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“The Saint Must Walk Alone"
By A.W. Tozer
Most of the World’s GREAT SOULS have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness.By A.W. Tozer
Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses all walked a path quite apart from their contemporaries even though many people surrounded them.
The prophets of pre-Christian times differed widely from each other, but one mark they bore in common was their enforced loneliness.
Jesus died alone in the darkness hidden from the sight of mortal man and no one saw Him when He arose triumphant and walked out of the tomb, even though many saw Him afterward and bore witness to what they saw.
The cheerful denial of loneliness proves only that the speaker has never walked with God without the support and encouragement afforded him by society. The sense of companionship that mistakenly attributes to the presence of Christ may and probably does arise from the presence of friendly people. Always remember: you cannot carry a cross in company. Though a vast crowd surrounds a man, his cross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart. Society has turned against him; otherwise he would have no cross. No one is a friend to the man with a cross. “They all forsook Him and fled.”
The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, and his absorption in his love for Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone.
The man who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. A certain amount of social fellowship will of course be his as he mingles with religious persons in regular activities of the church, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find.
The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored but to see his Saviour glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to see Jesus promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.
It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else. He learns in inner solitude what he could not have learned in the crowd-that Christ is All in All.
Two things remain to be said about the man that is in this state of loneliness. First, he is not a haughty man, he is not holier-than-thou, and he is not an austere saint. He is likely to feel that he is the least of all men and is sure to blame himself for his loneliness. He wants to share his feelings with others and to open his heart to some like-minded soul who will understand him, but the spiritual climate around him does not encourage it, so he remains silent and tells his grief to God alone.
The second thing is that the lonely saint is not the withdrawn man who hardens himself against human suffering and spends his days contemplating the heavens. The opposite is true. His loneliness makes him sympathetic to the approach of the brokenhearted and the fallen and the sin-bruised. Because he is detached from the world he is all the more able to help it.
The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful “adjustment” to an unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. The world recognizes them (modern Christians) and accepts them for what they are. This is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints.
"And shall leave me alone." –John 16:32
Jesus, for the most part, lived a lonely and solitary life. It was of necessity so. There was much in His mission, more in His character, still more in His person, that would baffle the comprehension, and estrange from Him the interest and the sympathy of the world; compelling Him to retire within the profound solitude of His own wondrous Being.
The TWOFOLD NATURE of Jesus contributed essentially to the loneliness of His life. The 'great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh,' would of itself confine Him to an orbit of being infinitely remote from all others. Few could sympathize with His perfect sinlessness as man, fewer still with His essential dignity as God.
As it was with the Lord, so, in a measure, is it with the disciple. The spiritual life of the renewed man is a profound mystery to the unregenerate. Strangers experimentally to the New Birth, they cannot understand the 'divine nature' of which all believers are 'partakers.' Nor this only. Even among the saints we shall often find our path a lonely and solitary one. How much may there be in--the truths which we hold, in the church to which we belong, and even in the more advanced stages of Christian experience we have traveled, which separates us in fellowship and sympathy from many of the Lord's people. Alas! that it should be so.
Our Lord's WORK contributed much to His sense of loneliness. How expressive His words--"I have food to eat that you know not of. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work." And so may it be with us. The Christian work confided to us by Jesus may be of such a character, and in such a sphere, as very much to isolate us from the sympathy and aid of the saints. It has concealed temptations, hidden trials, unseen difficulties, distasteful employments, with which we can expect but little sympathy and pity; compelling us, like our blessed Lord, to eat our 'food' in solitude. But, oh, sweet thought! the Master whom you serve knows your appointed sphere of labor, and will, by His succouring grace, soothing love, and approving smile, share and bless your lonely meal.
The TEMPTATION of Jesus rendered His path lonely. He was alone with the devil forty days and nights in the wilderness. No bosom friend, no faithful disciple, was there to speak a word of soothing sympathy. And are not our temptations solitary? How few are cognizant of, or even suspect, the fiery assaults through which we, perhaps, are passing. Of the skeptical doubts, the blasphemous suggestions, the vain thoughts, the unholy imaginations transpiring within our inner man they know nothing--and this intensifies our sense of loneliness. But the Tempted One knows it all, and will not leave us to conflict single-handed with the tempter, but will with the temptation make a way for our escape. "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation."
The SOUL-SORROW of Jesus rendered His path lonely. Prophesying of Himself, He said, "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me." How lonely may be your grief, O believer! None share your sorrow, few understand it. You are 'as a sparrow alone on the house-top.' There are none to watch with you in the garden of your anguish--your wounded heart, like the stricken deer, bleeds and mourns in secret. But your sorrow is all known to your loving, compassionate Savior; whose wisdom appointed it, whose love sent it, whose grace sustains it, and who will soothe and strengthen you with His tenderest sympathy. Let your labor of love, your lonely sorrow, throw you more entirely upon, and bring you into closer, more believing, and more loving relations with, the Savior; wean you more from the creature; separate you more from the world; and set you more supremely apart for God. Oh! then you will thank Him for the discipline of loneliness as among the holiest and most precious blessings of your life!
Consider Jesus– in Loneliness
Alone and Loneliness
June 24, 2008
Charles E. Newbold, Jr.
As believers in Messiah, we are a body of related members; therefore, it is quite normal and necessary
that we not live in isolation one from another if possible. Many of you desire true fellowship with other
believers, but know that God has called you out of the organized, corporation church system. Even
while in it, you found little true fellowship if any. As was the case for many years, my wife and I found
very few people who wanted to “be” the body of Messiah with us unless we were connected to one of
those Things we call church. So, what are we to do?
Our Bridegroom is very jealous for His bride. He has always been jealous, but He is getting more
demonstrative in His jealousy in these latter days. He wants to rid us of any and all idols that steal our
affection away from Him.
Idols are those things we depend upon for our sufficiency other than the Lord Yeshua (Jesus) Messiah.
Church and fellowship can certainly be one of those idols. They tend to steal the bride’s affection away
from her intended.
Loneliness itself can serve a good purpose. We tend to be lonely for someone or something we miss.
That person or thing we miss might very likely be an unwholesome dependency in our lives. Any
dependency other than on God is idolatry. So, loneliness may be exposing an idol.
There is a difference between aloneness and loneliness. To be alone with God is wonderful. To be
alone without God leads to loneliness, emptiness, and despair.
He alone can see the idolatries in our hearts. He loves us enough to take them from us so that we can
turn to Him with a whole heart and abandon everything else in our heart.
Enjoy your time of separation unto Him who is your Bridegroom and do not struggle for “fellowship” or
anything else. He is calling you into a new order altogether. Don’t look for anything to be like you used
to know it. A new order altogether is coming.
Be content in Him and with Him. When we come to that place in our hearts when we know that He
alone is our sufficiency, when we don’t need these idols anymore, then He will give it to us as He
chooses. He is quite capable of providing fellowship and Kingdom relationships.
Moreover, when we come out of those Things to which we have been addicted, we generally need a
time for detoxification from them. As surely as we try to start something in its place, it won’t be long until
we have once again another one of those Things on our hands. We tend to go back into what we came
out of, until what we came out of has been taken out of us.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Let Him be your sufficiency. He places you in His body as He wills.
Alone And Loneliness ~ Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr.
