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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
The Son of God went away the second time, and prayed, saying:
“O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink
it, Thy will be done.” And again He came to His disciples and found
them sleeping. Their eyes were heavy. By these sleeping disciples
is represented a sleeping church, when the day of God’s visitation
is nigh. It is a time of clouds and thick darkness, when to be found
asleep is most perilous.
Jesus has left us this warning: “Watch ye therefore: for ye know
not when the Master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight,
or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly
He find you sleeping.” The church of God is required to fulfill her
night watch, however perilous, whether long or short. Sorrow is
no excuse for her to be less watchful. Tribulation should not lead
to carelessness, but to double vigilance. Christ has directed the
church by His own example to the Source of their strength in times
of need, distress, and peril. The attitude of watching is to designate
the church as God’s people indeed. By this sign the waiting ones are
distinguished from the world and show that they are pilgrims and
strangers upon the earth.
Again the Saviour turned sadly from His sleeping disciples, and
prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then He came to
them and said: “Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour
is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”
How cruel for the disciples to permit sleep to close their eyes, and
slumber to chain their senses, while their divine Lord was enduring
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such inexpressible mental anguish! If they had remained watching
they would not have lost their faith as they beheld the Son of God
dying upon the cross. This important night watch should have been
signalized by noble mental struggles and prayers, which would have
brought them strength to witness the unspeakable agony of the Son
of God. It would have prepared them, as they should behold His
sufferings upon the cross, to understand something of the nature
of the overpowering anguish which He endured in the Garden of
Gethsemane. And they would have been better able to recall the
words He had spoken to them in reference to His sufferings, death,
and resurrection; and, amid the gloom of that terrible, trying hour,
some rays of hope would have lighted up the darkness and sustained
their faith.