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Awesome Struggle in Gethsemane
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kiss, that same is He: hold Him fast.” Now, coming close to Jesus, he
took His hand as a familiar friend. With the words, “Hail, Master,”
he kissed Him repeatedly, and appeared to weep as if in sympathy
with Him in His peril.
Jesus said, “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” His voice trem-
bling with sorrow, He added, “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss?” This appeal should have aroused the conscience of the
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betrayer, but honor and human tenderness had forsaken him. He had
given himself up to Satan and had no power to resist him. Jesus did
not refuse the traitor’s kiss.
The mob now laid hold of Jesus, and proceeded to bind those
hands that had ever been employed in doing good.
The disciples were disappointed and indignant as they saw the
cords brought forward to bind the hands of Him whom they loved.
Peter in anger drew his sword and cut off an ear of the high priest’s
servant. When Jesus saw what was done, He released His hands,
though held firmly by the Roman soldiers, and saying, “Suffer ye
thus far,” He touched the wounded ear, and it was instantly made
whole.
He then said to Peter, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for
all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest
thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently
give Me more than twelve legions of angels?”—a legion in place
of each disciple. Oh, why, the disciples thought, does He not save
Himself and us? Answering their unspoken thought, He added, “But
how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” “The
cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?”
The wily priests and elders had joined the temple police and
rabble in following Judas to Gethsemane. What a company for those
dignitaries to unite with—a mob armed with all kinds of implements,
as if in pursuit of a wild beast!
Turning to the priests and elders, Christ spoke words they would
never forget: You come out against Me with swords and staves as
you would against a thief or a robber. Day by day I sat teaching in
the temple. You had every opportunity of laying hands on Me, and
you did nothing. The night is better suited to your work. “This is
your hour, and the power of darkness.”
The disciples were terrified as they saw Jesus permit Himself to
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