David is not afraid though ten thousand should hem him in (Ps. 3:6) because the Lord sustains him. But let God even ever so little withdraw his support (Ps. 55), and fearfulness overtakes him and dread overwhelms him. It is clear that this man after God’s own heart has so little heart of his own when left to himself. God sometimes lets us fall so we can clearly see in whose strength we stand. He allows us to see the hand that holds us, to let us know that without him we are but men (Ps. 9:20). 

Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me, (John 16:32).

True friends multiply joy as well as lessen misery. Some of Christ’s truest friends on earth were his faithful apostles. But in his time of greatest need, the prophet Isaiah describes the Lord’s experience, “ I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me,” (Isa. 63:3). And in Psalm 69:21, “I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” In his time of extreme human need, Christ’s closest companions actually desert him rather than support him.

How truthfully he could say, “I came to my own, and my own would not receive me.” He came to the Jews, his chosen people, and they accused him of being a glutton, a winebibber, a blasphemer, and even Beelzebub himself (Matt. 11:19). In his own province in Galilee he is disregarded and disesteemed (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:4). He comes to Jerusalem, whose inhabitants are enlightened by his sermons and amazed by his miracles, and still they break his heart. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you… but you would not,” (Matt. 23:37). And that’s not all, for when he is arrested, Jesus is accused of treason against Caesar, sedition against the Law, enmity against the temple, and blasphemy against God. But this is not all.

When you look more closely, you find that many of his own disciples (2 Tim. 4:10) return to the love of this present world. “Many,” the text says in John 6:66, “drew back and walked no more with him.” But will his closest friends leave him too? Before they have said, “Master, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life.” And yet, when the sun beats hottest on them, how soon are they all withered. One betrays him, another swears against him, but all forsake him.

What does it mean that his own apostles forsake him? Scripture asks that if the light itself becomes dark, how great is that darkness? If the salt of the world loses its saltiness, how can it be effective? (Matt. 5:13).

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