FRIENDSHIP

J. Strachan

Genesis 18: 16–21; John 15: 12–15; 3 John 13, 14

I would like to say a word, dear brethren, on the subject of friendship. I think it is a term that applies to us in our day in Christianity. We have been befriended by the Lord Jesus; He has become our Friend. He has befriended us because we needed Him. We needed a Saviour and He came in and undertook for us what no one else could do, and He has become our Friend, the sinner’s Friend. I hope everyone here in this room of responsible age has come to know this wonderful Person we have been singing about, the sinner’s Friend, a Friend of persons like you and me. We needed Him, and He became our Friend. How wonderful that is! He took on all our responsibilities, all our liabilities, and met them; met them in a way that glorified God; met them in a way that meets our need and endears Him to us. What a Friend we have found in Jesus! I hope everyone here could sing that hymn—‘I’ve found a Friend’—

truly from their hearts. If there is anybody who could not sing it truly, we would like you to be able to sing it from your heart as having come to know what a wonderful Friend Jesus is.

Now we are left here, those of us who have come to know Him in this way, in a world that has cast Him out, and we certainly do not want to be in a state of friendship with the world that has rejected Christ. James tells us, and he is very practical, “Whoever therefore is minded to be the friend of the world is constituted enemy of God”, James 4: 4. It is a serious thing for anyone to be even minded to be a friend of the world that has rejected Christ. How unsuitable for a believer who has been befriended by Him to want to be

friendly with the world that has rejected Him—friendship with the world is enmity with God.

See the contrast; there is no neutral ground. Nobody would want; surely, as having been, befriended by the Lord Jesus, to be constituted an enemy of God. That is what friendship with the world, or being minded to be friendly with it, would lead to. Do not let us dabble with the world that has rejected Christ.

Now I want to speak from these scriptures of some of the features of friendship which I trust would be in some way attractive to us. I count on these features being attractive to the work of God in us. Abraham was called “Friend of God”. What a designation for a believer to be called friend of God! How attractive that is! He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, and “he was called Friend of God”, James 2: 23. What a thing it is to go through this world in the consciousness of being a friend of God. Well, that was Abraham’s portion, and I believe it is open to us, to each one of us, to be on friendly terms with God.

In Genesis 18 God was on His way to the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham was going along to conduct these heavenly visitors, He had already had the experience of refreshing them, ministering to them: Then, having been detained and refreshed by Abraham, God was on the way to judgment, and Abraham was going to conduct Him. Abraham was fully in sympathy with God in what He was working out in the world; and Jehovah says,

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?”. The idea of a friend means it is someone you can confide in, someone you can trust; you can disclose to a friend what you would not disclose to others. So God is saying, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” He would not hide—it from Abraham His friend. The best way to be intelligent about what is happening

in the world is to be amongst the friends of God. They will know more than the cleverest persons in this world who do not have the Holy Spirit; unconverted men who do not have the Spirit of God are no equal for persons who are the friends of God. Great statesmen are perplexed as to what to do. God is going on His way and He is saying, I will bring Abraham into the secret of the way I am going. God said, “I know him that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him”.

Abraham was the kind of man that could be trusted, with divine secrets. God says, “I know him”. What a privilege to be known of God—“If any one love God, he is known of him”, 1

Corinthians 8: 3. What a thing it is to be here as loving God and being known of Him, to be trusted by Him as Abraham was. “I know him that he will command his children and his household after him”. Abraham was a man who had believed God, and was having to do with his children and his household in such a way as would invite God’s pleasure. God says, “I know him”; he will have all his household and his children in relation to Me. God takes account of a man who is concerned about his household and his children, to held them here in this scene for God, and who keeps the way of Jehovah to do righteousness and justice. What God had laid out, Abraham would keep it, to do righteousness and justice. He was morally right with God, morally on a sound basis in his relations with God. What a man Abraham was, and God says, I know this man, and I can trust him; I can let him know what I am about to do.

As God proceeded on His way He takes account of the situation and says; I will see if things are just as bad as they appear to be. Then as Abraham

was there with God he starts to intercede. He says, “There are perhaps fifty righteous within the city”. Would God destroy the city if there were fifty righteous persons there? Think of Abraham standing in the presence of God interceding. He comes down; well, there may be just forty-five; or there might be forty or thirty, or twenty, or ten. You see how God is taking account of Abraham in his intercession, He is listening to this man. He is not only entrusting him with secrets, but this man has the ear of God in regard to what He is doing. What a place to be put into, you might say as on friendly terms with God, to be able to use it on behalf of men in the service of intercession. I think all that is pleasing to God. But Abraham does not go below ten; there were not even ten righteous persons in the city, and Abraham stops there.

I think he would have a sense of what was due to God. He had feelings for men—but he also had a sense of what was due to God, and I think God was very pleased with this man; he could be trusted with divine secrets. What a thing! Is this not attractive to us, dear brethren, that we have the opportunity here in this scene where things are adverse, where there is opposition to God, where things are all in disarray publicly, waiting for the Prince of Peace to come, to be in the secret of what God is doing and to carry on this intercessory service?

Now the Lord Jesus has not only befriended us, coming to meet us in our need, but He is looking for friends; I think that is what John 15 means. There was a time when it says of the Lord Jesus that He looked for comforters and found none. You think of the feelings of the heart of Christ when He was looking for persons who could minister comfort to Him, and found none. I think He found a great deal of sympathy in the circle of His own, the disciples, especially the apostles who went

with Him. He says, “But ye are they who have persevered with me in my temptations” (Luke 22: 28); but there came a point where He had to say, “I looked for comforters, but I found none”, Psalm 69: 20. There was also of course the time when He had to suffer the treachery of Judas, when He said that if it had been an enemy He could have borne it, but it was His own familiar friend (Psalm 55: 12, 13), one who had been so near to Him; who had turned against Him. Is there anybody here who has been near to Christ and has turned against Him in treachery? How He would feel that!

But there were those He trusted, and He is saying to them here, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you”. Oh how He loved them! He also says, “No one has greater love than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends”. There is this aspect of the work of Christ, that He has laid down His life for His friends. I think the Lord Jesus had in mind in this that in laying down His life He would secure those who are His friends. Think of Him at the present moment looking around, you might say, for persons He can call His friends, those that He can make His confidants. What a thing that is! Is that not attractive to us? From among those who have put their faith in the Lord Jesus. He is looking for persons in whom He can confide. It is open to us, dear brethren; I say that simply. “Ye are my friends”, He says, “if ye practise whatever I command you”. There is a way into it—“if ye, practise whatever I command you”. You might say that is the basis for becoming one of the friends of Christ. We begin to understand what is pleasing to Him in these things He has commanded. As practising the things He commands I think we come to some understanding of His mind, and we become His friends.

He says, “I call you no longer bondmen … but I have called you friends, for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you”. You know, He has wonderful things that He wants to disclose, and He is disclosing them to His friends. As you think of the circle of the disciples who were with the Lord when He was here, He was continually receiving communications from the Father, and communicating those things to them. How wonderful it must have been, and He is ready to do that now. He is doing it presently by the Spirit, but are we suitable? Can we be trusted with these wonderful disclosures, these secrets of divine affections? Now I believe He is ready to make them known; these things are being opened up to persons presently by the Spirit, and the Lord is looking for persons who practise His commandments, His friends, who can be trusted with them. It is a fine thing if we can be trusted with divine secrets as the friends of Christ.

We still live in a world where there is opposition to Him, where there is what is antichristian at work, the spirit of antichrist; not yet the antichrist personally. The principle of what is antichristian is operating in the world, and you know the answer to that is really in someone who is a friend of Christ. In the book of Samuel we have in Hushai, David’s friend, a typical example of a friend of Christ who could stand true and loyal to Him in the very presence of the working of what was antichristian. Absalom represented that as he usurped David’s position on the throne. There is what is against Christ in the working of what is antichristian.

The answer was in one who was designated as David’s friend, typical of a friend of Christ.

Ahithophel, who was with Absalom, was a very ... clever man and he could give good counsel, very clever counsel, and the question was, How was that to be defeated? How is the counsel of clever men

who are against Christ to be defeated, persons who bring in what is antichristian in wrong doctrines and practices; how is that going to be defeated? Is it going to be defeated by the wisdom of clever persons? No, it is going to be defeated by someone who is a friend of Christ.

So David wept as he went up to the summit; he was feeling the whole position, and then Hushai comes on the scene and wants to be with him. He was near to David and would be with David, sharing his rejection and the outside place. Are we prepared for that as loyal to Christ, to share with Him in His rejection? But David sent him into the city where there was the working of the spirit of antichrist. He sent him into the city into the very presence of Ahithophel and Absalom, and he could be trusted in that situation to give counsel that would be for the overthrow of the counsel of Ahithophel in all its cleverness. It is very interesting that it says, “Hushai came into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem”, 2 Samuel 15: 37.

Publicly it looked as if the thing was in the hand of Absalom, but secretly, you might say, everything that the city stood for was held in principle by Hushai, held by him in the very presence of what was working against David. In this very world where things are working against Christ, secretly we can hold in our souls all that is precious to the heart of Christ.

Hushai could give counsel that led to the preservation and reinstatement of David. We are looking forward, dear brethren, to the time when the Lord Jesus will be publicly vindicated, as lovers of His appearing; not just lovers of the rapture, but lovers of the appearing, looking forward to the time when He will be publicly vindicated, but in the meantime in loyalty seeking to hold things here for Him in the presence of what is antichristian.

Now in John’s epistle we have a circle of friendship. It is a very wonderful thing that in a world where there is so much strife and enmity, there is a circle of friendship. He says, “The friends greet thee. Greet the friends by name”; this is how he closes this letter. He is writing this letter to Gaius who would be a sample of a friend. So he addresses him as loving him in truth. Not just in a natural bond of affection, but loving him in truth. Think of these bonds in the truth. It is a very wonderful thing, the link that each one of us has with the Lord Jesus, and our devotedness to Him, becomes the strength of our bond with one another. Mr. Darby said ‘Absolute consecration to Jesus is the strongest bond between human hearts’ (‘Synopsis’

Vol.3, page 402). So John loved Gaius in truth. Our bond is the truth, and love is related to that—love in truth. Then Gaius was holding fast the truth. You have persons in loyalty to Christ holding fast the truth, and walking in the truth. It is the way the truth is to affect us, so that it governs us in all our movements. What a thing it is then if you have a company of persons like that who walk in the light, as John says, “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another”, 1 John 1: 7. We are therefore to walk in the light, in openness and frankness and transparency with one another.

Then John says, “The friends greet thee”. He is saying to Gaius that he has friends and they are greeting him. It is a circle of persons on friendly terms with one another. What a salutation this would be! Not just a formal handshake or something like that, but it is between persons whose hearts are right in relation to one another. Their hearts have been affected by Christ, been affected by the truth, and they are true with one another. So it says, “The friends greet thee”; then, “Greet

the friends by name”. It is to be mutual, you see; this is not one-sided. What personalities these are, the friends of Christ. What a circle this, is, made up of such personalities. The Lord Jesus said, “Lazarus, our friend, is fallen asleep”, John 11: 11. Well, we have heard of our beloved brother whom the Lord has taken and it reminds us of what He said, “Lazarus our friend”. In John 12 Lazarus was one of those at table with Him. Think of such persons as that; he was not the only one, but he was one of those, he had that distinction, and there are persons with such distinction as the friends of Christ that they can be at table with Him. This is the circle of friendship, dear brethren, that we are to enjoy, and where we can cultivate these links with one another.

So it is a matter of greeting the friends by name. We know one another, and love would circulate in this company. As the Lord says, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another”. May the Lord encourage us for His name’s sake.

Address at St. Albans
29 September 1990