The Christ of the Lonely Road

I read this article in The Sword of the Lord, an Independent Christian Publication, and thought I'd pass it along to my readers because it really blessed me. I wish I knew the author, but it was unlisted in the newspaper.


We have heard of “The Christ of the Indian Road,” “The Christ of the American Road.” “The Christ of Every Road.” Somebody ought to write about “The Christ of the Lonely Road.”

After He fed the multitude, He went into the mountain to pray; and when evening came, he was there alone.
After He fed the multitude, He sent the disciples away on a ship and was al one on the land. (Matt. 14:22)

When they would make Him a King, He departed into a mountain Himself alone. (John 6:15)

In Gethsemane, He prayed al one while His disciples slept. (Matt.26:36-46)

On the cross He prayed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt.27:46)

He died in the darkness; He came out of the grave alone; He appeared to the Father alone. He is the Christ of the Lonely Road.

God’s men in the Scriptures were lonely men.

Enoch’s walk with God was a lonely walk because most of his generation traveled the other way.

Moses spent lonely years in Midian and lonely days on Sinai.

Elijah stood alone on Carmel.

Micaiah was an odd number as he stood before Ahab and Jehoshaphat and four hundred false prophets.

Joseph Parker said, “The world always hates the four-hundred-and-first prophet.”

Jeremiah knew the pangs of loneliness and prayed, “Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and was waters that fail? (Jer.15:18)
He was not a popular after-dinner speaker!

Daniel was an after-dinner speaker on one occasion, but he had no complimentary ticket to the feast of Belshazzar, nor was he drinking ginger ale with the potential alcoholics. They had to send for him when God wrote doomsday on Babylon’s wall.

John the Baptist, with his leather suit and grasshopper salad, was no favorite in the king’s court and paid with his head for telling it like it was.
He was not a guest in Herod’s palace, but a prisoner in Herod’s jail.

Paul sat alone in a roman jail and said, “all men forsook me” (2 Tim.4:16)

John on Patmos was a lonely saint on a dreary island in a restless sea.

The christian is not a hermit; he must live in the world as it is, but he is often lonely in a crowd. He is a pilgrim, but not a tramp, for he knows where he is going. God’s prophet is a lonely man. When the storm comes, eagles rise above it; but little birds hide in trees! And eagles do not fly in flocks.

Whether God’s prophet or God’s people, we travel a lonely road.
The “straight and narrow” way is not the thoroughfare of the multitude; few there be who travel it. We read that on one occasion every man went unto his own house and Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives (John 7:53-8:1). It is still like that today.

That lonely road is also the only road. No man comes to the Father, but by that way. There is a way that seems right unto a man, but it ends in the ways of death. The crowd is going the other way. Even the majority of church members follow the crowd. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” (Exodus 23:2)

The Only Road is not crowded, but the fellowship is good; and there is a throng at the end of it, the host of God’s redeemed whom no man can number. It will not be lonely forever. “Where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:3)

It pays to walk the Lonely Road if it is the Only Road. So let us bid farewell to the way of the world, for only the way of the cross leads home.