A Friend Who Sticks Closer Than A Brother

   In Prov 17:17, the Bible observes that “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” Brothers in the flesh are usually expected to help each other when one is in adversity or faces hard times. But a friend, who does not have a family relationship with us, “loves at all times” and not only during times of adversity. The Bible teaches the value of friendship. It also teaches that “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov 18:24b).

King David had a tremendous friend in Jonathan, the son of King Saul (I Sam 18:1-5) who was truly a “friend who sticks closer than a brother” because Jonathan helped him to escape from the wrath of his own father, King Saul, who had sought to kill him because Saul saw David as threat to his throne. Unfortunately, not all friends stick closer than a brother. David had also experienced disappointments with a friend. He described his pain of disappointment in Psa 55:4-6: “4 My heart is severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 5 Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. 6 So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.”

He explained why he felt so badly in Psa 55:12-14: “12 For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; Then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. 13 But it was you, a man my equal, My companion and my acquaintance. 14 We took sweet counsel together, And walked to the house of God in the throng.” Psa 41:9: “Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.”

David felt so pained because it was not his enemy who had reproached or made allegations against him but one who was his “companion and acquaintance” with whom he had spent much time in conversations and with whom he had also worshipped in the house of God. This friend had now gone against him. What a betrayal of trust! Some of us may have experienced similar let downs by so-called friends.

Jesus Christ taught in John 15:13-15 about the ultimate demonstration of love and friendship between friends: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” Jesus is our friend and He gave up the glory of heaven to come down to earth and suffered on our behalf so that we can be enriched and gain entrance into heaven. You can be His friend today if you will do what He has commanded because He is “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.”(John 14:6) Jesus is “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” and He will not forsake us.

Eric