If your timing light attaches in some manner to a spark plug wire(should) and you are getting NO strobe light of any kind, you ain't got no/weak juice to that plug. That's been my experience with intermittant strobe or none. Wire/coil/points/ small wires to point/coil connections.

I'm betting that yu have weak and no spark across the 4 cylinders and the compression is blowing the spark out.
I have been able to get some ratted out old engines to at least fire up for a couple of revs/seconds using ether if there was some spark and a lot of cylinders - V8 vs l6 or MG 4 cyl.

Make your spark as good as you can, compression even if bad, usually is not bad across the board - so bad that NONE of the cylinders will fire. This has been my experience in the past when deep into an old junkyard or barn trying to start a 30 year old car. For years I used to carry my '70 Kandy Gold stock gas tank as a "gas can" on these expeditions because I could turn on/off the petcock quickly and I only needed a couple feet of fuel hose. Wish I had that tank now.

Confucious say: Man who lay woman on ground gets piece on earth.