If you were asked to name the first problem any human ever faced, I doubt you would name loneliness. After God created history’s first man, He saw that he was lonely and said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). Bingo! Eve walked onto the stage of history. Immediately Adam, in essence, said to God, “The animals You created did not impress me all that much, but I really like what You created this time.” He would never be lonely again!
From the beginning of time to this very hour, humans have periodically dealt with the debilitating affliction called loneliness. The Old Testament character Job said, “My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have forgotten me. My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger, and look on me as an alien (Job 19:14-15). The psalmist said, “I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof” (Psalm 102:7). Loneliness throughout history has robbed human beings of genuine joy.
Queen Victoria, for instance, said after the death of her husband, “I am sixty-five, and I am lonely and have never found peace.” Louis Zamperini, the great Olympic track star, spent forty-eight days during World War II on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean after his plane went down. Admiral Richard E. Byrd spent five months in soul-shattering darkness alone in a shack that was buried in the great glacial icecap that covered the South Pole. No living creature of any kind existed within a hundred miles.
In the fifth chapter of John we read about the time Jesus made His way through the narrow streets of Jerusalem. When He reached the sheep-gate by the pool of Bethesda, He observed multitudes of people who were plagued with various infirmities, waiting to be moved into the water. Suddenly He noticed a poor man who seemed needier than all the rest, and He asked him, “Would you like to be made whole?” The man replied to Jesus, “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me in the pool.” Think of it, thirty-eight long, weary years waiting for someone who would help him be the first person to get into the pool. He obviously had no friends. When I was in Israel in 1973 I stood by the pool of Bethesda.
Billy Graham, in his book, Peace with God, describes the demoralizing loneliness of a group of elderly people whose needs were being met in one of our nation’s institutions supplying the needs of the elderly. He said that in the background there was an elderly derelict man, with one finger, picking out on the keyboard of an old piano, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” He knew that Jesus lifts the spirit of those who are lonely.
In our nation’s major cities there are currently large numbers of street people living in doorways or cardboard boxes, and who are daily scrounging for food in garbage cans. There are Christian churches in close proximity that they could easily choose to attend, but most of them will likely never do that. God has never commissioned those who are lost and lonely to find and attend a church. He has, however, commissioned every church to go out to find them, attempt to lead them to Christ, and minister to their needs.
Christ has a special compassion for those who are lonely, for He Himself was once lonely. Having been tried by Caiaphas and Pilate, He was sentenced to die a cruel death nailed to a Roman cross. Even his disciples had forsaken Him, and He was left very much alone. He cried out while on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). God, being a holy God, could not look upon His Son in those moments when He bore in His body the sins of the world. In this excruciatingly lonely hour, Jesus took upon Himself the penalty for sin, which is death, that every person who believes in Him might have eternal life.
He loves you that much! Have you trusted Him as your Savior?
The Paper Pulpit 