner, it calls you,—”Come to my bosom,
Love wipes your tears all away,
And will lift the shade of gloom,
And for you make radiant room
Midst the glories of one endless day.”

Sinner, it calls you,—”Come to this fountain,
Cleanse the foul senses within;
‘Tis the Spirit that makes pure,
That exalts thee, and will cure
All thy sorrow and sickness and sin.”

Strongest deliverer, friend of the friendless,
Life of all being divine:
Thou the Christ, and not the creed;
Thou the Truth in thought and deed;
Thou the water, the bread, and the wine.

 

 

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