Lonely Times 7/11/2021

Interesting piece of historical information, before our modern interstate system. The majority of our highways and roads were built on existing, well known paths that people followed. In Europe the paths were trodden by individuals or groups searching for food, shelter, or traveling between communities. When horse and buggy became an affordable option the paths were widened to accommodate the larger size of the transportation mode.

As automobiles became the mode of transportation the well traveled buggy paths were turned to gravel roads or eventually paved for progress.

Think about that for just a minute. The roads you and I travel here in Georgia might have been established when this area was a Colony. There is no path or road here that has not been traveled by someone else.

There is no path in life that has not been traveled by someone else.

That should bring some comfort to us in a sense. There is no path that someone has not journeyed on… Nothing you go through right now has not been faced by someone else.

When I was a kid I would spend summers with my grandparents on their farm in Louisiana. They attended a little pentecostal church named Camp Eight United Pentecostal Church. It was named camp eight because that was the name of the logging camp it was established in. I can remember the roads we took to get there. You would leave the farm and turn right onto Terrell Cutoff Rd. At the end of that road you turned right on Highway 1199. Drive about a mile and turn left on Owen Miller Rd. When Owen Miller ended you turned left again and there on the right was Camp Eight UPC. Both of my grandparents are buried in that church’s cemetery.

I am very grateful for the legacy they left of faithfulness to God.

You might notice that two of the roads were named after people. Terrell was my grandparents last name. Terrell Cutoff Rd is named for the family who had the road established. An old gravel road established to make going to some places easier.

We traveled that road many many times. Sometimes we would drive that whole stretch of gravel without encountering another person. Other times we would pass a few neighbors.

There was one place in the road that narrowed. You had to slow down to be sure no other cars were trying to pass through at the same time. Sometimes you had to wait for another car to pass before the way was cleared. You couldn’t use that part of the road at the same time. One of you would have to pull as far to the side, off the road even to let the other person pass.

In a way this Christian walk is the same.

There are spots in the journey where the road narrows and you walk alone. These are lonely times. You look around and the group that was with you just a little while back seems not to be found anywhere.

Times of grief. Times of struggle. Times of tragedy. Times when you don’t know where everyone has gone. For some their family rejects them and they pursue this truth alone. Some times it is watching as friends abandon you, like Paul said of Demas “He has forsaken me having loved this present world.”

At times it might be that God has stripped from you the things of comfort. Or ask you to take a leap of faith toward a new path only to find that you are falling and security has been taken away.

It is to these times that I want to preach today, Lonely Times, and what you must know to have comfort in them.

Jesus knows what it is to be alone.

It was in Gethsemane that he invited those closest to Him to watch and pray with Him. While He was deeply distressed and sorrowful at what He was about to face, they slept.

He was only a stones throw away. But He was completely alone.

As He went further into the garden He took Peter, James and John with Him.

Matthew 26:38–39 NKJV

38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” 39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

As He wrestles with God over the path and purpose of the cross. His closest supporters, friends were sleeping.

Gethsemane represents consecration. Jesus was consecrated to the purpose of calvary’s cross in that garden.

The deeper you go into Gethsemane, the deeper you go in consecration the smaller the group of companions become, consecration to Christ’s will for your life will at times make you feel very, very alone!

Matthew 26:45 NKJV

45 Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

I am being betrayed and you are sleeping. How alone He must have felt. He carried that burden alone.

Living for God can at times make you feel very alone...

You are never really alone!

John 16:32 NKJV

32 Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.

You are never really alone. He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. He will never forsake you and never leave you.

You may feel alone…But you are never really alone.

It is in those times when you feel completely alone that you come to really know God.

Jacob was alone at Bethel

But he found that all the time God was there. The angels were there and he didn’t even know it.

Escaping from Esau on his way to Laban. Alone, not sure what the future held. A rock for a pillow and in a dream the Lord appears to him and said...

Genesis 28:15–16 NKJV

15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

The Lord was here and I didn’t even know it!

So alone, yet really not alone.

Every person of faith will at times find themselves alone. But that is where God does great works and gives great promises!

Abraham found himself alone… God gave him a promise.

Paul was imprisoned alone… God gave him a letter to write.

John was abandoned on Patmos… God gave him a vision.

Daniel was alone in a lion’s den.

Elijah was alone at the brook Kidron during a famine… God gave him a widow with a cake.

Jesus said “I am alone”.

John the baptist was often alone in the wilderness.

Joseph was set apart from his brothers, thrown in a pit, sold into slavery, locked in a dungeon, but God used him to save his people.

Job was separated from his friends and from understanding why he suffered.

Micaiah was alone when he prophesied against Ahab and his 400 false prophets. All the pressure of Israel was upon him to just go along with the crowd. But he stood on the Lord’s side alone.

Doing what is righteous will make you stand alone sometimes when all the rest of the world wants you to bow under the pressure.

But you are not alone when you stand, and you are not your own. You have been bought with a high price… the blood of the lamb. Applied to your life for redemption.

Aaron had the blood of a ceremonial lamb applied to his ear, thumb and the large toe of his foot. It was God’s way of saying you are consecrated to me. Your hearing, work and walk belong to me.

You are not your own, and even when you feel alone, you are never alone! You keep walking… You keep pulling yourself to church. You keep praying.

It’s in those lonely times that God takes you to a place of deep consecration, giving you promises, giving you strength for what comes ahead.