Wednesday Evening Readings Online

Pillar of Fire by Night
December 17 2014
Hymns 237 , 71, 118
The Bible
Acts 7:22-38
Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in
words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his
heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one of them
suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and
smote the Egyptian: For he supposed his brethren would have understood
how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.
And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would
have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong
one to another? But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away,
saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as
thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this saying, and
was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons.
And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the
wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.
When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to
behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, Saying, I am the God of thy
fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. Then said the Lord to him, Put
off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy
ground. I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in
Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them.
And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.
This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a
judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of
the angel which appeared to him in the bush. He brought them out, after
that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red
sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him
shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the
angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who
received the lively oracles to give unto us:
Nehemiah 9:6-11 (to;),
Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of
heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the
seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of
heaven worshippeth thee. Thou art the Lord the God, who didst choose
Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him
the name of Abraham; And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and
madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to
give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou art
righteous: And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest
their cry by the Red sea; And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh,
and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land: for thou knewest
that they dealt proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is
this day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went
through the midst of the sea on the dry land; Moreover thou leddest them
in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them
light in the way wherein they should go.
Psalms 119:105
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Nehemiah 19:13, 14, 19-21 (to:),
Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from
heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and
commandments: And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and
commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy
servant: And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and
broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and
promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou
hadst sworn to give them. Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest
them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them
by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew
them light, and the way wherein they should go. Thou gavest also thy good
spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth,
and gavest them water for their thirst. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain
them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing;
I Corinthians 3:13-15 (to:)
Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work
of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he
shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer
loss: but he himself shall be saved;
Isaiah 61:11
For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the
things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause
righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Isaiah 61: 3,4
To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And
they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations,
and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
Joel 2:23-27
Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he
hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come
down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first
month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow
with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath
eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great
army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with
you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in
the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my
people shall never be ashamed.
Joel 2:32
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be delivered:
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy
586:13
FIRE. Fear; remorse; lust; hatred; destruction; affliction purifying and
elevating man.
474:16, 25-26
If sin, sickness, and death are as real as Life, Truth, and Love, then they
must all be from the same source; God must be their author. Now Jesus
came to destroy sin, sickness, and death; yet the Scriptures aver, “I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Is it possible, then, to believe that the evils
which Jesus lived to destroy are real or the offspring of the divine will?
Truth spares all that is true.
82:31-2
In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater development of
power, it is wise earnestly to consider whether it is the human mind or the
divine Mind which is influencing one.
466:26
The Science of Christianity comes with fan in hand to separate the chaff
from the wheat. Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will
demonstrate this declaration and its divine Principle, making mankind
better physically, morally, and spiritually.
566:1
As the children of Israel were guided triumphantly through the Red Sea, the
dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear, — as they were led through
the wilderness, walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes,
and anticipating the promised joy, — so shall the spiritual idea guide all
right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of
existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God.
Stately Science pauses not, but moves before them, a pillar of cloud by day
and of fire by night, leading to divine heights.
558:10
To mortal sense Science seems at first obscure, abstract, and dark; but a
bright promise crowns its brow. When understood, it is Truth’s prism and
praise. When you look it fairly in the face, you can heal by its means, and it
has for you a light above the sun, for God “is the light thereof.” Its feet are
pillars of fire, foundations of Truth and Love. It brings the baptism of the
Holy Ghost, whose flames of Truth were prophetically described by John
the Baptist as consuming error.
95:19
We welcome the increase of knowledge and the end of error, because even
human invention must have its day, and we want that day to be succeeded
by Christian Science, by divine reality. Midnight foretells the dawn. Led by a
solitary star amid the darkness, the Magi of old foretold the Messiahship of
Truth. Is the wise man of to-day believed, when he beholds the light which
heralds Christ’s eternal dawn and describes its effulgence?
503:20
Immortal and divine Mind presents the idea of God: first, in light; second, in
reflection; third, in spiritual and immortal forms of beauty and goodness.
But this Mind creates no element nor symbol of discord and decay. God
creates neither erring thought, mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.
504:9-14
This light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the
revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This also shows that there is no
place where God’s light is not seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill
immensity and are ever-present.
xi:14-21
Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely
natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or “God with us,” — a divine
influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming
now as was promised aforetime, To preach deliverance to the captives [of
sense],And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are
bruised.
7:18-21
If spiritual sense always guided men, there would grow out of ecstatic
moments a higher experience and a better life with more devout selfabnegation and purity.
316:3-7
The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn
from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and
his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship.
583:5 (to.), 9 Christ’s
CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. ...Christ’s offspring.
249:5-10
Let the “male and female” of God’s creating appear. Let us feel the divine
energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal
nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to
the divine “powers that be.” Such is the true Science of being.