Responsive Reading: Psalm 46 : 1-3, 5, 8-10

1.     God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2.     Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3.     Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.

5.     God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

8.     Come, behold the works of the Lord.

9.     He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10.     Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

1. Isaiah 2 : 1-4, 11

1     The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

2     And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

3     And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

4     And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

11     The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

2. II Chronicles 20 : 1, 3-6, 13, 14 (to 1st ,), 15 (said), 17, 18, 20-22, 27-30

1     It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.

3     And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

4     And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.

5     And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court,

6     And said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?

13     And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.

14     Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah,

15     …said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.

17     Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the Lord will be with you.

18     And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord.

20     And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.

21     And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth for ever.

22     And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten.

27     Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies.

28     And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of the Lord.

29     And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel.

30     So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round about.

3. Job 5 : 8, 9, 12, 13, 19-24 (to ;)

8     I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:

9     Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:

12     He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.

13     He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.

19     He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.

20     In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.

21     Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.

22     At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

23     For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.

24     And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace;

4. I Timothy 2 : 1-4

1     I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;

2     For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

3     For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;

4     Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

5. Isaiah 11 : 9 (for)

9     …for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

1. 76 : 6-8 (to ;)

When being is understood, Life will be recognized as neither material nor finite, but as infinite, — as God, universal good;

2. 255 : 1 (Eternal)-6

Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. "Let there be light," is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.

3. 295 : 5-15

God creates and governs the universe, including man. The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind that makes them. Mortal mind would transform the spiritual into the material, and then recover man's original self in order to escape from the mortality of this error. Mortals are not like immortals, created in God's own image; but infinite Spirit being all, mortal consciousness will at last yield to the scientific fact and disappear, and the real sense of being, perfect and forever intact, will appear.

4. 209 : 5-8, 10-13, 16-30

Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind.

The world would collapse without Mind, without the intelligence which holds the winds in its grasp. Neither philosophy nor skepticism can hinder the march of the Science which reveals the supremacy of Mind.

The compounded minerals or aggregated substances composing the earth, the relations which constituent masses hold to each other, the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the celestial bodies, are of no real importance, when we remember that they all must give place to the spiritual fact by the translation of man and the universe back into Spirit. In proportion as this is done, man and the universe will be found harmonious and eternal.

Material substances or mundane formations, astronomical calculations, and all the paraphernalia of speculative theories, based on the hypothesis of material law or life and intelligence resident in matter, will ultimately vanish, swallowed up in the infinite calculus of Spirit.

5. 293 : 13-16, 21-31

The material so-called gases and forces are counterfeits of the spiritual forces of divine Mind, whose potency is Truth, whose attraction is Love, whose adhesion and cohesion are Life, perpetuating the eternal facts of being.

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. The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, "The anger of the Lord." In reality, they show the self-destruction of error or matter and point to matter's opposite, the strength and permanency of Spirit. Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil.

6. 469 : 25-5

We lose the high signification of omnipotence, when after admitting that God, or good, is omnipresent and has all-power, we still believe there is another power, named evil. This belief that there is more than one mind is as pernicious to divine theology as are ancient mythology and pagan idolatry. With one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which constitute divine Science.

7. 276 : 1-9, 12-16

Having one God, one Mind, unfolds the power that heals the sick, and fulfils these sayings of Scripture, "I am the Lord that healeth thee," and "I have found a ransom." 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.

8. 225 : 14-22

The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon's mouth. Love is the liberator.

9. 226 : 7 (this)-17

…this new crusade sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ's divine Science.

God has built a higher platform of human rights, and He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstration of "on earth peace, good-will toward men."

10. 576 : 21-25

This kingdom of God "is within you," — is within reach of man's consciousness here, and the spiritual idea reveals it. In divine Science, man possesses this recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of God.

11. 585 : 16 (Euphrates)-19

Euphrates (river). Divine Science encompassing the universe and man; the true idea of God; a type of the glory which is to come; metaphysics taking the place of physics; the reign of righteousness.

12. 502 : 28-5

The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God.

13. 503 : 12-15

Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, "God is All-in-all," and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe.