The Best Friend
(No. 2627)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 18, 1899.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGE0N,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 23, 1882.
"Your own friend, and your father's friend, forsake not." Proverbs
27:10.
TRUE friends are very scarce. We have a great many acquaintances and,
sometimes, we call them friends and so misuse the noble word,
"friendship." Perhaps, in some later day of adversity, when these
so-called friends have looked out for their own interests and left us
to do the best we can for ourselves, that word, friendship, may come
back to us with sad and sorrowful associations. The friend in need is a
friend, indeed, and such friends, I say again, are scarce. When you
have found such a man and proved the sincerity of his friendship. When
he has been faithful to your father and to you, grapple him to yourself
with hooks of steel and never let him go! It may be that because he is
a faithful friend, he will sometimes vex you and anger you. See how
Solomon puts it in this very chapter–"Open rebuke is better than
secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend." It takes a great
deal of friendship to be able to tell a man his faults. It is not
friendship that flatters! It is small friendship that holds its tongue
when it ought to speak. But it is true friendship that can speak at the
right time and, if necessary, even speak so sharply as to cause a
wound. If you are like many other foolish folk, you will be angry with
the man who is so much your friend that he will tell you the truth. If
you are unworthy of your friend, you will begin to grow weary of him
when he is performing on your behalf the most heroic act of pure
charity by warning you of your danger and reminding you of your
imperfection! Solomon, in prospect of such a case, knowing that this is
one of the greatest trials of friendship among such poor imperfect
beings as we are, tells us not to forsake, for this reason–nor indeed,
for any other reason–the man who has been to us and to our family a
true friend. "Your own friend, and your father's friend, forsake not."
I do not think that I would waste your time if I were to give you a
lecture upon friendship–its duties, its dangers, its rights and its
privileges–but it is not my intention to do so. There is one Friend to
whom these words of Solomon are especially applicable. There is a
Friend who is the chief and highest of all friends and when I speak of
Him, I feel that I am not spiritualizing the text in the least. He is a
true and real Friend and these words are truly and really applicable to
Him. And if ever the text is emphatic, it is so when it is applied to
Him, for there was never such another Friend to us and to our fathers!
There is no Friend to whom we ought to be so intensely attached as to
Him. "Your own Friend, and your father's Friend, forsake not."
I want, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to speak upon this
subject. First, here is a descriptive title which may be fitly applied
to Christ by many of us. He is our own Friend, and also our father's
Friend. Secondly, here is suggestive advice concerning this Friend.
"Forsake Him not." And before I have done, I shall say a little upon a
consequent resolution. I hope that we shall turn the text into a solemn
resolve and say, "My own Friend, and my father's Friend, I will not
forsake."
I. First, then, here is A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE for our blessed Lord and
Master.
First, he is a Friend, the Friend of man. I know that Young calls him
the "great Philanthropist." I do not care to see that title–it is not
good enough for Him–though truly the great Lover of man is Christ.
Better still is the title which was given to Him when He was upon
earth, "the Friend of sinners."–
"Friend of sinners is His name."
Their Friend–thinking of them with love when no other eye pitied them,
and no other heart seemed to care for them. Their Friend, entering in
most tender sympathy into the case of the lost, for "the Son of Man
came to seek and to save that which was lost." Their Friend–giving
them good and sound advice and wholesome counsel, for whoever listens
to the Words of Christ shall find in His teaching and in His guidance
the highest wisdom. Their Friend, however, giving far more than
sympathy and mere words–giving a lifetime of holy service for the sake
of those whose cause He had espoused and going further even than
this–doing for them the utmost that a Friend can do, for what is there
more than that a man should lay down his life for his friend? Friend of
man and, therefore, born of man. Friend of sinners and, therefore,
living among them and ministering to them. Friend of sinners and,
therefore, taking their sin upon Himself and bearing it "in His own
body on the tree," so fulfilling Gabriel's prophecy that He would come
"to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make
reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting
righteousness."
Christ has done for us all that needed to be done! He has done much
more than we ever could have asked Him to do, or expected Him to do. He
has done more for us than we can understand, even now that He has done
it, and more than you and I are likely everto understand even when our
intellect shall have been developed and enlarged to the utmost degree
before the eternal Throne of God, for even there I do not think we
shall ever fully know how much we owe to the friendship of our best
Friend! However self-denying and tender other friends may be, our Lord
must always stand at the head of the list and we will not put a second
there as worthy of any comparison with Him!
It is a very blessed thing, next, to have the Lord Jesus Christ as
having been our father's Friend. There are some of us to whom this has
been literally true for many generations. I suppose that there is some
pride in being the 14th earl, or the 10th duke, or having a certain
rank among men. But, sometimes, quietly to myself, I glory in my
pedigree because I can trace the line of spiritual Grace back as far as
I can go to men who loved the Lord and who, many of them, have preached
His Word. Many of you, I know, in this Church, and in other Churches,
have a glorious heraldry in the line of the Lord's nobles. It is true
that some of you have had the great mercy of being taken, like trees
out of the desert, and planted in the courts of our God, for which you
may well be glad. But others of you are slips from vines that, in their
turn, were slips from other vines loved and cared for by the great
Husbandman! You cannot tell how long this blessed succession has
continued–your fathers, and your fathers' fathers, as far back as you
can trace them, were friends of Christ! Happy Eph-raim, whose father
Joseph had God with him! Happy Joseph, whose father Jacob saw God at
Bethel! Happy Jacob, whose father Isaac walked in the fields and
meditated in communion with Jehovah! Happy Isaac, whose father Abraham
had spoken with God and was called "the Friend of God!" God has a habit
of loving families. David said, "The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His
righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep His covenant,
and to those that remember His commandments to do them." Grace does not
run in the blood, but often the stream of Divine Mercy has run side by
side with it and, instead of the fathers, have been the children whom
the Lord has made to be princes in the earth!
Some of you, perhaps, have fathers and mothers still living, whose
example you may fitly follow. I charge you, never forsake your father's
God, or, what is still more tender, the God of your mother! Others of
you have parents in Heaven. Well, they are still yours–that sacred
relationship is not broken. You remember your mother's last grasp of
your hand when she bade you follow her to Heaven. You recollect your
father's appeals to you, in his long sickness, when he pleaded with you
to take heed to your ways and not neglect the things of God, but seek
Him in the days of your youth. Well, did you ever hear your father say
anything against his God? Did your mother ever, in her confiding
moments, whisper in your ear, "Mary, do not trust in God, for He has
betrayed your mother's confidence"? No! I know they did not talk like
that, for He was their best Friend and He who was such a Friend to the
dear old man whom you can never forget. He who cheered the heart of
that gracious matron whose sweet face rises before you now–oh, I
beseech you, forsake Him not! "Your own Friend, and your father's
Friend, forsake not."
Still, the sweetest part of the text lies in these words, " Your own
Friend." I do not think that I can preach on those words. I can take
them in my mouth and they are like honey for sweetness, but they must
be personallyenjoyed to be fully appreciated. There are some precious
lines we sometimes sing–
"The health is of my countenance, Yes, my own God is He"– which
exactly describe the blessedness of "your own Friend."
Now, if it is true that Christ is your own Friend, then you have spoken
with Him. You have held sweet conversations with Him, you have placed
your confidence in Him, you have told Him your lost estate and
sinfulness and you have reposed in Him as your own Savior. You have put
your cause into His hands and you have left it there. If He is, indeed,
your own Friend, then He has helped you. You were a stranger and He has
taken you in. You were naked and He has clothed you. You were
spiritually sick and in prison, and He came to you and healed you. Yes,
and He wore your chains and bade you go free! And He took your
sicknesses and bade you take His health–and so He made you whole. Yes,
and He restored you even from the grave–and went into that grave,
Himself, that by His death, you might live! You know that it is so and
day by day you keep up communion with Him–you could not live without
Him, for He is such a Friend to you, and you rest on Him with all your
weight as you come up from the wilderness with Him, leaning on your
Beloved, "your own Friend."
Nor is the friendship all on one side, though your side is a very
little one. You would make it greater if it were in your power, for you
have confessed His name, you have united yourself with His people, you
love to join with them in prayer and praise. You are not ashamed to be
called by Christ's name as a Christian, or to speak well of that name,
and you desire to consecrate to Him all that you have. Better than all
this, while you do call Him, Friend, He also calls you, Friend, as He
said to His disciples, "You are My friends, if you do whatever I
command you." Dare I say the words, yet, dare I doubt the truth of the
words–Jesus is my Friend? There is one we read of in the Bible who was
David's captain of the host, and there was another who was David's
counselor. But there was one man whom we always call, "David's friend,
Jonathan." And I envy him such a title. Yet Jesus gives this name to
all those who come and put their trust in Him and so find Him to be
their Friend!
Now, inasmuch as the Lord Jesus is "your own Friend, and your father's
Friend," the injunction of the text comes to you with peculiar
force–"Forsake Him not." Can you forsake Him? Look at His face, all
red with bloody sweat for you. Nor His face, alone, for He is covered
all over with that gory robe wherein He worked out your redemption. He
that works for bread must sweat, but He that worked for your eternal
life did sweat great drops of blood falling down to the ground! Can you
forsake Him? He stands at Pilate's bar, He is mocked by Herod's men of
war. He is scourged by Pilate, and all for you–and can you forsake
Him? He goes up to the Cross of Calvary and the cruel iron is driven
through His hands and feet and there He makes expiation for your guilt.
He is your Friend, even to the ignominy of a felon's death– and can
you forsake Him? He lays His pierced hand on you and He says, "Will
you, also, go away?" Or, as He worded it to the twelve, "You also will
not go away, will you?" So it might be read, "Many of my supposed
friends have gone and so have proved themselves to be not friends, but
traitors. But you, also, will not go away, will you?" And He seems to
make an appeal to them with those tearful, tender eyes of His–"as the
eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly
set"–"You also will not go away, will you?"
And when you turn your eyes another way and think not merely of the
shame your Friend endured for you, but recollect what is an equal proof
of His love–that He is not ashamed of you now that He is in His Glory!
Amidst the throng of angels and cherubim and seraphim that frequent His
courts above He does not disdain to know that He is the Brother of
these poor earthworms down below, for even there He wears the body
which proves Him to be our next of kin–yes, and wears the scars which
proved that for us He endured the death penalty, itself, and even now
He is not ashamed to call us Brethren! As you think of all this, can
you forsake Him? Because you are somewhat better off than you once
were, will you leave the little gathering of poor folk with whom you
used to worship so happily, and will you go to some more fashionable
place where there is music, but little of the music of the name of
Jesus–where there is gorgeous architecture, it may be, and
masquerading, and mummery and I know not what, but little of the sweet
savor of His Presence, and the dropping of that dew which He always
brings with Him wherever He comes? Oh, it is a pity, it is a sorrowful
pity, it is a meanness that would disgrace a mere worldling–when a man
who once confessed Christ and followed Him–must turn his back upon his
Lord because his own coat is made of better material than it used to
be, and his balance at the bank is heavier! I had almost said–"Then
let the Judas go, be his own place what it may–it were almost a
dishonor to Christ to wish the traitor back!
Oh, will you go away, either from the Crucified or from the Glorified?
If you will forsake this Friend, "Behold, He comes!" Every hour brings
Him nearer! The chariots of His Glory have glowing axles and you may
almost hear them as they speed toward us! And then what will you do
when you have forsaken your own Friend and your father's Friend, and
you hear Him say, "I never knew you; I never knew you"? God grant that
it may never be the lot of any of us here present to hear those awful
words!
II. Now I pass on to our second head, as the Holy Spirit may help me.
It is, SUGGESTIVE ADVICE–"Your own Friend, and your father's Friend,
forsake not."
There is, to me, in the text, a suggestion which the text itself does
not suggest. That is to say, it suggests something by not suggesting
it. The text does not suggest to me that my own Friend and my father's
Friend will ever forsake me. It seems to hint that I may forsake Him,
but it does not suggest that He will ever forsake me–and He never
will! If the Lord had ever meant to forsake me, He has had so many good
reasons for doing it that He would have done it long ago! The Apostle
says of those who are journeying to the better country that, "if they
had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might
have had opportunity to have returned." And, certainly, our blessed
Lord and Master, if He had desired to leave us to perish, had many an
opportunity to return to Heaven before He died. And, since then He has
had many more occasions when He might have said, "I really must
withdraw My friendship from you," if He had ever wished to do so. But
His love is constant–"Having loved His own which were in the world, He
loved them unto the end." His is a friendship which never changes! You
shall never fall back on Him and find that He has withdrawn the arms
with which He formerly upheld you. You shall find, in life and in
death, that "there is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother." Let
us be cheered by the assurance that He will never forsake us!
Now let us go on to what the text doessuggest in so many words. It
suggests to us the question, In what sense can we forsake Christ? Well,
there is more than one sense in which a man may forsake Christ. Two
passages rise to my mind at this moment. "Then all the disciples
forsook Him and fled." That was one sort of forsaking–they were all
afraid and ran away from their Lord in the hour of His betrayal into
the hands of sinners. But it is quite another kind of forsaking when we
read, "From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no
more with Him." The first forsaking was the result of a sudden fear,
much to be deplored and very blameworthy, but still, only temporary in
its effects. The other was the deliberate act of those who, in cold
blood, refused to accept Jesus Christ's doctrine, or to follow Him any
farther, and so turned back and walked no more with Him. This last
forsaking is incurable. The former one was cured almost as soon as the
sudden fear that caused it was removed, for we find John and even Peter
following the Master to the judgment hall and the whole of the
disciples soon gathered around Him after His Resurrection.
I would say to you, dear Friends, "Your own Friend, and your father's
Friend, forsake not" in any sense at all. Forsake Him not even in your
moments of alarm. Pray God that then you may play the man and not
forsake Him and flee. And then, in the other sense, let no quarrel ever
arise between you and Christ's most precious Truth so as to lead you
deliberately to leave Him, for this is the worst of all kinds of
forsaking! If we never forsake Him in any sense at all, then it is
quite certain that we shall never forsake Him in the worst sense. I
remember a little merriment I had with a good Wesleyan brother, the
clerk of the works, when the Tabernacle was being built. He wanted me
to go up a ladder right into those lantern lights and I said, "No,
thank you. I would rather not." "But," he replied, "I thought you had
no fear of falling." "Yes," I answered, "that is quite true. I have no
fear of finally falling away, but the belief that the Lord will
preserve me does not exercise any evil influence over me, for it keeps
me from running unnecessary risks by climbing up ladders! But you, good
Brother, who are so afraid of falling, do not seem to show it
practically in your conduct, for you go up and down the ladders as
nimbly as possible."
I have sometimes met with persons who think that if we believe that we
shall never fall so as to perish, we are apt to become
presumptuous–but we do not, dear Brothers and Sisters! There are other
Truths of God that come in to balance this one, so that what they think
might come of it is, by God's good Grace, prevented. And I am not quite
sure that those who think that they may finally fall and perish are
sufficiently impressed with that belief so as to always be careful. The
fact is, that your carefulness of walk does not depend merely upon your
view of this doctrine or that, but it depends upon your state of heart
and a great many other things–so that you have no reason to judge what
you might do if you believed such-and-such a Truth of God, because if
you did believe it, perhaps you would, at the same time, be a better
man–and the possibility that appears to linger around the doctrine
would vanish so far as you are concerned. Let this be the language of
all of us who love the Lord, as we look up confidently and reverently
to Him–
"We have no fear that You should lose One whom eternal love could
choose,
But we would ne'er this Grace abuse. Let us not fall. Let us not fall!"
I know that if we are truly the Lord's, He will not allow us to forsake
Him. But I must have a wholesome fear lest I should forsake Him, for
who am I that I should be sure that I have not deceived myself? I may
have done so and, after all, may forsake Him after the loudest
professions, and even after the greatest apparent sincerity in vowing
that I never will turn away from Him.
So, I ask again–In what sense can we forsake our Lord? Well, there are
many senses, but perhaps you will see better what I mean if I describe
a general process of forsaking a friend. I hope that you have never had
to undergo it. I do not know that I ever have, but, still, I can
imagine that it is something like this. The old gentleman was your
father's friend. He also had been your own friend and has done you many
a good turn. But, at last, he has said something which has provoked you
to anger, or he has done something which you have misunderstood or
misinterpreted–and now you feel very cool towards him when you meet.
You pass the time of day and, perhaps, say very much the same things
which you used to say, but they are said in a very different fashion.
Now, that is how we begin to forsake our God. We may keep up the
appearance of friendship with Christ, but it is a very cool affair. We
go to a place of worship, but there is no enjoyment, no enthusiasm, no
earnestness.
Then the next thing is that you do not call to see your friend as
frequently as you used to do. It has not come to an open rupture
between you, so you do look in at certain set times when you are
expected, but there are none of those little flying visits and that
popping in upon him unawares, just to get a look at his face as you
used to do. And, on his part, he does not come to see you much, either.
And that is how our forsaking of Christ generally continues. We do not
go to talk with Him as we once did, and when we do go to His House, we
find that He is not there. "Can two walk together, except they be
agreed?" Then, by-and-by, perhaps there is a sharp word spoken, and
your friend feels that you do not need him. You have said something
that cuts him to the quick and grieves him. It was not anything so very
bad if it had been spoken to a stranger–but to be said to him who was
your father's friend, to him whom you always expected to come in and
whom you loved to see–to say it to him was very hard and he naturally
took offense at it.
That is how it comes to pass between Christ and professors. There is
something done which might not be of so much account in the case of
non-professors or the openly ungodly, but it is very bad in one who
professed to have Christ for his Friend. And do you know what happens,
by-and-by, when your friend is being discarded? At last he does not
call at all–and you do not go to see him. Perhaps the breach is still
further widened and little presents are sent back or treated with
contempt. There is that oil painting which your father would have,
though he could scarcely afford it, because he loved his friend so
much, and which he hung up in so conspicuous a place in his house.
Well, the other day, the string broke and you did not buy a fresh piece
of cord to hang it up again. In fact, you put the picture away in the
cellar and you do not really care what becomes of it! The little tokens
of past affection are all put away, for there is an open rupture, now,
and when somebody spoke to you about him, lately, you said, "Oh, pray
don't mention him to me! He is no friend of mine now! I used to be on
intimate terms with him, once, but I have altered my opinion about him
altogether."
So do some professors act towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Those little
tokens of love which they thought they had from Him, they send back.
They do not remain in fellowship with His Church. They do all that they
possibly can to disown Him. In the meanwhile, the blessed Lord of Love
is obliged to disown them, too! And His Church disowns them. And,
by-and-by, the rupture has become complete. May that never be the
portion of any of you!
"No," says one, "it never will be." My dear Friend, if you are so
confident as that, you are the person about whom I am most afraid! I
remember one who used to pray among us, but we had to put him out of
the Church for evil living. And there was one of our members who said,
that night, "If that man is not a child of God, I am not one, myself."
I said, "My dear Brother, do not talk like that. I would not pit my
soul against the soul of any man, for I do know a little of myself, but
I do not know other men as well as I know myself." I am very much
afraid that neither of the two men I have mentioned was a child of God.
By their speech they seemed to be Christians, but their acts were not
like those of God's people. It does not do for us to talk as that man
did, but to pray to the Lord, "Hold me up and I shall be safe." That is
the proper prayer for us–or else it may happen even to us as happened
to them–and we may forsake our own Friend and our father's Friend.
Now, what reasons can we possibly have for forsaking Christ? We ought
to do nothing for which we cannot give good reasons. I have known
persons very properly forsake their former friends because they have,
themselves, become new creatures in Christ Jesus and they have, rightly
and wisely, given up the acquaintances with whom they used to sin. They
cannot go, now, to the house where everything is contrary to their
feelings. But it is not so with Christ. Some so-called friends drag a
man down, lower him, injure him, impose upon him and, at last, he is
obliged to let them go. But we cannot say that of Christ. His
friendship has drawn us up, helped us, sanctified us, elevated us–we
owe everything to that friendship! We cannot have a reason, therefore,
for forsaking this Friend. I have known some to outgrow an acquaintance
or friend. They really have not been able to continue to have common
views and sympathies, for, while their friend has remained in the mire,
they have risen into quite different men by reason of education and
other influences. But we can never outgrow Christ. That is not
possible! And the more we grow in a right sense, the more we shall
become like He. A man who has been the friend of our father and of
ourselves is the very man to still have as a friend because he probably
understands all about the family difficulties, the family troubles and
he also understands us. Why, he nursed us when we were children and,
therefore, he knows most about us. I remember that, when lying sorely
sick, I had a letter from a kind old gentleman who said that he had,
that day, celebrated his 80th birthday, and the choicest friend he had
at his dinner table was the old family doctor. He said, "He has
attended to me so long that he thoroughly knows my constitution. He is
nearly as old as myself, but the first time I was ill I saw him and he
has attended me, now, for 40 years. Once," he said, "when I had a
severe attack of gout, I was tempted to try some very famous man who
very nearly killed me and, until I got back to my old friend, I was
never really well again."
So he wrote to advise me to get some really good physician and let him
know my constitution and to stick to him, and never go off to any of
the patent medicines or the quacks of the day! Oh, but there is a great
deal of truth in that in a spiritual sense! With the utmost reverence,
we may say that the Lord Jesus Christ has been our family Physician.
Did He not attend my father in all his sicknesses, and my grandfather,
too? And He knows the ins and outs of my constitution– He knows my
ways, good and bad, and all my sorrows and, therefore I do not go to
anyone else for relief. And I advise you, also, to keep to Jesus
Christ, do not forsake Him! If you are ever tempted to go aside, even
for a little while, I pray that you may have Grace enough to come back
quickly and to commit yourself again to Him, and never go astray again.
There is the blessing of having One who is wise, One who is tried, One
whose sympathy has been tested, One who has become, as it were, one of
your family, One who has taken your whole household to His heart and
made it part and parcel of Himself. Such a Friend to your own soul, and
to your father's soul, forsake not!
Do not forsake Him, dear Friends, because, I almost tremble to say
it–you will need Him some day. Even if you would never need Him in the
future, you ought not to forsake Him. I do not quite like that verse of
the hymn at the end of our hymn book–
"Ashamed of Jesus! Yes, I may, When I've no guilt to wash away, No tear
to wipe, no good to crave, No fears to quell, no soul to save."
No, I may not When all my guilt is gone, I shall not be ashamed of
Jesus. When I am in Heaven and need no more the pardon of sin, I
certainly shall not be ashamed of Him who brought me there! No, but I
shall glory in Him more than ever! Your friendship to Christ, and mine,
ought not to depend upon what we are going to get out of Him. We must
love Him now for what He is, for all that He has already done, and for
His own blessed Person and personal beauties which every day should
hold fast our love, and bind us in chains of affection to Him.
But suppose you do think of forsaking Christ, where are you going to
get another Friend to take His place? You must have a friend of some
sort–who is going to sit in Christ's chair? Whose portrait is to be
hung up in the old familiar place when the old Friend is discarded? To
whom are you going to tell your griefs and from whom will you expect to
receive help in time of need? Who will be with you in sickness? Who
will be with you in the hour of death? Ah, there is no other who can
ever fill the vacuum which the absence of Christ would make! Therefore,
never forsake Him.
III. Now I must close with THE CONSEQUENT RESOLVE about which I can say
very little, as my time has gone.
Let this be your resolve, by His Grace, instead of forsaking Him, you
will cling to Him more closely than ever You will acknowledge Him when
it brings you dishonor to do so. You will trust Him when He wounds you,
for "faithful are the wounds of a friend." You will serve Him when it
is costly to do it, when it involves self-denial, resolved that, by the
help of His ever-blessed Spirit, without whom you can do nothing, you
will never, in any sort of company, conceal the fact that you are a
Christian! Never, under any possible circumstances, wish to be
otherwise than a servant of such a Master, a friend of such a Lord!
Come now, dear young friends who are getting cool towards Christ, and
elder friends to whom religion is becoming monotonous–come to your
Lord once more and ask Him to bind you with cords, even with cords to
the horns of the altar! You have had time to count the cost of all
Egypt's treasure–forego it and forswear it once and for all. But the
riches of Christ you can never count–so come and take Him again to be
your All-in-All!
Those about to be baptized will feel, I trust–as we shall when we look
on–and say, each man and woman for himself, or herself–
"'Tis done! The great transaction's done! I am my Lord's, and He is
mine."
Nail your colors to the mast! Bear in your body the marks of the Lord
Jesus. Yes, let everyone of us who has been baptized into Christ feel
that our whole body bears the watermark, for we have been "buried with
Him by baptism into death." It was not for the putting off of the
filthiness of the flesh, but as a declaration that we were dead to the
world and quickened into newness of life in Christ Jesus our Savior. So
let it be with you, too, dear Friends, as you follow your Lord through
the water! Cling to Him, cleave to Him! "Your own Friend, and your
father's Friend, forsake not." May God add His blessing, for our Lord
Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN15:9-27.
Verse 9. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Oh, drink
this nectar down! It is as when Cleopatra dissolved the pearl into a
single draught, for here is the choicest pearl of the Truths of God
that was ever dissolved into a single verse to be a delicious draught
for His people to drink! "As the Father has loved Me"–as surely as the
Father has loved Me and, then, "as"–that is–in the same manner "as
the Father has loved Me"–without beginning, without ending, without
measure, without change, "so have I loved you."
9, 10. Continue you in My love. If you keep My commandments, you shall
abide in My love. Note this point of the Lord's discipline–not that
Christ ever casts away His people, but that He does take from them the
sweet sense of His love, the realization of it, if they are disobedient
to Him and keep not His commandments.
10, 11. 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. That He might joy in us–feel a sacred delight in thinking of us
as He does when He sees us keeping His commandments and treasuring up
His Words, and so living in His love and being mighty in prayer.
11, And that your joy might be full. If Christ is not pleased with us,
we cannot be glad. And if He has no joy in us, we cannot have joy in
Him. These two things rise and fall together. When the father of the
family looks with joy upon his boy, then the boy is happy. But when the
father has no joy in his son, then be sure of this, the son has no joy
in his father, but he is sad at heart. O God, may we never grieve You,
for if we do, we shall be grieved! At least, I trust that we shall– we
would not have it otherwise. But, oh, that we might have the testimony
that Enoch had before his translation, that we have pleased God! Then
shall we have true pleasure in ourselves.
12-14. This is My commandment, That you love one another, as I have
loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command
you. Obedience, then, is rewarded with a holy friendship, for Christ
becomes in the highest sense our Friend! But we are not His friends
till we cease to delight in sin and turn away from it into the paths of
holiness.
15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what
his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I
have heard of My Father I have made known unto you. The servant works
in a building and it is enough for him that he is laying part of a line
of brick or stone. Perhaps he has never seen the design of the
structure, nor had a wish to do so. But you and I have the great
Architect constantly coming to us to tell us what the building is to be
and to explain to us His plans–and so we work with greater pleasure
and joy than a mere laborer might. The very heart of Christ is laid
bare to His people. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear
Him." Happy are His people–glad to be His servants–more glad, still,
to be His friends!
16. You have not chosen Me, but Ihave chosen you, and ordainedyou,
thatyou shouldgo and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
remain: that whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may
give it to you. There you see Divine Election leading on to
fruit-bearing and perpetuated in perseverance–"that your fruit should
remain." It brings to every one of its objects this conspicuous favor,
prevailing power in prayer–"that whatever you shall ask of the Father
in My name, He may give it to you."
17. These things I command you, thatyou love one another O you
professors who have no love to one another, you are breaking the King's
commandment! You are living in direct violation of a plain command that
is most dear to His heart. Oh, that we might constantly hear it and
obey it! "These things I command you, that you love one another."
18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated
you. That is what you have reason to expect, and you may feel honored
if they treat you as they have treated your Lord.
19-22. If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but
because you are not of the world, but Ihave chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have
persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My
saying, they will keep your's also. But all these things will they do
unto you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If
I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they
have no cloak for their sin. There is an awful increase of sin produced
by Christ appearing to a man. And if any of you have been very near to
the Kingdom, and your conscience has been awakened, and your mind has
been impressed by the Truth of God and yet you have gone back to your
sin, you have multiplied that sin a thousand-fold! The times of your
ignorance God may have winked at, but now you are sinning against the
Light of God and knowledge–and unless you repent, your doom will be
terrible!
23-26. He that hates Me, hates My Father, also. If I had not done among
them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin: but now
have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father But this came to
pass that the word might be fulfiled that is written in their law, They
hated Me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come. And He has
come! He is here! He has never been taken away! He still abides with
and in the Church!
26. Whom I'll send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth,
which proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me. By this mark
you may know whether that which has been taught you is of the Spirit of
God. If it does not testify of Christ–if He is not the head and front
of it all–there is nothing in it for you to accept. If any man comes
to you with what he calls a revelation, if it is not all concerning
Christ, by this shall you judge it–it is not of the Spirit of God if
it does not testify of Christ.
27. And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from
the beginning. May we all bear witness according as we have been with
Christ, for there is no bearing witness to Christ unless we have first
been with Him.