Luke 22:53
“When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness."
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All of history had moved unerringly and inexorably to this hour. Schilder states this so well: God had arranged all of the preceding centuries, all of the intervolutions of time, all of the events from Genesis 1:1 up to this moment—has arranged and moulded them, has had them converge in such a way that there would be a place for this hour, the hour in which His Son will be bound...He allowed neither the forces above nor the forces below to tamper with the clock of history. He directed the battles of Caesars, the conflicts of kings, the migration of peoples,...and the complex movements of all things in the world in such a way that this hour would come and had to come.
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God’s permission was absolute as Satan mustered his legions for the decisive encounter. The first Adam had been easy prey. How would he fare with this Adam?
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The garden was empty again, this lonely garden that time-wise is situated mid-way between Eden and a greater garden than Eden that is so beautifully described in Revelation 22. The struggle in Gethsemane had been fierce. Soon the struggle would be fiercer still. ‘That old serpent, called the devil and Satan’ had uncoiled and had bared his fangs, poised to strike again and again with all the venom of which he was capable. Trampling on serpents is a most painful experience, especially for the heel.
~ Frederick S. Leahy
More reflections from Chapter 4
