Wholeheartedly Apply and accept as yours Bible GEM examples of the ALL-goodness of God!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with new insights from Cobbey & others
as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“God”
for Sunday, January 1, 2023
(Cobbey Crisler’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
STRIVE TO FEEL GOD’S FACE ALWAYS SHINING ON YOU (& THE SYMPTOMS)! AND, ALWAYS PAY YOUR BILL BY GIVING GOD THANKS AND PRAISE! Cobbey on Ps. 107:8+ (Resp. Reading, cit. B15)
[Cobbey Crisler:] “I’m going to give you an assignment in Psalm 107 because it’s a very rewarding one to work with. In the first 22 verses, for example, when you are studying this independently at home, work out the steps that are being given us, the symptoms, the appointment with the Great Physician, the treatment, the complete remedy, and then paying your bill. That happens to be a refrain, “Pay your bill. Pay your bill.” In this particular Psalm, in Verse 8, [and Verses 15, 21, 31] “Oh that [men] would praise the LORD [for] his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” Follow that all the way through and you’ll find three different sets of prescriptions and treatments that can be quite relevant to our own experience.”
[Cobbey’s transcribed-from-audio response to an audience question:]
“The appointment with the Great Physician and then, of course, when you’re in front of the Physician, that’s face-to-face, seeing God’s face, get the treatment, let His face shine upon thee, then the remedy, go out and have the prescription filled. The remedy solves the whole problem; then pay your bill. Follow that through and see what comes.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
WELCOME THE HEALING LIGHT OF KNOWING AS YOU ARE KNOWN— OF SEEING GOD FACE TO FACE! Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 4:6 (cit. B6):
“The treatment in Psalms 4, verse 6 is the “light of God’s countenance.” Despite the fact that in verse 6 the question is raised, the prognosis, we might say, which is very ill-boding, says, “Who will show us [any] good?” What’s the use? (Intimated.) Why is God’s countenance a medicine? “The light of God’s countenance.” We find this all the time that we are to seek God’s face, face-to-face. You know what Paul says face-to-face is? To know as you are known. It’s a mental face-to face then, isn’t it? Face to face with God is to know as God knows. To be God-like.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
BELIEVE IN BEING ABLE TO SEE EVER PRESENT SOLUTIONS NOW!
Cobbey Crisler on Psalms 27:13 (cit. B7):
“We all by application faint, fail, end up in that helplessness that world attitudes would weigh down such faith with. [“I had fainted], unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord,” not in some far-off destination, not in some promised heaven, but “in the land of the living,” right here and right now. There is a practical pharmacy with immediate sense of help, a realized solution, not simply a hoped-for solution.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from the Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
CHERISH UNIVERSAL HUMANITY—DO GOOD FOR ALL MANKIND WITH A “WALK TO EMMAUS” KNOWLEDGE AND SPIRIT! Cobbey Crisler on part of cit. B11/Acts 10:38-41 (+ relevant verses before & after)
[Cobbey:] “Acts 10, verse 34, begins a lecture or sermon to the first group of Gentiles. And the opening statement that Peter makes is one that could be well considered by every denomination of Christianity today… Here Peter expressed his new view of God, that God is no respecter of persons, that God speaks to receptivity.
Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
This new view of God, of course, leads to this next question: Should man as well be no respecter of persons? This is a tradition-shattering concept.
And Acts 10, verse 35, Peter summarizes it by saying “in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” …
Then he begins to explain to Cornelius and the friends and acquaintances of Cornelius, the history of early Christianity. “The beginning of Christianity is traced from Galilee after John’s baptism, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth.” … Of course, that word “anointed” immediately identifies Jesus as the Messiah. This is a point that Peter is obviously going to get across to this Gentile audience that would need some instruction in this. (See below)
(cit. B11/Acts 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
And you find in Acts 10, verse 43, he does that by stating that “all the prophets had given witness to the Messiah, namely Jesus.”…
As soon as Peter gets into this “Walked to Emmaus” approach, in other words the comprehension of Jesus’ role in the earlier scripture, we find in Acts 10, verse 44 that “the Holy Ghost falls on all the listeners.” …
It wasn’t Peter’s idea that this should happen; it’s at the Holy Ghost’s initiative. This is disturbing to some of those that came with Peter: Jewish Christians.
And we will find it becomes even more disturbing to other elements in the church later on, for this is a departure. The question underlying this event is “Should the church be parochial or universal?” Is it simply a sect of Judaism or an outcome of Judaism, or is it the fulfillment of God’s will as expressed in prophecy with its ultimate mission to embrace universal humanity?”
“After the Master What? – The Book of Acts,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GO WHERE THERE’S RECEPTIVITY, LIKE ELIJAH, ELISHA & JESUS DID. EXPECT FULFILLMENT, HEALING. Cobbey Crisler on Luke 4:14-33 (citation B12)
In the latest (3rd) episode of Season 3 of “The Chosen” in the Angel app at https://thechosen.app.link/ambYM1qrcwb you can see their video version of Jesus speaking in his own synagogue in Nazareth and almost being thrown over the brow of a cliff before walking through those who intended to kill him.
Another video version of this is offered by “Free Bible Images” at this link: https://vimeo.com/160923878
[Cobbey Crisler on Luke 4:16-32:] “Jesus appears in his hometown of Nazareth. Here is a hometown boy that has made good, locally, mostly in Capernaum, not far away. He comes back. “His fame has spread.” They invited him to do some of the reading publicly (Verse 16). They hand him Isaiah (Verse 17). If they handed him a scroll, he would have had to spend some time unrolling it to find exactly what he was looking for. This particular verse is very close to the end.
Isaiah 61, Verse 1, is what Jesus is reading. Notice, it’s very specifically a prophecy of the Messiah. The word related to Messiah appears in the word “Anointed. ” In Hebrew that’s the word relating it to the Messiah. “The Spirit of the Lord (is) upon me.” Notice, Luke has just said in Verse 1 of this Chapter that “Jesus was filled with the Spirit.” Here the prophecy says (in Luke 4, Verse 18), “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
“Jesus is saying this in the congregation of the synagogue of his hometown. He’s simply reading the Old Testament. If he read Scripture like he cited it spontaneously, like he healed with it, you can imagine you probably would have heard a pin drop in that synagogue. Add to that the fact that Jesus knew he was fulfilling every word of that prophecy in himself and in his own career. Think of the impact in that environment.
Here, then, is God’s definition of the Messiah through prophecy:
Number one, the Messiah would do what? “Preach the gospel to the poor.”
Gospel doesn’t just mean “good news,” It means, in particular, news of victory.
What’s the second one? “Heal the brokenhearted.”
The third, “Preach deliverance to the captives. ”
The fourth, “Recovering of sight to the blind. ”
The fifth, “To set at liberty them that are bruised.”
And finally, Verse 19, “To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Having said all those things, having defined the Messiah in the Bible, he closes the Book and he sits down (Verse 20). There is a long silence. Everyone is looking at him. He adds (in Verse 21), “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
“Unfortunately, his hometown reacts violently (Verse 28), especially to Verses 25 through 27, where he goes back into the Bible for two very significant events in the history of the Jews, and certainly in the history of healing. One was the widow that Elijah visited (Verse 26). In the midst of the famine, she had an endless supply of oil (1 Kings 17:16, 26). The next one in Verse 27 is Elisha’s healing of Naaman’s leprosy (2 Kings 5:8-14).
Why would the audience at Nazareth be so incensed by what Jesus is bringing out in these stories? He was talking about foreigners, wasn’t he? When you read it, think of this emphasis. He said, “I tell you quite factually, there were many widows in Israel. There were many Jewish widows. But Elijah didn’t go to any of them. (Verse 26) Instead he went to a Lebanese widow.”
Is it really nationality that makes the difference? Is it really gender that makes the difference? Or age, or economic status?
No, it’s receptivity (that makes a difference), isn’t it? You couldn’t find it in Israel, but you could find that in Lebanon. In fact, that’s the only place Elijah found it.
It’s quite a commentary on the lack of faith among the monotheists of Israel. There were many lepers in Israel during Elisha’s time, but he didn’t go to any of them. He went to the commander in chief of the enemy forces, the Syrian general. There was more receptivity in Naaman’s thought than he found in Israel.
Remember how often Jesus says to some of those he cures, like the centurion and some of those who were not Jewish, he says in Matthew 8:10, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”
The receptivity message is that God is universally accessible. They didn’t like that message. Verse 29, They “thrust him out of the city.” They nearly killed him. That was the attempt. (Verse 30,) “But Jesus passing through the midst of them went his way.”
I suggest to you, as my father suggested to me once in discussing this incident, that it is easier to accept prophecy than it is to accept fulfillment. With prophecy, one may have been trained to respect and revere it over the years. But when fulfillment occurs, who’s ready for that, especially in one’s own home town? That’s the point Jesus said (in Verse 24), “No prophet is accepted in his own country.”
Later we find Jesus telling his followers to search the Scriptures (John 5:39).
They will find him there which more or less implies that if we can’t find Jesus in
Prophecy, we can’t find Jesus.”
“Luke, the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
BONUS G.E.M. of Answered Prayer (A.P.) Healings:
Mine the precious G.E.M. of being “governed by… the ever-present Mind who understands all things… (and) “know that with God all things are possible” (SH 180:25/citation S16).
Be open to your ability to always answer every question rightly as the reflection of “the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal” (SH 587:5).
[Warren Huff:] The Bible account of Joseph answering Pharaoh’s question about the humanly unknowable meaning of his dream (Genesis 41:1-57) along with the correlated Science and Health citations in this week’s Bible lesson, remind me a precious time when these passages appeared in a Christian Science Bible Lesson as answers to prayer for me during a final exam week at Princeton University. Besides working out in daily spring training wuth the football team and working about 20-hour a week in University food service and mail delivery, and in daily recess coaching at Miss Mason’s School (right across from the Christian Science church in Princeton), I had a course load of five demanding classes.
What made my upcoming finals week even tougher that year was having all five of my 3-hour finals in a row in the first five exam periods of the week. The first was 9am-noon Monday morning, the second 2-5pm Monday afternoon, the third 7-10pm Monday evening, the fourth 9am-noon Tuesday morning and the fifth 2-5pm Tuesday afternoon. To top that off, I had already fallen behind on the heavy reading assignments in several of the courses. So, on the Saturday morning before these finals, I thought, “How am ever going to be ready to humanly read, study and prepare for these exams with no real study time between them?”
Just as I started to ponder my seemingly impossible situation, the pain in my right side that I’d been aware of overnight suddenly became very sharp and did not go away. A roommate, whose dad was a doctor, suggested that it looked like my appendix had burst and that I was having an appendicitis attack. I chose to handle this suggestion with prayer just as I’d had done successfully to meet many other challenges from making hard decisions to experiencing quick healings of broken bones, severe wounds, sprained ankles, torn cartilage… When this very aggressive problem refused to yield quickly to my own prayers, I struggled to get to the privacy of a pay phone booth… (this was B.C.— Before Cell phones). I was calling to ask for the uniquely powerful, prayerful support known as a Christian Science treatment that‘s given with professional warmth and principled love by wonderful Christian Science practitioners (who are normally readily available worldwide).
When none of the practitioners I knew from camp and from church picked up, and no human help seemed to be instantly available, I hobbled my way – still doubled over in pain— to a Christian Science Reading Room. Its “quiet precincts” were several blocks away on Nassau Street and proved to be a perfect place to reach out directly to God for angel messages and my healing.
For five or six sacred hours that Saturday I was the only visitor to the private study area in the back of the Reading Room. That sacred secrecy enabled me to feel free enough to stretch out on the floor whenever sitting up wasn’t comfortable… I snuggled up to every passage from the Comforter who was re-teaching me all the precious truths that applied to me in that week’s Christian Science Bible lesson. It included the account of Joseph’s divine intuition that enabled him to know and share the humanly unknowable dream of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:1-57). I reasoned that this was mine too and that God would give me the angel insights I needed to cherish to be healed as well as what I needed to study and what to write on my upcoming exams. I loved that Joseph shared how the way to humbly do this by telling Pharaoh, “it is not in me: God shall give … an answer of peace.” (Genesis 41:16).
I also distinctly remember feeling great relief in affirming for myself the truth that, “When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible.” (SH 180:25, cit. S16) More lessons from the Comforter that I cherished during my Reading Room study came back to bless me big-time after I got my healing and was taking my finals.
That private Reading Room study area also gave me a perfect place to feel free enough to seek and find the Comforter’s comfort by wholeheartedly belting out favorite hymns. I knew by heart all of Mary Baker Eddy’s hymns from years of singing them in Sunday School, plus scores of others from CedarS Hymn Sings every Sunday night. On this Saturday I was forced to study for my exams in the unconventional way of cherishing and singing each word of every hymn as if my comfort and my grades and my very life depended on it. (And, I think they all did depend on and were blessed immeasurably by that unique and powerful preparation.)
I’ll always remember that as spiritual sense gave me more and more peace, I closed my healing hymn sing by cherishing each word of “Christ My Refuge” and poem and hymn (254-258) by Mary Baker Eddy. At about 3pm my tears of pain changed to tears of joy! The pain lifted off as I let my heart sing the following laws, “O’er waiting harps strings of the mind, there sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain… And wake a white-winged angel throng of thoughts illumed By faith, and breathed in raptured song, With love perfumed. Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show Life’s burden’s light. I kiss the cross, and wake to know A world more bright… I see Christ walk and come to me and tenderly divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock (Matt. 7:24-29) … whereto God leadeth me. (Christian Science Hymnal #254)
With renewed freedom, I was inspired to RUN back to my Dodd Hall dorm room, to eat normally and prepare with peaceful inspiration Saturday night and Sunday for my first four final exams on Monday and Tuesday morning. I felt divinely inspired to review just what I needed to know and felt great and full of gratitude to God about my first four exams.
However, when I turned over the fifth exam on Tuesday afternoon, my heart dropped as I read all the exam questions which ask me to compare and contrast several books that I had intended to read over the weekend but did not given the time I needed to spend in the Reading Room having my healing. I was seriously tempted at first to just go up to the exam proctor and turn in the exam with a note that I’d had a health challenge and was unable to adequately prepare for the exam and to ask to take the course on a Pass-Fail basis so that my B+ grade going into the final could at least get me a “Pass” on my transcript for this sociology course.
Then, I remembered citations from the Christian Science Bible lesson that I’d mined in the Reading Room as cherished gems to apply to myself. That included the account of Joseph humbly knowing it was not in him, but in God to give the right answer. (Genesis 41: 1-57, B6)
As I stood up to walk up and give up, rather than try to write about books that I hadn’t even read, an angel message stopped me saying “the same Mind that made this test and that wrote every book is your Mind that is taking this test and I will tell you everything you need to know.”
I gained confidence from this and from remembering other ideas from the Bible lesson that I had cherished and made my own during my healing, spiritual study time in the Reading Room.
They included these passages from Science and Health, that are also in this week’s C.S. Bible lesson:
“It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind… to be divinely inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.” (84:11-18)
“A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.” (128:14)
“This (spiritual) understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments, it is the reality of all things brought to light.” (505:26-28)
I sat back down with joyous, confident prayer to glorify God by being a clear transparency, a scribe under orders. I was determined to not try to make up myself what I humanly didn’t know, but to merely make it welcome. Ideas flowed and I effortlessly wrote them down. At the end of the three hours I handed in the exam with joy and to my amazement found out the next day that my grade actually improved to an A-. All glory to God!! Ponder the possibilities of gratefully accepting this three-word promise: “Impossibilities never occur” (SH 245:27). Just think of all that your divine Mind can show to you and can do through you when you too, like Joseph, know that “it is not in me. God shall give (me every)… answer” that I need, and I know it!
Our deeply humble and grateful acceptance of this divinely scientific gift of the allness of God makes it ours and provable! As Mary Baker Eddy puts it: “Christian Science is a divine largess, a gift of God — understood by and divinely natural to him who sits at the feet of Jesus clothed in truth, who is putting off the hypothesis of matter because he is conscious of the allness of God — “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”
(The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 349:11–16, Mary Baker Eddy quoting Hebrews 12:2)
[A rough draft of a testimony that I will send into the Christian Science periodicals]
“LET NEITHER FEAR NOR DOUBT MAKE TO AFRAID” of what’s just an illusion!** (Part of a 4-sentence treatment.) When an ILLUSION makes it appears that YOUR “BACK’S AGAINST the WALL,” PRAY a W.A.L.L. TREATMENT! —or C.A.L.L. treatment to know “who you gonna call?” (SH, 495:20, cit. S18)
On page 495, lines 14-24 Mary Baker Eddy gives you (and the whole world) four powerful (and memoizable) sentences to guide your thoughts to healing when you are tempted to believe in the reality of some illusion or ghost of fear or doubt when it seems to be in your face.
** Recently a lecture was sponsored by our branch church which addressed how to not get stuck in that dark place of fear. The talk, titled “Moving Past Fear — to Healing” and was given by Lisa Troseth, CSB. A video recording of it is available on our church’s website . Please feel free to share with any seekers who would be blessed by it, this link: https://csheals.org/lectures/.
W.A.L.L. Treatment (SH 495:14) These four sentences begin with the letters W, A, L, L—hence the W.A.L.L. treatment. This was a memory aid that came to me and has made it easier for me to remember the whole paragraph and use it often as a cornerstone for healings.
- “When the illusion…
- Allow nothing but his likeness to abide in your thought.
- Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and…
- Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding…” (cit. S16)
Or it could be called the C.A.L.L. Treatment (SH 495:14) A different acronym/memory aid can be made by using the first letters of the directive verbs in each of these same four sentences. They are Cling, Allow, Let and Let again—hence the C.A.L.L. treatment. This alternate memory devise came to me when tempted to be afraid of some illusion or lingering “ghostly” belief from the past, present or future (like Scrooge was in “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens). Mary Baker Eddy unknowingly answered in-advance and brilliantly the question “Who you Gonna Call?” (from the 1984 movie “Ghostbusters” soundtrack song by Ray Parker Jr.). She treated all such “ghosts” as illusions in her ultimate, metaphysical “Ghostbuster” treatment that has served as a cornerstone for thousands of healings. –“When the illusion… 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…
- Let Christian Science instead of Corporeal Sense, support your understanding of being and…” (cit. S16)
(Reread carefully and consider memorizing the FULL, 10-line Christian Science treatment in Science and Health, page 495:14-24. Also of note are the four pairs of consecutive words (which I capitalized, highlighted and bolded above) all begin with C and S!
We’re faced with the barrage of news about a global pandemic, aggressive militarism and other forms of lawlessness – as well as with the hopefulness of peaceful protests which attempt to transform and uplift mankind out of hateful habits. To stay with the allness of God in the midst of this seeming somethingness of this evil we can always spiritualize thought as we C.A.L.L. on God and:
- C. Cling steadfastly to God and His idea [Christ]
- A. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought.
- L. 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.
- L. 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.” (SH 495:14-16, 20)
Such CALL-ing on God gives us something certain to “cling steadfastly to,” and overturns what appears to be a worldwide fixation on fear. The C.A.L.L. treatment is a sure defense. It protects us as we follow the Wayshower, to find comfort and healing for our whole global family.
“Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world, accept the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God,’ and be free! This is your divine right.” (SH 227:23-26)
GIVE THE BEST GIFT! BRING HEALING TO EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING THAT SEEMS “LAME!”
Cobbey Crisler on Acts 3:1-8 (cit. B20, and “Look on Us” a YouTube poem by Ken Cooper) in which Peter lifts up a lame man who leaps as prophesied in Isaiah 35:6
[Cobbey:] “Acts, Chapter 3, we find that the introduction of the public lecture and ministry technique is increasing. We’re now going into a renewed phased; it’s becoming part of church activity.
And “Peter and John together give a combined lecture” beginning in Chapter 3.
Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
And first, preceding that, look what else identifies the church? Right. “Coming to the temple.”
Probably, as the Anchor Bible suggests at the second daily hour of prayer, which is three P.M.
There at the temple – now notice the juxtaposition here of the “physical structure that’s represented the worship of one God, the temple here, and outside it, a man needing help.
Religion had not been able to address itself to his problems, as yet. “He had been lame from the moment of birth, and every single day, his outlook was merely to survive through other’s charity.”
Acts 3:2 And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
So, Peter and John were just two other faces. And they walked by, and “he asked for alms.”
Now, for some the highest view of religion is social service and would give such alms. And often such alms are helpful and humanitarian. He didn’t ask for healing. Perhaps he might have given up on that, or considered it just wasn’t possible.
“But, Peter, fastening his eyes upon him” – now that kind of focus is something, probably, more than physical, wouldn’t you say?
Acts 3:4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
You remember when the woman who had the infirmity of eighteen years? Jesus looked on that woman, and everyone else had looked on that woman, …
How did Jesus look at people? How did he see them that enabled him to get such tremendous results – just the opposite of the human sympathy that religion had felt was virtually the highest contribution it could make to the ills of mankind?
If Peter and John, having witnessed Jesus healing in many cases, “fastens his eyes upon him on John, said, Look on us.” (Acts 3:4)
Now, immediately, he got his attention. Now, to study the sequence that led to the healing that the text often gives you. What’s needed in human mentality to bring the healing into the experience of the individual?
“Look on us,” is apparently requirement one – away from the alms, the masses, the crowds, the helpless condition – “look on us.”
You know the story about – if you want the donkey to move, you have to get his attention first. You know (the story), you hit him between the eyes. You know, in a way, this is getting the attention of the patient.
“Look on us.” “He gave heed unto them….” (See below) So, we have the condition of what? Receptivity and expectation, expecting to receive – there are your two words. (He was) expecting to receive something of them.
Acts 3:5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
“Then Peter said, Disabuse yourself of any hope that I’m going to hand you out the coin of the realm, but what I have I’m going to give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6)
Peter, to encourage his thought and the possibility of it, for that man had sat there daily in that condition, to help him separate himself from that condition, he “takes him by the right hand, lifts him up: and immediately on his feet, he feels his feet and ankle bones receiving the strength” – simply an endorsement of what Peter and John had already seen was there. (Acts 3:7)
So, I thought you might be interested in seeing this first, specific miracle, so-called, that occurs after Jesus’s departure – the first specific one. We’d been told that “signs and wonders” had occurred. (Samples below of “signs and wonders wrought by the apostles)
Acts 3:43 And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
Acts 5:12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
Here’s how the Anchor Bible has described the concept of miracle: “Of course, one may assume such miracles cannot occur, but it cannot be doubted that they were of decisive importance to primitive Christianity. We shall not be able to understand the latter unless we take the accounts of these healings seriously.”
The first thing this man does, before he even walks, is what? In verse eight? (“his feet and ankle bones” — Murmurs) Before he walks, “he leaps.” (See below, paraphrased) Not that’s even harder than walking for someone who has been in that condition. (Laughter) “He leaping up stood, and walked…” – those are three different things requiring his feet and ankle bones to support that activity — “leaping first, standing, walking and entering into the temple,” a relationship now between church and mankind healed, a church that can bring results! (See below)
Acts 3:8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
“Walking, and leaping, and praising God.” (See above)
Remember this is the same temple the man at the pool of Bethesda enters after Jesus had healed him. (John 5:7)
And also, this – if we’re going to understand the scripture in terms of prophecy – if God indicates to humanity through His inspired word through prophecy that this is exactly what humanity should be doing – increasing their understanding of divinity to such a point that these obstacles, these ills that have plagued mankind for centuries unchallenged, should be wiped out of human experience.
Well, I don’t think the mention of the word, “leaping” in verse eight is a coincidence. (See below, repeated here for convenience)
Acts 3:8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
Turn to Isaiah 35, verse 6, Isa 35:6 and you will see that prophecy embraces healing the sick. [W: Note that Isaiah 35 was divinely given in a Bible opening by CedarS Founder Ruth E. Huff, to be the purpose of CedarS to put into practice daily as outlined below.] …
Isa 35:6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
Every day of our worship in the week, be it one day or more, if we were hearing the prophets about healing the sick and then walking away and forgetting it, wouldn’t we be more or less in the same category as those who ignored prophecy in the days of Jesus?
Isa 35, verse 3, actually in a form of command – it says “strengthen ye the weak hands, confirm the feeble knees.” (See below)
Isa 35:3 Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.
And Isa 35, verse 5, talks about “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.”
Isa 35:5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
And then in Isa 35, verse 6, “shall the lame…” do what? “Leap as an hart….” (See below)
Isa 35:6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
The contrast between lame and leaping, even greater than lameness and walking.
Now, that becomes/is a prophecy. We can’t ignore it. The fact that we perhaps aren’t doing that kind of healing work has no relationship to the fact that prophecy says it will be done and implies that it should be done.
And Isa 35, verse 10, shows you the results when humanity begins to comprehend the scope of prophecy. And it begins to look very close to the definition of church, doesn’t it? “The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (See below)
Isa 35:10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
It’s a collective thing, isn’t it? Collectively together, you and I, can obliterate sorrow and sighing and ills of mankind’s experience. And the church is designed to get us together to accomplish that result.
And what are we doing about the very instrument will bring it about? Are we supporting it? Or are we finding that we have grave doubts about the church?”
“After the Master What? – The Book of Acts”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
SEE LOVINGKINDNESS DRAWING ALL MANKIND to God for SOLUTIONS to WORLD PROBLEMS!
Cobbey Crisler on Jeremiah 31 (citation B17/Jer. 31:3 +33, 34)
“In Chapter 31, which is Jeremiah’s greatest chapter, he predicts the new covenant will come. He defines it. In Verse 3 he shows that the new covenant is definitely based on the comprehension of God as love. It’s that very “lovingkindness” that will draw all mankind to God for the solution of the world problems.”— [to make “their soul (spiritual sense) as a watered garden.” (Jer. 31:12)
Jeremiah 31:33, 34 “… this shall be the covenant that I make… I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts… for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest…”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
