It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a miting of divorcement:

But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery (Matthew 5:31-32).

We are told that in those days divorces were granted by the rabbinical law on the most trifling grounds. Married people who were not getting on together as well as they would have liked, were prone to run away from that problem by obtaining an easy dissolution. Now we understand that no permanent happiness can be obtained in this way. As long as you are running away from your problem, you will continue to meet it in a new guise at every turn in the road.

Just as in running from one business position to another, without first having brought about a change in consciousness, we find ourselves but repeating the old conditions in a slightly different form, so, as a rule, people who divorce freely are apt to finish up as dissatisfied as they began. The general rule in Truth is, fight out your problem where you are, with prayer.

The general rule is still good for all conditions in life: Do not try to divorce or amputate the inharmony, but let it dissolve away of itself under God’s guidance.

Read Matthew 5:33-37.

Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil (Matthew 5:33, 37).

Swear not at all, is one of the cardinal points in the teaching of Jesus. It means, briefly, that you are not to mortgage your future conduct in advance; to seek to fix your conduct or your belief for tomorrow while it is yet today. Rather you are constantly to keep yourself an open channel for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit into manifestation through you.

Of course, Jesus does not mean that you are not to enter into ordinary business engagements. Nor does he mean that the ordinary oath administered in a court of law is inadmissible. These things are matters of legal convenience. The Sermon on the Mount is a treatise on the spiritual life, for the spiritual life controls all the rest.

Read Matthew 5:38-42.

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil… (Matthew 5:39).

Jesus is a revolutionary teacher. He turns the world upside down for those who accept his teaching. When once you have accepted the Jesus Christ message, all values change radically.

The old law was that whatever man did to man, he should himself be made to suffer by way of punishment. If he put out another man’s eye, his own was put out by the officers of justice; if he killed, he was killed.

The desire to “get even,” to get one’s own back, to level things up somehow or other, when we have been hurt or have suffered injustice, or witnessed things of which we did not approve, will remain with us until the time when we definitely take ourselves in hand and destroy it. “Revenge,” said Bacon, “is a kind of wild justice.”

Now Jesus reverses this and says that when someone injures you, you are to forgive him. No matter what the provocation may be, and no matter how many times it is repeated, you are to loose him and let him go, for thus only can you be freed yourself.

“Hatred ceases not with hatred,” said the Light of Asia, enunciating this great cosmic truth many centuries earlier, and the Light of the World put it in the forefront of his teaching because it is the cornerstone of man’s salvation.

This doctrine of “resist not evil” is the great metaphysical secret. To the world it sounds like moral suicide, the feeblest surrender to aggression; but in the light of the Jesus Christ revelation it is seen to be superb spiritual strategy. Antagonize any situation, and you give it power against yourself; offer mental nonresistance, and it crumbles away in front of you.

Jesus gives no instructions for details of external conduct, and so the references here to suing at law, to coat and cloak, to lending and borrowing, to turning the other cheek, are illustrative and symbolical of mental states, and are not to be taken in the narrow literal sense. We cannot too often remind ourselves that if the thought is right, the deed cannot be wrong. No teacher could ever say that a given act must necessarily be right at any time, because the play of circumstances in human life is too hopelessly complicated for any such prediction.

If, when someone is behaving badly, you will immediately switch your attention from the human to the Divine, and concentrate upon God, or upon the real spiritual self of the person in question, you will find that his conduct will immediately change. This is the true revenge.

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves … for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord (Romans 12:19).

If somebody comes into the room at home, or into the office or shop, looking as if he meant to make trouble, just try switching your attention straight to the Divine, instead of squaring up aggressively to meet the difficulty or shrinking away to avoid it, according to your temperament. You will be amused and gratified to see the anger fade from the subject’s face (which will mean that it has faded from his heart too) and quite a different expression take its place.

I have myself seen several cases where men, and on two occasions, children, were actually fighting, and upon a spectator’s “turning the check” the strife ceased like magic. Animals respond even more easily to this treatment than do human beings. I have seen two instances where dogs were fighting savagely and all efforts to separate them had failed, when the realization of the Presence of God’s love in all His creatures restored peace. In one case it took several minutes’ work; in the other it was practically instantaneous.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Read Matthew 5:43-47.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven … (Matthew 5:44-45).

Right reaction is the supreme art of life, and Jesus compressed the secret of that art into a sentence when he said: Resist not evil. A correct understanding of this commandment will regenerate your body, liberate your soul, and remake your life.

Love is God and is therefore absolutely all-powerful. Meeting hatred with Love is the perfect method of self-defense in all circumstances. It renders you absolutely invulnerable to any kind of attack.

If you receive bad news, if you are unhappy in your work, or in your home, feel out mentally for the Presence of divine Spirit, all around you; affirm its actuality; and claim that God has dominion over all conditions, and you will soon be free.

And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also (1 John 4:21).

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

Consider carefully what Jesus is saying. He is commanding us to be perfect, even as God Himself is perfect; and, as we know that Jesus will not command the impossible, he has here given his authority to the doctrine that it is possible for man to become divinely perfect. And, more than this, he is putting it forward as a thing that will have to be actually done.

Now, if we really are the children of God, capable of eternal and flawless perfection, there can be no real power in evil, not even in sin, to keep us permanently in bondage. So now let us lose no further time before commencing our upward march. Let us now—at this very moment, if we have not already done so—rise up, like the prodigal son amid the husks of materiality and limitation, and cry, with all confidence in the teachings and promises of Jesus:

I will arise and go to my father (Luke 15:18).

When you fight a thing you antagonize it and it hits back. The harder you fight it the harder it hits. When you give your attention to anything, you are building that thing into your consciousness, for good or evil.

A story is told about William Penn. He had been accustomed from boyhood to carrying a sword because it was part of the dress of a gentleman at that period. One day it occurred to him that this was inconsistent with his Quakerism; but on the other hand he knew that he would feel extremely embarrassed without it. So he consulted George Fox, never doubting that his leader would say, “You must stop wearing it.” George Fox was silent for a few moments, and then said, “Carry thy sword until thou canst no longer carry it.”

A year or so later Penn discontinued the practice quite easily.

When you are faced with some negative condition, withdraw your attention from it by building the opposite into your subconscious. Then the undesirable thing falls away like an overripe fruit.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things (Philippians 4:8).

Prayer does change things. Let us be perfectly clear about this. Prayer does change things. Many people say that prayer is a good thing because it gives us courage and fortitude for meeting our troubles. They say that prayer often gets a man out of difficulty simply by giving him self-confidence that he would otherwise have lacked. Of course, this is not spiritual Truth. The fact is that seeing the Presence of God where the trouble seems to be does not merely give us courage to meet the trouble; it changes the trouble into harmony.

Prayer heals the body by changing the tissues, and it does this by first changing the mind that forms them. Prayer brings man his salvation by changing his nature fundamentally; not by making the best of him as he is. The body, the environment, the universe itself, is plastic to our thought; and it always reflects our sincere belief.

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).

Those who are perplexed by the difficulties and seeming inconsistencies of life should remember that at the present time we get only a partial view of things; and that a partial view of anything never shows the thing as it really is. If you were to show an Eskimo any number of pictures of sections of a horse, but never a picture of the whole horse, he would never know what the animal really looked like.

So it is with life. Some day (when we have enough spiritual growth) we will come to see that the seemingly disjointed happenings, the apparent accidents, are really part of an orderly pattern.

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment (John 7:24).

Many people would like to attend what they call an advanced class in metaphysics; but what could an advanced course include that would not be in the ordinary lessons?

The usual metaphysical classes teach that God is the only power, and that evil is insubstantial; that we form our own destiny by our thoughts and our beliefs; that conditions do not matter when we pray; that time and space and matter are human illusions; that there is a solution to every problem; that man is the child of God, and God is perfect good; that Jesus Christ is the one who taught the full truth about God, and actually demonstrated it.

Once the student has obtained a correct intellectual comprehension of these facts, and digested them—at least partially—the only thing that remains for him is to develop his understanding by demonstrating them in practice.

So we see that the real advanced course is the one we give ourselves by demonstrating over the practical problems of everyday life.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:20).

We live in the Presence of God. The Bible says, In him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). This limitless Power, which is Intelligence and Love—God—can be contacted at any time by turning to Him in thought, and allowing Him to fill our hearts. Whenever we do this He at once begins to influence our lives for peace and harmony and freedom.

A party of shipwrecked sailors were drifting in an open boat on the Atlantic Ocean. They had no water, and were suffering agonies from thirst. Another small boat came within hailing distance, and when the shipwrecked mariners cried out for water, the newcomers said, “let down your bucket.” This sounded like cruel mockery. But when the advice was repeated several times, one of the sailors dipped the bucket overboard—and drew up clean, fresh, sparkling water!

For several days they had been sailing through fresh water and did not know it. They were out of sight of land, but off the estuary of the Amazon, which carries fresh water many miles out to sea.

Closer is he than breathing; nearer than hands and feet.—Tennyson

Jesus said, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:25).

The simile used by Jesus was a graphic one for his listeners. In those days every important city was surrounded by a wall for defense. There would be a large gate in the wall and this would be closed at sunset and placed under an armed guard. There was usually, however, a low wicket gate known as the needle’s eye, set in the big door. When a laden camel arrived after sunset the only way it could get in was to be unloaded of all merchandise, whereupon it would squirm on its knees through the needle’s eye.

Unload your camel if you want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You do this, of course, not by getting rid of conditions in themselves, but by getting rid of your sense of dependency on them. Very often you will find yourself so glad to be without a lot of that merchandise that you will never put it back.

People often say that when they first came to the knowledge of truth it seemed that miracles happened almost every day. Negative conditions of long standing disappeared. Then, they say, a sort of slump seemed to set in, since which they have never been able to do so well.

Now why should this be the case? The explanation is that what demonstrates is an expansion of consciousness. With an expansion of consciousness our conditions must improve. When people first learn of the omnipresence of God, they experience such an expansion. Then the tendency is to rest upon the first knowledge acquired, and to make their early realization serve over and over again. This will not do. It is only today’s realization that will demonstrate, never yesterday’s or last year’s.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:32).

God is infinite perfection and he is not concerned with our limited ideas about time and space and matter.

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones (Isaiah 57:15).

God is not progressing or improving. What improves is our understanding of Him, and as this happens all our conditions necessarily improve too. There never was a time in your history when God was not all that He is today, and there never can come a time when God will be any more than He is today.

God is continually expressing Himself in new ways—but this is not improvement; it is unfoldment. Your life is simply part of this unfoldment, and that is the only reason for your existing at all. You are the living expression of God now—and to understand this is salvation.

One philosopher has defined life as adaptation to environment. He said that anything that was alive would try to survive by adapting itself to the conditions in which it had to live. There is of course a great deal of truth in this view. Life is tenacious and extraordinarily resourceful in fitting itself to unsuitable conditions.

When we come to humanity, however, the Bible teaches us that man does not have to adapt himself to outer conditions but that he has the power of changing or adapting outer things to fit him. This is the vital distinction between materialism and spiritual Truth. You have within you the divine Spark—the Indwelling Christ—and by awakening and developing this, your spiritual nature, you can mold conditions to fit your needs.

Man has free will, the power of reason and intuition. By learning to use these faculties he gains his dominion. It is the Bible that says that God has given man dominion over all things.

The Lord will give strength unto his people … (Psalm 29:11).

The royal road to progress in spiritual understanding is to solve definite problems by prayer.

Every time that you heal any condition, however small, by prayer, you gain an increase in spiritual understanding. One definite healing will teach you more about spiritual truth than hours of discussion or reading.

Some questions in metaphysics that readily present themselves cannot be answered without a good deal of preparation, and it is useless to try to answer them until this ground has been covered. It is useless for a student of algebra to try to understand binomial theorem if he hardly understands a simple equation. You always have enough understanding to get freedom and harmony here and now in the place where you are.

Because thou hast asked … for thyself understanding to discern judgment … lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart … (1 Kings 3:11-12).

Never hesitate to approach God in prayer because you are not worthy. If we had to wait until we were worthy, no one would ever find salvation, because we cannot make ourselves worthy. Turn to God, just as you are, and, however sinful you may feel yourself to be, God will begin to make you worthy, as long as your turning to him is wholehearted.

Only God can cancel mistakes and rebuild our lives. The more sense of guilt we may have the more reason is there for turning to Him. The very fact that you are praying means that God Himself has initiated the prayer, and what thought can be greater than this?

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat … (Isaiah 55:1).

Your present problem is your great opportunity. Your own mind—the Secret Place, as Jesus called it—is the council chamber where the arrangements and decisions for your whole life are made; it is also the drafting room where the plans for your destiny are formed. Your life is your laboratory. The world is your workshop.

The reason that you are here is that you may develop spiritually; and the way to do that is to meet the challenge of practical life. You do not develop spiritually by running away from life into some sheltered retreat. Nor do you grow in spiritual stature by gaining your point through will power.

It is the law that any difficulties that can come to you at any time, must be exactly what you need most at the moment to enable you to take the next step forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy, comes when we suffer without learning the lesson.

I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil (John 17:15).

Really there are only two feelings that a human being can have, namely love and fear. It is generally supposed that the kinds of feeling we may have are legion, but this is an illusion. All other feelings, so-called, will turn out upon analysis to be either love or fear.

What about anger? Well, anger is really but fear in disguise. In chemistry we occasionally find the same substance occurring under completely different appearances. For example, black lead is exactly the same substance chemically as a diamond, different as they look. They are said to be allotropie forms of carbon. In the same way, anger, hatred, jealousy, criticism, egotism, are but allotropie forms of fear.

Joy, interest, the feeling of success and accomplishment, the appreciation of art, are allotropie forms of love. The great difference between the two feelings is that love is always creative, and fear is always destructive. It is for us to decide which of these two feelings shall hold sway in our lives.

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in Him (1 John 4:16).

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking (Matthew 6:6-7).

The sixth chapter of Matthew presents the doctrine of the Secret Place and its importance as the controlling center of the “Kingdom.” It is the essential factor of the teaching of Jesus Christ. You are a king, Jesus says, the ruler of your own kingdom. When you know the truth of being, you are the absolute monarch of your own life.

It is very significant that Jesus should call your consciousness the Secret Place. It is obvious that nothing has any real significance but a change of policy in the Secret Place.

A distinguished Quaker some years ago said: “In my youth we discontinued the distinctive Quaker costume and certain other usages because we realized that people who were far from really caring for our Quaker ideals were joining us, nevertheless, for the sake of the educational facilities they could obtain so inexpensively for their children, as well as other advantages of our membership. It was so easy to style oneself a ‘Friend,’ to purchase and wear a coat without buttons or collar, and to interlard the conversation with a grammatical peculiarity, while leaving the character completely untouched. It is so easy to buy and wear ceremonial garments, to repeat set prayers by rote at certain times, to use stereotyped forms of devotion, to attend religious services at prescribed periods—and to leave the heart unchanged.”

It is unquestionable that the spiritualization of thought does undoubtedly lead the student to simplify his mode of life, for so many things that previously seemed important are now found to be unimportant and uninteresting. It is unquestionable too, that he gradually finds himself meeting different people, reading different books, spending his time differently; and that his conversation naturally changes its quality. These things follow upon the change of heart; never can they precede it.

… old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Now we see how vain is the foolish attempt to cultivate the good opinion of other people under the impression that such a thing can be of any real advantage to us. Jesus has exposed that kind of fallacy once and for all. He says that the applause that follows upon outer acts is the only reward they ever bring, and that results worth while are only to be obtained in the Secret Place of consciousness.

… pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly (Matthew 6:6).

Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly (Matthew 6:16-18).

Jesus takes the practice of fasting for granted. Now the most profitable method of fasting is abstention from negative or error thoughts. In some cases it is necessary to abstain for a time from thinking about a particular problem at all. There are certain problems, usually those that you have been mulling over too much, that are overcome “only by prayer and fasting.” In such a case it is best to give the problem a definite and final prayer, and then to leave it alone, for a time; or else hand it over bodily to someone else to handle for you, after which you keep your thoughts completely away from it.

Read Matthew 6:16-23.

If your consciousness is right, that is, if you have a good understanding of God as the loving Source of your boundless supply, you will always be able to demonstrate whatever money or goods you may require. You cannot want for anything when once you truly realize that in divine Mind demand and supply are one. And, on the contrary, until you do realize this, you never will be really safe from want.

In the long run, no one can retain what does not belong to him by right of consciousness, nor be deprived of that which is truly his by the same supreme title.

If you are looking to outer, passing, mutable things for either happiness or security, you are not putting God first. If you are putting God first in your life, you will not find yourself laboring under undue anxiety about anything, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21).

If you pray for yourself in the right way every day, you will find that the minor things of life will gradually fall correctly into place of their own accord without any trouble on your part. Contrast this with the usual method of trying to get everything right by separately organizing a thousand petty details, and you will appreciate how wonderfully the new spiritual basis sets you free. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light (Matthew 6:22).

The eye symbolizes spiritual perception. Whatever you give your attention to, is the thing that governs your life. Attention is the key. Your free will lies in the directing of your attention. Whatever you steadfastly direct your attention to, will come into your life and dominate it. If you do not direct your attention consistently to anything in particular—and many people do not—then nothing in particular will come into your life except uncertainty and suspense.

If the Glory of God comes first with you, and to express His Will becomes the rule of your life, then your eye is single and your whole body, or embodiment, will be full of light.

Read Matthew 6:24-33.

Many Christians accept these facts theoretically, but are less than halfhearted when it comes to their practical application, and this vacillation lands them in difficulties that always follow upon inconsistency and weakness. To try to rest sometimes upon the material basis, and sometimes upon the spiritual, is to try to serve two masters, and this of course cannot be done. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).

Man is essentially spiritual, the image and likeness of God, and therefore he is made for the spiritual basis, and he cannot really succeed on any other.

Read Matthew 6:25-35.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field … shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? (Matthew 6:30).

Of course, Jesus did not mean that you as a human being are to copy the lives or the methods of the birds or flowers literally, for you are infinitely higher in the scale of creation than they are. The lesson is that you are to adapt yourself as completely to your element as they do to theirs. Your true element is the Presence of God. When man accepts the Truth that in God he lives and moves and has his being, as completely and unquestioningly as the birds and the flowers accept the truth of their condition, he will demonstrate as easily and as thoroughly as they do.

One hears occasionally of curious cases of people who claim to be so spiritual that they do not feel called upon to earn their own living. Someone else who is not too spiritual to go to work, is expected to keep them. But this attitude of mind speaks for itself. If your understanding is sufficient to enable you to dispense with ordinary work, you will find yourself automatically supplied in an independent and self-respecting manner—with a good living. This cannot possibly apply to people who are in debt or sponging upon others. If you really wish to try the experiment of “stepping out” upon the power of the Word, be sure that your so doing is authentic. The only way to make this experiment in a genuine manner is to let it be “demonstrate or starve.” If you are secretly looking to someone else to come to the rescue, you are not really depending upon the Word.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:34).

Always remember that the only thought that you need to concern yourself with is the present time. The thoughts of yesterday or of last year do not matter now, because if you can get the present thought right it will make everything else right here and now. The best way to prepare for tomorrow is to make today’s consciousness serene and harmonious.

Never go delving in your mind to look for troubles to pray about. Deal faithfully with those that bring themselves to your attention, and hidden things will be taken care of.

Have faith in your own faith. Have faith enough in yourself to believe that you really have enough faith to move mountains. Is this a strange idea? Probably it is for many people, yet Jesus taught it.

People are constantly saying that they wish they had more faith because if they had they could get better results. You have to realize, however, that this attitude of mind is extremely negative. It is affirming, although indirectly, that your faith is very poor—and you know what that means.

Jesus said that the very smallest amount of faith (like a grain of mustard seed) is sufficient. If you have faith enough to pray at all, you have enough faith to start with. If you had no faith, you would not be praying.

Have faith in your own faith, and that in itself will build it up more and more until the work is done.

… be not faithless, but believing (John 20:27).

Everyone on the spiritual path has found that it happens occasionally in the early years—and not often then—that he suddenly finds himself almost or quite unable to pray. Often it seems that he cannot get any sense of contact with God. This naturally depresses him and sometimes leads to greater fear and almost to despair.

Now, these severe reactions are not necessary, once you know that everyone goes through them.

This trouble is caused by overdoing. You have been praying too long or too hard, or you have been giving too much time to spiritual work exclusively, instead of having other interests in your life too. It is really a condition of staleness and psychological congestion. The medieval mystics called these times “seasons of dryness” and suffered severely because they believed them to be sinful.

The remedy is not to struggle, but to know that this dryness will surely pass, and your spiritual joy return. If you cannot pray, do not try, but think, “God is so good that I need not pray; he will take care of me anyway.” (Of course, this itself is a wonderful prayer.) On a long motor tour, it sometimes happens that you come upon a piece of rough, bad road. For hundreds of miles the going has been perfect, but now you are shaken and bumped badly, but you do not worry, because you know for certain that it will only last for a few miles. Indeed, there is probably a notice saying “Pavement ahead.”

… weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

When Nebuchadnezzar sent out his decree that everyone in his kingdom should bow down and worship the golden image that he had erected, there were three men who refused to obey. These were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, Hebrew officials in the province of Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar called them before him, and they bluntly told the King that their God would deliver them from the fiery furnace to which they would be consigned, but even if God did not deliver them, they would still serve Him and Him alone.

Nebuchadnezzar had the three men thrust into the fiery furnace, and the heat was so intense that it slew the guards who threw them in. Then, as he looked in upon the three faithful Hebrews, Nebuchadnezzar was astonished to find a fourth man walking in the flames with the other three. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego walked out of the fiery furnace without blemish or scar.

So it is when we hold steadfastly to God, and give all power to Him. He sends his messenger to deliver us from our furnace of fear and frustration. Then do we know that nothing shall by any means harm us.

Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him … (Daniel 3:28).