Our Friends

Friendship is a very special relationship that God has blessed us with, and I want to take this very special day and talk about OUR FRIENDS!

I would like to do this by looking at the at the different kinds of FRIENDS that surround our life. First lets look at ...

I. THE BAD FRIENDS

I am sure that most of us have had the misfortune of having some BAD friends over the years. There are few things in life more painful than to have a person you consider to be a GOOD FRIEND, turn out to be a BAD FRIEND.

Actually, there is no such thing as a BAD FRIEND, because if they fall into this category, they certainly cannot be classified as a friend.

Discovering that someone we thought was our friend really isn’t, has to be one of life’s greatest disappointments!

As painful as it may be when we discover this truth about this friendship, we can be thankful that something made it possible for us to make this discovery.

Illus: The Hungarian crown had been kept abroad for twenty-three years, and there were few who knew it well. When it was returned, some said it was not the original crown at all. So the Lord Chief Justice was sent to inspect it. He was able to identify it by a tiny crack in one of the sapphires. If the crown had not been slightly damaged, it would have been impossible to identify it correctly.

Sometimes our failures and disappointments, the things that damage us, serve a useful purpose. (Robert C. Shannon, 1000 Windows, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1997).

Let us look at the flaws in the lives of these people we classify as BAD FRIENDS.

Now I know that we can never find the perfect friend among men. But we know that some fall into the category of being BAD FRIENDS because-

A. BAD FRIENDS ASK YOU TO DO BAD THINGS

(1) A young man might befriend a young lady. And one night on a date he might try to talk her into dishonoring herself by having illicit sex.

Listen, if he was the friend he claimed to be, he would not try and talk her into something like this because:

• Once she does this, she will have to live with the guilt of sin the rest of her life.

• Once she does this, she can not stand at the sacred altar wearing a white wedding dress, she relinquished that right.

• Once she does this, she can not marry the man she loves and look him in the eye with the innocence she once had.

WHEN SHE IS PROPOSITIONED BY A JERK LIKE THIS, WHAT SHOULD SHE DO?

Look at 1 Cor. 6:18, the Bible tells her exactly what to do, the Word of God says, “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.”

Look at that word “Flee”, this is the Greek word “Pheugo”, pronouned as “Fyoo'-go” and it means three things:

• It means TO RUN AWAY. Young lady, if you are in the car with a jerk like this, get out of the car and RUN AWAY!

• It means TO SHUN. If you see this jerk in the hallway at school, pretend there is a door between you and him, and slam that door in his face in such a way that he will know he is wasting his time.

• It means TO VANISH. Do not hang out with jerks like this.

You do these things, not because you are trying to be ugly, but you do these things because you love the Lord, and you are not going to let him make a fool out of you, and ruin your life, and make you think he is your friend.

I am not trying to be ugly when I refer to people like this as “Jerks”. But sometimes to tell the truth about some people you have to use strong language. And a young man like this is a “Jerk” if there ever was one! For momentary pleasure, they do not care who they hurt!

(2) A Young man might try to get another young man to smoke or drink.

Listen, if he was the friend he claimed to be, he would not try to influence you to do something that has ruined the lives of millions.

Once a young person falls for this temptation, he or she does not know where it will lead.

• Once that young person gives in to that evil influence, they might become a drunk and lose years of their life.

• Once that young person gives in to that evil influence, they might drink one night, and get in their car and kill someone.