Godly Companions # 2

Godly Companions # 2

Observe too the next verse which is inseparably connected with the one to which we have directed attention.

"Awake to righteousness and sin not: for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame" (1 Cor. 15:34). The word "awake" signifies to arouse as from a torpor or state of lethargy. It is a call to shake off the delusion that a Christian may company with Christless companions without being contaminated by them. "And sin not" in this respect. To cultivate friendship with religious worldlings is SIN, for such "have not the knowledge of God." That is, they have no experimental acquaintance with Him, His fear is not on them, His authority has no weight with them. "I speak this to your shame." The child of God ought to be abashed and filled with confusion that he needs such a word as this.

"I am a companion to all who fear You - to all who follow Your precepts." Such are the only "companions" worth having, the only ones who will give you any encouragement to continue pressing forward along the "Narrow Way." It is not those who merely pretend to "believe" God's precepts, or profess to "stand for" them - but those who actually "keep" them. But where are such to be found these days? Ah, where indeed! They are but "few" in number (Matt. 7:14) one here and one there. Yes, so very "few" are they that we are constrained to cry, "Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing! The faithful have vanished from the earth!" (Psalm 12:1).

It is indeed solemn to read the words that immediately follow the last quoted scripture and find how aptly they apply to and how accurately they describe the multitude of godless professing "Christians" all around us: "they speak vanity everyone with his neighbor, with flattering lips, with a double heart do they speak". Note three things about them:

First, they "speak vanity" or "emptiness." Their words are like bubbles, there is nothing edifying about them. It cannot be otherwise for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). Their poor hearts are empty (Matt. 12:44). So their speech is empty too.

Second, they have "flattering lips," which is the reason why they are so popular with the ungodly. They will seek to puff you up with a sense of your own importance, and pretend to admire the "much light" you have.

Third, they have a "double heart." They are vainly seeking to serve two masters. (2 Kings 17:32, 33).

"I am a companion to all who fear You - to all who follow Your precepts." There is a very real sense in which this is true even where there is no outward contact with such. Faithfulness to God, obedience to His Word, keeping His precepts, companying only with those who do so, turning away from everybody else - has always involved a lonely path. It was thus with Enoch (Jude 14). It was thus with Abraham. (Isaiah 51:2). It was thus with Paul (2 Tim. 1:5).

It is the same today. Every city in the land is filled with "churches," - but where are those who give plain evidence that they are living in this world as "strangers and pilgrims" and as such abstaining "from fleshly lusts which war against the soul?" (1 Peter 2:11). But thank God, though the path of faithfulness to Him is a lonely one, it brings me into spiritual fellowship with those who have gone before. We are to walk with Christ "outside the camp" (Hebrews 13:13) necessarily brings into communion with "all" His redeemed, be they on earth or be they in heaven. Thus the apostle John in his lonely exile on Patmos referred to himself as "your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 1:9). Yes, Christian reader, for a little while it means companionship "in tribulation," but, praise God it will not mean enduring the throes of the swiftly-approaching portion of Christless professors left behind when Christ comes for His own! For a little while it means companionship in "the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,"soon it will be in the kingdom and glory of Christ. May Divine mercy so enable us to live now that in that Day we shall receive His "Well done! Good and faithful servant!"

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)