The Sound of the Trumpet:  To preserve, publish, proclaim, plant, protect, and propagate the Abrahamic Faith.
 A publication of the Carolina and Georgia Conferences of the Churches of God of the Abrahamic Faith.
ASLEEP IN THE CRISIS

By Harold Doan

In Matthew 26 we have the amazing picture of the three most trusted apostles asleep in the greatest crisis of their
lives. After repeated warning of what was about to happen, Jesus has retired to a place in the Garden of
Gethsemane to pray, expecting that at any moment the betrayer would appear. Seeking the comfort of His closest
friends, Jesus had called Peter, James, and John to share this difficult hour with Him. Then, three times, Jesus
returned to them from His critical sessions of prayer to find them asleep. Once He chided them, "Watch and pray,
that ye enter not into temptation," but finally He resigned Himself with, "Sleep on now, and take your rest."

Looking back on this hour of crisis in the life of the Lord and these three, it seems incredible that anyone would
sleep in such a setting of tension and momentous happenings. Yet, there they were, peacefully unaware of the
torment of their Lord and the terrors of the hours ahead!

Before we shake our heads in pity for such unconcern, let us examine ourselves. We appear to lie in the crisis of
the end of this age. The coming of the Lord draws near! The trumpet is about to blow! The day of judgment is
upon us! The world reels in confusion, unbelief, sin, ignorance of Christ and the hope that is in Him. What are we
doing? Peacefully taking our rest in the greatest time of crisis of all time!

What occupies our minds? How do we spend our time ? What is the topic of our conversation ? Where is the
center of our interest ? Churches fight the attendance lag. The church treasurer strains to meet the expenses.
Pleasure beckons and faith falters. Pastoral energy is dissipated in endless administration while the sheep stray.
This is not the time to rest, but the time to pray lest we enter into temptation!

We think of the words of Amos the Prophet who spoke to a people who lived on the brink of disaster. Their eyes
were closed to the crisis of their times. They were dulled to the significance of the times in which they lived. Amos
warned, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion .. . ye that put away the evil day ... that lie upon beds of ivory, and
stretch themselves upon their couches" (Amos 6:1-4). How like our day this is, when the luxuries of life can lull us
to sleep while the age dies!

The child of God, like the favored apostles, needs to nudge himself awake in this crisis time. Bolstered by the force
of prayer, kept sleepless by concern for the fate of the lost, prodded to awareness by the events of the times, the
child of God must "awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" (Rom. 13:11).  

We suspect that this generation is living in a state of mild shock. Wars, rumors of wars, great advancements in
science, the space age hang over the head of today's man. He exists in a state of determined unawareness. He
has steeled himself against the threat of the times. He has built a wall of unconcern about himself that can be
penetrated only with the greatest of difficulty. Like the people of Israel who became so sophisticated that they
could not blush (Jer.8:12), modern man is shocked by nothing and has accomodated himself to life at the edge of
the volcano.  

This hardness, reflected in the ability to close the eyes and sleep while the world dies in sin and the Lord's
sacrifice goes unnoticed, is the temptation that must be overcome by the Christian. With earnest prayer for a heart
sensitive to the needs of the world, with fervent supplication for concern for the lost and dying, the Christian can
rise triumphant out of the temptation to sleep while judgment falls.