Friendship, Continual Love (Prov. Part 5)

I. Useful and Beneficial Friendships

(Pro 17:17) A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

(Pro 18:24) A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

(Pro 27:6) Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

(Pro 27:9) Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.

Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Pro. 27:17)

Do not forsake your own friend or your father's friend, and do not go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity; better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away. (Pro. 27:10)

II. Caution (See Hindrances to Friendships )

Pro 22:24-25 Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: (25) Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.

Jam 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

III. Buiilding Friendships

(Pro 22:11) He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.

(Pro 17:17) A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

(Pro 18:24) A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

IV. Hindrances To Friendships -

(Pro 19:6) Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts.

(Pro 19:4) Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend.

(Pro 14:20) The poor is hated even of his own neighbor: but the rich hath many friends.

(Pro 19:4) Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbor.

Pro 16:28) A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends.

( Pro 17:9) He who conceals a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends.

V. Friends Being Seperated

(Pro 16:28) A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.

(Pro 17:9) He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.VI. Our Lord, The Ultimate Friend

Luk 7:33-35 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. (34) The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! (35) But wisdom is justified of all her children.

Luk 12:1-4 In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trod one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. (2) For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. (3) Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. (4) And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.

Joh 15:13-15 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (14) Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (15) Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Jam 2:21-24 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? (22) Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? (23) And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. (24) Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

Jam 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

VII. An Unexpected Friend – Insight and Wisdom

(Pro 7:4) Say to wisdom, "You are my sister," and call insight your intimate friend,