The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

it is so called; call it by any other name, and we drink it in, even as the ox drinks in water. Now, child of God, has Christ ever flattered you? Has he not told you of your faults very truly? Has he not pricked your conscience even upon what you thought to gloss over — your little secret sins? Has he not provoked conscience to thunder in your ears notes of terror, because of your misdeeds? Well, then, you may trust him, for he shows that faithfulness which renders a man very trustworthy. Thus I have pointed out to you that there are reasons in himself for which we may trust him.

      12. 3. In the next place, there are some things in his friendship which render us sure of not being deceived, when we put our confidence in him. True friendship must not be of hasty growth. As quaint old Master Fuller says, “Let friendship creep gently to a height; if it rush to it, it may soon run itself out of breath.” It is even so. I think it was Joanna Baillie who said, —

      Friendship is no plant of hasty growth.

      Though planted in esteem’s deep fixed soil,

      The gradual culture of kind intercourse

      Must bring it to perfection.

      In vain you trust the gourd over your head, oh Jonah; it will not be of much use to you; it came up in a night, it may wither in a night. It is the strong stiff oak, of ages growth, which shall abide the tempest; which shall alike put out its wings to shield you from the sun, and shall afterwards find you a hovel in its heart, if necessary, in its grey old age, when its branches tremble in the blast. Friendship is true when it begins; but we must have a man’s friendship long before we can say of him, that he will stick closer than a brother. And how long has Christ loved you? That you cannot tell. When the ages were not born he loved you; when this world was an infant, wrapped in the swaddling clothes of mist, he loved you; when the old pyramids had not begun to be built, his heart was set upon you; and ever since you have been born he has had a strong affection for you. He looked on you in your cradle, and he loved you then; he was affianced to you when you were an infant of a span long, and he has loved you ever since. Some of you I see with grey hairs, some with heads all bald with age; he has loved you up until now, and will he now forsake you? Oh! no, his friendship is so old that it must last; it has been matured by so many tempests, it has been rooted by so many winds of trouble, that it can only endure, it must stand. Even as the granite peak of the mountain shall not be melted, because, unlike the young snow, it has braved the blast, and borne the heat of the burning sun; it has stood out always, catching in its face every blow from the fist of nature, and yet been unmoved and uninjured. It shall last, for it has lasted. But when the elements shall melt, and in a stream of dissolving fire shall run away, then shall Christ’s friendship still exist, for it is of older growth than they. He must be “a friend who sticks closer than a brother”; for his friendship is a hoary friendship — hoary as his own head of which it is said, “His head and his hair are white like snow, as white as wool.”

      13. 4. But note, further, the friendship which will last does not make its rise in the chambers of mirth, nor is it fed and fattened there. Young lady, you speak of a dear friend whom you acquired last night in a ballroom. Do not, I beseech you, misuse the word; he is not a friend if he was acquired merely there; friends are better things than those which grow in the hot house of pleasure. Friendship is a more lasting plant than those. You have a friend, have you? Yes; and he keeps a pair of horses, and has a good establishment. Ah! but your best way to prove your friend is to know that he will be your friend when you have not so much as a humble cottage; and when homeless and without clothing, you are driven to beg your bread. Thus you would make true proof of a friend. Give me a friend who was born in the winter time, whose cradle was rocked in the storm; he will last. Our fair weather friends shall flee away from us. I would rather have a robin for a friend than a swallow; for a swallow abides with us only in the summer time, but a robin comes to us in the winter. Those are close friends that will come the nearest to us when we are in the most distress; but those are not friends who speed themselves away when bad times come. Believer, have you reason to fear that Christ will leave you now? Has he not been with you in the house of mourning? You found your friend where men find pearls, “In caverns deep, where darkness dwells”; you found Jesus in your hour of trouble. It was on the bed of sickness that you first learned the value of his name; it was in the hour of mental anguish that you first laid hold of the hem of his garment; and since then, your nearest and sweetest intercourse has been held with him in hours of darkness. Well then, such a friend, proven in the house of sorrow — a friend who gave his heart’s blood for you, and let his soul run out in one great river of gore — such a friend never can and never will forsake you; he sticks closer than a brother.

      14. 5. Again, a friend who is acquired by folly is never a lasting friend. Do a foolish thing, and make a man your friend; it is only a confederacy in vice, and you will soon discover that his friendship is worthless; the friendships you acquire by doing wrong, you would be better without. Oh! how many silly friendships there are springing up, the mere fruit of a sentimentalism, having no root whatever, but like the plant of which our Saviour tells us, “It sprang up because it had no depth of earth.” Jesus Christ’s friendship is not like that; there is no ingredient of folly in it; he loves us discreetly, not winking or conniving at our follies, but instilling into us his wisdom. His love is wise; he has chosen us according to the counsel of his wisdom; not blindly and rashly, but with all judgment and prudence.

      15. Under this point I may likewise observe, that the friendship of ignorance is not a very desirable one. I desire no man to call himself my friend, if he does not know me. Let him love me in proportion to his knowledge of me. If he loves me for the little he knows, when he knows more he may cast me aside. “That man,” says one, “seems to be a very amiable man.” “I am sure I can love him,” says another, as he scans his features. Indeed, but do not write “friend” yet; wait a wee bit, until you know more of him; just see him, examine him, try him, test him, and not until then enter him on the sacred list of friends. Be friendly to all, but make no one your friend until they know you, and you know them. Many a friendship born in the darkness of ignorance has died suddenly in the light of a better acquaintance with each other. You supposed men to be different from what they were, and when you discovered their real character you disregarded them. I remember one saying to me, “I have great affection for you, sir”; and he mentioned a certain reason. I replied, “My dear fellow, your reason is absolutely false; the very thing you love me for, I am not, and hope I never shall be.” And so I said, “I really cannot accept your friendship, if it is founded upon a misunderstanding of what I may have said.” But our Lord Jesus never can forsake those whom once he loves, because he can discover nothing in us worse than he knew, for he knew all about us beforehand. He saw our leprosy, and yet he loved us; he knew our deceitfulness and unbelief, and yet he pressed us to his heart; he knew what poor fools we were, and yet he said he would never leave us nor forsake us. He knew that we would rebel against him and despise his counsel often; he knew that even when we loved him our love would be cold and languid; but he loved for his own sake. Surely, then, he will stick closer than a brother.

      16. 6. Yet again, friendship and love, to be real, must not lie in words, but in deeds. The friendship of bare compliment is the fashion of this age, because this age is the age of deceit. The world is the great house of sham. Go where you may in London, sham is staring you in the face, there are very few real things to be discovered. I allude not merely to tricks in business, adulterations in food, and such like. Deception is not confined to the tradesman’s shop. It prevails throughout society; the sanctuary is not exempt. The preacher adopts a sham voice. You hardly ever hear a man speak in the pulpit in the same way he would speak in the parlour. Why, I hear my brethren, sometimes, when they are at tea or dinner, speak in a very comfortable decent sort of English voice, but when they get into their pulpits they adopt a sanctimonious tone, and fill their mouths with inflated utterance, or else whine most pitifully. They degrade the pulpit by pretending to honour it: speaking in a voice which God never intended any mortal to have. This is the great house of sham; and such little things show which way the wind blows. You leave your card at a friend’s house; that is an act of friendship — the card! I wonder whether, if he would be hard up for cash, you would leave your cheque book! You