A TOUCHING incident is related of a dying artilleryman who had been mortally wounded at the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. He lay in sore distress bleeding to death, when, at the close of the battle, an officer passed by, and looking at him said in sympathetic accents, “My poor fellow, your dearest friend could do nothing for you now!”
“I―think―He―could,” was the faint reply of the dying man. And who was this Friend who could still do something? Whose was the hand that could ease the pain? Whose the arm that was able at such a moment to support the sufferer? Whose the love that was even then strong and fadeless? What Friend could that be? He was known to the dying gunner. The life-link that had been formed by grace in days of strength was more precious now than ever.
What no other friend could do this Friend could, and far, far more. How well for the soldier to prove His pity then!
This Friend is our Lord Jesus Christ, and well it is to know His friendship.
Does the word sound irreverent? Is it possible that He who is made known to us as Creator, Redeemer, Son of God, Son of man, should permit such as we are to claim His friendship? He does! and no phase of His grace is sweeter. He condescends to feel and to do as only a friend can. He is touched with a feeling of our infirmities. He sympathizes and He succors the tempted.
Ah! they called Him “the Friend of publicans and sinners,” and there must have been good cause for this reproach. He must have evidenced some special solicitude for the lost. He must have gone out of the way in order to tell such of the grace and love of God for guilty men. He must, somehow, have passed by the self-righteous and the Pharisee in order to show the unrighteous that God was a God of mercy. He was truly the Friend, but not the associate of such, for He was “separate from sinners.” There was no moral link between Him and such, but there was the deepest pity. He cared for them, He died for the ungodly. He proved His true friendship to the very utmost.
Further, He regarded His disciples in this blessed light. To them He said in Luke 12:4, 5,4And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. (Luke 12:4‑5) “And I say unto you, my friends”―He addressed them thus kindly― “be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”
He takes them into His confidence in the communication of this solemn and memorable truth.
Such a relation was the ground of His unfolding “all things” to them. Such is friendship! How different from slavery How tenderly to be enjoyed and maintained!
Well, now, the burthen of what I write is that you, dear reader, should learn first, His friendship to you as a sinner―how that He has in infinite grace come near to you, and, in order to save you, has given His life a ransom for you (more He could not have done), so that you, by faith in Him, should be pardoned and blessed; and then, second, that you should be your heart on acquiring daily a deepening sense of His abiding friendship for you as one of “His own.”
Other arms must break. His are everlasting in love and power. Oh! it is wisdom to know Him. It is not only to know Him as a Saviour from wrath and hell—that is blessed indeed—but it is to have a Friend who loveth at all times, as great in power as in love and care. This is one of the finest phases of God’s revelation to man. How good it is to be able to say: ―
“I’ve found a Friend, oh, such a Friend!
He loved me ere I knew Him;
He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus He bound me to Him.”