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The sermon interprets Proverbs 18:24 as pointing ultimately to Jesus Christ, whose friendship is closer and more faithful than that of any earthly brother. Christ’s holiness, truthfulness, wisdom, prior knowledge of human sin, and sacrificial redemption establish that His love cannot fail or change. Believers are encouraged to trust Him through suffering and Satan’s attacks, while recognizing that opposition may accompany genuine discipleship. Unconverted hearers are urgently called to abandon self-righteousness and sinful resistance, repent, believe in Christ, and receive salvation as a free gift before death.
Theological center: Jesus Christ’s immutable, gracious love secures the salvation and perseverance of those who come to Him, while salvation itself is offered freely through faith and repentance.
Applications: Come to Christ for salvation · Consider whether Christ is your Friend · Stop and consider your ways · Christ’s faithfulness is certain
Primary texts: Proverbs 18:24
“There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24 CICERO has well said, “Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.” Friendship seems as necessary an element of a comfortable existence in this world as fire or water, or even air itself. A man may drag along a miserable existence in proud solitary dignity, but his life is scarce life, It is nothing but an existence, the tree of being stript of the leaves of hope and the fruits of joy. He who would be happy here must have friends. And he who would be happy hereafter, must, above all things, find a friend in the world to come, in the person of God, the Father of His people. Friendship, however, though very pleasing and exceedingly blessed, has been the cause of the greatest misery to men when it has been unworthy and unfaithful. For just in proportion as a good friend is sweet, a false friend is full of bitterness. “A faithless friend is sharper than an adder’s tooth.” It is sweet to repose in some one, but oh, how bitter to have that support snapped and to receive a grievous fall as the effect of your confidence. Fidelity is an absolute necessity in a true friend. We cannot rejoice in men unless they will stand faithful to us. Solomon declares that, “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” That friend, I suppose, he never found in the pomp and vanities of the world. He had tried them all, but he found them empty. He passed through all their joys, but he found them “vanity of vanities.” Poor Savage spoke from sad experience when he said— “You’ll find the friendship of the world a show! Mere outward show! ’Tis like the harlot’s tears, The statesman’s promise, or false patriot’s zeal, Full of fair seeming, but delusion all.” And so for the most part they are. The world’s friendship is ever brittle. Trust to it and you have trusted a robber. Rely upon it and you have leaned upon a thorn. Ay, worse than that, upon a spear which shall pierce you to the soul with agony. Yet Solomon says he had found “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Not in the haunts of his unbridled pleasures, nor in the wanderings of his unlimited researches, but in the pavilion of the Most High, the secret dwelling place of God—in the person of Jesus, the Son of God, the Friend of sinners. It is saying a great thing, to affirm that, “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” For the love of brotherhood has produced most valiant deeds. We have read stories of what brotherhood could do, which, we think, could hardly be exc…