Address—F. Allen
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People to talk about friendship you know, I think if I asked the question, I actually thought of asking the question how many here like to have a good friend I think I'd get every hand up I think we all love to have friends in fact, friends control our lives in so many ways and.
I want to start with the Lord's help with a verse that brother Ron.
Referred to yesterday in Acts 27.
And I'd like to say that I have a little assignment for any younger young person here under the age of 13. As we go through these passages this afternoon, I'm offering you a bit of a challenge. There's one chapter in one of the books that I'm going to read that I call a friend chapter because I believe it uses the word friend more than any other chapter in the Word of God.
And if you can find that chapter and go to Mr. Don Rule.
And point out the times that friend was used and what character of a friend is in those different verses. Then we've made arrangements for you to pick anything you want out of the bookstore.
For your use. And so I have put a little limitation on the price there. I don't look at this as a donation to DTP, but you asked Donnie what you have to spend and you go ahead and pick out anything that you would like.
If you can find the chapter that is the friend chapter in the book that we're going to be looking at partially this afternoon. So first of all, in in Acts chapter 27, you know, our friends do affect us and.
As I look around at the dear young people and I see you having such a wonderful time together and you know, it wasn't too long ago since many of us coming to conferences, we, I can remember distinctly going into Royal York in Toronto and my heart just pounding. We had stopped the car, my father had stopped the car and we got out and we were walking towards that gym and my heart just going boom, boom, boom. And you know, it wasn't.
To be honest, it wasn't because I was going to get to the meetings. I I know that that should have been there as part of it. I believe it was.
There, but it was to meet my friends and it was to see where they were and, and to relate with them. And I suppose that human, humanity being what it is that you are perhaps going through the same type of thing. You've come to this conference and you're looking for friends and you know, young people. I don't think there's a place where you could feel more lonely at our conference. I don't think there's a place where you can feel more alienated.
More alone.
If you aren't, if you don't have the friend that I want to get to and spend a lot of time on today, and that's the friend, the Lord Jesus. But you know, I've seen young people really heard at conferences, they've reached out and tried to relate with others and they've got the signal, no, we don't want you. And perhaps there's a group of young people in this room today. You're together in your own little group, and somebody has tried to reach out to get into your group because they admire you for some reason. And you said, no, we don't want you.
And that poor young person is devastated.
And this conference will be a miserable conference for them because they have not. Their friendship has not been reciprocated. And I think we've all been there at some time in our life when we reached out and we were told, no, we don't want you. And it hurts. It hurts deeply. And there are a lot of hurts here this afternoon. There are parents hurting. There are young people hurting.
And my desire is to lead you to that one, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who can? It's the only one who will fully satisfy your heart. And so in Acts 27 here #3 verse 3, Julius courteously entreated Paul and gave him liberty to go on to his friends to refresh himself.
There are two types of friends you can seek out. There are these friends that when you go to them, they will refresh you in the Lord. There are other friends if you turn with me to Proverbs chapter 18. I believe it is. I have to read this in the J&D translation because it's inaccurately, I believe, translated in the King James.
The 18th chapter and the last.
Verse, The first phrase which reads in the King James translation, A man that hath friends must show himself friendly.
Should really read A man of friends will come to ruin. And you say, well how can these two verses juxtapose on each other? Are they not in conflict? Well, no they aren't. In Acts 27 we have friends that are leading you and refreshing you in the things of God.
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And what we have in the end of Proverbs here, I believe they're friends that will ruin you. And so today what I would like to do with the Lord's help.
Is look at the characteristics of friends two negative characteristics.
7 positive and then look to the one who only fills the positive in its entirety, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, I want to tell you at the outset the story of two Pauls. One of them is here this afternoon. I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning this because I haven't cleared it with him. But several number of years ago there was a young man came to our assembly from New Brunswick and he was coming to Ontario to get employment and he was hired by one of our brethren there.
And he was reached out to.
By his friend Paul.
And that young man came into the meeting and he saw his friend bringing friends from school out to the gospel meeting. And he told me this himself. He said, you know, I couldn't believe this Christianity was real to this person. They were bringing out friends from school and they were talking to others about the Lord. And he said, I began to see that Christianity is real, something that can be lived, something that should be practiced.
And this young man, that was a changing point in his life. He told me that himself. He, he turned around. It wasn't.
A particular sermon that he heard or something that someone said to him, but he saw Christ living in his friend and as a result he was he's turned to be flat out for the Lord. He started up a Sunday school work in Ottawa. He was always reaching out when he and his.
Fiance were engaged, they go around and visit the older folks in the assembly on their dates and encouraged a lot of the brethren and now they're serving the Lord in the Philippines. That's a true friend, isn't it? Someone that leads you, refreshes you and leads you on for the Lord. Dear young people, if you were to ask Paul of the Philippines, is it worth it?
He would say, unquestionably it's worth it. He told a young student of mine who's recently come to the Lord. He said, I think the Lord is coming so soon I have to go out there.
And tell others of the Lord and the fact that He's the only one that can satisfy the heart.
And that of course, affected that person too, who's here today. So we can be very positive in our friends or we can be very negative.
In with our influence on our friends and this verse in Proverbs chapter 24 is a very searching one.
There are many friends that I know and have had who have come to ruin, partly because of myself. Perhaps I didn't reach out in the way I should have. I didn't encourage them in the things of God the way I should have.
And this afternoon, as you look at your friends sitting next to you, ask yourself, are they refreshing you in the things of God?
Or are they ultimately leading you on a course that will lead to ruin? Turn with me, please, to Deuteronomy chapter 13 to see where friends can take us. And you know, I see this up until recently, I, this is my life working with young people and I, I could see that friends, what they call peer pressure, peer evaluation and so on.
Means so much to a young person. You can have parents.
Trying to help a child and to impress upon them certain things, but often what their friends think is more important.
And it's a very sad thing if their friends are not giving them the proper direction. And here we find in Deuteronomy chapter 13 and verse six, it says, if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or the son, thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known thou, nor thy fathers.
Namely, of the gods of the people which are around about you, nigh unto thee are far from thee, from the one end of the earth, even unto the other end of the earth. Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him. Neither shalt thine I pity him, neither shall thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.
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This is the first warning, dear young people, that I'd like to leave with you this afternoon are your friends.
Leading you away from the Lord and into those things that will only destroy you.
There have been young people who have sat in these meetings in the past.
Who have been taking drugs, who have had an alcoholic problem, who have been involved in immorality.
And their friends have encouraged that. And here, rather than where we're instructed to do, is to separate from that.
Sometimes it's not separated from and the end result is ruin, as we have in Proverbs 18.
I asked you right now to ask yourself, is your life centered on the Lord Jesus? Do you like talking about Him, or are you being LED astray into the world by those who are taking you down Satan's path into the things that look so enchanting and yet at the end.
Will bring you to perhaps even a violent, tragic end.
The whole world system is geared by Satan to take you into his jaws, as it were, and destroy you. Are you being led in that direction? There are many people here who have would be glad, I'm sure, to warn you of the where friends can lead you because they have been partly down that path and the Lord and His grace has turned them around.
And they're rejoicing in the Lord. And so I pray this afternoon that you will not let your friends take you down this path which will take you away from the Lord. You know, we can't force you into anything. Dear young people, we're, we're at a distance here, aren't we? All we can try to do is to reach you somehow by the Spirit of God and trust that it will enter into your soul. But you know, as you sit on that seat, whether you are.
Your friends are helping you and encouraging you in the Lord.
Or whether they are taking you away into the world. What are they going to suggest to you after this meeting? Are they going to suggest to you sit in the meeting and learn something from the coming open meeting? Are they going to say to you, come on, let's go out and do something else? What are they going to say to you and what are you going to answer? Are you going to be here the next meeting? I hope you will be. You know, you always get something. You may, you may even I think many of us are older find that.
Times things go a bit above our head at times, but there's a lot of things that you do pick up. And yet it's a sadness to me that I see people whom I love and yet they're finding their interest in places other than under the sound of God's Word. Well, I hope I'm not too directed on that point, but I really feel you should ask yourself, what are your friends encouraging you to do? And if the path is away from the Lord, please reconsider, dear young person.
Before it's too late and you're lost. We could recount tragedy up here this afternoon, but it's too painful for the parents and for other friends, so we won't. But I do pray with all my heart and soul, I trust that you'll give consideration to what your friends are saying to you this afternoon. It starts now. You know, I've been encouraged by that passage in Samuel, I believe it is where there's a little expression. It says hitherto at the Lord helped us. And you think.
Perhaps that follows a great long exercise, but if you read it, they were exercised before the Lord, and it was just a very short time before, I believe the day before where they put away the gods of astronaut. And they said, hitherto hath the Lord helped us. And I like to think of that, that the littlest step for Christ, just by saying, yes, I'm going to those meetings this afternoon, or the littlest step to encourage somebody.
That will be hitherto at the Lord help to help us, and it will there will be a henceforth.
We get in in Corinthians henceforth now we can go on to Christ. So if you take that step with your friend today. It's hitherto at the Lord helped us and then it's henceforth going on and following him. How wonderful it is to see that well the next the next characteristic of a friend who is not a true friend one taking you away. I'd like to look in the book of Judges. This is in connection with.
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The Samson Judges chapter 14 and the last verse says, but Samson's wife was given to his companion whom he had used as his friend. Samson was not in the mind of God here and he had had a friend who was he could manipulate for his use. And perhaps you have friends that you like to use for your benefit, you're manipulating them.
And you aren't any friend at all. And in the end?
Disaster occurs as we find here, and if we were to go to Proverbs, we find that there are places where, well, if we go to Proverbs chapter 27 for an example, we have a person getting up in the morning and loudly proclaiming his affiliation for his friend, and it's condemned because it it's not sincere.
And so if we have a friend who is doing that kind of thing, flattering us perhaps or.
Catering to our weaknesses? Then they aren't true friends as it says here in Proverbs 27 and verse 14.
He that blessed his friend with a loud voice rising early in the morning, it should be counted a curse to him.
So.
If you have somebody who says they're a friend.
But they're only your friend because of what you have.
It tells us again in Proverbs that if you're wealthy, there will be a lot of people who want to be friends with you.
And maybe you have something that's not well, but it's something that people desire. But it's not the fact that you're going on to the Lord that they want to relate to. It's the fact that you have something that you're giving them.
Well, you have to be wise how you respond to that kind of a person. But if you're one who's following somebody for that purpose, you're have the wrong motive in your heart. And so I trust this afternoon that again you will examine and I will examine the things that draw me to my friends. Are they things that are pleasing to the Lord, or is it some other motive that the Word of God condemns? So we have two things here.
Then that show us what bad friends can do. They can take us into the world or they can use us and manipulate us or we will manipulate them. And there's no true friendship in that. And so you know, you come to the meetings this afternoon or the the conference here and perhaps.
Because of the circumstance, you're happy to be friendly with somebody, but when you got home that you wouldn't be friendly with them. Or it's the other way around. At home you're friendly with them. You come to the conference, you aren't because they aren't giving you.
What you think you should have at this point in time, or that they are giving you whatever is needed, but it doesn't center. Your friendship isn't centered on Christ and what is pleasing to Him. And so I want to encourage you, dear young people, to examine who your friends are and why they are your friends and if there has been some of this.
Dishonesty in the relationship. Don't write them off.
Don't say, well, I'm not going to have anything to do with you now because I see that you've been leading me in the wrong way. Confess that you've been both going on the wrong way and seek the Lord's grace to go on to him, to seek his face. You know, I think one of the worst things that can be done is when you start pulling high ground on friends and you sort of look down and say, you know, I'm more spiritual than you now. You don't say it that way. We do it with nonverbal communication.
And that can be more deadly sometimes in the way that we look at somebody and it's a false look. There's no true communication there. So I hope that if there are these false relationships that have developed here this afternoon among some friends and I believe in among older brethren, I don't mean to just lay this out on the young people. But, you know, I think if we were better friends, his older brother.
They'd be happier situations in the assemblies too, and so as we look now at the positive characteristics.
Of what a good friend should be. Let us all take it into our souls and ask, have I been a good friend to my brethren, to my the people I come in contact with? And you know, when you start having a relationship that's working, it just lights up your whole life. And that type of relationship will only center in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. You know, I was really encouraged.
A week ago I was out of marriage and the young man got up.
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And he said, you know, there's a love that I love my Savior more than I love my bride, and she loves her Savior more than she loves me or something of that effect. I'm paraphrasing it. And, you know, it was said with such sincerity and it rang so true to my soul. It just thrilled me to think that this couple was starting with the primary relationship solidly in place.
And yet you could see he adored her and she adored him, but they had the their eye on Christ and they were starting their lives together. Oh dear young person, I covet that for you. We've had it in our reading meeting today. I think my favorite verse of the Scripture, if I practice it, is what we have at the end of that Corinthians chapter 3 that we all with unveiled face the holy and the glory of the Lord.
Are transformed into the very same image from glory to glory.
Even as by the Lord, the Spirit, it's all of him, but as we gaze upon his face.
We will have a vision that will satisfy us. But if you don't have that vision, what does it say in Proverbs 28? It says where no vision is the people cast off restraint. And so if you don't have a friend that fills your soul, the Lord Jesus, if he doesn't fill you, you'll start casting off restraint and you will come to ruin as you pick up other friends who reinforce you and your downward course. Well, the first verse, the 1St.
In terms of the.
Practical positive aspects of friendship and I see with my time I'm going to have to just some of these, just itemize them. I just don't have the time. If you could turn with me, please to Exodus chapter 33 and verse 11 it says and the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend. You know if you have a good friend, you look them in the eye and the communication is bang on together right between you.
There's nothing held back. There's an openness. And Abraham was called the the friend of God because he obeyed God. There's a trust.
There's not only an openness, but there's a trust between friends and I had a good friend and I thank God for him. Brother John rules. I was growing up that we could look at each other and we could help each other in a very real, meaningful way. There are things that he knows and I know that will never go any further because they're part of our friendship there as we helped each other along the way as much as failures as we were.
And are but you know, as you get older you tend to go back to those friendships and you enjoy them.
And there are friends that I don't connect with anymore because they aren't here. And you often wonder about them. You know they come through your mind and you pray for them. You don't know where they are, but it's so good to come to a meetings like this and look at childhood friends, friends that you ran around the meeting room with. And they're here and you're enjoying their fellowship.
And then I know for myself, I've often thought when I've looked at others who have gone and I've said, well, what did I do? Did I help them? Did I encourage them? Some cases I didn't. Some cases I was the one who said don't want you here, doesn't give you very much satisfaction at all. But you have to go on by the grace of God and just trust that it doesn't duplicate at a later date. Well, the next characteristic of a friend, not only are they open with you, but.
Their primary allegiance is to the Lord Himself.
We turn to Job chapter 3032, and I want to couple this with the verse in Proverbs chapter 27. But let's go to Job 32 first and I'll just quote the one in Psalm, Proverbs 27. Proverbs 27, it says faithful are the wounds of a friend.
And I believe while they're faithful is because that friend has put Christ first in your relationship together. And so, you know, you see it happening all the time. People are brethren, sisters are out doing something that is obvious to everybody that what is happening is not of the Spirit of God. But it goes on because there's nobody who's a friend who will go to them and say.
Dear brother.
Dear sister, you know what's going on here is not according to the Spirit of God. Your brethren are not encouraged by what's going on. And we let things go on to the point where sometimes it ends up in discipline or a person being put away from the Lord's table because we haven't been a friend, a true friend, but a true friend will stop you in your course and tell you and because of their love and compassion for you over the years.
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You'll listen. And so when one of my friends comes to me and says, Frank, I disagree with what you put there.
And I know that there's no other motive other than to help me because they've shown their love for me. Then you say, boy, there's something here I should consider. But if someone comes at you from a distance and attacks you, it doesn't do the same work, does it? You have to bow to it. You have to consider it under the eye of God. But it doesn't have the same impact when somebody's coming who really loves you and cares about you.
And a lot of you here. He waited in due time for all the.
Older ones take part, but then he came to the point where he spoke for the Lord as a true friend to Joe and he he opened up the counsels of God before Job. He didn't criticize Job. I'm not going to be critical of Job's friends because I think many of us have been there. When something comes into a person's life, we say, you know, you haven't been living right now. We may not verbalize that, but if non verbally it comes through.
And sometimes that's not a very great help to us. We feel even more alienated and more under the weight of the difficulty.
That a lie who comes and he brings the man Job to Christ and he says, look at what God is doing and you're criticizing him and you can't do it. But it's all in the context of lifting the eyes beyond the human circumstance to the Lord himself. And then Allah you fades out of the picture and the Lord takes over. And so there's the positive aspect of what a good friend can do. They'll take your circumstances.
They'll mix it in with what the Lord's grace can do for you.
And they'll encourage your heart. Are you a friend like that to those sitting around you? Am IA friend like that? Well, I trust so.
Well, then, we go on to the next point in Proverbs 17 and seven.
And a friend loves at all times. And I think that's so beautiful and so simple. You know, if we were to again, go back to Job 19, we'd find that when Job got into difficulty, I'm thankful for the three friends that sat there with him. Even though they didn't give the right advice, they did show that they cared about it. And a lie who came with the right advice. But many of Job's friends, if you read the 19th chapter, they, they left them. They just left them. They were fair weather friends, as we say.
But.
Here we have in the 17th verse of Proverbs 17, a friend loveth at all times. You know what, No matter where you are, what the difficulty is, they're there willing to help you.
And they accept you the way you are, and I think that's very important and they're willing to listen.
You know they don't come ex cathedral and pronounce everything to you the way it should be. They listen and they respond to what's going on. Slow to speak, swift to hear, slow to speak. There's a good friend and they love you at all times. And I think you can see now that if you haven't already, it's the only one who truly feels all these things is the Lord Himself.
Well, then we go on to the other aspect. I'm not going to turn to the portion, but you'll find it in the last chapter of Joel, which I believe is the 42nd chapter, and that is that a friend prays for you, A good friend prays for you. If you're sitting on that seat this afternoon and you don't think your friends are praying for you, you better look again at what the relationship is among you. You know, I'm always encouraged.
When I pray with my wife.
And she prays for her friends and they go back years. Some of them are no longer.
Here gathered some of them are we're just talking about one the other day and we don't know where where that particular person is, but there it is in their prayer and it jogs my memory and I think what about those friends I had that I should be praying for and never forget. True friends pray for one another. And I believe if there was prayer for one another in the assembly, if you have an assembly list and you go through and you pray for your brethren, it's going to be pretty hard to get up at the next meeting and have bad feeling.
You know when you realize too, that those brethren are going to have the name of Jesus written across them if the Lord was to come.
And there's going to be written across them very soon if he was to come and be immediate His name upon us. And we pray for them in that context that the day is coming when we're all going to be together, perfectly conformed to Christ. It's going to bond us together as we look at each other in the meeting room. And we're going to enjoy the fellowship with each other.
Well then, the next one, and this is a very important one, Proverbs, chapter 22.
And.
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Verse 11 and I our time is really up. I'm going to have to just short circuit some of this, but notice the 11Th verse. He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips, The king shall be his friend.
Two things here, pureness of heart and grace in his lips. And I was thinking of pureness of heart in Second Timothy chapter 2 That were to meet with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And so if the friend is a true friend, he'll want us to meet with the Lord Jesus, with those that call in the Lord out of a pure heart. And the second point is the words of grace, the lips of grace, he'll be telling others of the Lord.
What the Lord has done for him. And like in Mark 5 where the Lord sends back the person who had been possessed, he goes out and he tells his friends and they heard of what Jesus had done for him to all, all around. And so there will be those two characteristics and a good friend. They'll want us to gather with the Lord Jesus. They'll want us to be with his people, with those that call in the Lord out of a pure heart. And they'll want to reach out to others with the gospel.
Because grace is in their lips. And as you sit beside your friend today.
Is a grace that you have from their lips? Are they encouraging you to be where the Lord is? There there's a good friend. There's another quality of a good friend. The other thing in Proverbs chapter 27 is that a friend gives good counsel. As it says in the 17th verse here of Proverbs chapter 27, iron sharpeneth iron. So a man sharpeneth the counsel of his friend.
And so as we work together as friends, we get good counsel from one another.
And if you notice in the end of the ninth verse, you'll see that that council should come from the heart. It should be not given at a distance, not given at arms length, but it's something that they care about you. And when a person gives advice and it's coming from something that they really because they care about you, you can read it. You can feel that. And so that's what we need as friends. We need to have that care for one another and that give that godly counsel and know that they give it to us not to set us out and to do it.
According to the spirit of the laws we had this morning, but because they want our affections touched and brought to Christ. That's the characteristic of a good friend. And finally.
In the same chapter here and a tenth verse. This is the last characteristic of a good friend, and this is more directed towards the young people. But a good friend will want to be with your family, and they'll want your family to be their friends.
As it says here, thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not. And so as we grow up, as I grew up in my home, my father and mother had people in and they became my friends. And I think of an older brother now in the Ottawa Assembly.
One of the oldest and he lived across the street for me for 19 years. So he knows that I can put a snowball through the window. And he knows that I can do a lot of things that are not very profitable, but things that he has seen me do. But, you know, every time at the meeting room and he grabs my hand, he looks into my eyes. You know, I see, I see love.
We have our disagreements from time to time, but I know when he grabs my hand, he cares about me and he loves me.
He was a friend of my father, who is now gone.
But I thank God for that man. I'm thinking of another lady this weekend who may be the we with the Lord before I get home. She's in her 80s I believe. The doctors have tried to put IV into her and they can't find any vein and so she's slowly dying. A single parent raised a boy who had been.
Had an accident when he was young.
And so hasn't been as capable of many as many of us. But that Lady raised that boy in the fear of God. And I can remember as a young man, a young boy, maybe 1011 Lords the afternoon after Sunday school being invited to her home. I can picture yet going up those stairs, going back into the little kitchen. And at our place we had dinner at noon hour. She had dinner at night. And I can remember thinking.
Is this fantastic? We get 2 meals and the same for the price of one in the same day. And we would sit down and she would put on that meal. And that's what I think of now is I see her going on. I think that kindness that came through because she was the Lord and she loved me. A poor little guy running around the meeting room. I don't know why she invited me, but she had us in as boys and we sat there. And now as I see her slipping on in the glory, I think there's my friend.
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Who really cared about me?
I've been helped by many people in my life, but that some of those older sisters in the Ottawa assembly, Mrs. Nicole won't hesitate to mention her name publicly. Who when she comes and says Frank, how's it going? Or she comes with that brown bag of her special squares on my birthday. Let me tell you, my heart keeps pumping because I know she loves me and she's seeing me with all my faults, but she says I love you unconditionally. And that is how Christ lost. That's why.
The only friend that can satisfy the heart because he loves you unconditionally. And so it tells us in Proverbs 18, the second part of that verse, there's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother because the Lord Jesus himself will stand by you in anything. And if you are feeling isolated here this afternoon, dear young person, if you're feeling alone, remember that the only one who can truly satisfy you and your heart is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And he gave his life for you. Let us turn to John chapter 15 in closing, make a few comments and then refer to one other thing. But in John chapter 15, we read here, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. And so the Lord wants you, dear young people, to live for him, and He will stand by you.
And let me tell you, he's the only one who will.
There will be times in your life when the Lord will pass you through a circumstance that only you and He.
Can face together because everybody else won't have the perspective that you have and that he has and so you will be joined together because he loves you and he cares for you and how do you tap into that care you tap into it by praying by speaking to him each day each moment of the day. I'm sure many of us here have found that something comes up at work or at school and just a very quick acknowledgement to the Lord of what to do and you go on and you.
Take control. He orders things for his glory and he you speak to him and he hears you. And his brother Darby said he was felt the favor of God won't court the favor of man. If you have felt God speaking to you and as you talk to him, it will be an experience based on the word of God that you'll never forget. It's not something that you can pass along to somebody else. It's between you and your friend. And he's given us his word. He's spoken to us through his word. We had that this morning.
How are we going to go from glory to glory? I enjoyed our brother. If you can refrain us back to the word because that's how you do it. You go back and you see the patterns of Christ in the Old Testament. You see his graciousness. You see how they wondered at him. Yuri going to the pistols and you see the future that he has for you. And you say, oh, worldly pomp and glory, that's all spread in vain because I found a sweeter story that is centered in Christ and so.
That is the essence of the Christian life, isn't it? As we're here, I trust we can be better friends together. I hope that we can carry out these characteristics of friends one with another. I trust we can look to God for his help and realize that we are failures. Better if thou shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, David could say. And so I say here, it's not because of anyone's exemplary life, but I do believe we.
Help each other as we're awaiting His coming. He wants to stand beside us. He wants to be our friend. Are you willing to reach out and to have Him reach out to you? Think about it. Please do not allow your friends this afternoon to pervert your thinking and have you go that route of Deuteronomy 33 and take you away from the Lord.
In closing, I want to refer to a story I read this last week.
About a brother in the Lord Joseph Scriven. Some of you are familiar with this brother. He was raised I believe, I'm not quite sure what church he was raised in, but he was gathered to the Lords name in Ontario in the early 1840s. He died 100 years ago in October 1866 and he wrote these words.
1886 Rather, he wrote these words. He wrote them to his mother.
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There were two tragedies in his life. His first fiance that he went with was.
Tragically.
I think she was drowned and the second fiance also, both of them died and he wrote this letter or this, this hymn, this poem to his mother. What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh what peace we often forefoot. Oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Now you sweet song that many times haven't we? But do we know that what that man went through?
To cause him to write that I want to read you just a little bit of how he lived, says here that.
In 1860 came the 2nd tragedy in his life. He had been engaged to be married to the Christian niece of the family in which he served as a tutor. Just before their proposed marriage, she too died of pneumonia. Following the 2nd shattering experience, Scriven sent a final draft of his poem, Pray Without Ceasing to his mother in Ireland. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear.
Following the death of his fiancee and to the conclusion of his work as a tutor to the Pingley family, Scriven immersed himself for the remainder of his life and ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the people living in the region around Rice Lake, from Peterborough in the north to Port Hope and Coburg to the South. Then it says here, I'm just skipping over this, but he was a very practical Christian. It says here that he expressed the concern for people in extremely practical ways, though he did some tutoring, presumably to provide for his modest needs.
Much of his time was devoted to serving the poor, the aged and the handicapped. He insisted on receiving no remuneration for that service. A lady who wanted to hire a man to saw wood asked a neighbor the name of her friend who did much work, did such work. The neighbor responded that it was Joseph Striven, adding that he probably wouldn't wouldn't cut the wood for her. Why not, she asked. Because you're able to pay for it, said her friend. He saw some wood for He saw some wood for poor widows and sick people, and often he sends them wood.
Hires a man to cut it. He has some income from the old country and spends it all on the poor except for the money he needs to support himself in a quiet way. Well, we don't have time to read the rest of it, but it gives the character of the person who could pen those words what a friend we have.