Tread winepress alone
Elder Carl Arnold
(Posted to the Primitive Baptist Library forum June 21, 2005)

Jesus Christ tread the winepress alone (Isaiah 63:3).  There was no one to help Him, because He was the only one fit for the task.  He was more alone than any man that has ever lived, living, or will live upon the face of the earth.  He was alone because He was sent by His Father to do His Father's will. (John 6:38)  When He first began His ministry He was alone.  John tells us in the first chapter that He came unto His own and they did not except Him for who He was.  In this He was truly alone. 

There were disciples which He chose to give the word of God to and send them forth to publish it in all the world, but even they did not hear Him when He said that He must be betrayed, scourged, crucified, and raised the third day.  He was betrayed, denied, and rejected, because He was the Son of God and had the perfect truth of God and was the perfect Truth of God. The world tries it's best to thwart the very law of God, therefore the world did not want this non-conformist. He even stood alone when He worked miracles on the Sabbath.

There were some that stood by and watched Him crucified.  While they watched, their eyes flowed with tears of sadness, for He was their salvation and He was gone.  When He shouted with a loud voice, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew that His Holy Father would for a moment of time not look upon Him for He bore the sins of all his people without and within God would not look upon sin; and did not for that space of time. But had God forsaken Him forever? If His Father had totally forsaken Him forever, we who were given to Christ before the world began would have no hope of ever being with Jesus Christ.  We would be forever desolate and alone without God, His Spirit, or His Son.  Thus, our Lord was alone in this world, because the perfect truth that He was, did not harmonize with the schemes, deceitful plans of man and his conceits. It was totally against it.

He was alone in the garden, tried by God and proven to be the only One capable of enduring the cruel cursed cross.  He was alone on the cross; left to wield the power of God against the power of darkness, and was perfectly successful.  Yes, this Christ of God was alone so that those He came to die, be buried, and be raised for would never ever be alone.  No, never alone, for He will be with us in the fifth, and sixth trouble, and the seventh shall no evil overtake us, because our Wonderful Master was alone.

We, the bride of Christ, will never suffer the loneliness that our Redeemer suffered.  However, if we bear the afflictions of Christ in our hearts; if we died with Him; if we were buried with Him; if we were raised with Him; and if we walk in the truth He left for us to walk in, (Ephesians 5:1) we will suffer a aloneness in this world that none others suffer.  The Truth that Christ is, was not when He walked the earth, the perfect Truth of God was not marketable then and still isn't today.Therefore we will be alone (as far as this world is concerned) as long as we walk in the old paths which our Teacher taught us by God's Spirit to walk in.

As we walk in this life, we will pass some places that looked for all intents and purposes like a place of worship, but only by man's design, not God's.  As we pass, we may hear the sound of organ, guitar, piano playing songs of false praise to God.  Pass on by and be alone with Christ.  We may hear the sound of children playing in a church funded gymnasium, preparing to meet their God in a physical way, but not sanctioned by God.  Pass on by and be alone with God.  Our ears may become tuned to the sound of a woman or man teaching a bible class not authorized by God's word.  Pass on by and be alone with God's Spirit of instruction to keep seeking the good old path.  By God's grace we may and some do pass by the little old church where the message is free, and hear the glorious, honest tones of the musical instrument that God created for praising His holy name. Please do not pass by, for this is the place our fathers received from their God and passed down to us.  Stop, turn in, and see, hear, and taste the graciousness of our Father; for we will not be alone in here.

Your Brother in Christ, I hope,

Carl