The title of the message today is, Being a Faithful Friend. Proverbs 17, verse 17 says, A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. In Job 2, verse 13, it says, speaking of Job's three friends, So they sat down with him upon the ground, seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great. Finally, Proverbs 27, verse 6 says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Lord God, we do thank you for thy word, God. Please help us to give the reverence and the attention that it deserves, God. Lord, I know that my mouth, my vocal cords are not worthy to be speaking your words, God, but I know that you command it, God, and I pray that you give me the strength to preach it right. Please help us now, God, to receive your word with trembling. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. So, the Bible says a friend loveth at all times. What does it mean to be a loving, faithful friend at all times? It's usually pretty easy to get along with your friends in good times. As you sit around talking after church, Maybe playing board games, shooting guns, riding dirt bikes, playing volleyball, swimming. It's relatively easy to get along. I'm assuming in this case that you at least, when I say it's easy to get along, have some basis of shared beliefs. It could, or at least should, be hard to get along with someone who sat around and blasphemed our Lord, for example. But if you have common values and are still having difficulty getting along with your friends, even in these simple situations, a Bible verse that might help is Proverbs 18, 24. It says, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly, and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. We need to be friendly one to another to maintain our friendships. But when things go wrong, that is when we see how deep our friendships really are. Look at what happens to friendships, oftentimes, even when someone simply has economic difficulties. Proverbs 19.4 says, Wealth maketh many friends, but the poor is separated from his neighbor. Proverbs 19.7 says, All the brethren of the poor do hate him. How much more do his friends go far from him? He pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him. A man finds that he has no money, and his friends suddenly want nothing to do with him. Seeing that friendships can be fleeting, especially when times get hard, how can we learn to be better friends? It all begins, as it always does, with our relationship to our Lord. As Christians, we must be friends with Jesus. So how do we become friends with Jesus? I'm assuming, for this discussion, that we're already saved by believing that Jesus died for our sins and rose again the third day. So John 15 starting in verse 7 says, If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. Even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my father, I have made known unto you." Notice that to be friends with Jesus, we have to obey him in anything and everything he commands us. This is different than any other friendship because he's God. You don't have to do whatever your earthly friends command you to be their friends. In fact, a lot of times if you did what they told you to do, you wouldn't really be being true friends to them. But being friends with Jesus is key to being a true friend with anyone else. To be friends with someone means we are in fellowship with them. If we're not in fellowship with Jesus, his word will not abide in us. We will not understand the way we must walk to be a true friend of others. So we must abide in Jesus to be a faithful friend to mankind. Now the Bible says Abraham was a friend of God. In James 2 verse 21 it says, Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. So we see that Abraham was called the friend of God. Why? Because he not only believed God, but obeyed God when he offered up his son Isaac. To maintain fellowship or friendship with God, we must obey him. But aside from obeying God, to have fellowship, we need to talk to God and hear him when he talks to us. Communication is fundamental to friendship. Exodus 33 11 says, And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. If you are not talking to God, if we're not listening to him talk to us, we're not being his friend. We don't have a face-to-face relationship like Moses with God. But now, since Jesus died for our sins, he sent us the Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost. And we have access to this Holy Spirit, this third person in the Godhead, in a way that even Moses did not. And we have a complete Bible to speak to us that Moses did not have either. I had a man once say to me, He would become a believer if he had a road to Damascus experience, if God would just appear to him like he did to Paul. But I don't believe that he would have, just if that happened to him. We have everything we need to have a personal friendship with God without a face-to-face encounter. It's called a more sure word of prophecy, and it's called that for a reason. More certain than the booming voice of God himself from heaven are our scriptures, according to Peter. The Bible illustrates this well with the rich man when he was in hell. Take careful heed to this sobering story. In Luke 16, starting in verse 19, it says, There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores. And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and son Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from hence. And he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. So you have this rich man. He's in hell. Bible describes it as a burning torment. It's horrible. He doesn't want his brothers to come there. So he asked Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn them. But listen to how this true story concludes. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses, and the prophets let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Notice his answer. They have the scripture, Moses, that is the first five books of the Bible, and the prophets. which is the rest of the Old Testament in this case. He says the Bible is so powerful and convicting that if a man won't hear it, he won't listen to God's word, even if a man came back from the dead and told it to them. Now Jesus did come back from the dead, and many still don't believe. Even people that witnessed it, or that were there when it happened and heard the eyewitnesses face to face. Seeing him face to face, wouldn't convince many of those who still believe today, there's many of them, if they won't believe his word. So again, to be a true friend of God, we must have fellowship with Jesus. We must hear what he says by reading his word and listening to it preached. And we also need to talk to him. We do that by prayer and praise and singing. And one more thing, to be a friend of God, we cannot be a friend of this world. In James 4 verse 4 it says, Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be friend of the world is the enemy of God. So if we are friends with this world, this present evil world system that is controlled by Satan according to the Bible, we're enemies of God and of Christ. So once we have our fellowship with God straight, how then are we to be a good and faithful friend? everybody else. There's a couple ways to look at this from the perspective of compassion and from the perspective of tough love. You might have noticed this is a theme in the way we're supposed to live. This duality truly is all throughout the scriptures. Notice Psalm 211. It says, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. In Psalms 141, verse 5, it says, So the Bible says rejoice with trembling, kindness with reproof. They seem like opposites. They are in some sense, but in our walk with God, reverence and fear meet with joy and kindness in a perfect mixture that is most holy and righteous. So how should we show ourselves as faithful friends from a compassion perspective? Notice first that in the Bible, friend and neighbor are synonyms. We read this scripture earlier, Proverbs 19, 4. Wealth maketh many friends, but the poor is separated from his neighbor. Notice how friend and neighbor are used interchangeably in that verse. In Proverbs 27, verse 10, it says, Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not. Neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity, for better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off. Again, notice the word neighbor is used in the place of the word friend. So part of the reason the Bible does this is right in the verse we just read. A neighbor has the idea of being close. Friends tend to be in close proximity to one another. As we read before in Proverbs 18, 24, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly, and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. We can see then how a friend should be from the story of the Good Samaritan. You remember the story? There was a man robbed and left half dead, and a good man found him. In Luke 10, verse 33 it says, but a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him. And he went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto them, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showeth mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise. Notice this man spent a lot of time and expense to help a stranger. He was being a true neighbor to him. That's another way of saying he was being a true friend. If that man could be that much of a friend to a stranger. Showing so much compassion, how much more should we be faithful friends to our actual friends and brothers and sisters that we know well and claim to be friends with? Will we help each other when we're in trouble? Jesus commanded us, go and do thou likewise. For another example of faithful compassion, consider Job's three friends. This was after Job lost all his substance. All 10 of his kids were killed. Then he got very sick, and his wife told him to curse God and die. So he had it bad. I'm sure he had it worse than any of us have ever had it. He had like everything possible go wrong in his life. In Job 2, starting at verse 11, it says, Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, They came every one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him, and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept. And they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great. Job's friends are often looked down upon for the wrong things they said when speaking to Job. But do not for a moment think that these men were wicked or were fools. Godly Job did not have fools for friends. These men were godly men. They sat down silently and mourned with Job for seven days and seven nights. Think about that. Have you ever heard of anyone showing such compassion and empathy for a friend? Would you do that for your friend? Seven days and seven nights? They didn't even go home. They sat outside with him. Cold and rainy. Hot and sunny. They sat there with their friend, silently. Now let's consider David and how he treated his friends. Psalms 35, starting at verse 11 says, So David here, to have some context, is talking about some friends that betrayed him. But before they betrayed him, listen to how he describes what he did for them. In verse 13, But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned unto mine own bosom. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother. I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother." So when David heard that these people were sick, he stopped eating. He skipped meals so that he could pray more fervently and effectually that these people might be healed. He says he did this just like they were his friends, or his brother, or his mother. This shows us that we should be praying and fasting for each other when one of us is sick or in trouble. This applies for someone who is spiritually sick also. Do we do this? Are we like David? Do we pray and fast for one another? The Bible says this is how we should behave if we want to be faithful friends to one another. This is the love and compassion we should show one to another. Is the Bible really the Word of God in our lives? Or is it just some old book of no more lasting relevance or importance than a meme or some banal video on social media that we are... And is this a book that we're just forced to listen to on Sundays and Wednesdays? Or do we actually believe this is the Word of God? We have looked at how to be a faithful friend from the perspective of compassion. Now let's look for a moment from the perspective of tough love. In Proverbs 27, verse 6, it says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. The Bible says that sometimes, if we're to be a faithful friend, we have to do or say things that are painful to our friend. If we kiss them, so to speak, when they're doing wrong, we're not being a friend, we're being their enemy. Paul had to tell some hard truths to some believers in Galatia. Galatians 4 verse 15 says, Where is then the blessedness he spake of? For I bear you record that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? These Galatians thought that Paul was being their enemy for rebuking them, but when he told them the truth, he was really being their friend. In Leviticus 19, 17, we read, Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. So remember again, we see here too, neighbor is a synonym for friend in the Bible. Our Holy Bible says that if our friend is sinning, and we don't rebuke it and instead allow it to remain upon him, we are actually not being loving. We are hating our friend when we do that. So how do we love our brothers and sisters and be a real friend by rebuking sin? Consider what the Bible says now about judging in Matthew 7. Matthew 7 verse 1 says, Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why, beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye." What we just read said, don't judge people, because we're going to be judged with the same level of rigor that we're judging people. And it said, why are we trying to help someone get rid of their sin when we have our own sin with that is even worse? Most people read this passage and they just stop there. That's it. Judge not that you be not judged. But what about that other passage we just read in Leviticus about not letting our neighbor remain in sin? Can we just ignore that? Because it's in the Old Testament? No, of course not. Old Testament is the Word of God too. We just need to keep reading. In verse 5, it says, Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Jesus clearly tells us that the solution is that we need to fix whatever is wrong with us so that we can then help the other person without hypocrisy. It's downright dangerous to help someone if we are hypocritically wallowing in the same sin or any other repentant of sin that we are beholding in our own eye. Just imagine if you had a sliver or something embedded in your eye. If the person who was trying to help you had his sight messed up and was distracted and in pain because he had something in his own eye, can he help you? No. He's likely to injure your eye even more by trying to pull something out of your eye when he can't even see clearly himself. But the answer, according to Bible, is not just to leave your friend with something in his eye. So don't just say, well, I have sinned myself, so I can't help. What we got to do is get the sin problem in ourselves fixed, and then help. Have you ever helped someone get a sliver out? Slivers hurt, and if you leave them in, they can get infected. Untreated, they could even get so infected that you could eventually lose a limb or die just from a sliver. If a sliver is that potentially dangerous, how bad would a sliver be if it's in someone's eye? So if a friend has a sliver, so to speak, in their spiritual eye, are you just going to say, well, there's a sliver in my eye, so I can't help them? No. We have to fix our own eyes so we can see clearly and then help them. Otherwise, we could both end up blind, and we could both end up dead. Job had this to say about friends in Job 17 5. He said, he that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail. While being kind and compassionate to our friends, we also need to make sure that we are not flattering them. We need to be straight with them if they are engaged in or deceived by sin. As we close, I want to bring to remembrance something that happened in our church that can illustrate how we should not simply ignore sin in the name of charity or kindness. We once had a lady, you all know her, come into our church that seemed like a sweet lady. I did not know her very well, but she sure seemed sweet in my dealings with her. She would sometimes come to church wearing pants. Now, we don't have time to address that in detail now, but pants are men's clothing. Deuteronomy 22, 5 says, The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. So according to this verse, this sweet lady was an abomination to God. Now I understand that the first thing you do when someone shows up for church is not to instantly overwhelm them with everything that might be wrong in what they're doing. But she attended for a couple years at least. To my knowledge, no one ever said anything to her and nothing was ever preached on the subject either. Someone might say, well, that wasn't important. We need to be focused on the heart like God is instead of outward appearances. The problem with that thinking is that how one chooses to dress betrays a heart that is, at best, deceived about the nature and significance of cross-dressing. God does care about our inward man, but he also cares about how we express our inward selves in our outward dress as well. In addition to calling those who cross dress abominable, which means disgusting, Jesus cares so much about how we are dressed that he uses improper dress as a picture of missing the kingdom. Matthew 22 verse 11 says, And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he said unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him in the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Notice that this was Jesus's friend who had to be cast in the outer darkness for having the wrong clothes. As you know, this lady does not go to our church anymore. I saw this lady recently weed eating as I drove by, cross-dressed, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was sinning against God, and was unwittingly supporting the transgender madness that we see all around us by doing her small part to blur gender distinctions. Now surely she must have thought something as she noticed all of our ladies and girls dressed like ladies at all times, but still someone for a couple of years was comfortable attending our church while cross-dressing. Knowing what the Bible teaches, are we all right with that? Meaning, are we all right with our reaction to that? All right that that's what happened? Did we not sin in not doing more to tell her the truth and warn her? Were we loving her by ignoring that sin? What should we have done? Well, surely the preacher should have preached about this. Either out of slackness or not wanting to offend, he avoided it. Once, she even spoke in church during men's testimony time. Instead of stopping it, the former pastor suddenly, temporarily declared the service informal, whatever that concept was supposed to mean, so she could speak. When she finished speaking, we reverted to a formal service and closed our service in prayer. It was a weak and ridiculous way to deal with such a situation. Again, I want to say she was a sweet lady, and I'm pretty sure she had no idea it was wrong for her to speak in church. So again, what should we have done? Well, if you're not sure what to do or say, or if it's your place to say something, you can still be like David and fast and pray fervently for the situation. That's everybody's job and that's something that every single one of us can do in a situation like that or any situation. We can pray and we can fast. Maybe some of you did this. I know I did not pray about it enough or with enough fervency. I certainly never prayed with fasting for that situation, and I never said anything to her or her husband, though I should have found a way to. But give this now your serious thought and attention. If we care enough about our friends to pray for them fervently when they are wrong, things might just turn out like they did for Job. In Job 42 verse 7 it says, And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore, take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering. Listen to this, and my servant Job shall pray for you. For him I will accept, lest I deal with you after your folly, and that you have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. So Eliphaz the Temamite and Bildad the Shuite, and Zophar the Naamite went and did according as the Lord commanded them, and the Lord also accepted Job. And this verse 10, and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends, Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. So Job's friends did wrong. Job didn't ignore it. He prayed for it, like God told him to, just like God tells us to in his word. He prayed for them when they were doing wrong. And they had gotten right with God. They weren't left with their dirty sin on them. They got right. And not only did they get right with God, when Job prayed for them, it says the Lord took away Job's affliction and gave him twice as much as before. It specifically says as he prayed for them, that's when God took away the affliction. So let's keep reading. In verse 11, it says, then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house and they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 she-asses. He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemima, and the name of the second Kezia, and the name of the third Karen-Hapuk. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job. And their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. And after this, Job lived Job 140 years and saw his sons and his sons' sons even four generations. So Job died being old and full of days." What a wonderful end to the book of Job. It says God gave him twice as much, and he did. He was twice as rich, even though he already had been previously very wealthy. But notice he didn't give him 20 more children. He only gave him 10 more in addition to the 10 that died. Why was that? Because the others were not gone, at least not forever. Job will see all his children, certainly in eternity and likely in the kingdom. And on that day in the world to come, Job will have twice as many wonderful children as he had before his great trial. The Bible says, plainly, Job got this reward after he prayed for his friends that were sinning. Let that sink in. Job prayed for his sinning friends, and that is when his captivity was turned. If this story from the Word of God cannot motivate us to pray for our friends when they sin, I cannot imagine that anything from the Word will be able to motivate us. That would just leave us the rod to look forward to. So let's hear the Word right now, today, so we don't have to hear the rod. Lord God, we do thank you for your Word. Please again, God, help us to live on your Word, to feast on your Word, God, to consider it more than our necessary food. And God, help us not to be hearers only, but to be doers. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.