Sunday, December 16th, 2018



SubjectGod the Preserver of Man

Golden Text: Psalm 31 : 23



O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful.




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Responsive Reading: Psalm 121 : 1-8


1.     I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

2.     My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

3.     He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4.     Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5.     The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

6.     The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

7.     The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

8.     The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.



Lesson Sermon



The Bible


1. Psalm 36 : 5-7

5     Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

6     Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.

7     How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.

2. I Chronicles 17 : 16 (David) (to 2nd ,), 20, 21

16     …David the king came and sat before the Lord, and said,

20     O Lord, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

21     And what one nation in the earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his own people, to make thee a name of greatness and terribleness, by driving out nations from before thy people, whom thou hast redeemed out of Egypt?

3. I Chronicles 18 : 1-3, 5, 6, 14

1     Now after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them, and took Gath and her towns out of the hand of the Philistines.

2     And he smote Moab; and the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts.

3     And David smote Hadarezer king of Zobah unto Hamath, as he went to stablish his dominion by the river Euphrates.

5     And when the Syrians of Damascus came to help Hadarezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men.

6     Then David put garrisons in Syria-damascus; and the Syrians became David’s servants, and brought gifts. Thus the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went.

14     So David reigned over all Israel, and executed judgment and justice among all his people.

4. II Samuel 22 : 1-3 (to 2nd ,)

1     And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:

2     And he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

3     The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation,

5. II Chronicles 17 : 3, 4 (to 1st ,), 5, 7 (to 1st ,), 7 (to teach), 9, 10

3     And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim;

4     But sought to the Lord God of his father,

5     Therefore the Lord stablished the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance.

7     Also in the third year of his reign he sent to his princes, … to teach in the cities of Judah.

9     And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.

10     And the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat.

6. II Chronicles 29 : 1 (to 1st .), 2

1     Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem.

2     And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.

7. II Chronicles 32 : 9 (to 1st ,), 9 (unto Hezekiah)-11, 15 (no), 16, 19-22

9     After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, … unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying,

10     Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust, that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem?

11     Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst, saying, The Lord our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

15     …no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand?

16     And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God, and against his servant Hezekiah.

19     And they spake against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man.

20     And for this cause Hezekiah the king, and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz, prayed and cried to heaven.

21     And the Lord sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword.

22     Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all other, and guided them on every side.

8. Isaiah 49 : 8-10

8     Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;

9     That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.

10     They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.

9. Ephesians 2 : 4 (God), 5 (to 2nd ,), 8

4     …God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

5     Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,

8     For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:



Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures


1. 387 : 27-32

The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering.

2. 1 : 1-4

THE prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, — a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.

3. 146 : 2 (The)-7

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.

4. 23 : 21-31

In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith and the words corresponding thereto have these two definitions, trustfulness and trustworthiness. One kind of faith trusts one's welfare to others.

Another kind of faith understands divine Love and how to work out one's "own salvation, with fear and trembling." "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!" expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the injunction, "Believe … and thou shalt be saved!" demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes spiritual understanding and confides all to God.

5. 328 : 4-13

Mortals suppose that they can live without goodness, when God is good and the only real Life. What is the result? Understanding little about the divine Principle which saves and heals, mortals get rid of sin, sickness, and death only in belief. These errors are not thus really destroyed, and must therefore cling to mortals until, here or hereafter, they gain the true understanding of God in the Science which destroys human delusions about Him and reveals the grand realities of His allness.

6. 285 : 23-31

By interpreting God as a corporeal Saviour but not as the saving Principle, or divine Love, we shall continue to seek salvation through pardon and not through reform, and resort to matter instead of Spirit for the cure of the sick. As mortals reach, through knowledge of Christian Science, a higher sense, they will seek to learn, not from matter, but from the divine Principle, God, how to demonstrate the Christ, Truth, as the healing and saving power.

7. 133 : 8-15

In Egypt, it was Mind which saved the Israelites from belief in the plagues. In the wilderness, streams flowed from the rock, and manna fell from the sky. The Israelites looked upon the brazen serpent, and straightway believed that they were healed of the poisonous stings of vipers. In national prosperity, miracles attended the successes of the Hebrews; but when they departed from the true idea, their demoralization began.

8. 243 : 4-15

The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death. It crowned the demonstrations of Jesus with unsurpassed power and love. But the same "Mind … which was also in Christ Jesus" must always accompany the letter of Science in order to confirm and repeat the ancient demonstrations of prophets and apostles.

That those wonders are not more commonly repeated to-day, arises not so much from lack of desire as from lack of spiritual growth.

9. 230 : 1-2, 4-10

If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part 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.

10. 202 : 6-14

If men would bring to bear upon the study of the Science of Mind half the faith they bestow upon the so-called pains and pleasures of material sense, they would not go on from bad to worse, until disciplined by the prison and the scaffold; but the whole human family would be redeemed through the merits of Christ, — through the perception and acceptance of Truth. For this glorious result Christian Science lights the torch of spiritual understanding.

11. 410 : 14-17

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.

12. 487 : 27-1

The understanding that Life is God, Spirit, lengthens our days by strengthening our trust in the deathless reality of Life, its almightiness and immortality.

This faith relies upon an understood Principle. This Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the enduring and harmonious phases of things.

13. 368 : 14-19

When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error.

14. 395 : 11-14

When divine Science overcomes faith in a carnal mind, and faith in God destroys all faith in sin and in material methods of healing, then sin, disease, and death will disappear.


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