Loneliness: We Are Lonely Because We Are Human

ligonier ministries the teaching fellowship of rc sproul presents loneliness with elizabeth elliot this message is entitled we are lonely because we are human [Music] it is a pleasure to be here again at ligonier ministries my wife and i are delighted for those of you who may not know it my name is grant and we do buy go by grand at home however it is a little difficult to keep up with marriages and my wife has been married three times uh jim elliott you may very well know about her second husband was addison leach a college professor and of course i traveled with my wife and there's a penalty to pay for that some people come up and say well nice to meet you mr elliot and i just tell them well i'm mr elliott iii it is uh privilege to be able to have my wife speak and god has indeed given us a combined ministry and that i handle the books and the taping of conferences and for the past 12 years now we've traveled together and i hope that we'll be able to continue for years to come it's a pleasure for my wife to be here and i presented to you thank you so much [Applause] i'm so glad that you can meet my husband lars and it is nice that you can relax and realize that his self-image is not going to be damaged if i talk about husbands numbers one and two in fact when people ask him the question well what about your self-image when your wife is the one on the platform and you're always the one at the back he says don't worry about my self-image i don't have one he's uh he and i grew up long before anybody thought about self-images so it's not something that has bothered either one of us you know that the topic of these talks is loneliness and it's a subject which i would hardly have thought of writing a book about i certainly don't consider myself an expert in any sense of the word but it has amazed me over the years to find how many letters i get from lonely people and i finally come to the conclusion that everybody is lonely in some way or other we all have an area into which nobody else seems to enter and although probably many of you would say well i would not call myself a lonely person by the time i get finished you'll understand that i am referring not only to a personal condition but also to a human condition i think back a number of years to one midnight i was sitting on a plane and off the right wing of the plane the moonlight was flooding the field of clouds and everything inside the plane was dark and silent it was about well as i said it was moonlight and it was midnight and occasionally the stewardess would walk up and down the aisle maybe taking a pillow to somebody or a blanket and there was a couple i assumed a married couple sitting next to me a man and a woman as far as i could tell they were both sound asleep everybody else seemed to be sound asleep but i couldn't sleep the seat was too narrow there was too little leg room for somebody as long-legged as i am the pillow didn't fit nothing was comfortable and suddenly there was a tiny click and the woman next to me had taken out a cigarette and the man had clicked his lighter he reached his hand over and in the light of the lighter i could see the woman's hand and that's really all i could see it was just like a tiny spotlight a very simple gesture which meant virtually nothing i'm sure to them but it just happened that i had been a widow for about a year at this point and that little gesture just reminded me like a sharp pang in my heart of a life which was lost forever to me as far as i knew at that point just the sense of a man and a woman and his hand reached over in a very tiny gesture to help her and i could see the hairs on the back of his hand as he lit the lighter and i thought of the hand that had been so well known to me a hand with square fingernails a little bit squarer than his hand a little bit more muscular than this man's but a hand that i had thought i was very strong also very capable for drawing he was a builder and a wrestler and also a fairly good artist and it was very tender sometimes for caressing and i had been a widow just about long enough to have forgotten exactly how that felt now at the same time i was realizing how very fortunate i was to be a widow rather than a never been married person and i realized what a blessing it was to have been married to this man jim elliott for those very brief 27 months that we had but it was a moment when that sudden tide of loneliness just swept over me and i dare say that everybody listening me listening to me at this moment has had an experience like that a poignant perhaps just instantaneous moment when you had that feeling of being cut off from something or someone or some place that made you feel lonely now that's merely a personal experience and i think of 15 years later when i was a widow again and in that particular case i had had to watch over a period of 10 months as my second husband had died of cancer had to watch him being taken apart month by month as cancer does and i think i had done almost all of my grieving in advance so that by the time he died it was almost a rejoicing because i knew that he was released from terrible pain he had been in the point where he was yelling with pain and i thought of the wonderful words of that hymn guide me oh thou great jehovah there's one stanza that says death of death and hell's destruction land me safe on canaan's side what a wonderful name for jesus christ the death of death and so it was with a tremendous amount of gladness and joy that i attended his funeral service mixed at the same time don't get me wrong with devastating grief and the sense of bereavement that any widow would experience but there were no tears and i'm sure that there must have been people walking out of that funeral thinking that woman must be made of cement but i've had this experience twice myself of being the widow at the funeral and seeing other people just uncontrollably sobbing and i've thought about that a lot and i think that the explanation is fairly simple that the person who has suffered the deepest loss is also the person whom god has provided with the most grace and the peace that passes understanding i have discovered is a very real thing but having said that about my husband's death and funeral it was only about two months later that i was in the grocery store one day just doing my routine grocery shopping and as i went to pick a can or a box of something off the shelf i suddenly found myself sobbing i was very thankful that there wasn't anybody else in that particular aisle at that particular moment because i thought what would i say to them if they came up and said is something that matter can i help you would it have made any sense to them in the grocery store if i had said yes my husband died three months ago what could they have said or two months ago whatever it was that sudden tide it just swept over me and overwhelmed me for for no understandable reason at that moment well you know what i'm talking about we all have these personal experiences but then there's also what i might call a generational experience and i've been reading a very fascinating book about the baby boom and i think that it's understandable that people are conscious of loneliness now in a way that perhaps generations before them never were i'm not a baby boom generation obviously i'm much earlier than that but the transients the mobility the fragmentation of our lives divorce the necessity to move from one place to another because of the short-term kinds of jobs that people get and all kinds of factors which make for discontinuity i think have caused loneliness in perhaps almost like an acute disease or epidemic so there's that generational form that loneliness also takes and there's also what i might call the human experience and if you want a title for this first talk it would be we are lonely because we're human it is the human condition it's the human predicament and sin augustine said oh lord thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee and i think that gets us right down to the very core of the reason for loneliness because basically there is in every one of us a created vacuum created by god that absolutely nothing else will ever fill now what can we do about it that is the predicament that's the human predicament what exactly can we do about it well i remember a few years ago when my husband and i were on a speaking trip together in some little cow town west of the mississippi i can't remember where it was a fairly sort of hick town i guess you might call it but we were staying in one of your usual run-of-the-mill motels and it happened to be saturday night and there was a thundering screeching music well i guess you call it music coming out of the bar and in order to get to the dining room we had to go more or less through the bar and i noticed that there were a few men standing around there were a few couples sitting at tables but at the bar there were at least four women sitting alone with elbows on the bar hands fingers grasping the rims of glasses legs very generously displayed toward the audience as it were sitting around the bar and as we stood there i just watched and my heart went out to those young women because i could see that their eyes were just ceaselessly scanning the room looking for what well i don't think that they had a date that they were supposed to meet there they were lonely and they didn't know what else to do but go to a bar i'm not sure whether it was exclusively a singles bar but there they were looking for that soul somewhere desperately hoping that there might be that person that would meet their need and it would give them at least perhaps for a few moments a little happiness i picked up a magazine on a on a flight one of those flight magazines that has to be my last resort when i've exhausted all the reading material i've taken along with me and there was an article there about toronto and singles in toronto something like that i was amazed at the list of things that singles can do in order to find a mate it's going to cost you money and it's going to take you time but in addition to the singles bars there were cruises there were dating services of all sorts there were dance clubs there was something called culinary courtship in which for a very fancy price you could go to a different progressive dinner every couple of weeks and have your first course with one group of people and your second course with the next and etc then there were there was a story about a hostess in birmingham who paired all her guests as they came in the door by handcuffing them and they were forced to spend the rest of the evening together she did make a concession if they had to go to the restroom then she would unlock their handcuffs but she had uniformed guards standing around to make sure that nobody took their handcuffs off so they were stuck together for the whole evening and the interviewer had asked the question have there been any marriages out of these combinations and she said sadly no i i don't think it ever has really worked well right near where i live there's a very large huge grocery emporium that advertises the meat market m-e-e-t and there's one night a week dedicated to singles shopping and presumably you can meet somebody at the meat market to me it's a tragedy and of course i haven't even mentioned the singles columns that are just so pathetic you can bury yourself in busi busyness you can frantically rush around in social life you can take drugs you can take alcohol you can commit suicide but the world doesn't really have an answer i know that there are all kinds of seminars and books and how to do it and endless talk shows on the subject and that's not really what i came here to do tonight i want to take you back to some basics that malays that generational disease is something for which i do believe jesus christ has an answer i want to read you from this book that i've been reading on the baby boom and the author whose name happens to be landon jones says that in nostalgia the baby boomers have found a haven from anxiety and a means of reaffirming stable identities badly shaken during the passage from adolescence it bears the same relation to anxiety that aspirin does to a headache it offers temporary relief for the baby boomers it was not that the past was so wonderful it was that the present is so troubling and then he goes on to say that one demonstrator during the 1960s student demonstrations at columbia university said that the only place that he felt he could talk to anybody at all and share something and be together and understand was at a baseball game and this authors believes that that may account for the overwhelming popularity of baseball it's one of the very few things that people have in common it gives them a correlative of childhood something that is stable and predictable and timeless well i think that i have a better answer of something that is stable and predictable and timeless how does a christian look at this whole matter of loneliness which is a form of suffering do we have anything to say now for some people christianity is a very superficial label and it doesn't change their lives at all but i come to you as one who grew up in a home where christianity was a seven day a week business both of my parents were strong christians and their christianity was not only talked about but it was walked and lived in front of us we had a little brass plate over the door of our house over the doorbell button and it said christ is the head of this house the unseen guest at every meal the silent listener to every conversation to my parents jesus christ meant everything and i speak to you not only as one who is very grateful for having been given that kind of christianity from my earliest memories but also as one who does know a little bit about loneliness i spent 11 years in the jungle of ecuador most of them single two years and three months as a married woman but i was a single missionary before i married my husband jim elliott and then i was a single missionary for almost eight years after he died and i speak to you not only as one who believes that jesus christ can make a difference and as one who has experienced loneliness but as one who really does believe that the things that i'm wanting to say to you in this series really do work and i'm one who likes to go way back to the basics and what i discover is that i was created by somebody for something and when god created us as the first chapter of genesis tells us he says about everything that it was good or it was very good but then there is one thing in his creative activity about which he said it was not good and that was that the man should be alone and i think most of us would agree with god on that that it is not a good thing for a man to be alone or for a woman but before adam and eve sinned there was a there was a perfect life in the garden of eden two perfect people in a perfect place in a perfect relationship to god and so although they were two separate and autonomous individuals they were created by god and they had a unity in their marriage god said the two should be one flesh but you know what happened in the third chapter of genesis that perfect relationship with god and therefore the perfect relationship with each other was severed because of sin and we've been in an awful mess ever since and so the experience of solitude became an experience of deprivation there's a big difference between loneliness and solitude i think most of us would think of solitude as not a painful one i love to stand on the balcony of our house where we can look out over the ocean at night and look up at the moonlight and see the moonlight on the white caps and hear the thunder of the surf against the rocks that kind of solitude i love and it doesn't carry the connotation of pain but loneliness always carries the connotation of pain there's so many different kinds of loneliness the loneliness of illness for example the ill and the well are two separate worlds aren't they and there doesn't seem to be any congress between them i can remember my husband ad saying that in his uh experience with cancer i have never been ill or incapacitated to any great degree and he said to me you know it's a different world he said you can't even enter into my world i was doing my best to do that but i couldn't do it i had never been there and i cannot say to a person who is seriously ill i know just what you're going through so there are many kinds of loneliness that i don't claim to know anything about the loneliness of divorce the loneliness that came through on the telephone one night late an unknown voice she said is this elizabeth elliott and i said yes and she started to cry and she started then to tell me that she had just been told that she had an incurable disease which would eventually kill her but it would not kill her before a very long and painful process of disintegration and her question of course was why would god allow this to happen to me well could i answer that in words of one syllable could i possibly speak to her need and she felt cut off she said what good am i going to be flat on my back i'm going to be useless i'm going to be cast aside why would god do a thing like this to me well all i could do was take her back to the cross of jesus christ and tell her the old old story jesus loves me this i know for the bible tells me so and there are people who will respond to words like that with anger and bitterness and resentment well if god's so loving why is a thing like this happening to me if god loves me why am i suffering loneliness and what can i say well i can't say i know exactly what you're going through but i can say that i know the one who knows and when i received word that my first husband was missing immediately the lord brought to my mind the words from isaiah 43 verse 2. when thou passest through the waters i will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned neither shall the flame kindle upon me for i am the lord thy god now loneliness is a wilderness and as the title of the subtitle of my book puts it it can be a wilderness and it can also be a pathway to god and when i think of wildernesses i think of jesus and his experience if you're asking is there anyone out there who really knows how i feel is there anyone who has been exactly where i've been who can enter in 100 percent to my experience of loneliness i'm here to say yes there is one you know that immediately after jesus was baptized he was led by the holy spirit and here's a mystery led by the spirit of god into the wilderness to be tempted by satan now think about that imagine just after his baptism where god had validated who jesus was by the voice that came from heaven when he said this is my beloved son hear him then he was led by the spirit of god into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and you remember that the devil came along with three kinds of temptation jesus was there alone it says with the wild beasts and i can remember when i was a little child reading that and thinking that's kind of scary to be out in the wilderness with the wild beasts but as i've grown older and thought about my tremendous love for animals and the fact that the animals are sinless creatures and they're doing the will of god just by being what they are i have a sneaking suspicion that the animals were comfort to jesus and there were also angels there but they did not protect him from satan's temptation and satan came along with these three temptations one for the satisfaction and physical desire if you're the son of god command these stones to be made bread because they knew that jesus was hungry hungry he hadn't eaten for 40 days and 40 nights so it was a temptation to perform a miracle for his own satisfaction satisfaction of his physical desire and then immunity from danger he said cast yourself down off this pinnacle and he shall give his angels charge over thee satan actually quoted scripture and then the third thing was if you'll bow down and serve me and worship me then i will give you all the kingdoms of the world and i can only believe that satan did have the power to give jesus those kingdoms and in every case jesus met the temptation of satan by saying it is written it is written it is written and so he was able to overcome the temptation of satan in the wilderness there's a sense in which the temptation to jesus to fall down and worship satan carried a very cheap cost all he had to do was to perform a few little miracles and then fall down and worship satan it didn't even need to be sincere did it but the price of obedience to his father was high the price of obedience to his father was the cross and that's what i what i said i would take you back to that cross jesus had been through the wilderness he had experienced what you and i experience in the way of temptation in the the experience of loneliness and he had been victorious i speak to those in physical isolation those in emotional isolation spiritual isolation people who experience divorce something that i know nothing about or disease death that i know a little bit about and the loneliness of misunderstanding i say to you that this experience of a wilderness can be a pathway to god let me read to you from hebrews the second chapter it tells me that jesus has been through it verse 16 it is not angels mark you that he takes to himself but the sons of abraham that's you and me and therefore he had to be made like these brothers of his in every way so that he might be merciful and faithful as their high priest before god to expiate the sins of the people for since he himself has passed through the test of suffering he is able to help those who are meeting their tests now jesus had to learn obedience by the things which he suffered now there is a little clue there if jesus himself who was perfect had to learn obedience by the things which he suffered shouldn't you and i as fallible and sinful human beings have some lessons to learn through the experience of loneliness think of the fact that jesus was forsaken by all 12 of the disciples in the hour of his extremity you remember that he had prayed in the garden of gethsemane if it be possible let this cup pass from me and then his second prayer was if it is not possible nevertheless not what you want not what i want lord but what you want and then almost immediately after that he said the son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of evil men now we're up against mystery again aren't we not only the mystery of the spirit of god leading him into the wilderness to be tempted but the will of god allowing his own beloved son to be put into the hands of evil men and he did that for you and me so when i speak of the mystery of suffering particularly the mystery of loneliness i speak of one who knows more about it than any of the rest of us and as he hung there on the cross you remember that his last next to the last words were my god my god why hast thou forsaken me he was forsaken for the sake of you and me so that's where we go for an answer for the stilling of our questions we've talked about the fact that loneliness is a human condition it seems to be a generational condition and certainly all of us have experienced it in some form as a personal condition the answers the remedies that the world is offering are far from helpful far from permanent like an aspirin they offer temporary relief but if we go back to the cross back to the one who holds the whole world in his hands and he says when you pass through the waters or through that wilderness i will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overflow you god bless you

Channel: The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation

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Length: 32min 57sec (1977 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020