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UNFAITHFUL FRIENDS
There can be few things more disappointing than to be betrayed or abandoned by a person whom you thought was a genuine friend. Both the experience and the remembrance of it are painful for years to come. The Bible says, “Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint,” (Proverbs 25:19). As always, the Bible is right on! And what appropriate pictures this verse presents to us: “a broken tooth” and “a foot out of joint.” Both are painful! Not only are broken teeth and dislocated feet painful, the pain of them sometimes goes away for a time causing a person to forget about them and to think they can be depended on – then – all of a sudden in sometimes the most unexpected situations pain shoots through the body! And it seems that tooth-pain and foot-pain can be among the worst. So it is with undependable (unfaithful) friends! Just when you think you can depend on them they fail to be the friend you thought that they were. The experience is painfully sad! Like an arrow piercing the heart or a weight crushing the body is the feeling when supposed friends turn away. Both King David and the Lord Jesus Christ experienced such pain. David wrote: “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me,” (Psalm 41:9). When a trusted friend steps on you – walks on you - it is indeed a time of discouragement and pain. The Lord experienced one of His disciples turning traitor on Him: Judas Iscariot by name. Sold out for thirty pieces of silver: the price of a slave! Knowing all along what Judas was going to do, the Lord treated Judas fairly and with compassion: always. But the Lord's kindness toward Judas did not deter him from his evil betrayal of his Divine Friend. Surely the Bible speaks of the Lord Jesus when it says, “...there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother,” (Proverbs 18:24). Constant and caring in every situation: ready always to stick with you – who is a better friend than the Lord Jesus Christ? At Paul's first trial in Rome all his supposed friends there deserted him. Paul wrote about that sad experience saying: “At my first answer [trial] no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me...” (2 Timothy 4:16-17). Ah! There was for Paul a Friend who not only stood with him, but whose presence strengthened him! With a friend – the Friend – standing with you there can be no defeat! As the song says, “How can I be lonely when I've Jesus only, To be my companion and unfailing guide? Why should I be weary, or my path seem dreary, When He's walking by my side?” I hope He is your friend!
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