NOTABLE NIGHTS by Bessie Cooper

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 4, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 43.

NOTABLE NIGHTS.

By Bessie Cooper

THE night has been eloquently eulogized by the pen of the poet:—

“How beautiful the night! The balmiest sigh, Which vernal zephyrs breathe the evening’s ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps the moveless scene. . . . Seems like a canopy which love hath spread To curtain her sleeping world.”

It was God the Creator who made the night so beautiful in its adornments,—the bright stars that shed their light from the heavens, and the pale-faced moon as it hangs above the silver clouds. But the most elevating and interesting thoughts come in connection with the notable nights mentioned in the Bible.

Just before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, two angels tarried all night at Lot’s house. Their mission that night was to warn Lot of the coming destruction of the doomed city. The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah are held forth as a warning to the people of our time; will we heed the warning?

In after years Jacob, for fear that he might be slain by his brother Esau, fled to the house of his Uncle Laban. He had hundreds of miles to travel alone, and his heart was burdened with the wrong that he had committed. At night he lay down to rest. The earth was his bed, a stone was his pillow, and “the heavens above studded with stars unutterably bright, through which the moon’s unchanged grandeur rolls,” was the roof that covered him when he lay down to sleep. In his dreams he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, upon which angels were ascending and descending. What a grand sight to behold those lovely forms, going up and down, arrayed in garments of purest white! The Lord spoke words of comfort and promise to Jacob that night. The dreary desert became a house of God, and the pillow of stone the gate of heaven.

Twenty years later, Jacob, with a large family, a numerous company of servants, and large flocks and herds, was returning to Canaan. It was a lonely, mountainous region, the haunt of wild beasts, and robbers and murderers were lurking around the place where Jacob, lonely and sorrowful, prayed to his God most earnestly, while his company went on before. It was at midnight. Unexpectedly a hand was laid upon him. He thought it was an enemy trying to take his life, and he attempted to loose himself from the grip of his opponent. Amid the darkness each struggled to gain the victory over the other. While in this terrible conflict, lasting almost till daybreak, Jacob’s thigh, by a touch from his supposed antagonist, was put out of joint. Then he knew that he was combating a heavenly being, and he sought and obtained the overcomer’s blessing.

Pharaoh’s heart was not deeply touched by the first six plagues that were sent upon him and his people. It must have been a hardened heart that could resist the seventh and last plague. In the night the angel of death touched the first-born in every household, where the blood, representing faith in God, was not found on the door-posts. It was heart-rending to hear the moans and cries of the people as they saw their dear ones stricken down so suddenly. Think for a moment how solemn and sad that night must have been! Yet in it was salvation for all.

Who of us, like the prophet Daniel of old, ever spent a night in a den, surrounded by wild beasts? No doubt that was the strangest night he ever experienced. He had no human companion, yet he was not alone; the God of heaven watched over him. How that night was spent, we are not told, but Daniel’s great faith, of which we are informed, would indicate that it was spent in prayer and communion with God.

Many years ago, in the city of Bethlehem, there was born a Babe. The night was beautiful, the heavens were illuminated by the stars, and the moon sent forth its silver rays. All nature seemed to smile, as it, with the people, looked at that innocent Babe in the manger. As the shepherds were caring for their flocks that night, no doubt they were talking about the prophecies relating to the Messiah, or singing a psalm as the still hours of the night were passing away. Presently their attention was attracted by the appearance of a lovely star in the heavens, the brightest of all the stars. The Bible says, “The glory of the Lord shone round about,” and an angel declared unto the shepherds the birth of the Saviour. Then the stillness of the night was broken, for “suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God.”

Soon after this the same Child was taken to Egypt. They must travel in the night, so that they would not be seen by King Herod’s spies, who sought to kill the infant Jesus. They were guarded by angels of God as they journeyed in the still hours of the night.

Other great events worthy of note took place in the night, such as our Lord’s meeting with Nicodemus, his eating the Passover and Lord’s supper, and his instruction to his disciples and prayer for them, as recorded in John, chapters 13 to 17. That same night also he went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed to his Father to give him strength to resist the awful trial just before him. How terrible was his agony, as he prayed, “O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done!” He had not yet left the garden when Judas came with a mob, and the Saviour of the world was delivered into the hands of his enemies, to be mocked and crucified. Surely such a betrayal was a deed fitted only to be done in the darkness of night.

Other notable nights were those when Jesus met with his disciples after his resurrection, when Peter was delivered from prison by an angel, when Paul escaped from Damascus, when he and Silas sang hymns in the Philippian jail and an earthquake shook open the prison doors, and when Paul was carried by Roman guards from Jerusalem to Cæsarea to deliver him from the fury of the Jews.

These are a part of God’s wonderful dealings with his children in the night. Not all the poetry ascribed to the night is so grand or instructive as the simple accounts of notable nights in the history of God’s work for the salvation of souls. Bessie Cooper. Oakland, Cal.