Proverbs 17:17 The Unrivalled Friend

A sermon (No. 899) delivered on Lord's Day morning, November seventh, 1869, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon.

*"A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."* —Proverbs 17:17.

There is one thing about the usefulness of which all men are agreed, namely, friendship; but most men are soon aware that counterfeits of friendship are common as autumn leaves. Few men enjoy from others the highest and truest form of friendship. The friendships of this world are hollow, they are as unsubstantial as a dream, as soon dissipated as a bubble, as light as thistledown. Those airy compliments, those empty sentences of praise, how glibly they fall from the lip, but how little have they to do with the heart! He must be a fool indeed who believes that there is aught in the complimentary affection but mere flattery or matter of form. The loving cup means not love, and the loud cheering of the toast means not sincere fellowship. With very many friendship sits very loosely: they could almost write as Horace Walpole does in one of his letters. He says he takes every thing very easily, "and if," says he, "a friend should die, I drive down to the Saint James's coffee-house and bring home another," doubtless as cordial and enraptured with the new friend as with the old. Friends in this world are too often like the bees which swarm around the plants while they are covered with flowers and those flowers contain nectar for their honey; but let November send its biting frosts, the flowers are nipped, and their friends the bees forsake them. Swallow friendship lives out with us our summer but finds other loves in winter. It has always been so from of old, even until now; Ahithophel has deserted David and Judas has sold his Lord. The greatest of kings who have been fawned upon by their courtiers while in power, have been treated as if they were but dogs in the time of their extremity; we may, as the poet of the passions—

*"Sing Darius, great and good—Deserted in his utmost need, By those his former bounty fed; On the cold ground exposed he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes."*

Of all friendship which is not based on principle, we may say with the prophet, "Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting." But there is a higher friendship than this by far, and it subsists among Christian men, among men of principle, among men of virtue where profession is not all, but where there is real meaning in the words they use. Damon and Pythias still have their followers among us, Jonathan and David are not without their imitators. All hearts are not traitorous; fidelity still lingers among men: where godliness builds her house true friendship finds a rest. Solomon speaking not of the world's sham friends but of friends indeed, says, "A friend loveth at all times." Having once given his heart to his chosen companion he clings to him in all weathers, fair or foul; he loves him none the less because he becomes poor, or because his fame suffers an eclipse, but his friendship like a lamp shines the brighter, or is made more manifest because of the darkness that surrounds it. True friendship is not fed from the barn-floor or the wine-vat; it is not like the rainbow dependent upon the sunshine, it is fixed as a rock and firm as granite, and smiles superior to wind and tempest. If we have friendship at all, brethren and sisters, let this be the form it takes: let us be willing to be brought to the test of the wise man, and being tried, may we not be found wanting. "A friend loveth at all times."

But I am not about to talk of friendship at all as it exists between man and man; I prefer to uplift the text into a still higher sphere. There is a Friend, blessed for ever be his name, who loveth at all times; there is a Brother who in an emphatic sense was born for adversity. That friend is Jesus, the friend of sinners, the friend of man, the brother of our souls, born into this world that he might succor us in our adversities. I shall take the text then and refer it to the Lord Jesus Christ; and unless time should fail us I shall then refer it to ourselves as in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, showing that we also ought to love him even as he has loved us, always and under all adversities.

I. First then *in reference to the Lord Jesus Christ*. The first sentence is, "a friend *loveth at all times*," and this leads us to consider first, *the endurance of the love of Jesus Christ*.

My dear brethren, when we read "a friend loveth at all times" and refer that to Christ, the sentence, full as it is, falls short of what we mean, for our Lord Jesus is a friend who loved us before there was any time. Before time began the Lord Jesus Christ had entered into covenant that he would redeem a people unto himself, who should show forth his Father's praise. Before time began his prescient eye had foreseen the creatures whom he determined to redeem by blood. These he took to himself by election, these the Father also gave to him by divine donation, and upon these, as he saw them in the glass of futurity, he set his heart. Long before days began to be counted or moons to wax and wane, or suns to rise and set, Jehovah Jesus had set apart a people to himself whom he espoused unto himself, whose names he engraved upon his heart and upon his hands, that they might be taken into union with himself for ever and ever. Meditate on that love which preceded the first rays of the morning, and went forth to you before the mountains were brought forth or ever he had formed the earth and the world. My brethren, you believe the doctrine of eternal love, meditate thereon, and let it be very sweet unto your hearts:—

"Before thy hands had made The sun to rule the day, Or earth's foundation laid, Or fashioned Adam's clay, What thoughts of peace and mercy flowed In thy dear bosom, O my God!"

He loved you when time began, in the elder days before the flood, and in the far-off periods; for those promises which were spoken in love had reference to you as well as to all the believing seed. All the deeds of love which were wrought as a preface to his coming, all had some bearing towards you as one of his people. There never was a point in the antiquity of our world in which this friend did not love you, every era of time has been a time of love. Love, like a silver thread, runs down the ages. Chiefly did he lay bare his love eighteen hundred years ago, when down with joyful haste he sped to lie in the manger; and hang as a babe at the virgin's breast. He proved his love to you to a degree surpassing thought when as a carpenter's son he condescended for thirty years to live in obscurity, working out a perfect righteousness for you, and then spent three years of arduous toil to be ended by a death of bitterness unutterable. You had no being then, but he loved you and gave himself for you. For you the bloody sweat that fell amidst the olives of Gethsemane; for you the scourging and the crowning with thorns; for you the nails and spear, the vinegar and lance; for you the cry of agony; the exceeding sorrow "even unto death." He is a friend that loved you in that darkest and most doleful hour when your sins were laid upon him and with their crushing weight pressed him down, as it were, in spirit, to the lowest hell.

Beloved, having thus redeemed you, he loved you when time began with you. As soon as you were born the eye of his tenderness was fixed upon you. "When Ephraim was a child, then I loved him." It was lovingkindness which arranged your parents' native place and time of birth. You came not into this world, as it were, by chance, or as the young ostrich bereft of a parent's care—the Lord was your guardian; the Lord Jesus Christ looked upon you in your cradle and bade his angels keep ward around you. He would not let you die unconverted, though fierce diseases waited around you to hurry you to hell. And when you grew up to manhood and ripened the follies of youth into the crimes of mature years, yet still he loved you. O let your heart be humbled as you remember that if you ever fell into blasphemy, he loved you as you cursed him; that if you indulged in Sabbath-breaking, he loved you when you despised his day; that your neglected Bible could not wean his heart from you, that your neglected prayer closet could not make him cease his affection. Alas! To what an excess of riot did some of his people run! But he loved them notwithstanding all. He was a friend that loved under the most provoking circumstances.

"Loved when a wretch defiled with sin, At war with heaven, in league with hell, A slave to every lust obscene, Who, living, lived but to rebel."

When justice would have said, "Let the rebel go O Jesus; be not bound any longer by cords of love to such a wretch," our ever-faithful Redeemer would not cast us away but threw another band of grace around us and loved us still. Consider well "his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins."

I feel as if this were rather matter for you to think over in private, than for me thus hastily to introduce to you in public. May the Holy Spirit however now bedew your hearts with grateful drops of celestial love as I remind you of the love at all times of this best of friends. You recollect when you were constrained to seek him, when your heart began to be weary of its sin, and to be alarmed at the doom that would surely follow unpardoned transgression; it was his love that sowed the first seeds of desire and anxiety in your heart. You had never desired him if he had not first desired you. There was never a good thought towards Christ in any human breast, unless Christ first put it there. He drew you and then you began to run after him; but had he left you alone your running would have been from him, and never towards him. It was a bitter time when we were seeking the Savior, a time of anguish and sore travail. We recollect the tears and prayers that we poured out day and night, asking for mercy; but Jesus our friend was loving to us then, taking delight in those penitential tears, putting them into his bottle, telling the angels that we were praying, and making them string their harps afresh to sweet notes of praise over sinners that repented. He knew us, knew us in the gloom, in the thick darkness in which we sought after God, if haply we might find him. He was near the prodigal's side when in all his rags and filth he was saying, "I will arise, and go to my Father," and it was Jesus through whom we were introduced to the Father's bosom, and received the parental kiss, and were made to sit down where there are music and dancing, because the dead are alive, and the lost is found.

My brethren, since that happy day this friend has loved us at all times. I wish I could say that since that sacred hour when we first came to his feet and saw ourselves saved through him, we had always walked worthily of the privileges we have received; but it has been very much the reverse. There have been times in which we have honored him, his grace has abounded, and our holiness has been manifest; but alas! there have been other seasons in which we have backslidden, our hearts have grown cold, and we were on the road to become like Nabal when his heart was turned to a stone within him. We have been half persuaded like Orpah to go back to the land of idols, and not like Ruth to cleave unto the Lord our God. Our heart has played the harlot from the love of Christ, desiring the leeks and garlic and onions of Egypt rather than the treasures of the land of promise. But at such times when our piety has been at a low ebb, he has loved us still; there has not been the slightest diminution in the affection of Christ even when our piety has been diminished; he does not set his clock by our watch, or stint his love to the narrow measure of ours. I fear we have often gone further than merely getting poor in grace within; there have been times when God's people have even actually fallen into overt sin; ay, and have descended to sin grievously too, and to dishonor the name of Christ; but herein is mercy, even those actual and accursed sins of ours have not rent away the promise from us, nor turned away the heart of Christ for his beloved. Sinned though we have to our abounding sorrow, I was about to say, for if there could be sorrow in heaven we might eternally regret that we have sinned against such love and mercy, yet for all that our Lord and Savior would not cast us off, nor will he abjure us come what may.

Reflect, my dear friends, upon all the trying and changeful scenes through which you have passed since the time of your conversion. You have been rich perhaps and increased in goods: you were tempted to forget your Lord, but he was a friend who loved you at all times, and he would not suffer your prosperity to ruin you, but still made his love to dart with healing beams into your soul. But you have been also very poor. The cupboard has been bare and you have said, “Whence shall I find sufficient to supply my need?” But Christ has not gone away because your suit was threadbare, or your house ill furnished; nay, he has been nearer than ever, and if he revealed himself to you in your prosperity, much more in your adversity. You have found him a faithful friend when all others were unfaithful, true when every one else was a liar. You have been sorely sick sometimes, but he it was that made the pillow, and that softened the bed of your affliction. It may be you have been slandered and those who loved you have passed you by. Some ill word has been spoken in which there was no truth, but it has sufficed to turn away the esteem of many; but your Lord has gone with you through shame and abuse, and never for a single moment has he even hinted that he only loved you because you were had in respect by men. Ever faithful, ever true has been this friend who loveth at all times. Ah, there have been times, it may be with you, when you could fain have thrown your very self away, for you felt so empty, so good-for-nothing, so undeserving, ill deserving, hell deserving; you felt fitter to die than to live; you could hardly entertain a hope that any good thing could ever spring from you: but when you have least esteemed yourself, his esteem of you has been just the same; when you were ready to die in a ditch, he has been ready to lift you to a throne; when you felt yourself a castaway, you have still been pressed to his dear bosom, an object of his peculiar regard.

Soon, very soon, your time will come to die: you shall pass through the valley of death-shade, but you need not fear for the friend that loveth at all times will be with you then. That eminent servant of God, Jonathan Edwards, when he was at his last, said, “Where is Jesus of Nazareth, my old and faithful friend? I know he will be with me now that I need his help,” and so he was, for that faithful servant died triumphant. You shall enquire in that last day for Jesus of Nazareth and you shall hear him say, “Here I am;” you shall find the death-shade vale lit up with supernal splendor, it shall be no death to you, but a passing into life eternal, because he who is the resurrection and the life shall be your helper.

Thus I have hastily run through the life of Christ's love from the beginning that had no beginning, down to the end that knows no end, and in every case we see that he is a friend that loveth at all times.

Now brethren, I shall vary the strain though still keeping to the same subject. Let us consider *the reality of Christ's love* at all times. The text says, “A friend loveth at all times,” not professes to love, not talks of love, but really does so. Now in Christ's case the love has become intensely practical. His love has never been a thing of mere words or pretensions; his love has acted out itself in mighty deeds, and signs, and wonders, worthy of a God, such as heaven itself shall not sufficiently extol with all its golden harps.

See then brethren, Christ has practically loved us at all times. It is not long ago that you and I were slaves to sin, we wore the fetters, nor could we break them from our wrists. We were held fast by evil passions and worldly habits, and there seemed no hope of liberty for us. Jesus loved us at all times, but the love did not let us lie prisoners any longer. He came and paid the ransom price for us. In drops of blood from his own heart he counted down the price of our redemption, and by his eternal Spirit he broke every fetter from us, and today his believing people rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ makes them free. See how practical his love was! He did not leave the slave in his chains and let him remain a captive, but he loved us right out of our prison house into a sacred freedom. Our Lord found us not long ago standing upon our trial. There we were prisoners at the bar, we had nothing to plead in our defense. The accuser stood up to plead against us, and as he laid many charges and heavy, we were not able to answer so much as one of them. Our great High Priest stood there and saw us thus arraigned as prisoners at the bar; he loved us, but oh! how efficient was his love—he became an advocate for us; he did more, he stood in our place and stead, stood where the felon ought to stand. He suffered what was due to us and then covering us with his perfect righteousness, he said before the blaze of the ineffable throne of justice, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that hath risen again.” He did not love the prisoner at the bar and leave him there to be condemned; he loved him until this day we stand acquitted, and there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Believer, lift up your heart now, and bless his name who hath done all this for you.

Our Lord when he came in mercy to us, found us in the rags of our self-righteousness, and in the abject poverty of our natural condition. We were houseless, fatherless; we were without spiritual bread, we were sick and sore, we were as low and degraded as sin could make us. He loved us but he did not leave us where love found us. Ah! do you not remember how he washed us in the fountain which flowed from his veins; how he wrapped us about with the fair white linen, which is the righteousness of his saints; how he gave us bread to eat that the world knows not of; how he supplied all our wants and gave us a promise that whatsoever we should ask in prayer, if we did but believe his name, we should receive it? We were aliens, but his love has made us citizens; we were far off, but his love has brought us nigh; we were perishing, but his love hath enriched us; we were serfs, but his love has made us sons; we were condemned criminals, but his love has made us “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.”

I shall not enlarge here, but I shall appeal to the experience of every believer. In your needs, has not Christ always helped you? You have been in doubt which way to take and you have gone to him for guidance: did you ever go wrong when you left it to him? Your heart has been very heavy and you had no friend that you could communicate with, but you have talked with him, and have not you always found solace in pouring out your hearts before him? When did he ever fail you? When did you find his arm shortened, or his ear heavy? Up to this moment has it been mere talk with Christ? No, you know it has been most true and real love—and now in the recollection of it, I beseech you give him true and real praise, not that of the head only, or of the lip, but of your whole spirit, soul, and body, as you consecrate yourself afresh to him. See then the endurance of Christ's love, and see then also the reality of it.

By your patience, I shall notice in the next place *the nature of the love of Christ*, accounting for its endurance and reality. The love of our good friend to us sprang from the purest possible motives, he has nothing to gain by loving us. Some friendship may be supposed to be tinged with a desire of self-advantage, to that extent it is degraded and valueless. But Jesus Christ had nothing to gain, but everything to lose. “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.” The love he bears to his people was not a love which sprang from anything in them. I have no doubt it had a reason, for Christ never acts unreasonably, but that reason did not lie in us. Love between us and our fellows sometimes springs from personal beauty, sometimes for traits of character which we admire, and at other times from obligations which we have incurred, but with Christ none of these things could avail. There was no personal beauty in any one of his elect. There were no traits of character in them that could enchant him, very much on the other hand that might have disgusted him. He certainly was under no obligations to us, for we had not a being then when his heart was set upon us. The love of man to man is sustained by something drawn from the object of love, but the love of Christ to us has its deep springs within himself. As his own courts maintain the grandeur of his throne without drawing a revenue from the creatures, so his own love maintains itself without drawing any motives and reasons from us, and hence my brethren, you see why this love is the same at all times. If it had to subsist upon us and what we do and what we merit, ah! it would always be at the lowest conceivable ebb, but since it leaps up from the great deep of the divine heart, it never changes, it never shall.

Be it also remembered that Christ's love was a wise love, not blind as ours often is. He loved us knowing exactly what we were whom he loved. There is nothing in the constitution of man that Jesus Christ had not perceived; there is nothing in your individuality but what Christ had foreknown. Remember Christ loved his people before they began to sin, but not in the dark. He knew exactly everything they would think or do or be; and if he resolved to love them at all you may rest assured he never will change in that love, since nothing fresh can ever occur to his divine mind. Had he begun to love us and we had deceived and disappointed him, he might have turned us out of doors, but he knew right well that we should revolt, that we should backslide and should provoke him to jealousy; he loved us knowing all this, and therefore it is that his love abides and endures and shall even remain faithful to the end.

Brethren, the love of Christ is associated continually with an infinite degree of patience and pity. Our Lord knows that we are but dust, and like as a father pities his children so he pities us. We are but short-tempered, but our Lord is longsuffering. When he sees us sin he saith within himself, “*Alas!* poor souls, what folly in them thus to injure themselves.” He takes not our cold words in umbrage so as to put himself in wrathful fume therewith; but he saith, ‐Poor child, how he hurts himself by this, and how much he loses thereby.” He even hath a kind look for us when we sin, for he knows it is blotted out through his own blood, and he sees rather the mischief which it is quite sure to bring to the poor soul than the evil of the sin itself. Jesus hath infinite condescension and patience, and we cannot so provoke him as to turn him from his purpose of grace. He is at all times ready to pardon and never slow to be moved to forgiveness. Oh, the provocations of men! But the patience of Christ reacheth over the mountains of our provocation and drowns them all.

I think one reason why Christ is so constant in his love and so patient with us is that he sees us as what we are to be. He does not look at us merely as what we are to-day in Adam's fall—ruined and lost, nor as we are to-day but partly delivered from indwelling sin. But he remembers that we are to lie in his bosom for ever, that we are to be exactly like himself and to be partakers of his glory. And as he sees us in the glass of futurity, as by-and-by to be his companions in the world of the perfect, he passes by transgression, iniquity and sin, and like a true friend he loveth us at all times.

I shall not weary those who know this love. They need no gaudy sentences or eloquent periods to set it forth. Its sweetness lies in itself. You may drink such wine as this out of any cup. He that knows the flavor of this divine dainty, asks not that it be carved this way or that, he rejoices but to have it, for the meditation upon it must be sweet. “*A friend loveth at all times.*”

The next sentence of the text is, “*and a brother is born for adversity*.” That is to say, a true brother comes out and shows his brotherhood in the time of the trouble of the family. Now let every believer in Jesus here catch the meaning of this with regard to Christ. Jesus Christ was born for you. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given;” but if at any one time more than another Christ is peculiarly yours by birth, it is in the time of adversity. A brother born for adversity.

Observe that Christ was born in the first place for our adversity, to deliver us from the great adversity of the fall. When our parents' sin had blasted Eden and destroyed our hopes, when the summer of our joy had turned into the winter of our discontent, then Christ was born in Bethlehem's manger that the race might be lifted up to hope, and his elect be elevated to salvation. He restored that which he took not away, he rebuilt that which he cast not down. He had never come to be a Savior if we had not been lost; because our adversity was so great, therefore so great a Savior was required, and so great a Savior came.

Our Lord is born for adversity because he has the peculiar art of sympathizing with all in adversity. No other but he can claim that he has ranged high and low through all the territories of grief, but this, Jesus Christ can justly claim. Every pang that ever rends a human heart has first tried its keen edge on him. It is not possible even in the extremities of anguish to which some are exposed, that any man can go beyond Christ in the endurance of pain. Christ is crowned king of misery, he is the emperor of the domains of woe. He is able therefore to succor all such as are tempted and tried, seeing he is compassed about himself also with a feeling of our infirmities. Look to him suffering on the tree, look to him throughout all his life of shame and pain and you will see that he was born into adversity, and through being born into it, was born to sympathize with our trials, having learned, as the Captain of our salvation, to be made perfect in sympathy with those many sons whom he brings to glory.

Brethren, the text means more than this however. Jesus Christ is a brother born for adversity because he always gives his choicest presence to his saints when they are in tribulation. I know many men will think that the presence of Christ with the sick and with the depressed is mere fancy. Ah, blessed fancy! Such a fancy as makes them laugh at pain and rejoice in deep distress, and take joyfully the spoiling of their goods. A blessed fancy truly! Let me declare my heart's witness, and assert that if there be anything real anywhere to the spiritual mind, the presence of Christ is intensely so. Though we do not see his form bending over us, nor mark the lovely light of those eyes that once were red with weeping, though we touch not that hand which felt the nails, and hear no soft footfalls of the feet that were fastened to the cross, yet are we inwardly as certainly conscious of the shadow of Christ falling upon us as ever were his disciples when he stood in the tempest-tossed vessel, and said to winds and waves, “*Peace, be still.*” Believe me, it is not imagination, nor is it barely faith. It is faith that brings him, but there is a kind of spiritual sense that discovers his presence and that rejoices in the bliss flowing therefrom. We speak what we do know and testify what we have seen when we say that he is a brother born for adversity in very deed, most tenderly revealing himself to his people, as he doth not unto the world.

He is born for adversity I think in this sense, that you can hardly know him except through adversity. You may know Christ so as to be saved by him by a single act of faith, but for a full discovery of his beauty it needs that you go through the furnace. Those children of God whose grassy paths are always newly mown and freshly smoothed, learn comparatively but little fellowship with Christ and have but slender knowledge of him, but they that do business on great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep, and these know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” many can say, not only because of the restoring effect of sorrow, but because their afflictions have acted like windows, to let them gaze into the very heart of Christ, and read his pity and understand his nature, as they never could have done by other means. Furnace light is memorably clear. Jesus is a brother born for adversity because in the glimmer of the world's eventide, when all the lamps are going out, a glory shines around him, transforming midnight into day.

He is a brother born for adversity, in the last place, because in adversity it is that through his people's patience he is glorified. I warrant you the sweetest songs that ever come up from these lowlands to the eternal throne are from sick beds. “They shall sing his high praises in the fires.” God's children are too often dumb when they have much of this world's earth in their mouths, but when the Lord is pleased to take away their comforts and possessions, then, like birds in cages they begin to sing with all their hearts. Praise him, you suffering ones, your praise will be grateful to him. Extol him you mourners, exchange by faith your sorrows for hopes, and bless his name who deserveth to be praised.

II. Now I shall leave this and only for a moment turn the text round to a practical purpose by *referring it to the Christian*. I hope that what has been spoken has been only the echo of the experience of the most of you. You have found Jesus Christ to be a true brother and a blessed friend, now let the same be true of you. He that would have friends must show himself friendly. If Christ be such a friend to us, what manner of people ought we to be towards him? So, beloved, let us pray and labor to be friends that love Christ at all times. Alas! some professors seem to love him at no time at all. They give him lip homage, but they refuse to give him the exercise of their talents, or the contribution of their substance. They love him only with words that are but air, but they offer him no sweet cane with money, neither do they fill him with the fat of their sacrifices. Such people are windbag lovers, and do nothing substantial to prove their affection. Let it not be so with us. Let our love to Christ be so true as to constrain us to make sacrifices for him. Let us deny ourselves that we may spread abroad the knowledge of his truth, and never be content unless in very deed and act we are giving proofs of our love.

We ought to love him at all times. Alas! there are some that prosper in business who grow too great to love their Savior. They hold their heads too high to associate with his saints. Formerly they were with his people, content to worship with them when they were in humble circumstances, but they have prospered in trade, they have laid by a good store of wealth, and now they feel half ashamed to attend the conventicle that was once the very joy of their hearts. They must seek out the world's religion, and they must worship after the world's fashion, for they must not be left behind in society. The people of God are not good enough for them; though they be kings and princes in Christ's esteem, yet are they too poor company for those that have risen so high in the world. Alas, alas! that professed lovers of Jesus should rise too high to walk truthfully and faithfully with Christ: it is no rise at all, but a lamentable fall. Let us cling to him in days of joy as well as nights of grief, and prove to all mankind that there are no enchantments in this world that can win our hearts away from our best beloved.

We should love Jesus Christ at all times, that is to say, in times when the church seems dull and dead. Perhaps some of you are living in a district just now where the ministry is painfully devoid of power. The lamp burns very low in your sanctuary, the members worshipping are few and zeal is altogether dead. Do not desert the church, do not flee away from her in the time of her necessity. Keep to your post, come what may. Be the last man to leave the sinking vessel, if sink she must. Resolve as a friend of Christ to love him at all times, and as a brother born into that church, feel that now, beyond all other times, in the season of adversity, you must adhere to her. It may happen that some here present may tomorrow be found in a workshop or in some other place where their business brings them, where some dear child of God will be laughed at and ridiculed. That same man you would have cheerfully owned on the Sabbath as your brother, you delighted to unite your voice with him in prayer, but now while he stands in the midst of a ribald throng will you own him, or rather, own Christ in him? They are making cruel jokes, they are vexing his gracious spirit; now it is possible that a cowardly fear may make you slink away to the other end of the shop, but oh, if you remember that a friend loves at all times you will take up this man's quarrel as being Christ's quarrel, and you, as being a part of the body of Christ, will be willing to share whatever contumely may come upon your fellow Christian, and you will say "If you mock at him you may mock also at me, for I also have been with Jesus of Nazareth, and him whom you scoff at I adore." O let us never, by the love that Christ has borne to us, keep back a truth because it may expose us to shame. Let us never be such cowards as to palter with the word of God because we may then live in silken ease and delicacy. These are not times in which one single particle of truth ought to be repressed. Whatever the Spirit of God and the word of God may have taught you my brethren, out with it for Christ's sake, and let it bring what it will to you, bear that with joy. Since your Savior bore far more for you, count it joy to bear anything for him. Be a brother born on purpose for adversity. Do you expect to be carried to heaven on beds of ease? Do you reckon to win the everlasting laurels without a conflict? What, sirs, would you stand beneath the waving banners of victory without having first endured the smoke and the dust of battle? Nay, rather with consecrated courage follow in the steps of your Master. Love him at all times, give up all for him, and then shall you soon be with him in his glory world without end. God grant a blessing for Jesus' sake. Amen.

*Portion of Scripture read before sermon*— Proverbs seventeen.

A sermon (No. 899) delivered on Lord's Day morning, November seventh, 1869, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon.

"A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." — Proverbs 17:17.

There is one thing that everyone agrees is valuable: friendship. Yet most people quickly discover that counterfeit friendships are as common as fallen autumn leaves. Few people enjoy the highest and truest form of friendship from others. The friendships of this world are hollow — as insubstantial as a dream, as quickly dissolved as a bubble, as light as thistledown. Those airy compliments and empty words of praise — how easily they fall from the lips, and how little they have to do with the heart! Only a fool believes that flattering affection is anything more than empty pleasantry or social habit. The loving cup does not mean love, and the loud cheers at a toast do not mean sincere fellowship. For many people, friendship sits very loosely — they could almost write as Horace Walpole does in one of his letters. He says he takes everything very easily, "and if," he writes, "a friend should die, I drive down to the Saint James's coffee-house and bring home another," — doubtless just as charmed with the new friend as with the old. Friends in this world are too often like bees that swarm around flowers while they are full of nectar — but when November frosts nip the blossoms, the bees abandon them. Fair-weather friendship thrives with us in summer but finds other loves in winter. It has always been this way: Ahithophel deserted David, and Judas sold his Lord. The greatest kings, fawned upon by their courtiers while in power, have been treated like dogs in their hour of greatest need — we may say, as the poet wrote of the passions:

"Sing Darius, great and good — Deserted in his utmost need, By those his former bounty fed; On the cold ground exposed he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes."

Of all friendship that is not grounded in principle, we may say with the prophet, "You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting." But there is a higher friendship than this — one that exists among Christian people, among people of principle and genuine virtue, where profession is not everything, and where real meaning stands behind the words they speak. Damon and Pythias still have their followers among us; Jonathan and David are not without their imitators. Not all hearts are treacherous; faithfulness still exists among people, and where godliness builds her house, true friendship finds a home. Solomon is speaking not of the world's hollow friendships but of true friends when he says, "A friend loveth at all times." Once a true friend has given his heart to his chosen companion, he holds on through every season — fair or foul. He loves no less when his friend becomes poor or when his reputation is overshadowed — his friendship, like a lamp, shines all the brighter because of the surrounding darkness. True friendship is not fed from the barn floor or the wine vat. It does not depend on sunshine like a rainbow. It stands as firm as rock and granite, and holds steady against wind and storm. If we have friendship at all, brothers and sisters, let it take this form — let us be willing to be put to the test described by the wise man, and when tried, may we not be found wanting. "A friend loveth at all times."

But I am not going to speak of friendship between people at all. I prefer to lift this text into a still higher realm. There is a Friend — blessed forever be His name — who loves at all times. There is a Brother who, in the deepest sense, was born for adversity. That friend is Jesus: the friend of sinners, the friend of humanity, the brother of our souls, born into this world to help us in our times of trouble. I will take this text and apply it to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, if time allows, I will apply it to ourselves in relation to Jesus, showing that we too ought to love Him — as He has loved us — always and through every adversity.

First, let us consider the Lord Jesus Christ. The first part of the verse is, "a friend loveth at all times," and this leads us to reflect on the endurance of the love of Jesus Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, when we read "a friend loveth at all times" and apply it to Christ, even that rich phrase falls short of what we mean — because our Lord Jesus is a friend who loved us before time itself existed. Before time began, the Lord Jesus Christ had entered into a covenant to redeem a people for Himself, who would display His Father's praise. Before time began, His foreknowing eye had already seen the ones He determined to redeem by His blood. He took these people to Himself through election, and the Father also gave them to Him by divine gift. Seeing them in the mirror of the future, He set His heart on them. Long before days were counted, moons waxed and waned, or suns rose and set, the Lord Jesus had set apart a people for Himself — people He claimed as His own, whose names He engraved on His heart and on His hands, that they might be united with Him forever. Meditate on that love which came before the first rays of morning — love that went out to you before the mountains were formed or the earth and the world were made. Brothers and sisters, you believe the doctrine of eternal love — meditate on it, and let it be very sweet to your hearts:

"Before Your hands had made The sun to rule the day, Or earth's foundation laid, Or fashioned Adam's clay, What thoughts of peace and mercy flowed In Your dear bosom, O my God!"

He loved you when time began — in the ancient days before the flood, and in the distant ages of history — because the promises spoken in love applied to you, along with all the believing generations. Every act of love that served as a preface to His coming had some bearing on you as one of His people. There was never a single moment in the history of our world when this friend did not love you. Every era of time has been a time of love. Love runs like a silver thread through all the ages. Above all, He made His love unmistakably clear about eighteen hundred years ago, when He joyfully descended to lie in a manger and hang as an infant at His mother's breast. He proved His love for you in a way that surpasses all thought — spending thirty years as a carpenter's son, living in obscurity, working out a perfect righteousness on your behalf. Then He gave three years of exhausting labor, ending in a death of unutterable bitterness. You had no existence yet, but He loved you and gave Himself for you. For you, the bloody sweat that fell among the olive trees of Gethsemane; for you, the flogging and the crown of thorns; for you, the nails and the spear, the vinegar and the lance; for you, the cry of agony and the overwhelming sorrow "even unto death." He is a friend who loved you in that darkest and most dreadful hour, when your sins were laid on Him and their crushing weight pressed Him down, as it were in spirit, to the lowest depths.

Beloved, having redeemed you, He loved you from the very moment your own time on earth began. As soon as you were born, His eyes of tenderness were fixed on you. "When Ephraim was a child, then I loved him." It was His loving care that arranged where and when you were born. You did not enter this world by chance, like a young ostrich abandoned without a parent's care — the Lord was your guardian. The Lord Jesus Christ watched over you in your cradle and commanded His angels to keep watch around you. He would not let you die without coming to faith, even as fierce diseases waited nearby to rush you into eternity. And when you grew into adulthood and deepened the follies of youth into the more serious sins of maturity, He still loved you. Let your heart be humbled as you remember that even if you ever fell into blasphemy, He loved you while you cursed Him. If you broke the Sabbath, He loved you while you despised His day. Your neglected Bible could not turn His heart from you. Your neglected prayer life could not make Him stop loving you. To what depths of recklessness did some of His people sink! But He loved them through all of it. He was a friend who loved through the most provoking circumstances.

"Loved when a wretch defiled with sin, At war with heaven, in league with hell, A slave to every lust obscene, Who, living, lived but to rebel."

When justice might have said, "Let the rebel go, Jesus — you are no longer bound by cords of love to such a wretch," our ever-faithful Redeemer would not cast us away. Instead He threw another bond of grace around us and loved us still. Consider carefully "His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins."

I feel that this is better suited for private reflection than for me to rush through in public. But may the Holy Spirit now shower your hearts with grateful drops of heavenly love as I remind you of the all-times love of this best of friends. You remember when you were moved to seek Him — when your heart began to grow weary of sin and alarmed at the judgment that would surely follow unpardoned wrong. It was His love that planted the first seeds of longing and conviction in your heart. You would never have desired Him if He had not first desired you. No good thought toward Christ ever arose in any human heart unless Christ first put it there. He drew you, and only then did you begin to run after Him — because left to yourself, you would have run away from Him, never toward Him. It was a painful time when we were seeking the Savior — a time of anguish and deep struggle. We remember the tears and prayers we poured out day and night, pleading for mercy. But Jesus our friend was loving us all along, taking delight in those repentant tears, treasuring them, telling the angels we were praying, and prompting them to tune their harps to fresh notes of praise over sinners who were turning back. He knew us — knew us in the gloom and thick darkness in which we were searching for God, hoping we might find Him. He stood beside the prodigal when, ragged and dirty, he said, "I will arise and go to my father." And it was through Jesus that we were brought to the Father's embrace — receiving the welcoming kiss and being welcomed to the feast of celebration, because the dead have come back to life and the lost have been found.

Brothers and sisters, since that happy day this friend has loved us at all times. I wish I could say that from the sacred moment we first came to His feet and saw ourselves saved through Him, we had always lived in a way worthy of what we received. But the truth is largely the opposite. There have been seasons when we honored Him, His grace was evident, and our godliness was visible. But there have also been other times when we drifted back — our hearts grew cold, and we were on the road to becoming like Nabal, whose heart turned to stone within him. We have been half-persuaded, like Orpah, to go back to the land of idols rather than, like Ruth, to cling to the Lord our God. Our hearts have wandered from the love of Christ, longing for the leeks and garlic of Egypt rather than the treasures of the promised land. But even in those times when our faithfulness was at its lowest, He still loved us. There was not the slightest reduction in Christ's affection even when our devotion had diminished — He does not set His clock by our watch or limit His love to match the narrow measure of ours. I fear we have sometimes gone beyond mere spiritual dryness — there have been times when God's people have actually fallen into open sin, grievous sin, dishonoring the name of Christ. Yet even these real and terrible sins have not torn away the promise from us or turned Christ's heart from His beloved. We have sinned, to our deep and lasting sorrow — and if sorrow could exist in heaven, we might grieve forever that we ever sinned against such love and mercy. Yet for all that, our Lord and Savior would not cast us off, and He never will, come what may.

Think back, dear friends, over all the changing and difficult seasons you have passed through since your conversion. Perhaps you were once wealthy and comfortable — and were tempted to forget your Lord. But He was a friend who loved you at all times, and He would not allow your prosperity to ruin you. He kept sending His love into your soul like healing beams of light. Then perhaps you became very poor. The cupboard was bare and you asked, "Where will I find enough to meet my needs?" But Christ did not leave you because your clothes were threadbare or your home poorly furnished. In fact, He drew nearer than ever, revealing Himself to you in adversity even more than He had in prosperity. You found Him a faithful friend when all others were unfaithful — true when everyone else proved a liar. You have been seriously ill at times, but it was He who eased your suffering and softened the bed of your affliction. Perhaps you were slandered and those who loved you passed you by. Some false word was spoken about you, enough to turn away the respect of many. But your Lord walked with you through shame and abuse, never for a single moment hinting that His love for you depended on other people's good opinion. Ever faithful, ever true — this is the friend who loves at all times. There have been times, perhaps, when you could almost have thrown yourself away — you felt so empty, so worthless, so utterly underserving, even deserving of hell. You felt more fit to die than to live, and could hardly hold onto any hope that anything good could come from you. But when you thought least of yourself, His regard for you was exactly the same. When you felt ready to die in a ditch, He was ready to lift you to a throne. When you felt like a castaway, you were still pressed to His dear heart — the object of His special care.

Soon — very soon — your time will come to die. You will pass through the valley of the shadow of death, but you need not fear, for the friend who loves at all times will be with you then. That great servant of God, Jonathan Edwards, at the end of his life said, "Where is Jesus of Nazareth, my old and faithful friend? I know He will be with me now that I need His help." And so He was — that faithful servant died in triumph. You too will look for Jesus of Nazareth in your final hour and will hear Him say, "Here I am." You will find the valley of death's shadow lit up with a light from above. It will not be death for you, but a passing into eternal life — because He who is the resurrection and the life will be your helper.

I have briefly traced the story of Christ's love from its beginning that had no beginning down to its end that has no end, and in every chapter we see that He is a friend who loves at all times.

Now I will shift direction — though still on the same subject. Let us consider the reality of Christ's love at all times. The text says, "A friend loveth at all times" — not professes to love, not talks of love, but truly loves. In Christ's case, this love has been intensely practical. His love has never been a matter of mere words or claims — it has expressed itself in mighty deeds, signs, and wonders worthy of God, such as heaven itself, with all its golden harps, will never adequately celebrate.

Consider how practically Christ has loved us at all times. Not long ago, you and I were slaves to sin — we wore its chains and could not break them from our wrists. Evil passions and worldly habits held us fast, and there seemed no hope of freedom. Jesus loved us at all times, but that love would not leave us imprisoned any longer. He came and paid the ransom price for us. In drops of blood from His own heart, He paid the full cost of our redemption, and by His eternal Spirit He broke every chain from us. Today His believing people rejoice in the freedom that Christ gives them. What a practical love it was! He did not leave the slave in his chains and call it love — He loved us all the way out of our prison house and into a sacred freedom. Our Lord also found us not long ago standing on trial. We were the accused, with nothing to say in our own defense. The accuser stood up and laid many serious charges against us, and we could not answer a single one. Our great High Priest stood there and saw us arraigned at the bar. He loved us, and oh — how effective His love was! He became our advocate. And more than that — He took our place, standing where the guilty party should have stood. He suffered what we deserved, and then, covering us with His perfect righteousness, He declared before the blazing throne of perfect justice, "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is Christ who died — yes, and more, who was raised to life." He did not love the prisoner at the bar and leave him there to be condemned. He loved him until this very day we stand acquitted, and therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Believer, lift up your heart and bless His name for all He has done for you.

When our Lord came to us in mercy, He found us wrapped in the rags of our self-righteousness and sunk in the poverty of our natural condition. We had no spiritual home, no Father, no spiritual bread. We were sick and broken, as low and degraded as sin could make us. He loved us — and He did not leave us where love found us. Do you not remember how He washed us in the fountain that flowed from His own veins? How He wrapped us in the clean white linen that is the righteousness of His people? How He gave us bread to eat that the world knows nothing of? How He met our every need and gave us the promise that whatever we asked in prayer, believing in His name, we would receive? We were outsiders, but His love made us citizens. We were far away, but His love brought us near. We were dying, but His love has made us rich. We were slaves, but His love has made us sons. We were condemned criminals, but His love has made us "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ."

I will not elaborate further here, but I will appeal to the experience of every believer. In your moments of need, has Christ not always helped you? When you were uncertain which path to take and went to Him for guidance — did you ever go wrong when you trusted Him with it? When your heart was heavy and you had no one to confide in, you talked with Him — and did you not always find comfort when you poured out your heart before Him? When did He ever fail you? When did you find His arm too short or His ear too heavy to hear? Has Christ's love been mere talk up to this moment? No — you know it has been the most real and genuine love. Now, in remembrance of it, I urge you: give Him real and genuine praise — not just in your mind or on your lips, but with your whole spirit, soul, and body, as you consecrate yourself afresh to Him. See the endurance of Christ's love, and see also its reality.

With your patience, I want to note next the nature of Christ's love, which explains both its endurance and its reality. The love of this great friend for us sprang from the purest possible motives — He has nothing to gain by loving us. Some friendships may be tinged with a desire for personal advantage, which degrades and cheapens them. But Jesus Christ had nothing to gain — only everything to lose. "Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor." The love He bears His people did not arise from anything in them. I have no doubt that love has a reason — Christ never acts without reason — but that reason did not lie in us. Love between people sometimes springs from physical beauty, sometimes from traits of character we admire, and sometimes from obligations we feel we owe. But with Christ, none of these applied. There was no natural beauty in any of His chosen people. There were no qualities in them that could charm Him — quite the opposite, in fact, since much about them could have repelled Him. He certainly owed nothing to us, since we did not yet exist when He set His heart on us. Human love is sustained by something it draws from the person loved, but Christ's love for us has its deep spring within Himself alone. Just as His royal courts maintain their splendor without drawing revenue from the creatures, so His love sustains itself without drawing any motives or reasons from us. This is why, brothers and sisters, His love is always the same. If it depended on us — on what we do and what we deserve — it would always be at the lowest imaginable level. But since it wells up from the great depths of the divine heart, it never changes, and it never will.

Remember also that Christ's love is a wise love — not blind as ours so often is. He loved us knowing exactly what we were. There is nothing in human nature that Jesus Christ had not already perceived, and there is nothing in your individual life that He had not foreknown. Remember that Christ loved His people before they began to sin — but not in the dark. He knew precisely everything they would think, do, and become. If He chose to love them at all, you can be certain He will never change in that love, since nothing new can ever surprise His divine mind. If He had begun to love us and then been deceived and disappointed, He might have turned us away. But He knew full well that we would rebel, that we would drift back into sin, and that we would provoke Him to jealousy. He loved us knowing all of this, and that is exactly why His love stands firm and will remain faithful to the end.

Brothers and sisters, the love of Christ is continually accompanied by an infinite degree of patience and compassion. Our Lord knows that we are but dust, and just as a father has compassion on his children, so He has compassion on us. We have short tempers, but our Lord is patient. When He sees us sin, He says within Himself, "Poor souls — what foolishness to injure themselves this way." He does not take our cold words as an offense and work Himself into a wrathful state. Instead He says, "Poor child — how much he hurts himself by this, and how much he loses." He even looks on us with kindness when we sin, knowing that it is already covered by His blood. He sees the harm our sin will bring to the struggling soul more than He sees the offense of the sin itself. Jesus has infinite patience and condescension, and we cannot provoke Him enough to turn Him from His purpose of grace. He is always ready to pardon and never slow to be moved to forgiveness. What provocation people bring upon themselves! But the patience of Christ rises above every mountain of our wrongdoing and covers it all.

I think one reason Christ is so constant in His love and so patient with us is that He sees us as what we are yet to become. He does not look at us only as we are today — ruined by Adam's fall, or only partly freed from the power of indwelling sin. He remembers that we are to rest in His presence forever, that we are to become exactly like Him and share in His glory. And as He sees us in the mirror of the future — as those who will soon be His companions in the perfected world — He passes over our transgressions, wrongdoing, and sins, and like a true friend, He loves us at all times.

I will not tire those who already know this love with further elaboration. They need no ornate sentences or eloquent language to set it forth. Its sweetness lies within itself. You can drink such wine as this from any cup. Those who know the taste of this divine gift do not ask for it to be presented in any particular way — they are simply glad to have it, for meditating on it is itself a joy. "A friend loveth at all times."

The next part of the text is, "and a brother is born for adversity." That is to say, a true brother steps up and demonstrates his brotherhood in the time of the family's trouble. Now let every believer here grasp what this means regarding Christ. Jesus Christ was born for you. "To us a child is born, to us a Son is given" — but if there is any one time more than another when Christ is yours in a special way by His very birth, it is in the time of adversity. A brother born for adversity.

Note that Christ was first born for our adversity in order to deliver us from the great adversity of the fall. When our parents' sin had devastated Eden and destroyed our hopes — when the summer of our joy had turned into the winter of our ruin — Christ was born in Bethlehem's manger so that the human race might have hope again, and His chosen people might be lifted to salvation. He restored what He had not taken away and rebuilt what He had not torn down. He would never have come as a Savior if we had not been lost. Because our adversity was so great, so great a Savior was needed — and so great a Savior came.

Our Lord is born for adversity because He has a unique ability to sympathize with everyone who suffers. No one else can claim to have traveled the full range of human grief, but Jesus Christ can rightly make that claim. Every pain that has ever torn a human heart first tested its sharp edge on Him. No one, even in the most extreme agony, can suffer beyond what Christ endured. Christ is the sovereign of sorrow, the ruler over every domain of grief. He is therefore able to help all who are tempted and tested, since He Himself was surrounded by a full understanding of our weaknesses. Look at Him suffering on the cross; look at Him throughout His whole life of shame and pain, and you will see that He was born into adversity. Through being born into it, He was born to sympathize with our trials — having been perfected as the Captain of our salvation through suffering, so that He might bring many sons and daughters to glory.

Brothers and sisters, this text means even more than that. Jesus Christ is a brother born for adversity because He always gives His richest presence to His people when they are in suffering. I know many people will think that the sense of Christ's presence with the sick and the downcast is mere imagination. What a blessed imagination it would be if so! Such a thing as makes people laugh at pain, rejoice in deep distress, and joyfully accept the loss of their possessions. A wonderful imagination indeed! But let me speak from my own heart's experience and declare that if anything is real to the spiritual mind, the presence of Christ is intensely so. Though we do not see His form bending over us, or catch the lovely light of those eyes that were once red with weeping — though we cannot touch the hand that felt the nails, or hear the soft footsteps of the feet that were fixed to the cross — yet we are inwardly just as certain of Christ's presence falling upon us as His disciples were when He stood in the storm-tossed boat and said to wind and waves, "Peace, be still." Believe me, it is not imagination — nor is it bare faith alone. Faith brings Him near, but there is a kind of spiritual awareness that perceives His presence and rejoices in the blessing that flows from it. We speak what we know and testify what we have experienced when we say He is truly a brother born for adversity — one who tenderly reveals Himself to His people in ways He does not reveal Himself to the world.

He is born for adversity in this sense too: you can hardly know Him fully except through adversity. You may know Christ well enough to be saved by a single act of faith, but a full discovery of His beauty requires that you pass through the furnace. Those children of God whose paths are always freshly smoothed and easy seldom gain deep fellowship with Christ and have only a thin knowledge of Him. But those who navigate rough waters see the Lord's works and His wonders in the deep — and these are the ones who come to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" — many can say this not only because of the restoring effect of sorrow, but because their suffering has worked like a window, letting them look into the very heart of Christ. Through it they have read His compassion and understood His nature as they never could have done by any other means. The light of the furnace is strikingly clear. Jesus is a brother born for adversity because in the dim light of the world's end, when all other lamps are going out, a glory shines around Him that turns midnight into day.

He is a brother born for adversity, finally, because it is through His people's patient endurance of suffering that He is glorified. I am convinced the sweetest songs that ever rise from this world to the eternal throne come from sickbeds. "They shall sing His high praises in the fires." God's children are too often silent when their mouths are full of the earth's pleasures, but when the Lord is pleased to take away their comforts and possessions, they begin — like birds in a cage — to sing with all their hearts. Praise Him, you who are suffering — your praise will be precious to Him. Lift Him up, you who are mourning — exchange your sorrows by faith for living hope, and bless His name, who is worthy to be praised.

Now I will leave that point and, just briefly, turn the text toward a practical purpose by applying it to the Christian. I hope what has been said has been an echo of the experience of most of you. You have found Jesus Christ to be a true brother and a wonderful friend. Now let the same be true of you. He who wants to have friends must show himself friendly. If Christ is such a friend to us, what kind of people should we be toward Him? So, beloved, let us pray and work to be friends who love Christ at all times. Sadly, some who call themselves Christians seem to love Him at no time at all. They give Him praise with their lips but refuse to give Him the use of their gifts or a contribution from their resources. They love Him only with words that are nothing but air, offering Him none of their best while filling Him with none of the fruit of their lives. Such people are empty-handed lovers who do nothing real to prove their affection. Let it not be so with us. Let our love for Christ be genuine enough to move us to make sacrifices for Him. Let us deny ourselves in order to spread the knowledge of His truth, and never be satisfied until we are in fact and in deed giving real proof of our love.

We ought to love Him at all times. Sadly, there are some who prosper in business and grow too grand to love their Savior. They hold their heads too high to associate with His people. Formerly they worshipped gladly with His people when they were in humble circumstances, but after prospering and building up wealth, they feel half ashamed to attend the small church gathering that was once the joy of their hearts. They must find a more respectable form of religion; they must worship in a way that fits their social standing, so as not to fall behind in society. God's people are no longer good enough for them — though those people are kings and princes in Christ's eyes, they are considered poor company by those who have risen so high in the world. How tragic that those who claim to love Jesus should climb too high to walk humbly and faithfully with Christ — that is no rise at all, but a sad fall. Let us cling to Him in days of joy just as in nights of grief, and prove to all the world that nothing this life offers can win our hearts away from our best beloved.

We should love Jesus Christ at all times — including times when the church seems dull and lifeless. Perhaps some of you live in a place right now where the preaching is painfully weak. The light burns very low in your church, the congregation is small, and all zeal has died out. Do not abandon the church. Do not flee from her in her time of need. Hold your post, whatever comes. Be the last one to leave the sinking ship, if sink she must. Resolve, as a friend of Christ, to love Him at all times. And as a brother born into that church, feel that now — more than any other time, in the season of adversity — you must hold fast to her. It may be that some of you will tomorrow find yourselves in a workshop or some other place where business takes you, and there a dear child of God will be laughed at and mocked. That same person you would have gladly called your brother on Sunday — whose prayers you were glad to join — will now stand in the middle of a group of scoffers. Will you own him then? Or rather, will you own Christ in him? They are making cruel jokes and grieving his spirit. A cowardly fear might make you slink away to the far end of the room — but if you remember that a friend loves at all times, you will take up this man's cause as Christ's cause. As part of the body of Christ, you will be willing to share whatever insult may fall on your fellow Christian, and say, "If you mock him, you may mock me as well — for I too have been with Jesus of Nazareth, and the one you are scorning is the one I worship." Let the love Christ has shown us be our reason never to hold back truth for fear of what it may cost us. Never be such cowards as to soften God's word so that we may live in comfort and ease. These are not times when even a single fragment of truth should be suppressed. Whatever the Spirit of God and the word of God have taught you, brothers and sisters — speak it out for Christ's sake. Let it bring whatever it will, and bear that with joy. Since your Savior bore far more for you, count it joy to bear anything for Him. Be a brother born precisely for adversity. Do you expect to be carried to heaven on a bed of ease? Do you plan to win eternal glory without a struggle? Would you stand beneath the banners of victory without first enduring the smoke and dust of battle? No — with committed courage, follow in the steps of your Master. Love Him at all times, give up everything for Him, and soon you will be with Him in His glory forever. God grant a blessing for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before sermon — Proverbs seventeen.