Friendship

Friendship

An unfailing friend!
(J.C. Ryle, "Able to Save")
"There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother!" Proverbs 18:24
Does any reader of this tract need a friend?
In such a world as this, how many hearts there are which ought to respond to that appeal! How many there are who feel "I stand alone." How many have found one idol broken after another, one staff failing after another, one fountain dried after another--as they have traveled through the wilderness of this world.
We need much comfort and consolation in a world like this. It is no easy matter for a man to carry the cross and reach Heaven. There are many enemies to be encountered and overcome. We have often to stand alone. We have at the best times, few with us, and many against us. We need cordials and strong consolation to sustain and cheer us, and to preserve us from fainting on the way as we travel from Egypt into Canaan.
If there is one who needs a friend, let that one behold an unfailing friend at the right hand of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let that one repose his aching head and weary heart upon the bosom of that unfailing friend, Jesus Christ the Lord.
There is one living at God's right hand of matchless tenderness. There is one who . . .
  never dies.
  never fails,
  never disappoints,
  never forsakes,
  never changes His mind,
  never breaks off friendship.
That One, the Lord Jesus, I commend to all who need a friend.
No one in a world like this, a fallen world, a world which we find more and more barren, it may be, every year we live; no one ever need be friendless, while the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
Christian, you have a Friend who never slumbers and never sleeps--a Friend who cares for you morning, noon, and night.

In Addition Dr. Morris:
            I have written about this in other articles, my first time on the island of Samoa (Pacific Ocean), on a bright Sunday morning, a hotel employee assisted me in going to a native church.  I could not understand the language but the piano was playing the hymn, "What a friend we have in Jesus." Jesus is a universal friend.
            This very day, being installed in my house, a life alert system. (You have all heard the advertisement, "I have fallen and I can't get up.") After all these years living alone, blind, I feel the time has come. The greatest horror to a blind person: fire and break-ins. This gives me some assurance.
            You ask, "Why not just depend on God to care for you?", and this I do but, the technology provided this world, I truly believe he expects us to take advantage of it. The mother bird could sit in a nest until she died with her mouth open but she learned long ago that she must go out and look for the worm.
            If you live long enough, you will find, if you did not find earlier, that family members are very scarce. You have probably outlived all your enemies as well as your friends.
            Many of us have few family and friends because we learned to live separated lives. If there is one truth that God taught and demonstrated over and over again in every way, it is to live a separated life. Everything in the Old and New Testament tells us this truth, the clean from the unclean, unequally yoked, etc. This writer never had very many friends, and most family members could not stand him because he believed in separation. When you know that you are chosen of God, elected, predestined, you do not displease God by mixing with those who are not his, chaff from the wheat, tares, sheep, goats. God has never been popular, a sexist, racist, discriminator. God was never fair, believed in justice. So, in this world, if you do not have many friends to check on you, believe in you, join those who have always picked the least chosen path, the small group who will go up together, knowing the joy of spending eternity with Jesus Christ.  
            I truly believe that the church age is almost over. Today, churches not much different from civic clubs, even country clubs. Preaching sins ruin and Christ redemption, is certainly not popular to over educated, perfumed, sophisticated people who attend more from habit than seeking help. Most of those in church are much more intent on impressing the world with their knowledge of the world than impressing the world with their testimony of Jesus Christ. Most church members are much more envious of the world, things of the world, than knowing the will of God. IF the church has any mission left at all, surely, looking after and taking care of the disabled and the disenfranchised in their midst. How easy it would be for each able, capable church member, to have a list of the homebound-nursery home bound on which to call and visit. The reason the church failed, and failed so miserably, believers-members finding discipleship so easy...just being interested in and taking care of those "like me" their neighbors which Jesus told us to love as ourselves, often are not very exciting, smelly, needful. Perhaps it is just a human frailty, even among church people that we want to associate with people, places, things that make us look good...beautiful people, beautiful homes, prestigious churches, even fancy doctors offices.  

Don’t spare me heartache
You bore a broken heart for me.
Don’t spare me suffering
For I recall your agony
Don’t spare me anything that you endured for me
But give me strength to follow Thee.

"Don't Spare Me"-Hymn