“YE ARE MY FRIENDS”

G. Allan Brown

Exodus 33: 7–11 (to “friend”); 2 Samuel 16: 15–19; Proverbs 17: 17; 3: John 13, 14

I would like to say something about friendship. It is not a feature that is unknown in the world, indeed there is a great deal of it about—and that is all very good so far as it goes. The kind of friendship that I wish to speak about, however, is on a higher level, and I think it would be governed by what the Lord Jesus said, “Ye are my friends if ye practise whatever I command you”, John 15: 14. That is the basis of our friendship. It is not because we like one another, or because we get on well with one another; that is the basis of most worldly friendships, and they can very easily falter and break up, but subjection to the Lord’s commandment is what governs our links with one another.

I wish to speak first of all about friendship with God. I believe God looked for that in Adam when He came down into the garden in the cool of the day; He was looking for someone to confide in, but, alas, sin had broken in upon that. God found it in Enoch, no doubt. It says

“Enoch walked with God” (Genesis 5: 24); we do not know much about Enoch’s life, but it must have been very precious to God for—he walked with Him for three hundred years, so far indeed that God took him without his having to go through death; God took him because He found pleasure in the companionship of such a man. Noah walked with God as well, but Abraham is the first one, I think, who is actually referred to in Scripture as ‘Friend of God’.

James tells us that, and it is interesting that it does not say Abraham was called a friend of God, but “he was called

Friend of God”. There were not very many—perhaps Abraham was the only one—in whom God could confide, so it says specifically of him that “he was called Friend of God”, James 2: 23. Lot was a righteous man, perhaps that was why they gave him the place that he had in Sodom, but he was too friendly with the world to be a friend of God. God did not confide things to Lot, but He did to Abraham. He said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?”, Genesis 18: 17. How God values persons who are near enough to Him to confide His secrets to! I trust we may be amongst them, dear brethren, and increasingly so.

I read this passage about Moses because it is very similar to the time in which we find ourselves. There had been evil, idolatry in the camp, and Moses “took the tent, and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the Tent of meeting”. He took up this position. Now, dear brethren, we have used, or should I say we have misused, the word

‘position’ so much in the past that you are almost afraid to use it, but, nevertheless, I do believe that there is such a thing as a position, but it is moral. We have no proprietary rights to that position; some of our brethren, alas, seem to think that they do, even when moral principles are violated. The position, as I understand it, is “Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”, 2 Timothy 2: 19. That is what Moses did here; he left the circle in which evil was being allowed and perpetrated, and he pitched the tent outside the camp. It would appear to have been his own tent because the tabernacle had not yet been constructed; just his own tent, and how much that is like our own day when we have so many gatherings of just a brother and his wife, and one or two others perhaps, breaking bread in their own house. But, he “called it the Tent of meeting”.

I think, beloved, that households where something of assembly character is located are specially dignified. Paul speaks of, “the assembly at their house”, Romans 16: 5. Wonderful privilege!

Moses was faithful. Whatever the situation, he would be with God in it. It must have almost broken his heart to come down and find such dreadful conditions amongst the people. But Moses did not give up, he walked with God and he acted for God and took up a position in which God could be with him, and in which he could be joined by others, because it says

“every one who sought Jehovah: went out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp”. You have a built-in guarantee in 2 Timothy 2 that you need never walk alone. Even when in God’s ways we may be isolated, as John was on Patmos, the fellowship is still there.

It is no good brethren saying they have no one to walk with—“pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”, 2 Timothy 2: 22. When you have conditions like this you have an area into which God can come. The camp with all its pretension was of no interest to God. It says “the pillar of cloud descended, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and Jehovah talked with Moses … And Jehovah spoke with Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend”. Would you not covet to be, like that? It can be, if we are faithful. That is the great outstanding feature of Moses, he was faithful in all God’s house, and to such a man as that God is prepared to come down and speak “as a man speaks with his friend”. Let us dear brethren, cultivate more and more the presence of God. It will have its own effect. In the next chapter we read that Moses’ face shone; he did not know it himself, but you cannot spend time in the presence of God without some visible effect.

I pass on briefly to the passage in 2 Samuel where we have another situation of difficulty. There has been a rebellion, and David is in rejection. David generally can be viewed as a type of Christ; sometimes he does not quite rise to it, but it is interesting that in this section of scripture he is frequently referred to as “the king”, as if to suggest that, even when David personally might not be acting altogether as he should, God’s thought is maintained—“the king”. In this section we can view David as the rejected king; we have it in one of our hymns,

‘earth’s rejected King’. It is when situations like this arise that there is a real need for fidelity, and this man Hushai is referred to over and over again as the king’s friend.

Now here is a difficult situation because there is a need for what has been called by others a

‘secret service’, and that is what Hushai undertakes here. He goes right into the enemy’s stronghold, right to the very heart of where the enemy is working, and in doing so he is able to glean the necessary information. You have to have an intelligence service; when a war, is being fought you need to have information, and that can be scripturally supported; the apostle says, “We are not ignorant of his thoughts”, 2 Corinthians 2: 11. Hushai had to go right in there to where the danger was and act as a secret agent. Young people like the idea, boys especially, of a secret service. There is a job for you in the secret service, to be a friend of Christ. Of course, the Lord needs soldiers in the front line as well. It does not mean you have to be a secret disciple; the Lord needs soldiers who will fight in uniform too, good soldiers of Jesus Christ; He needs them in the testimony. He needs those who will stand and preach in the open air; that is a front-line service; but along with that there is the secret service, and anybody can be in it. The first thing I would suggest to you is that you cultivate the habit of prayer. Spend time with the Lord, praying to Him; you will learn to speak

to Him, not only to ask things, but to speak to Him about His interests, and you will find friendship will develop. I say this with all reverence, but it is quite scriptural; the Lord needs people in whom He can confide, and you can find a place in His presence; He will never turn you aside or turn you away, “him that comes to, me I will not at all cast out”, John 6; 37.

Make a habit of being in the presence of Christ, and you will find a place that is useful to the Lord and for the furtherance of His interests.

I do not go into the detail of all this, but Hushai is very skilful in the way that he speaks. He speaks to Absalom about “the king”, and it might appear to be the usurper that Hushai was speaking about, but it could equally have been David that he was speaking about. That is skill. He does not compromise and yet he is able to achieve his purpose, which is to further the interests of David. “We are not ignorant of the enemy’s devices, but the Lord speaks about being prudent as the serpents, able to use skill, and such a person is one whom the Lord can trust and call His friend.

This is a well-known passage in Proverbs, “The friend loveth at all times” (Proverbs 17: 17).

‘ The friend’, I suppose, refers primarily to the Lord Jesus. What a Friend He is! Beloved, when you were needing Him most He was there to meet your needs; when you had nothing; when they had nothing to pay, it says, He forgave them both—(see Luke 7: 42). What a Friend Jesus is! But then the same feature is to be amongst us in brotherly relations. I do not know if there is much difference between a friend and a brother; the two thoughts are somewhat parallel here. “The friend loveth at all times”—not just when things are going well, when things are pleasant, but at all times. When things are not going well, that is

when you know who your real friends are—“and a brother is born for adversity”. How thankful we are that we have others to walk with. What would it be like if we had to walk alone, with no one to lean on? You may say you have the Lord. Yes, that is true; that is always blessedly true; but “a brother is born for adversity”. When times are hard you have always a brother down here to lean on, a friend whom you know, who loves you. Such is the blessedness of the Christian circle.

John writes this very short letter, the shortest book in the Bible, I think. He was longing to see his friend Gaius whom he loved in truth. There it is again, “whom I love in truth”; that is how he begins the epistle. He was one who practised the things that the Lord commanded; he loved Gaius in truth, and he says, ‘Now, Gaius, I am just longing to see you’. It is almost as if he could not wait. Circumstances evidently prevented him from getting there earlier, but he says, I will just write you this note, because I want you to know how much I am looking forward to seeing you.

Is that not lovely? He says, “I had many things to write to thee, but I will not with ink and pen write to thee; but I hope soon to see thee, and we will speak mouth to mouth”. That is far better, is it not, than writing letters? Write if you have to, but it is far, far better to speak mouth to mouth. These felicitous relationships existed, and he says, “Peace be to thee. The friends greet thee. Greet the friends by name”. Now, does this work, dear brethren? Does it work amongst us? Sometimes you go into a meeting and feel a kind of tension. It ought not to be. If our relations with the Lord are right, and our relations with God are right, then our relations with one another will be right as well, and these happy conditions of friendship will exist. I do not say that the thought goes further than the

present time. There are great thoughts of God that reach into eternity, sonship, and so on, the assembly in Christ Jesus; these are great eternal thoughts; but this is for the present time when we need friendship most; when we need help and support most. God has seen to it that it is available, right by us. May we all enjoy .these relationships more and more, beloved brethren, and let nothing come in between us to destroy them, for His name’s sake.

Address at Tunbridge Wells
4 August 1990