An unfailing friend!

May 20, 2017
J.C. Ryle, "Able to Save"

“There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother!” Proverbs 18:24
Does any reader of this tract need a friend?
In such a world as this, how many hearts there are which ought to respond to that appeal! How many there are who feel “I stand alone.” How many have found one idol broken after another, one staff failing after another, one fountain dried after another — as they have traveled through the wilderness of this world.
We need much comfort and consolation in a world like this. It is no easy matter for a man to carry the cross and reach Heaven. There are many enemies to be encountered and overcome. We have often to stand alone. We have at the best times, few with us, and many against us. We need cordials and strong consolation to sustain and cheer us, and to preserve us from fainting on the way as we travel from Egypt into Canaan.
If there is one who needs a friend, let that one behold an unfailing friend at the right hand of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let that one repose his aching head and weary heart upon the bosom of that unfailing friend, Jesus Christ the Lord.
There is one living at God’s right hand of matchless tenderness. There is one who . . .
never dies.
never fails,
never disappoints,
never forsakes,
never changes His mind,
never breaks off friendship.
That One, the Lord Jesus, I commend to all who need a friend.
No one in a world like this, a fallen world, a world which we find more and more barren, it may be, every year we live; no one ever need be friendless, while the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
Christian, you have a Friend who never slumbers and never sleeps — a Friend who cares for you morning, noon, and night.

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