April 27, 2019 -- Proverbs 27:9 -- Define a true friend
/Oil and perfume make the heart glad,
and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.
Proverbs 27:9 ESV
You’ve experienced it, right? There is a knot in your stomach. You examine your own motives and thoughts. You feel your palms sweat. Your nerves get jangly. Why? Sometime earlier you realized you need to speak with a friend and tell him a few hard truths.
Recently I heard a preacher proclaim: “You don’t read the Word of God so much as it reads you”. Great quotation—take a minute, reread it and let it soak in! The Word of God shows us our faults. The Word of God gives guidance. The Word of God is still warm with the breath of the Spirit of God Who carried men along as they wrote it. And the Word of God held out by a true friend is the wisest counsel you can ever give to another person.
If the Spirit of God is impressing on your heart the actions or conduct of a friend that is not matching up with his profession of Jesus Christ, then the sweetest thing you can do is go and tell him of his wrong-doing. A mechanic who knows your car has serious engine trouble and does not tell you, because he wants to spare you the expense is sending you headlong into danger. Exponentially greater is the cause of Christ and the splendour of His Name. To allow a friend to drift away on the tides of wrongdoing and sin is worse than a mechanic letting you drive an unsafe vehicle.
The test of a true relationship, of a deeply loving and dearly held desire for this person’s good is that you speak to them so that they can see and acknowledge their sin or wayward conduct, and so lay aside every weight and every entanglement of sin which would impair their walk with God. Only a true friend of the highest calibre will risk a friendship in order to bring news that might first wound and then heal. Earlier in this chapter of Proverbs we are instructed: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love.” (That is Proverbs 27:5). How often can you be accused of hidden love that in fact is so well hidden as to be obscured and perhaps more thought-fantasy than reality grounded in God’s grace?
Scripture shows us, again and again, how flawed we are. Those considered the greatest saints—King David, the Apostle Paul, Abraham and Sarah—are men and women who are deeply sinful and urgently need the truth of God’s word to penetrate deep into their being so that they are transformed by the sacrifice of Christ to be obedient and faithful servants of the Most High. Do we think we are any less in need of such transformation? No! a thousand times no! Each of us needs our sins exposed and dear friends who are sweeter than perfume to make these known to us and then to lead us to Christ’s healing grace and the oil of gladness.
Spirit of God, thank You for the Truth of the Word. Spirit of God thank You that You press against our consciences and disquiet our souls so that we can the truest of friends and the most faithful of soldiers in the spiritual battle that rages against us. Thank You, King Jesus, for the great sacrifice of Yourself and the transformation You bring so that all traces of the old nature are being hunted down and extracted from us. Continue Your work, Lord Jesus. Be the Captain of our Salvation and inspire in us deeper and truer loyalty by Your Word and Spirit. Father in heaven, help us, by Your Spirit, to live in such true and deep community that we willing speak the hard truths to one another as well as sharing the best encouragements. Glory be to Your Name, God of Majesty and Holiness. Amen.
