"But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." I want to tell you, there is not enough gold in Fort Knox, nor enough oil in Saudi Arabia to buy that type of friendship. When I think about a real friend, a true friend, a friend that really deserves to be a friend, I realize from this scripture what kind of a relationship it should be.
A true friendship will be a loyal relationship. The word "stick" refers to how the skin sticks to the bone, and this is a picture of how a real friend will stick closer to you through thick and thin than your skin will stick to your own bone. One thing you will never have to question about a friend is his loyalty.
A true friend will always be your defense attorney before he will become your judge.
You see, one of the marks of a friend is that though he may point out your faults from time to time, he will overlook them and never let them come between you. Henry Ward Beecher once said, "You ought to keep a big cemetery in your backyard where you can bury the faults of your friends." I've got news for you. You cannot eat your friends and have them too.
Somebody has said that the reason why a dog has so many friends is because he wags his tail instead of his tongue. If a person is truly your friend, you will never have to worry about what they will say behind your back.
Diana Craik put it so well when she said these words:
Oh the comfort--
The inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person;
Having neither to weigh thoughts
Nor measure words--but pouring them
all right out--just as they are--
Chaff and grain together--
Certain that a faithful friend will
take them and sift them--
Keeping what is worth keeping--
and with a breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.
Somebody has said that if everybody knew what everybody else said about them behind their back, nobody would have more than four friends in all the world. That is probably true. Prov. 16:28 says, "A perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer separates the best of friends."
