The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 347

Calvary. What despair and anguish wrung the hearts of those disciples
during the days while their Lord was sleeping in the tomb!
Christ had come at the exact time and in the manner foretold by
prophecy. The testimony of Scripture had been fulfilled in every detail
of His ministry. He had preached the message of salvation, and “His
word was with power.” The hearts of His hearers had witnessed that
it was of Heaven. The word and the Spirit of God attested the divine
commission of His Son.
The disciples still clung with undying affection to their beloved
Master. And yet their minds were shrouded in uncertainty and doubt.
In their anguish they did not then recall the words of Christ pointing
forward to His suffering and death. If Jesus of Nazareth had been
the true Messiah, would they have been thus plunged in grief and
disappointment? This was the question that tortured their souls while the
Saviour lay in His sepulcher during the hopeless hours of that Sabbath
which intervened between His death and His resurrection.
Though the night of sorrow gathered dark about these followers of
Jesus, yet were they not forsaken. Saith the prophet: “When I sit in
darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.... He will bring me forth
to the light, and I shall behold His righteousness.” “Yea, the darkness
hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and
the light are both alike to Thee.” God hath spoken: “Unto the upright
there ariseth light in the darkness.” “I will bring the blind by a way that
they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will
make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These
things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.” Micah 7:8, 9; Psalm
139:12; 112:4; Isaiah 42:16.
The announcement which had been made by the disciples in the
name of the Lord was in every particular correct, and the events to
which it pointed were even then taking place. “The time is fulfilled,
the kingdom of God is at hand,” had

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