Does any reader of this paper want a real friend? I write to recommend one to your notice this day. I know of One "who sticketh closer than a brother." (Prov. xviii. 24.) I know of One who is ready to be your friend for time and for eternity, if you will receive Him. Hear me, while I try to tell you something about Him.
The friend I want you to know is Jesus Christ. Happy is that family in which Christ has the foremost place! Happy is that person whose chief friend is Christ!
I. Do we want a friend in need? Such a friend is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Man is the neediest creature on God's earth, because he is a sinner. There is no need so great as that of sinners: poverty, hunger, thirst, cold, sickness, all are nothing in comparison. Sinners need pardon, and they are utterly unable to provide it for themselves; they need deliverance from a guilty conscience and the fear of death, and they have no power of their own to obtain it. This need the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to relieve. "He came into the world to save sinners." (1 Tim. i. 15.)
We are all by nature poor dying creatures. From the king on his throne to the pauper in the workhouse, we are all sick of a mortal disease of soul. Whether we know it or not, whether we feel it or not, we are all dying daily. The plague of sin is in our blood. We cannot cure ourselves: we are hourly getting worse and worse. All this the Lord Jesus undertook to remedy. He came into the world "to bring in health and cure;" He came to deliver us "from the second death;" He came "to abolish death, and bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (Jer. xxxiii. 6; Rev. ii. 11; 2 Tim. i. 10.)
We are all by nature imprisoned debtors. We owed our God ten thousand talents, and had nothing to pay. We were wretched bankrupts, without hope of discharging ourselves. We could never have freed ourselves from our load of liabilities, and were daily getting more deeply involved. All this the Lord Jesus saw, and undertook to remedy. He engaged to "ransom and redeem us;" He came to "proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;" "He came to redeem us from the curse of the law." (Hos. xiii. 14; Isai. lxi. 1; Gal. iii. 13.)
We were all by nature shipwrecked and cast away. We could never have reached the harbour of everlasting life. We were sinking in the midst of the waves, shiftless, hopeless, helpless, and powerless; tied and bound by the chain of our sins, foundering under the burden of our own guilt, and like to become a prey to the devil. All this the Lord Jesus saw and undertook to remedy. He came down from heaven to be our mighty "helper;" He came to "seek and to save that which was lost;" and to "deliver us from going down into the pit." (Psalm lxxxix. 19; Luke xix. 10; Job xxxiii. 24.)
Could we have been saved without the Lord Jesus Christ coming down from heaven? It would have been impossible, so far as our eyes can see. The wisest men of Egypt, and Greece, and Rome never found out the way to peace with God. Without the friendship of Christ we should all have been lost for evermore in hell.
Was the Lord Jesus Christ obliged to come down to save us? Oh, no! no! It was His own free love, mercy, and pity that brought Him down. He came unsought and unasked because He was gracious.
Let us think on these things. Search all history from the beginning of the world,—look round the whole circle of those you know and love: you never heard of such friendship among the sons of men. There never was such a real friend in need as Jesus Christ.