Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Proverbs 17:17

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Proverbs 17:17. A friend loveth at all times — Equally in adversity as in prosperity. And a brother, according to the ties and interests of consanguinity, is born to support and comfort a brother in distress.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Friends and fools (17:1-28)

A peaceful family life, no matter how simple, is a great blessing, but a son may miss out on his family inheritance through his own folly (17:1-2). God’s dealings with his people are always for a good purpose, to make them better than they were before (3). To listen to evil talk is as bad as to speak evil oneself; to take pleasure in another’s troubles is as bad as to cause those troubles (4-5).
Other proverbs concern the appreciation that the old and the young should have for each other (6), the need for fitting speech (7), the prosperity so easily yet wrongfully gained through bribery (8), and the different attitudes of the peacemaker and the troublemaker (9).
Fools are dangerous because they are stubborn, rebellious, and not open to reason (10-13). Through them a minor disagreement can become a major conflict. They think that by paying fees to teachers they will get wisdom, but they do not have a mind to learn (14-16).
When in trouble a person can depend on a true friend for help, but help need not go so far that it brings the friend to ruin (17-18). When people through wrongdoing advance themselves in order to boast of their higher status, they invite disaster (19-20). Folly leads to grief, and that in turn leads to ill health. Cheerfulness, by contrast, helps keep a person healthy (21-22). Innocent people suffer unjustly because of corrupt officials, and a fool’s parents suffer because of their son’s folly. Fools wander aimlessly, but intelligent people consider all their actions wisely (23-26). A mark of wisdom is to think before speaking (27-28).
(The frequent references to bribery and false witnesses indicate that corruption of the courts was widespread in the days of the writer; see 14:5,25; 17:8,15,23,26; 18:5; 19:5,9,28.)

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"A friend loveth at all times; And a brother is born for adversity."

"A friend is friendly at all times; but a brother is born for adversity."The Bible, an American Translation. "The meaning here is that in trouble one finds out what families are for, and you also find out who are your real friends. The next verse shows that a real friend may be imposed upon."Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Vol. 15, p. 125.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Some take the proverb to describe (as in Proverbs 18:24) the “friend that sticketh closer than a brother:” and render: At all times, a friend loveth, but in adversity he is born (i. e., becomes) a brother.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 17

Better is a dry morsel, with quietness, than a house full of sacrifices with strife ( Proverbs 17:1 ).

Now the house full of sacrifices refer to the sacrifices. It's, if in that economy the of the Judaism, if you decided that tonight you wanted to have roast leg of lamb, to butcher your lamb you'd take it down to the temple and you bring it to the priest. And you'd say, "I want to offer this as a peace offering unto God, a sacrifice." So you'd butcher the lamb and the priest would take the fat and put it on the fire and burn it and the smoke and all, of course, smells real good and that's your portion, God, you know. And I take and the priest gets his portion out, puts his hook in, gets his portion, but then the rest of it I roast tonight, and I gather together my family and friends, we have a big barbecue. So the house full of sacrifices actually refers to a house full of meat, which in those days, and is becoming more so now, a real delicacy. "But a dry morsel in quietness, in peace, is better than a whole house full of sacrifices with strife."

A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have a part of the inheritance among the brethren. The fining pot is for silver, the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts ( Proverbs 17:2-3 ).

Now the Bible speaks about God testing our works by fire. God trying our hearts. The testing of our works, really, when it comes down to it, is not so much what we have done, but the motive that was behind what was done. Bible says that all of our works are to be tested to see what sort they are. Tested by fire. And those works that can remain after the testing of fire, you'll be rewarded for. But many of the works that we do are as wood, hay and stubble. They're going to go up in the flame. I really didn't do them with a pure motive. Though the work may be a very commendable thing, "Oh, look what he did!" You know. And a very commendable thing, yet it was done with the motive of bringing glory or honor to myself. I was doing it to be a big show. I was doing it so people would know what a great, neat guy I am, you know. And to bring attention or honor to myself. Well, those kind of works are going to be tried by God, for God tries the hearts and He knows what is in my heart when I am doing something. All of our works tested by fire.

Jesus said, "Take heed to yourself that you do not your righteousness before men to be seen of men." Don't let that be the motive. The approval, the praise, the recognition of man. "For," He said, "I say unto you, you have your reward" ( Matthew 6:1-2 ). So even as the fining pot is for silver and the furnace is to burn out the dross in the gold, so it is the Lord who through the fire will try our hearts, our works, the manner or sort they are.

A wicked doer gives heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to the naughty tongue. Whoso mocketh the poor reproaches his Maker ( Proverbs 17:4-5 ):

Now God takes up the cause for the poor. So if you're poor, take heart. God takes up your cause. And anyone who mocks the poor is reproaching his Maker. "Has not God chosen the poor of this earth yet rich in faith?" ( James 2:5 )

he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished ( Proverbs 17:5 ).

One of the characteristics of this agape love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 is that it rejoices not in iniquity. It rejoices not in the calamity. You know, there are some people we just hope something bad happens to them. They deserve it. And when it happens, you say, "All right, I knew it, you know. They had it coming and all." And yet, "He that is glad at calamities shall not go unpunished." So be careful of that. It's the wrong attitude.

Children's children [or your grandchildren] are the crown of old men ( Proverbs 17:6 );

Amen. They are glory.

and the glory of children, their fathers. Excellent speech becomes not a fool: much less lying lips a prince ( Proverbs 17:6-7 ).

Quite a contrast.

A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that has it: wherever he turns it, he prospers ( Proverbs 17:8 ).

In other words, it's just a precious stone wherever you turn it you see the different colors and facets. So is a gift like a precious stone to the man who receives it.

He that covers a transgression seeks love ( Proverbs 17:9 );

Now the Bible says, "Love covers a multitude of sins" ( 1 Peter 4:8 ). If you cover it, you're seeking love.

but he that repeats a matter can separate friends. A reproof enters more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool ( Proverbs 17:9-10 ).

It's interesting how that in raising children you find the diversities of personalities even of your own children. And you learn that there are some kinds of punishment that work for one child but don't work for another. With some, just a word of reproof and they're devastated. Others you can wail on them and it doesn't touch them.

My little grandson Bradley, we were down in Phoenix and we were having Thanksgiving dinner with the family there. And I think it was during prayer that he had been naughty or... so I said, "Bradley, Grandpa is ashamed of you." Well, the kid, he was like I had beaten him. He wailed and cried. He was... broke tears. Grandpa had never said anything before to him of a cross or angry nature and it just devastated the poor little guy to have grandpa disappointed about him. It just almost destroyed him. "Reproof enters more into a wise man's heart and all than a hundred stripes enters into a fool."

An evil man seeks only rebellion: therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him. Let a bear robbed of her cubs meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly ( Proverbs 17:11-12 ).

That one I thought was quite interesting. I wouldn't want to meet a bear robbed of her cubs. But I wouldn't want to meet a fool in his folly, either.

Whoso rewards evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house ( Proverbs 17:13 ).

That's quite a proverb and it's quite a warning. "Whoso rewards evil for good, evil will never depart from his house."

The beginning of strife is as when one lets out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with ( Proverbs 17:14 ).

Once you start letting the water out, it's awfully hard to stop. Therefore, stay away from contention, the beginning of strife.

He that justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, even they both are an abomination unto God ( Proverbs 17:15 ).

"Woe unto them who say who call evil good, and good evil" ( Isaiah 5:20 ). Why? Because it's an abomination to the Lord.

Wherefore is there a price in the hand of the fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it? ( Proverbs 17:16 )

I love this one.

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

A friend, they love at all times. Brother, he has been born for this time of adversity.

A man who is void of understanding strikes hands, and becomes a surety in the presence of his friends ( Proverbs 17:18 ).

Now he really warns about this business of striking hands and being a surety for someone else. Evidently, he got burned many times on this.

He that loves transgression that loves strife: and he that exalts his gate seek destruction. He that hath a perverse heart finds no good: and he that has a perverse tongue falls into mischief. He that begets a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father of a fool has no joy ( Proverbs 17:19-21 ).

Wouldn't it be tragic to have a child that's a fool? He who begets a fool does it to his own sorrow; the father of a fool has no joy.

A merry heart does good like a medicine ( Proverbs 17:22 ):

You know, more and more they are learning what a healthy thing it is to be happy. The merry heart. When you eat laughter, just gets the right juices going that really help you to digest your food well. A merry heart is just as good for you as medicine. The relationship between our attitudes and our physical well-being, how that these glands that are excreting the various chemicals into our systems, the good chemicals that come in joy and in happiness. And the other chemicals that are produced in fear or in anger and bitterness or whatever, those chemicals which destroy you. So without knowing all of the capacities and work of the pituitary and hypothalamus and everything else, Solomon just made an observation that a merry heart is good like a medicine.

but a broken spirit can dry up the bones. A wicked man takes a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment. Wisdom is before him that has understanding; but the eyes of the fool roam to the ends of the eaRuth ( Proverbs 17:22-24 ).

The one is before you; the other is always looking out to the ends of the earth.

A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him. Also to punish the just is not good, nor to strike princes for equity. He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit ( Proverbs 17:25-27 ).

"He that hath knowledge spareth his words." How does it go? "There was an old owl who lived in the oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can't you be like that old bird?" And of course, in the same line is the proverb there in verse Proverbs 17:28 .

Even a fool, when he holds his tongue, is counted wise: and he that keeps his lips shut is esteemed a man of understanding ( Proverbs 17:28 ).

You know, just sit back and say, "Hmm. Well, uh-hmm, you know." Feeling, "Man, he's smart." "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. Peacemakers and troublemakers ch. 17

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

A friend loveth at all times,.... A true, hearty, faithful friend, loves in times of adversity as well as in times of prosperity: there are many that are friends to persons, while they are in affluent circumstances; but when there is a change in their condition, and they are stripped of all riches and substance; than their friends forsake them, and stand at a distance from them; as was the case of Job,

Job 19:14; it is a very rare thing to find a friend that is a constant lover, such an one as here described;

and a brother is born for adversity; for a time of adversity, as Jarchi: he is born into the world for this purpose; to sympathize with his brother in distress, to relieve him, comfort and support him; and if he does not do this, when it is in his power to do it, he does not answer the end of his being born into the world. The Jewish writers understand this as showing the difference between a friend and a brother: a cordial friend loves at all times, prosperous and adverse; but a "brother [loves when] adversity [is] born" s, or is, so Aben Ezra; he loves when he is forced to it; when the distress of his brother, who is his flesh and bone, as Gersom observes, obliges him to it: but this may be understood of the same person who is the friend; he is a brother, and acts the part of one in a time of adversity, for which he is born and brought into the world; it being so ordered by divine Providence, that a man should have a friend born against the time he stands in need of him t. To no one person can all this be applied with so much truth and exactness as to our Lord Jesus Christ; he is a "friend", not of angels only, but of men; more especially of his church and people; of sinful men, of publicans and sinners; as appears by his calling them to repentance, by his receiving them, and by his coming into the world to save them: he "loves" them, and loves them constantly; he loved them before time; so early were they on his heart and in his book of life; so early was he the surety of them, and the covenant of grace made with him; and their persons and grace put into his hands, which he took the care of: he loved them in time, and before time began with them; thus they were preserved in him, when they fell in Adam; were redeemed by his precious blood, when as yet they were not in being, at least many of them: he loves them as soon as time begins with them, as soon as born; though impure by their first birth, transgressors from the womb, enemies and enmity itself unto him; he waits to be gracious to them, and sends his Gospel and his Spirit to find them out and call them: and he continues to love them after conversion; in times of backsliding; in times of desertion; in times of temptation, and in times of affliction: he loves them indeed to the end of time, and to all eternity; nor is there a moment of time to be fixed upon, in which he does not love them. And he is a "brother" to his people; through his incarnation, he is a partaker of the same flesh and blood with them; and through their adoption, they having one and the same Father; nor is he ashamed to own the relation; and he has all the freedom, affection, compassion, and condescension, of a brother in him: and now he is a brother "born"; see Isaiah 9:6; born of a woman, a virgin, at Bethlehem, in the fulness of time, for and on the behalf of his people; even "for adversity"; to bear and endure adversity himself, which he did, by coming into a state of meanness and poverty; through the reproaches and persecutions of men, the temptations of Satan, the ill usage of his own disciples, the desertion of his father, the strokes of justice, and the sufferings of death; also for the adversity of his people, to sympathize with them, bear them up under it, and deliver them out of it. The ancient Jews had a notion that this Scripture has some respect to the Messiah; for, to show that the Messiah, being God, would by his incarnation become a brother to men, they cite this passage of Scripture as a testimony of it u.

s ואח לצרה יולד "et fater diligit quando tribulatio nascitur", Munster; so some in Vatablus. t "Nihil homini amico est opportuno amicus", Plauti Epidicus, Act. 3. Sc. 3. v. 43. u Mechilta spud Galatin. Cathol. Ver. Arcan. l. 3. c. 28.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      17 A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

      This intimates the strength of those bonds by which we are bound to each other and which we ought to be sensible of. 1. Friends must be constant to each other at all times. That is not true friendship which is not constant; it will be so if it be sincere, and actuated by a good principle. Those that are fanciful or selfish in their friendship will love no longer than their humour is pleased and their interest served, and therefore their affections turn with the wind and change with the weather. Swallow-friends, that fly to you in summer, but are gone in winter; such friends there is no loss of. But if the friendship be prudent, generous, and cordial, if I love my friend because he is wise, and virtuous, and good, as long as he continues so, though he fall into poverty and disgrace, still I shall love him. Christ is a friend that loves at all times (John 13:1) and we must so love him, Romans 8:35. 2. Relations must in a special manner be careful and tender of one another in affliction: A brother is born to succour a brother or sister in distress, to whom he is joined so closely by nature that he may the more sensibly feel from their burdens, and be the more strongly inclined and engaged, as it were by instinct, to help them. We must often consider what we were born for, not only as men, but as in such a station and relation. Who knows but we came into such a family for such a time as this? We do not answer the end of our relations if we do not do the duty of them. Some take it thus: A friend that loves at all times is born (that is, becomes) a brother in adversity, and is so to be valued.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

The Unrivalled Friend

A sermon (No. 899) delivered on Lord’s Day morning, November 7th, 1869, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon.

“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17 .

There is one thing about the usefulness of which all men are agreed, namely, friendship; but most men are soon aware that counterfeits of friendship are common as autumn leaves. Few men enjoy from others the highest and truest form of friendship. The friendships of this world are hollow, they are as unsubstantial as a dream, as soon dissipated as a bubble, as light as thistledown. Those airy compliments, those empty sentences of praise, how glibly they fall from the lip, but how little have they to do with the heart! He must be a fool indeed who believes that there is aught in the complimentary affection but mere flattery or matter of form. The loving cup means not love, and the loud cheering of the toast means not sincere fellowship. With very many friendship sits very loosely: they could almost write as Horace Walpole does in one of his letters. He says he takes every thing very easily, “and if,” saith he, “a friend should die, I drive down to the St. James’s coffee-house and bring home another,” doubtless as cordial and enraptured with the new friend as with the old. Friends in this world are too often like the bees which swarm around the plants while they are covered with flowers and those flowers contain nectar for their honey; but let November send its biting frosts, the flowers are nipped, and their friends the bees forsake them. Swallow friendship lives out with us our summer but finds other loves in winter. It has always been so from of old, even until now; Ahithophel has deserted David and Judas has sold his Lord. The greatest of kings who have been fawned upon by their courtiers while in power, have been treated as if they were but dogs in the time of their extremity; we may, as the poet of the passions

“Sing Darius, great and good-Deserted

Of all friendship which is not based on principle, we may say with the prophet, “Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.” But there is a higher friendship than this by far, and it subsists among Christian men, among men of principle, among men of virtue where profession is not all, but where there is real meaning in the words they use. Damon and Pythias still have their followers among us, Jonathan and David are not without their imitators. All hearts are not traitorous; fidelity still lingers among men: where godliness builds her house true friendship finds a rest. Solomon speaking not of the world’s sham friends but of friends indeed, saith, “A friend loveth at all times.” Having once given his heart to his chosen companion he clings to him in all weathers, fair or foul; he loves him none the less because he becometh poor, or because his fame suffers an eclipse, but his friendship like a lamp shines the brighter, or is made more manifest because of the darkness that surrounds it. True friendship is not fed from the barn-floor or the winefat; it is not like the rainbow dependent upon the sunshine, it is fixed as a rock and firm as granite, and smiles superior to wind and tempest. If we have friendship at all, brethren and sisters, let this be the form it takes: let us be willing to be brought to the test of the wise man, and being tried, may we not be found wanting. “A friend loveth at all times.”

But I am not about to talk of friendship at all as it exists between man and man; I prefer to uplift the text into a still higher sphere. There is a Friend, blessed for ever be his name, who loveth at all times; there is a Brother who in an emphatic sense was born for adversity. That friend is Jesus, the friend of sinners, the friend of man, the brother of our souls, born into this world that he might succor us in our adversities. I shall take the text then and refer it to the Lord Jesus Christ; and unless time should fail us I shall then refer it to ourselves as in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, showing that we also ought to love him even as he has loved us, always and under all adversities.

I. First then in reference to the Lord Jesus Christ . The first sentence is, “a friend loveth at all times ,” and this leads us to consider first, the endurance of the love of Jesus Christ .

My dear brethren, when we read “a friend loveth at all times” and refer that to Christ, the sentence, full as it is, falls short of what we mean, for our Lord Jesus is a friend who loved us before there was any time. Before time began the Lord Jesus Christ had entered into covenant that he would redeem a people unto himself, who should show forth his Father’s praise. Before time began his prescient eye had foreseen the creatures whom he determined to redeem by blood. These he took to himself by election, these the Father also gave to him by divine donation, and upon these, as he saw them in the glass of futurity, he set his heart. Long before days began to be counted or moons to wax and wane, or suns to rise and set, Jehovah Jesus had set apart a people to himself whom he espoused unto himself, whose names he engraved upon his heart and upon his hands, that they might be taken into union with himself for ever and ever. Meditate on that love which preceded the first rays of the morning, and went forth to you before the mountains were brought forth or ever he had formed the earth and the world. My brethren, you believe the doctrine of eternal love, meditate thereon, and let it be very sweet unto your hearts:

“Before thy hands had made

The sun to rule the day,

Or earth’s foundation laid,

Or fashioned Adam’s clay,

What thoughts of peace and mercy flow’d

In thy dear bosom, O my God!”

He loved you when time began, in the elder days before the flood, and in the far-off periods; for those promises which were spoken in love had reference to you as well as to all the believing seed. All the deeds of love which were wrought as a preface to his coming, all had some bearing towards you as one of his people. There never was a point in the antiquity of our world in which this friend did not love you, every era of time has been a time of love. Love, like a silver thread, runs adown the ages. Chiefly did he lay bare his love eighteen hundred years ago, when down with joyful haste he sped to lie in the manger; and hang as a babe at the virgin’s breast. He proved his love to you to a degree surpassing thought when as a carpenter’s son he condescended for thirty years to live in obscurity, working out a perfect righteousness for you, and then spent three years of arduous toil to be ended by a death of bitterness unutterable. You had no being then, but he loved you and gave himself for you. For you the bloody sweat that fell amidst the olives of Gethsemane; for you the scourging and the crowning with thorns; for you the nails and spear, the vinegar and lance; for you the cry of agony; the exceeding sorrow “even unto death.” He is a friend that loved you in that darkest and most doleful hour when your sins were laid upon him and with their crushing weight pressed him down, as it were, in spirit, to the lowest hell.

Beloved, having thus redeemed you, he loved you when time began with you. As soon as you were born the eye of his tenderness was fixed upon you. “When Ephraim was a child, then I loved him.” It was lovingkindness which arranged your parents’ native place and time of birth. You came not into this world, as it were, by chance, or as the young ostrich bereft of a parent’s care the Lord was your guardian; the Lord Jesus Christ looked upon you in your cradle and bade his angels keep ward around you. He would not let you die unconverted, though fierce diseases waited around you to hurry you to hell. And when you grew up to manhood and ripened the follies of youth into the crimes of mature years, yet still he loved you. O let your heart be humbled as you remember that if you ever fell into blasphemy, he loved you as you cursed him; that if you indulged in Sabbath-breaking, he loved you when you despised his day; that your neglected Bible could not wean his heart from you, that your neglected prayer closet could not make him cease his affection. Alas! to what an excess of riot did some of his people run! but he loved them notwithstanding all. He was a friend that loved under the most provoking circumstances.

“Loved when a wretch defiled with sin,

At war with heaven, in league with hell,

A slave to every lust obscene,

Who, living, lived but to rebel.”

When justice would have said, “Let the rebel go O Jesus; be not bound any longer by cords of love to such a wretch,” our ever-faithful Redeemer would not cast us away but threw another band of grace around us and loved us still. Consider well “his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.”

I feel as if this were rather matter for you to think over in private, than for me thus hastily to introduce to you in public. May the Holy Spirit however now bedew your hearts with grateful drops of celestial love as I remind you of the love at all times of this best of friends. You recollect when you were constrained to seek him, when your heart began to be weary of its sin, and to be alarmed at the doom that would surely follow unpardoned transgression; it was his love that sowed the first seeds of desire and anxiety in your heart. You had never desired him if he had not first desired you. There was never a good thought towards Christ in any human breast, unless Christ first put it there. He drew you and then you began to run after him; but had he left you alone your running would have been from him, and never towards him. It was a bitter time when we were seeking the Savior, a time of anguish and sore travail. We recollect the tears and prayers that we poured out day and night, asking for mercy; but Jesus our friend was loving to us then, taking delight in those penitential tears, putting them into his bottle, telling the angels that we were praying, and making them string their harps afresh to sweet notes of praise over sinners that repented. He knew us, knew us in the gloom, in the thick darkness in which we sought after God, if haply we might find him. He was near the prodigal’s side when in all his rags and filth he was saying, “I will arise, and go to my Father,” and it was Jesus through whom we were introduced to the Father’s bosom, and received the parental kiss, and were made to sit down where there are music and dancing, because the dead are alive, and the lost is found.

My brethren, since that happy day this friend has loved us at all times. I wish I could say that since that sacred hour when we first came to his feet and saw ourselves saved through him, we had always walked worthily of the privileges we have received; but it has been very much the reverse. There have been times in which we have honored him, his grace has abounded, and our holiness has been manifest; but alas! there have been other seasons in which we have backslidden, our hearts have grown cold, and we were on the road to become like Nabal when his heart was turned to a stone within him. We have been half persuaded like Orpah to go back to the land of idols, and not like Ruth to cleave unto the Lord our God. Our heart has played the harlot from the love of Christ, desiring the leeks and garlick and onions of Egypt rather than the treasures of the land of promise. But at such times when our piety has been at a low ebb, he has loved us still; there has not been the slightest diminution in the affection of Christ even when our piety has been diminished; he does not set his clock by our watch, or stint his love to the narrow measure of ours. I fear we have often gone further than merely getting poor in grace within; there have been times when God’s people have even actually fallen into overt sin; ay, and have descended to sin grievously too, and to dishonor the name of Christ; but herein is mercy, even those actual and accursed sins of ours have not rent away the promise from us, nor turned away the heart of Christ for his beloved. Sinned though we have to our abounding sorrow, I was about to say, for if there could be sorrow in heaven we might eternally regret that we have sinned against such love and mercy, yet for all that our Lord and Savior would not cast us off, nor will he abjure us come what may.

Reflect, my dear friends, upon all the trying and changeful scenes through which you have passed since the time of your conversion. You have been rich perhaps and increased in goods: you were tempted to forget your Lord, but he was a friend who loved you at all times, and he would not suffer your prosperity to ruin you, but still made his love to dart with healing beams into your soul. But you have been also very poor. The cupboard has been bare and you have said, “Whence shall I find sufficient to supply my need?” But Christ has not gone away because your suit was threadbare, or your house ill furnished; nay, he has been nearer than ever, and if he revealed himself to you in your prosperity, much more in your adversity. You have found him a faithful friend when all others were unfaithful, true when every one else was a liar. You have been sore sick sometimes, but he it was that made the pillow, and that softened the bed of your affliction. It may be you have been slandered and those who loved you have passed you by. Some ill word has been spoken in which there was no truth, but it has sufficed to turn away the esteem of many; but your Lord has gone with you through shame and abuse, and never for a single moment has he even hinted that he only loved you because you were had in respect by men. Ever faithful, ever true has been this friend who loveth at all times. Ah, there have been times, it may be with you, when you could fain have thrown your very self away, for you felt so empty, so good-for-nothing, so undeserving, ill deserving, hell deserving; you felt fitter to die than to live; you could hardly entertain a hope that any good thing could ever spring from you: but when you have least esteemed yourself, his esteem of you has been just the same; when you were ready to die in a ditch, he has been ready to lift you to a throne; when you felt yourself a castaway, you have still been pressed to his dear bosom, an object of his peculiar regard.

Soon, very soon, your time will come to die: you shall pass through the valley of deathshade, but you need not fear for the friend that loveth at all times will be with you then. That eminent servant of God, Jonathan Edwards, when he was at his last, said, “Where is Jesus of Nazareth, my old and faithful friend? I know he will be with me now that I need his help,” and so he was, for that faithful servant died triumphant. You shall enquire in that last day for Jesus of Nazareth and you shall hear him say, “Here I am;” you shall find the death-shade vale lit up with supernal splendor, it shall be no death to you, but a passing into life eternal, because he who is the resurrection and the life shall be your helper.

Thus I have hastily run through the life of Christ’s love from the beginning that had no beginning, down to the end that knoweth no end, and in every case we see that he is a friend that loveth at all times.

Now brethren, I shall vary the strain though still keeping to the same subject. Let us consider the reality of Christ’s love at all times. The text says, “A friend loveth at all times,” not professes to love, not talks of love, but really does so. Now in Christ’s case the love has become intensely practical. His love has never been a thing of mere words or pretensions; his love has acted out itself in mighty deeds, and signs, and wonders, worthy of a God, such as heaven itself shall not sufficiently extol with all its golden harps.

See then brethren, Christ has practically loved us at all times. It is not long ago that you and I were slaves to sin, we wore the fetters, nor could we break them from our wrists. We were held fast by evil passions and worldly habits, and there seemed no hope of liberty for us. Jesus loved us at all times, but the love did not let us lie prisoners any longer. He came and paid the ransom price for us. In drops of blood from his own heart he counted down the price of our redemption, and by his eternal Spirit he broke every fetter from us, and to-day his believing people rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ makes them free. See how practical his love was! He did not leave the slave in his chains and let him remain a captive, but he loved us right out of our prison-house into a sacred freedom. Our Lord found us not long ago standing upon our trial. There we were prisoners at the bar, we had nothing to plead in our defense. The accuser stood up to plead against us, and as he laid many charges and heavy, we were not able to answer so much as one of them. Our great High Priest stood there and saw us thus arraigned as prisoners at the bar; he loved us, but oh! how efficient was his love he became an advocate for us; he did more, he stood in our place and stead, stood where the felon ought to stand. He suffered what was due to us and then covering us with his perfect righteousness, he said before the blaze of the ineffable throne of justice, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that hath risen again.” He did not love the prisoner at the bar and leave him there to be condemned; he loved him until this day we stand acquitted, and there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Believer, lift up your heart now, and bless his name who hath done all this for thee.

Our Lord when he came in mercy to us, found us in the rags of our self-righteousness, and in the abject poverty of our natural condition. We were houseless, fatherless; we were without spiritual bread, we were sick and sore, we were as low and degraded as sin could make us. He loved us but he did not leave us where love found us. Ah! do you not remember how he washed us in the fountain which flowed from his veins; how he wrapped us about with the fair white linen, which is the righteousness of his saints; how he gave us bread to eat that the world knoweth not of; how he supplied all our wants and gave us a promise that whatsoever we should ask in prayer, if we did but believe his name, we should receive it? We were aliens, but his love has made us citizens; we were far off, but his love has brought us nigh; we were perishing, but his love hath enriched us; we were serfs, but his love has made us sons; we were condemned criminals, but his love has made us “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.”

I shall not enlarge here, but I shall appeal to the experience of every believer. In your needs, has not Christ always helped you? you have been in doubt which way to take and you have gone to him for guidance: did you ever go wrong when you left it to him? Your heart has been very heavy and you had no friend that you could communicate with, but you have talked with him, and have not you always found solace in pouring out your hearts before him? When did he ever fail you? when did you find his arm shortened, or his ear heavy? Up to this moment has it been mere talk with Christ? no, you know it has been most true and real love and now in the recollection of it, I beseech you give him true and real praise, not that of the head only, or of the lip, but of your whole spirit, soul, and body, as you consecrate yourself afresh to him. See then the endurance of Christ’s love, and see then also the reality of it.

By your patience, I shall notice in the next place the nature of the love of Christ , accounting for its endurance and reality. The love of our good friend to us sprang from the purest possible motives, he has nought to gain by loving us. Some friendship may be supposed to be tinged with a desire of self advantage, to that extent it is degraded and valueless. But Jesus Christ had nought to gain, but everything to lose. “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.” The love he bears to his people was not a love which sprang from anything in them. I have no doubt it had a reason, for Christ never acts unreasonably, but that reason did not lie in us. Love between us and our fellows sometimes springs from personal beauty, sometimes for traits of character which we admire, and at other times from obligations which we have incurred, but with Christ none of these things could avail. There was no personal beauty in any one of his elect: there were no traits of character in them that could enchant him, very much on the other hand that might have disgusted him; he certainly was under no obligations to us, for we had not a being then when his heart was set upon us. The love of man to man is sustained by something drawn from the object of love, but the love of Christ to us has its deep springs within himself. As his own courts maintain the grandeur of his throne without drawing a revenue from the creatures, so his own love maintains itself without drawing any motives and reasons from us, and hence my brethren, you see why this love is the same at all times. If it had to subsist upon us and what we do and what we merit, ah! it would always be at the lowest conceivable ebb, but since it leaps up from the great deep of the divine heart, it never changes, it never shall.

Be it also remembered that Christ’s love was a wise love, not blind as ours often is. He loved us knowing exactly what we were whom he loved. There is nothing in the constitution of man that Jesus Christ had not perceived; there is nothing in your individuality but what Christ had foreknown. Remember Christ loved his people before they began to sin, but not in the dark. He knew exactly everything they would think or do or be; and if he resolved to love them at all you may rest assured he never will change in that love, since nothing fresh can ever occur to his divine mind. Had he begun to love us and we had deceived and disappointed him, he might have turned us out of doors, but he knew right well that we should revolt, that we should backslide and should provoke him to jealousy; he loved us knowing all this, and therefore it is that his love abides and endures and shall even remain faithful to the end.

Brethren, the love of Christ is associated continually with an infinite degree of patience and pity. Our Lord knows that we are but dust, and like as a father pitieth his children so he pities us. We are but short-tempered, but our Lord is longsuffering. When he sees us sin he saith within himself, “ Alas! poor souls, what folly in them thus to injure themselves.” He takes not our cold words in umbrage so as to put himself in wrathful fume therewith; but he saith, “Poor child, how he hurteth himself by this, and how much he loseth thereby.” He even hath a kind look for us when we sin, for he knows it is blotted out through his own blood, and he sees rather the mischief which it is quite sure to bring to the poor soul than the evil of the sin itself. Jesus hath infinite condescension and patience, and we cannot so provoke him as to turn him from his purpose of grace. He is at all times ready to pardon and never slow to be moved to forgiveness. Oh, the provocations of men! but the patience of Christ reacheth over the mountains of our provocation and drowns them all.

Methinks one reason why Christ is so constant in his love and so patient with us is that he sees us as what we are to be. He does not look at us merely as what we are to-day in Adam’s fall ruined and lost, nor as we are to-day but partly delivered from indwelling sin; but he remembers that we are to lie in his bosom for ever, that we are to be exactly like himself and to be partakers of his glory; and as he sees us in the glass of futurity, as by-and-by to be his companions in the world of the perfect, he passes by transgression, iniquity and sin, and like a true friend he loveth us at all times.

I shall not weary those who know this love. They need no gaudy sentences or eloquent periods to set it forth. Its sweetness lies in itself. You may drink such wine as this out of any cup. He that knoweth the flavour of this divine dainty, asketh not that it be carved this way or that, he rejoiceth but to have it, for the meditation upon it must be sweet. “A friend loveth at all times.”

The next sentence of the text is, “ and a brother is born for adversity .” That is to say, a true brother comes out and shows his brotherhood in the time of the trouble of the family. Now let every believer in Jesus here catch the meaning of this with regard to Christ. Jesus Christ was born for you. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given;” but if at any one time more than another Christ is peculiarly yours by birth, it is in the time of adversity. A brother born for adversity.

Observe that Christ was born in the first place for our adversity, to deliver us from the great adversity of the fall. When our parents’ sin had blasted Eden and destroyed our hopes, when the summer of our joy had turned into the winter of our discontent, then Christ was born in Bethlehem’s manger that the race might be lifted up to hope, and his elect be elevated to salvation. He restored that which he took not away, he rebuilt that which he cast not down. He had never come to be a Savior if we had not been lost; because our adversity was so great, therefore so great a Savior was required, and so great a Savior came.

Our Lord is born for adversity because he has the peculiar art of sympathising with all in adversity. No other but he can claim that he has ranged high and low through all the territories of grief, but this, Jesus Christ can justly claim. Every pang that ever rends a human heart has first tried its keen edge on him. It is not possible even in the extremities of anguish to which some are exposed, that any man can go beyond Christ in the endurance of pain. Christ is crowned king of misery, he is the emperor of the domains of woe. He is able therefore to succor all such as are tempted and tried, seeing he is compassed about himself also with a feeling of our infirmities. Look to him suffering on the tree, look to him throughout all his life of shame and pain and you will see that he was born into adversity, and through being born into it, was born to sympathise with our trials, having learned, as the Captain of our salvation, to be made perfect in sympathy with those many sons whom he brings to glory.

Brethren, the text means more than this however. Jesus Christ is a brother born for adversity because he always gives his choicest presence to his saints when they are in tribulation. I know many men will think that the presence of Christ with the sick and with the depressed is mere fancy. Ah, blessed fancy! such a fancy as makes them laugh at pain and rejoice in deep distress, and take joyfully the spoiling of their goods. A blessed fancy truly! Let me declare my heart’s witness, and assert that if there be anything real anywhere to the spiritual mind, the presence of Christ is intensely so. Though we do not see his form bending over us, nor mark the lovely light of those eyes that once were red with weeping, though we touch not that hand which felt the nails, and hear no soft footfalls of the feet that were fastened to the cross, yet are we inwardly as certainly conscious of the shadow of Christ falling upon us as ever were his disciples when he stood in the tempest-tossed vessel, and said to winds and waves, “Peace, be still.” Believe me, it is not imagination, nor is it barely faith. It is faith that brings him, but there is a kind of spiritual sense that discovers his presence and that rejoices in the bliss flowing therefrom. We speak what we do know and testify what we have seen when we say that he is a brother born for adversity in very deed, most tenderly revealing himself to his people, as he doth not unto the world.

He is born for adversity I think in this sense, that you can hardly know him except through adversity. You may know Christ so as to be saved by him by a single act of faith, but for a full discovery of his beauty it needs that you go through the furnace. Those children of God whose grassy paths are always newly mown and freshly smoothed, learn comparatively but little fellowship with Christ and have but slender knowledge of him, but they that do business on great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep, and these know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” many can say, not only because of the restoring effect of sorrow, but because their afflictions have acted like windows, to let them gaze into the very heart of Christ, and read his pity and understand his nature, as they never could have done by other means. Furnace light is memorably clear. Jesus is a brother born for adversity because in the glimmer of the world’s eventide, when all the lamps are going out, a glory shines around him, transforming midnight into day.

He is a brother born for adversity, in the last place, because in adversity it is that through his people’s patience he is glorified. I warrant you the sweetest songs that ever come up from these lowlands to the eternal throne are from sick beds. “They shall sing his high praises in the fires.” God’s children are too often dumb when they have much of this world’s earth in their mouths, but when the Lord is pleased to take away their comforts and possessions, then, like birds in cages they begin to sing with all their hearts. Praise him, ye suffering ones, your praise will be grateful to him. Extol him ye mourners, exchange by faith your sorrows for hopes, and bless his name who deserveth to be praised.

II. Now I shall leave this and only for a moment turn the text round to a practical purpose by referring it to the Christian . I hope that what has been spoken has been only the echo of the experience of the most of you. You have found Jesus Christ to be a true brother and a blessed friend, now let the same be true of you. He that would have friends must show himself friendly. If Christ be such a friend to us, what manner of people ought we to be towards him? So, beloved, let us pray and labor to be friends that love Christ at all times. Alas! some professors seem to love him at no time at all. They give him lip homage, but they refuse to give him the exercise of their talents, or the contribution of their substance. They love him only with words that are but air, but they offer him no sweet cane with money, neither do they fill him with the fat of their sacrifices. Such people are windbag lovers, and do nothing substantial to prove their affection. Let it not be so with us. Let our love to Christ be so true as to constrain us to make sacrifices for him. Let us deny ourselves that we may spread abroad the knowledge of his truth, and never be content unless in very deed and act we are giving proofs of our love.

We ought to love him at all times. Alas! there are some that prosper in business who grow too great to love their Savior. They hold their heads too high to associate with his saints. Aforetime they were with his people, content to worship with them when they were in humble circumstances, but they have prospered in trade, they have laid by a good store of wealth, and now they feel half ashamed to attend the conventicle that was once the very joy of their hearts. They must seek out the world’s religion, and they must worship after the world’s fashion, for they must not be left behind in society. The people of God are not good enough for them; though they be kings and princes in Christ’s esteem, yet are they too poor company for those that have risen so high in the world. Alas, alas! that professed lovers of Jesus should rise too high to walk truthfully and faithfully with Christ: it is no rise at all, but a lamentable fall. Let us cling to him in days of joy as well as nights of grief, and prove to all mankind that there are no enchantments in this world that can win our hearts away from our best beloved.

We should love Jesus Christ at all times, that is to say, in times when the church seems dull and dead. Perhaps some of you are living in a district just now where the ministry is painfully devoid of power. The lamp burns very low in your sanctuary, the members worshipping are few and zeal is altogether dead. Do not desert the church, do not flee away from her in the time of her necessity. Keep to your post, come what may. Be the last man to leave the sinking vessel, if sink she must. Resolve as a friend of Christ to love him at all times, and as a brother born into that church, feel that now, beyond all other times, in the season of adversity, you must adhere to her. It may happen that some here present may to-morrow be found in a workshop or in some other place where their business brings them, where some dear child of God will be laughed at and ridiculed. That same man you would have cheerfully owned on the Sabbath as your brother, you delighted to unite your voice with him in prayer, but now while he stands in the midst of a ribald throng will you own him, or rather, own Christ in him? They are making cruel jokes, they are vexing his gracious spirit; now it is possible that a cowardly fear may make you slink away to the other end of the shop, but oh, if you remember that a friend loveth at all times you will take up this man’s quarrel as being Christ’s quarrel, and you, as being a part of the body of Christ, will be willing to share whatever contumely may come upon your fellow Christian, and you will say “If you mock at him you may mock also at me, for I also have been with Jesus of Nazareth, and him whom you scoff at I adore.” O let us never, by the love that Christ has borne to us, keep back a truth because it may expose us to shame. Let us never be such cowards as to palter with the word of God because we may then live in silken ease and delicacy. These are not times in which one single particle of truth ought to be repressed. Whatever the Spirit of God and the word of God may have taught you my brethren, out with it for Christ’s sake, and let it bring what it will to you, bear that with joy. Since your Savior bore far more for you, count it joy to bear anything for him. Be a brother born on purpose for adversity. Do you expect to be carried to heaven on beds of ease? do you reckon to win the everlasting laurels without a conflict? What, sirs, would ye stand beneath the waving banners of victory without having first endured the smoke and the dust of battle? Nay, rather with consecrated courage follow in the steps of your Master. Love him at all times, give up all for him, and then shall you soon be with him in his glory world without end. God grant a blessing for Jesus’ sake. Amen.