The title of my sermon tonight is Friends and Frenemies.
Friends and Frenemies.
Now, I love this chapter because we get a lot of just reality with Paul in this chapter.
We see that he mentions just a lot of different people and, you know, the Christian life,
if you get in church, if you're trying to serve God, you're going to be meeting a lot
of different people.
You're going to be around a lot of different people and you're going to meet a lot of new
people that become your friends and then there's going to be people that, well, you
thought they were your friend, but they really weren't.
They were a frenemy.
And we see when he goes through this list, he's listing all kinds of people in this chapter
and he does it throughout all of the first and second Timothy, he's mentioning a lot
of different people here and there, but we see he's giving some people good reports,
some people bad reports, and then even there's some people in the middle.
There's people that are his friends, but maybe they're just not a good friend anymore.
And then you see people that aren't even just friends, they're enemies.
I mean, these people are going against the word of God.
They're heretics, they're false prophets, they're false teachers, or they've done something
wicked.
I mean, there's every flavor of people when you read Paul's epistles.
And I think I like this chapter because it highlights so many different people.
But the point of my sermon, I just want to make this very clear, is that we're not supposed
to trust a friend with something that we're willing to lose.
If it's something that we, if it's something that we're not willing to lose, if it's something
that we're not willing to lose, we should never trust that with a friend.
Now, I'm going to go through a lot of verses to prove that.
Go to Micah chapter 7, and we'll come back to 2 Timothy later.
But I want to try and drive in this point and make it clear that the Bible, you know,
de-emphasizes the idea of putting too much trust in a friend, or too much trust in another
person, or relying on them in some way that you can't really afford.
What would be a way that you don't really want to afford trusting someone?
How about your salvation?
I mean, do you really want to put your salvation in the trust of your friend, or in the trust
of a person, or in the trust of some man?
I wouldn't want to.
But let's look at Micah chapter 7 verse 5, it says, Trust ye not in a friend, put ye
not confidence in a guy, keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
For the son dishonereth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter
in law against her mother in law.
A man's enemies are the men of his own house, therefore I will look unto the Lord.
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.
Now there's a really interesting portion of scripture, and if you were to take it in context,
he's talking about the children of Israel and how wicked they are and how they really
turned away from the Lord.
So you want to be careful that you wouldn't just isolate these few verses and create a
whole bunch of doctrine without comparing spiritual to spiritual.
So that's why I want to look at a lot of other verses.
Go to Psalms 146, but he said very clearly, Trust ye not in a friend.
Now I think that is a phrase that we can find in a lot of other places in the Bible.
What does that mean to trust in a friend?
Well I think most specifically the Bible is saying look, don't trust your friend with
something that you wouldn't be willing to lose.
What would be that?
Your salvation maybe?
Maybe your children?
Maybe a loved one?
Maybe some possession that you're just not really ready to depart from?
Don't trust that to a friend.
If you're not willing to lose it, don't trust it to a friend.
Says in Psalms chapter 40 verse four, Bless is the man that maketh the Lord his trust,
and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
So we're supposed to make the Lord our trust.
The Bible says in Psalms 44 six, For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword
save me.
So we're not supposed to trust in physical strength.
We're not supposed to trust in the security system.
We're not supposed to trust in the fact that you have a six shooter on your head, or you
got the AK-47 on your back.
You're not supposed to trust in your weapons, or your physical strength, or I'm a black
belt in karate.
I mean that's not really where you're supposed to put your trust.
It's always supposed to be on the Lord.
The Bible says in Psalms 52 seven, Lo, this is the man that maketh not God his strength,
but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthen himself in wickedness.
Not only you're not supposed to trust in your physical strength, or some kind of weapon
of choice, you're not supposed to trust in your money either.
You're not supposed to trust in your riches.
The Bible says again, you're supposed to be trusting only in the Lord.
Look at Psalms 146 verse three where I had you turn.
It says, Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, and whom there is no help.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and in that very day his thoughts perish.
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.
Now don't get confused there in verse three when it says, nor in the son of man.
That's something that Jesus Christ did refer to himself while he was on this earth, but
in this context the son of man is just saying men and mankind.
He's just saying people in general, that you'd be trusting in some kind of person.
Don't trust in the rulers.
Don't trust in any man.
Don't trust in any of these things.
Trust in the Lord.
You want the God of Jacob to be your help.
You want your hope to be in the Lord God.
That's who you want your hope to be.
Go to Jeremiah chapter nine, Jeremiah chapter nine.
The Bible says in Proverbs three five, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean
not on thine own understanding.
If you were to put all of your trust in the Lord, then how much trust is left over?
Isn't that a good question?
If you put all of your trust on the Lord in every area of your life, how much is that
left over?
None.
So you can't put your trust in man.
You can't put your trust in your money.
You can't put your trust in your, you know, your physical security and your gate and your
security system.
Any of those things?
No.
If you have it all on the Lord, you're not going to be doing those things.
That's why it's contrasted.
The Bible says in Isaiah 31, woe to them that go down to Egypt for help and stay on
horses and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because that they
are very strong, but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord.
You know, in this context of Isaiah, Egypt is considered one of these most powerful nations
in the world.
You know, they have this strong military.
Maybe you could liken unto it as America today as one of having this great military, having
this great force, and a lot of people today, they feel secure because of our military.
They say, oh, I feel really safe.
I'm so glad I'm an American because I have this great military and they're going to keep
me safe from evil.
Yes, again, if the Lord's not your trust, you're, you're wide open for all kinds of
misery and heartache and evil.
It doesn't matter how much your military is.
It doesn't matter how strong that charity is or how that horse is.
We ought to put our confidence or our trust in those type of things.
I would rather be following God's commandments and the weakest of nations on the earth than
to be not following God's commandments and the strongest nation of the earth because
God is the one that we're supposed to put our trust in ultimately.
Let's look at Jeremiah 9 verse 1, oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain
of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.
Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave
my people and go from there.
For they be all adulterers and an assembly of treacherous men and they bend their tongues
like their bow for lies, but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth.
For they proceed from evil to evil and they know not me, sayeth the Lord.
Take ye heed every one of his neighbor and trust ye not in any brother for every brother
will utterly supplant and every neighbor will walk with slanders and they will deceive everyone
but his neighbor and will not speak the truth.
They have taught their tongue to speak lies and to weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit.
Through deceit they refuse to know me, sayeth the Lord.
Therefore thus sayeth the Lord of hosts, behold I will melt them and try them for how shall
I do for the daughter of my people.
I'm going to check, it's like a little hot in here isn't it?
Alright, what is this saying?
Look at verse four, it says entrust ye not in any brother for every brother will utterly
supplant and every neighbor will walk with slanders.
Look, you can't even trust in your physical brethren, you can't even trust in your neighbor,
you can't even trust in any man.
The Bible is making this clear over and over.
I want to read a lot of verses because I think the natural tendency is to trust those that
are close to you, to trust your flesh and blood, to just put a lot of trust in man.
But the Bible tries to take that trust and shift it all to the Lord, all to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Take your trust from man and put it on the Lord Jesus Christ.
You want to know why?
Because the Lord Jesus Christ is never going to disappoint you, but man will disappoint
you.
Your brother will disappoint you.
They're going to slander you, they're going to deceive you, they're going to do something
wrong.
There's going to be some way that they're going to disappoint you.
If you put your trust in man, you're going to be disappointed.
You're going to fail.
You're going to have hardships.
You're going to have heartaches.
If you put it all on the Lord Jesus Christ, you can maintain the most joy in your life.
We see, what did Job do?
In the midst of just the most hardship that you could possibly imagine, he could still
praise the Lord.
Why?
Because the Lord is his trust.
He didn't have all his trust and all of his affections in his children.
I mean obviously he loved his children.
He had performed sacrifices for his children just in case they sinned.
He's like, I don't even know if they sinned, but I'm just going to go ahead and sacrifice
and pray for them just in case they did so God will be merciful on them.
He loved his children, but guess what, that's not where his ultimate trust and affection
was on the Lord.
Because even when he loses them all, he can still praise the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need to make sure that our affections and our trust is ultimately always in the Lord
and that we won't be disappointed.
I mean the Bible even said in Micah, not the one that's lying in your bosom.
We're talking about a spouse here.
Now obviously I'm not trying to say that you can't, you know, you should have a double
eye with your spouse and a double eye with your brother and that you should think evil
of everybody in the room and be like, we can't trust anybody with anything to any level.
No I think it's clear what I tried to say at the beginning that the Bible says don't
trust another person with something you're not willing to lose.
Now obviously when you come into a marriage, two become one flesh.
So obviously within a marriage you can have that trust between your spouse and wife with
a lot of things in this earth, with your children.
Obviously I leave my children with my wife every single day.
You know that was one of the, I'll be honest, that was one of the number one things I looked
for in a wife.
When I was single, when I was not dating, one of the most important things to me was
is this woman going to be a good mother?
I don't know why, it just, it was like my number one thing every time I would think
about it.
I would think about this guy and say, oh she's kind of pretty, yeah she's kind of nice, but
she would be a horrible mother.
That was just a complete turn off.
I didn't want to have that woman ever raise my children.
Children are very important to me and I want a woman that's going to love them and cherish
them and punish them and teach them things and do good under them.
I'm so glad that I didn't go for, you know, something else, that I was looking for that
righteous woman.
And I got lucky, I hit the jackpot, I got the looks and I got the brains, I got it all.
But you know, I think it's more important to find the woman that's going to be a good
mother.
To look for those type of qualities in a person.
And even those type of qualities we would see in a friend.
Go to Proverbs 25 if you will.
The Bible also talked about not just trust but confidence.
I'll read for you the definition of trust so we have a little bit of idea.
Trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or
something.
So it means that you trust, you're relying on them.
You believe that there's truth that's coming out of their mouth.
You believe in their ability.
Confidence, very similar word, is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or
something.
Firm trust.
So those words are very similar, could be used synonymously in a lot of ways.
The Bible says in Psalms 118, 8, it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence
in man.
Trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
So if there's an area in your life that you can put your confidence in God over man, you
should always do it.
Now obviously God commands us to do a lot of different things to get married.
Obviously I have to put confidence in my spouse when we commit our vows to one another, right?
I can't just shift that responsibility to God.
I have to decide, hey I'm going to pick a woman that I think is going to love the Lord
and isn't going to want to forsake me because she loves the Lord too.
Says in verse 9, it's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
You know, not in the rulers, not in the authority figures, it's always to put it in the Lord.
Look at Proverbs 25 verse 19, confidence in an unfaithful man in a time of trouble is
like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint.
I mean the thing is, is sometimes you're not going to know if someone's faithful or not.
And so when you're putting too much trust in man, when you're putting too much trust
in another person, if they're an unfaithful person, it's going to be devastating.
I mean a broken tooth, that sounds horrible.
I mean I love getting to be able to eat and be able to talk and be able to do certain
things.
You have a broken tooth, I mean that's just going to be a nagging pain.
You're not going to be able, you're going to be so debilitated you can't do anything.
Or a foot out of joint, I mean has anybody like hurt their leg or hurt their foot and
they couldn't walk?
I mean it's horrible.
I mean I had to be on crutches for a long time, one time when I hurt my knee, it was
one of the most debilitating and frustrating things.
I mean you just have to rely on other people, you can't move around, you're always constantly
a burden on other people.
I mean it's terrible.
That's what it's like to put confidence in an unfaithful man.
And so obviously if you're ever going to have to put some level of confidence in a
person, you want to see if this person is faithful.
We might not always know that.
You can't always be completely certain if this person is going to be faithful.
That's why you need to be careful where you're putting your confidence.
Where are you putting your trust?
So how do you practically trust the Lord over a friend?
Because obviously the Bible is saying this over and over.
What does that mean practically?
Like how do I really do that?
I think the most obvious thing is salvation.
We see so many people when you go out soul winning and you knock on doors.
I knocked the doors Tuesday and there was this young girl and I was trying to show her
the Bible.
She said she went to the Catholic church down the street.
She says, no I believe my religion.
No I believe what my parents teach me.
No I know what you're going to tell me is different, but I'm going to trust in what
they're teaching me.
I trust in my church.
I believe what my church is teaching.
She's trusting man over God's word.
She's trusting man over the Lord.
She doesn't want to seek the Lord.
The Bible says that receiving the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.
Why can I believe what I believe?
Because the Bible says it.
Not because some man showed it to me.
Not because I'm putting my trust ultimately in a man.
No it's because of what God's word says.
It's because the endless truth of God's word.
I'm ultimately trusting in God's word to save me, not what some man taught me.
And that's where we should really be careful.
Now go to John chapter 7.
You see that this was something that the Pharisees really struggled with.
The Pharisees didn't understand this point.
Says in John chapter 7 verse 45, then came the officers of the chief priests and Pharisees
and they said unto him, why have you not brought them?
The officers answered, never man spake like this man.
Then answered them the Pharisees, are ye also deceived?
Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on him?
But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.
So what did they say?
They say, you can't believe on Jesus Christ, none of the rulers believe on him, none of
the Pharisees believe on him.
So where's your ultimate trust?
Is it in God's word that proved that Jesus Christ was the Lord?
Or was it in the Pharisee who was saying this isn't the Christ, this isn't the Messiah?
Just like the Catholic priest will teach the false gospel.
Just like the Pope will preach a false gospel.
Oh, he has all these followers.
Has the Pope, you know, believed on Jesus Christ?
Does he believe that salvation by faith alone?
Is he just trusting in the finished work of the cross?
No, he said the cross was a failure is what he said when he got up on national television.
He's a liar and an anti-Christ and a devil.
You know, we shouldn't put our trust in man for salvation.
We put our trust in the Lord.
How do you do that?
Through the Bible, through God's perfect word, inerrant word.
That's how you can get saved.
We get saved by the incorruptible seed, the word of God.
When the word of God is preached, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
How does someone get saved?
They believe what this book said.
So you say, oh, I got soul winning and I never used the Bible.
You're not getting anybody saved.
You better use God's word if you're going to get someone saved.
Oh, I'll just tell it in my words.
Don't put your trust in man.
Put your confidence in the Lord and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the beginning was the word.
The word is Jesus Christ, right?
That's just the most obvious, I think.
How do you trust in the Lord over man?
With your salvation.
I mean, is that something you want to lose?
Do you want to lose your soul all the way to hell?
Do you want to spend eternity in the lake of fire?
Of course not.
That's something that you shouldn't be willing to lose.
So we need to put our trust in the Lord for that, not in man, not in what some religious
leader would teach us.
What's another way?
How about when a friend gives you advice?
How about when a brother gives you advice or gives you some kind of admonition or gives
you some kind of exhortation?
It could be a brother in Christ, it could be a sister in Christ, it could be an older
person, a younger person.
I mean, people give people advice all the time.
I think it's just a natural tendency that people want to instruct others.
They want to be this wise person.
Let me tell you what I do.
This is how I handle this situation.
But you know, we need to be careful that we don't put too much reliance in what somebody
just tells us.
We need to say, hey, is this biblical?
Hey, you know, well, we got our kids the vaccine shots and they're okay.
Why don't you do the same thing?
Why don't you go back to the Bible and see if that's what it says?
Jesus Christ said they'd behold me, not a physician.
Do you believe in, are you trusting in the Lord or are you trusting in man?
You could go online and say, you know what, it's really tough with this kid.
I keep spanking him and he keeps getting in trouble.
I go online.
Oh, spanking doesn't work.
Am I going to put my trust in man or am I going to put my trust in the Bible?
Let's say that he that spared this rod hated this son.
I mean, the Bible's contesting those two things and then when it comes to your children, it's
going to be trust because you don't know how your kids are going to turn out.
I mean, you, as you're raising your kid, you don't really know how they're going to turn
out, but you have to make a lot of decisions before they grow up.
You have to constantly be deciding how to discipline them, how to raise them, what to
teach them, where they're going to go and the question is, where is your trust?
Is your trust in the promises of God or your trust in the promises of man in some position
and some, you know, counselor or hocus pocus on the family, you know, they're going to
tell you how to raise your kids.
Where is your trust?
Is it in man?
Even in your parents.
Unfortunately, the generation before us was very wicked.
The generation before us did not seek the Lord.
They don't know the Lord.
They don't know the Bible and so if you just rely on everything your parents teach you
and you never consult God's word, you're probably going to make a lot of mistakes.
Now I'm not saying that you should, you know, not honor your father and your mother.
The Bible makes it clear we should honor our father and mother and there's a lot of good
things that your parents can teach you, even if they're not safe.
Just older people have a lot of wisdom, they have a lot of perspective.
You can still learn things from those people, but we need to make sure they're lined up
with the Bible.
The ultimate trust is, hey, if someone gives me advice, I'll think about it, but unless
the Bible confirms it, unless it's God telling me this, I'm not going to, I'm going to disregard
it.
Go if you would to Deuteronomy 13, skip a few things.
In Matthew 5, the Bible says, it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let
him give her a writing of divorcement, but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away
his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery and whosoever
shall marry her that is divorced, committed adultery.
Again, you have heard that it had been said by them of all time, thou shalt not persuade
us, forswear thyself, but thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths, but I say unto
you, swear not at all, neither by heaven or it is God's throne.
You know, Jesus, when he's going through Matthew 5, he's saying a lot of things.
Hey, you've heard this been said, meaning what?
Man is teaching them something, okay?
But then the Lord comes and he says, that's not what I want you to do.
I want you to do something different.
So you have to decide where you're going to put your trust.
Man is going to cram his ideas down your throat.
The government is going to cram his ideas down your throat.
The devil is going to cram his ideas down your throat.
You have to decide, hey, I'm going to go back to the word of God and put my trust in what
he says and try to get the real truth.
You know, he says, in the Old Testament, we see a lot of times people would make these
oaths and you could get misleading from a story and be like, maybe I should make some
great oath unto the Lord.
Maybe I need to, you know, swear myself to do some great thing like Jephthah or like
some of these people.
Jephthah made a terrible decision by making an oath.
The Lord would have delivered him if he just trusted in him.
He didn't have to make some great oath that he was going to sacrifice the first thing
that came out of his door and then guess what happened?
His daughter came out.
Horrible decision, horrible oath, horrible swearing.
The Lord says, look, don't swear, don't, don't bind yourself with these oaths.
I'm not, I don't want you to do that.
We need to trust in what the Lord says.
Don't even take a story.
Don't take an example, line it up with Christ's words, put your ultimate trust in him.
We see even Jethro, for the second time, I'm not going to read that story, but Jethro gives
Moses some, some instruction.
Pastor Anderson preached a recent sermon on it, it's very good.
Where Jethro gives him how to delegate, how to delegate work.
He says something interesting.
He says, if thou shalt do this thing and God command thee so, then thou shall be able to
endure and this people shall also go to their place and peace saying, look, Hey, I'm going
to give you this advice, but make sure it lines up with the God's word.
Make sure it lines up with God's program.
Make sure it's what God also wants you to do before you follow my advice.
That's a good way to give someone advice.
Say, Hey, this is what I've done, but ultimately make sure it lines up with the Bible and maybe
you can even give them some Bible verses if you're going to try and give them some advice.
But we need to make sure any type of advice we get from somebody, even if it's the person
lying in your bosom, make sure it lines up with the word of God.
I mean, just being honest, me and my wife, we both given each other bad advice through
the years that didn't line up with God's word.
Just being honest, just being a human, just giving each other advice about certain things.
And we need to not make sure that even if it's our spouse, Hey, is that what God's word
saying?
Sometimes we need to be corrected by God's word, both of us, any person needs to be corrected
by God's word.
We need to make sure that we're not just trusting in man, we're not just trusting what a person
says, trusting what online says, trusting what our parents did, trusting what everybody's
telling us, trust what the government says, trust what the Pope says, trust what any man
says, trust what the Bible says, don't even just trust the pastor blindly, trust what
the Bible says.
Now, obviously you should go to a church where the pastor is constantly proving things out
of the Bible and they're like, man, if he's saying something, I better check what the
Bible says cause he's always been right so far.
Maybe he's right on this one too.
Deuteronomy 13, look at verse six, if thy brother, the son of thy mother or thy son
or thy daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend, which is thine own soul enticed
secretly saying, let us go and serve other gods which thou has not known, thou nor thy
fathers, namely of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee
or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth, even unto the other end of the
earth, thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye
pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him, but thou shalt surely
kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death and afterwards the hand
of all the people.
What a horrible thing.
Your friend comes up to you, he says the wife of thy bosom, your wife comes on you and says
let's serve other gods, he says you don't even conceal it, you take her out and you
would stone her.
That was what the Old Testament law, the laws of God were, making it very serious.
We need to be careful how much trust we're putting in man, how much trust we're putting
in another person.
All of our trust needs to be on the Lord Jesus Christ, because you never know, you never
know when someone might turn for the worst, when they might do something wicked, when
they might be an unfaithful person.
The Bible says, Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful bail from among
the children of men.
I don't think, there's no other thing under the sun, I think that's always been the case.
The faithful are the few, the faithful are the few.
It's hard to find someone that's faithful, and you know it's hard to even realize someone's
faithful because it takes a long time to realize that person's faithful.
I mean you look at the people, faithful, we're Baptist Church.
How many people have been here in the last ten years?
I mean if you say, let's go back ten years and see how many people have stayed in this
church.
It's few.
It's few people.
It's faithful, we're Baptist Church, we think it's the greatest church.
Ten years is not that long, when you think of a lifetime, when you think of a church's
existence, and there's very few people, why?
Faithful people are hard to find.
Now of course you don't have to stay in the exact same location your whole life.
Obviously hey, go to another good church, that's not a problem, but most of the time
people that aren't in church, in this church, it's not for that reason.
It's not for a biblical reason, it's not for a godly reason, it's because they fall away.
Because they're not steadfast.
Because they're not rooted and grounded in the truth.
Finding a faithful person is super rare and hard.
So then the question is, why would you put trust in man then?
If it's super hard to find this rare, faithful person that'll always be steadfast, that's
always going to be there, then why are you putting too much trust in a man?
Don't put too much trust in me!
I mean, don't put too much trust in any person, put your trust in the Lord.
Say you know what?
I don't care what happens to any of these people, I'm going to serve the Lord with my
whole heart.
Even if Faithful Baptist Church were to go away, somehow by some horrible accident or
something bad happened, if it went away, I'm still going to get to find a faithful church
and I'm going to serve God.
I'm still going to be on God's program.
It doesn't matter what happens to others, I'm going to just trust in the Lord.
And no matter what the circumstances are, no matter if I lose my whole family, and my
wife curses me, and I'm sitting in boils, I can still praise the Lord.
I mean that's the attitude we need to try and have an adjustment.
The Bible says to renew your mind, right?
We need to stop putting too much trust on man and put it all on the Lord.
Put it all on God.
Why?
Because friends, friends are just not something to be relied on.
Friends can change in a moment of time.
One day your friend can be the greatest person and the next day he's your worst enemy.
I mean friends just change like the wind, they change like water.
They're not something that can be really relied on.
We need to be very careful who we make our friends, how much trust we put in them, what
kind of reliance we put on someone else.
2 Samuel chapter 13.
I have a lot of points.
I don't think I'm going to cover them all.
This is a really important topic though.
The Bible says why should we not trust in friends?
Well the Bible says a man that has friends must show himself friendly.
And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
I think that's a picture of Jesus Christ.
There's someone that's closer than that friend or that brother that's Jesus Christ.
Why should you not put all your trust in man?
Because you're going to decide to just put it all on Jesus.
And if you have it all on Jesus, like I said, there's nothing left over.
There's not any more to put on anybody else.
They say, hey, why don't you trust me?
Sorry.
It's all on Jesus.
It's all on God's word.
Hey, I think you should, you know, go and do this.
Well the Bible doesn't say that.
Yeah, just trust me buddy.
Nope.
It's all on Jesus.
It's all in the Bible.
If you say something contrary to this word, uh-uh, not going to do it.
It's all on the Bible.
It's all on Jesus.
Well my mom said I have to do this.
Nope.
It's on Jesus.
No, my dad's telling me I got to go over here.
I can't do this.
Nope.
I'm going to follow God's word.
It's all on Jesus Christ, no matter who it is.
So I have, uh, I guess it was a seven points.
I was going to use the word friends to give you seven reasons why you shouldn't put all
your trust in friends.
Why do you not trust them?
One because friends can be fraudulent.
Friends can be frauds.
You know, a good friend would be faithful, but a lot of times friends can be a fraud.
I had to go to second Samuel chapter 13, look at verse three.
But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jehonadab, the son of Shimei, David's brother, and
Jonadab was a very subtle man, and he said unto him, why aren't thou being the king's
son, lean from day to day?
Will thou not tell me?
And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.
And Jonadab said unto him, lay thee down on thy bed and make thyself sick.
And when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar
come and give me meat and dress the meat in my sight that I may see it and eat it at her
hand.
Now, I mean, this guy is one of the most wicked friends, but he's not a friend.
He's a friend of me.
He's a fraud.
He's coming to this guy.
He's telling him to rape his sister and to have incest.
I mean, what?
That's not a friend.
That's not someone giving advice in the Lord, but he's pretending to be his friend.
He's very subtle.
He's coming saying, why are you troubled, my friend?
Why are you troubled, my brother?
Tell me what's hailing you.
Well, this is how you're going to get what you want.
He's telling them how to fulfill the lust of the flesh, and we see that he's a fraud.
He's not going to tell them what he needs to hear.
He's not getting rebuked by his friend for saying, hey, I have, you know, inordinate
affection.
That's what he had, inordinate affection.
It's unnatural to have that type of affection.
That's not something we should be desiring.
That's a mind, that's an imagination that should be cast down immediately.
We shouldn't be giving thought to something like that.
But Jodadab was a fraud.
The Bible says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
What does that mean?
If your friend's telling you something like that, you better rebuke him sharply.
You better say, no more, brother.
That is off limits.
Don't even say that.
What are you doing?
I mean, you're king's son, you could probably have lots of women, you know, all that they'll
look upon.
Why can't you find a fair maiden, a fair virgin that's not your sister?
But no, he tells them to, you know, force her to do this wicked deed, to feign himself
as being sick, to get her trapped alone in this wicked situation.
He's not a friend.
And, you know, when you be careful who we surround ourselves and what friends we have
and what kind of advice they're giving us.
If your friend gives you this kind of advice, you better run from that kind of a friend.
If your friend's telling you to fulfill the lust of the flesh, you better hope that you
can have the will power and the strength to realize that and just flee from that type
of a friend.
You know, it says the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
It was a kiss, he's like, oh, this is really good, this is good advice, this I'm going
to give what I want.
I'm going to fulfill the lust of my flesh.
But it was deceitful, why?
Amnon hated his sister after he had done that.
He ends up going through with it and then he ruins his life.
He ruins his sister's life.
Then he's killed by his other brother and ruins his life.
He's just constantly ruining people's lives.
That's not a faithful friend.
That was deceitful.
He thought if he would fulfill the lust of his flesh, he'd be happy.
He was miserable and he died miserable.
Most men will proclaim everyone to his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find
it.
You know, everybody's going to come, hey, I'm a trustworthy guy.
I know what's going on.
I'm not going to lead you astray.
But you know what?
It's hard to find that person that truly is.
Everybody will tell you they're faithful, but it's hard to find the faithful person.
They're like snakes in the grass.
And we see this all through the Bible.
We start out with the serpent, beguiling Eve, subtle, the subtle beast.
We see Cain kills his own brother.
I mean, you think Abel really thought his brother was going to be this, you know,
villainous, murderous person?
No, he probably was his best friend.
I mean, you think about it.
It's your parents and you and your brother on here.
He's probably your best friend.
He's your brother.
He ends up murdering him.
We have navel, Abigail's wife.
She's like, this guy's a reprobate.
This guy's the son of Belial.
I mean, her own husband's a reprobate.
That sounds horrible.
Paul, he's mentioning constantly.
Alexander the coppersmith.
Her progenies, geographies by jealous, homogeneous, by leadest.
We have Judas, Judas feigning himself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
He's a fraud.
We see frauds are constantly in the Bible.
You say, how come we see frauds today in the church?
When did you not see a fraud in the Bible?
I mean, what story are you not seeing fraud after fraud after fraud?
People feigning themselves to be good men trying to, you know,
tell their goodness.
But guess what?
They're not faithful.
They're fraudulent.
They're unfaithful.
They're wicked.
If you do not deceive, evil communications corrupt good manners.
Don't let those, you know, wicked people come around and corrupt your good manners.
Because if you let the, you know, the Jonah dabs come and whisper in your ear,
you're going to start doing wicked things.
I mean, you can't just let these wicked thoughts and these imaginations
just continue to fester and fester and fester.
You know, then sin's going to bring forth death.
Lust is going to bring forth sin and sin's going to bring forth death.
Well, let's go to Matthew 5.
The Bible says, though, that there's faithful people.
That would be the opposite.
Someone who's not a fraud is faithful.
And you know what?
I don't want you to get so scared that you never make any friends.
That's not the point of the sermon.
The sermon is not don't make friends, never try to be nice to somebody.
You know what?
Paul is the good example because he made a lot of great friends.
He met people like Priscilla and Aquila.
Who are willing to lay down their lives for him.
We see David.
He makes a great friend in Jonathan.
Now Saul wasn't a very good friend.
You know, at one point, Saul loved and admired David.
He even made him his servant.
He loved this guy.
But then what?
He hates him the next day.
And that's how a lot of people can be a lot of friends.
The friends can, oh, I just love you, brother.
You know, you're the greatest guy.
I got people at this church tell me, oh, man, you're so great.
I love, you know, hearing you preach.
You're such a great guy.
You're such a great friend.
And then later they're calling me up and, you know, saying all kinds of wicked things
about me.
Saying I'm this heretic and saying all this, you know, horrible things about me.
Just, just, just like that.
You never know.
And somebody that comes up to you and gives you a whole bunch of flattery, that should
be a red flag.
I'm not saying that person is just automatically bad.
But I almost, almost, I almost think they are bad.
Just because every time someone's ever come to me and just been over flattering and just
really just exaggerative, even saying things that just are not true.
Like, you're just like, whoa, buddy.
And then it turns out they're not faithful.
Turns out they're wicked.
It turns out that they were just kind of, they have to overcompensate for the fact that
they actually hate you inside.
Like the Mormons.
They come to you and they're like, hey, we're just like you.
Yeah.
You wanna have a Bible study?
And inside they're just, they hate you.
They're this ravening wolf.
They're lying to you.
Yeah, we believe there's only one God.
Yeah, we, we believe all the same things that you do, even though they know they're just
lying straight into their teeth.
Someone that's really flattering, you need to be careful and wary of that person.
My second point was, uh, R, was sometimes friends can revile you.
It says in, uh, Matthew 511, blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Now obviously someone can hate you for a real reason.
Like you just do them dirty, you do something wicked, you hurt them, you do some kind of
damage to them and someone's like mad at you.
Obviously that's justified.
I'm not trying to say that, but sometimes you can do nothing wrong and you can have
a friend hate you or revile you or a family member despise you just because you want to
serve God.
Just because you testify of their wickedness by you trying to relive a righteous life.
You're not even trying to preach at them, but you're just saying, Hey, I don't want
to drink alcohol anymore.
And then they just revile you and gnash on you with their teeth and speak evil of you
just because you want to live godly.
You're not even saying anything about them.
You're not trying to say you need to stop drinking and you're wicked.
You're just saying, Hey, I'm not going to drink.
Oh, what do you think you're better than me?
Oh, oh, you're just too righteous.
You just, you just are way better than we are.
You're just so much holier than we are.
You didn't even preach anything at them, but they're just sitting there reviling you.
I mean, I think it happens to a lot of people.
If you, if you are in a group of people and you decide to withdraw from their evil, they're
going to attack you.
They're going to revile you.
They're going to speak evil of you, especially family.
I think family is the worst on this issue.
Family is going to come and they're going to say all kinds of manner of evil and wickedness.
That's why we need not put too much trust and reliance on our family and our friends.
If all your affection and all your emotion is tied up and what your family and your friends
think of you, guess what?
They're going to disappoint you and you're going to be devastated and you're going to
struggle.
You need to have it all in the Lord.
You know what?
When you live godly and you do the right thing, God's pleased with you.
He's not going to get mad at you for doing the right thing.
He's always going to be pleased with you.
That way you can continue to do the right thing.
You see, Jesus Christ was constantly reviled.
Go to Matthew chapter 26.
We see Job again.
I like talking about Job.
It says in Job chapter 16, then Job answered and said, I've heard many such things.
Miserable comforters are ye all.
You know, Job had his three friends come to comfort him and all they do is sit there and
rebuke him and revile him constantly.
Man, you must be in some wicked sin, buddy.
Man, you must be hanging out with a bunch of sinners.
You must be doing a lot of bad things, Job.
He's like, you're not comforting me.
You're not being a friend.
You're just reviling me.
You're just speaking evil of me.
That's not a true friend, but we see friends can do that.
When everything was good, when Job was rich and he had all the money, his friends were
nice.
Then it all leaves him and what do they do?
They come and revile him.
They gnash on him with their teeth.
That's how people are.
Don't let it affect your countenance.
Don't let your friends affect your countenance.
So my third one is I, it's a friend will sometimes indict charges on you.
They'll be the one that testifies against you.
They'll be the one that is on the court, you know, saying things against you.
We see in Matthew 26 verse 14, then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot went under the
chief priests and said unto them, what will you give me?
And I will deliver him unto you.
And they coveted with them for 30 pieces of silver.
And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.
Judas, I mean, this is supposedly Jesus Christ's friend.
It's his buddy.
But then he's going to go and sell them out.
He's going to betray him.
We see a ton of people, they're false witnesses against Christ.
They're trying to bring, you know, accusations.
They're trying to indict Christ.
Hey, he said that he was going to destroy the temple.
Hey, this guy's saying he's calling himself, you know, the king of the Jews.
This guy's going around saying that Caesar, you know, not to pay tribute unto Caesar.
They're trying to bring all these charges against him.
They're trying to indict him.
Even though a couple of days ago, everybody's in the temple rejoicing him and they're like,
this guy must be the Christ and we're rejoicing.
We're singing Hosanna.
I mean, we're saying bless his kingdom come into the name of the Lord.
But then what are we doing?
We're indicting charges.
We're saying crucify him.
They just change like that.
You know, a good friend is going to impute righteousness unto you like Jesus Christ did.
He imputed righteousness unto us.
Even when you struggle or you do something wrong, you know what a faithful friend would do?
He would come in and just step up and, you know, lift up that person anyways.
He would look over a fault.
He would ignore that fault.
He would say, you know what, I know this guy might have transgressed, but I'm just going to stick up for him anyways.
Like Paul said to Philemon, put that on my account.
I know he's done wicked in the past, but guess what?
I'll pay it.
Put it on my account.
Whatever it is, take care of it.
Just a picture of Jesus Christ, what he did for us, right?
I mean, he imputes his righteousness unto us and he takes our sins.
That's a picture of a good friend.
That's a picture of a righteous friend.
What does the other friend do?
He puts false accusations on you.
He tries to indict you with, you know, criminal charges.
My next point was exclude.
Go if you would to go to third John chapter one, third John chapter one.
Bible says in Galatians four, they zealously affect you, but not well.
Yea, they would exclude you that you might affect them.
You know, sometimes your friends, they'll get to a point where they don't even want to be around you anymore.
They'll just exclude you.
They don't want to be a part of your company.
In third John chapter, look at verse five.
It says, Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to the strangers, which have borne witness of thy charity before the church.
Those thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sword, thou shalt do well because not for his name's sake.
They went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles.
We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.
I wrote unto the church, but geographies who loveth them, the preeminence among them receiveth us not.
Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds, which he doeth, prating against us the malicious words and not content therewith.
Neither doth he receive the brethren and forbideth them that would and casteth them out of the church.
We see this guy geographies.
He got such an attitude.
He wanted to have, you know, all the rule and all the power and all the authority that those that actually wanted to believe the Bible.
They didn't believe the preacher rapture.
He was going to cast out of the church.
Oh, you're with Stephen Anderson.
Get out of the church.
I don't care if you're saved.
I don't care if you believe the Bible.
I don't care if you're going to be helped in the church.
Just get out.
We see the doctrine of Jesus today.
We see these people.
Hey, I'm your friend today.
Oh, you believe in the poster rapture?
Not your friend anymore.
Oh, you believe, you know, the Jews that hate Jesus Christ aren't saved?
What a shock.
You have to get out of our presence.
We're going to exclude you.
You can't be a part of our, you know, prophecy conferences.
You can't be a part of our association.
You can't be a part of our churches.
We're not.
We're going to speak equally.
We're going to exclude you.
What will a friend do?
He'll embrace others.
You know, you can see this, I love how Pastor Anderson would say, I don't care if someone's
pre-tribbed.
They can still be my friend.
He would take pastors on that disagree with them on minor doctrines, on things that he
knows a hundred percent sure that they're wrong.
He knows that what they believe is not right, but he's going to look over that and he's
going to say, hey, I'll still embrace you if you're a soul winner.
If you're still preaching the gospel, if you're still using the King James Bible, you know,
a good friend is going to bring you in even though you know it's not perfect, even though
he knows maybe there's something a little bit different, but what's the bad friend going
to do?
He's going to exclude you.
He's going to, he's going to get rid of you.
My next point was in, you know, sometimes friends can not be there.
I mean, you, you just, all this friends are going to be there and they don't show up.
How many times have you invited someone to church?
They said they're going to be there and then they don't show up.
I mean, if you got soul winning and you get somebody saved, I would say more than half
the time they say they'll come to church.
More than half.
I mean, sometimes these people are like telling, I'm going to be there.
What are the service times?
Oh man, I'm definitely going to see you there.
I can't wait to see you there.
Never there.
Don't show up.
They never come.
You know, what if you put off, man, this is going to be a great day because I know the
person is going to show up and they don't show up.
Don't put too much confidence in man.
I, I'll be honest, maybe it's just because I'm jaded, but I never believe somebody.
If they say they're coming to church, I'll believe it when they're there and I can shake
their hand.
That's what I believe it.
But you know, we don't, we shouldn't put too much, you know, trust in man because he's
going to fail you.
Even no matter how reliable they are, sometimes they're not going to show up.
Sometimes they're not going to be there.
Sometimes you're, you're counting on this person to be there to do something for you
and they just don't show up.
Never plan.
I, I'll be honest, I don't count on anybody for anything.
I'm always ready to take on any responsibility that needs to be taken on.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to rely on some person no matter how faithful I think
they are, no matter how faithful I think they're going to do.
I'm always going to be ready.
I'm not going to rely too much on a person, especially if it's something important.
Now it's something real trivial.
It's not a big deal.
Okay.
But what did I say at the beginning?
Don't put your trust in man in something you're not willing to lose, something that
you're not willing to have go wrong or go awry.
Make sure that you're going to be the one to take care of it.
What if Pastor Anderson for like the picnic decided to put, you know, well, all the meat's
going to come from this one person and that person doesn't show up.
It's going to be a big trouble.
He's going to make sure, hey, I've got the meat, I've got the burgers, y'all can bring
all the other stuff.
And worst case scenario, I can give everybody a burger, right?
I mean, he's not going to say, I'll bring the ice, y'all bring the drinks.
And everybody's sitting there with a cup of ice like, what are we going to do?
Don't put too much trust in man.
Hey, sometimes you got to make sure that your trust isn't in the person.
Go to Luke chapter 22.
I had a lot more.
You could find this in the Bible over and over.
You could find so many stories.
You could find so many ways where people were disappointed, where people were fraudulent,
where people were indicted, where people were these friends.
And it's not, I don't believe it's to discourage us from making friends.
I think we should be as friendly as we can possibly be.
Try to make as many friends as you possibly can.
You can make some great friends.
You can make some great partners.
What's the point?
Don't put your trust in that person.
Don't put too much reliance on that person.
Keep your reliance on God and you should be the best friend that you can possibly be to
other people.
We see there's so many ways that people fail.
A lot of times I can look at it and say, hey, I've done something similar.
I've not shown up to something.
I've sometimes, you know, been a friend to this person and all of a sudden not been friendly
to them.
I've sometimes said mean things or false accusations against people.
Sometimes I've done these things.
I should look at this list and say, hey, this is how I can be a better friend.
But more so, I need to make sure that I'm not putting too much reliance on man because
man can disappoint you.
Man can disappoint you.
Look at Luke 22 verse 54.
Then they took him and led him and brought him into the high priest's house and Peter
followed afar off.
And when they had kindled the fire in the midst of the hall and were set down together,
Peter sat down among them, but a certain maid behind him as he sat by the fire and earnestly
looked upon him and said, this man was also with them.
And he denied him saying, woman, I know I'm not.
And after a little while, another Psalm and said, thou art also of them.
And Peter said, man, I am not.
And about a space of one hour after another can confidently affirm it, saying, of a truth
this fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean.
And Peter said, man, I know not what thou sayest.
And immediately while he had spake the cock crew.
And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.
And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said in him, before the cock crow
thou shalt deny me thrice.
And Peter went out and wept bitterly.
Now I believe that Peter was sincere when he said that he would lay down his life for
the Lord.
When he told the Lord, hey, I would lay down my life for him.
We see in a difficult situation, even Peter, one of the greatest Christians in the Bible.
I mean, this guy is a great prophet and you know, in his entire life, he denies Christ
three times.
And it's interesting in this one, it says the Lord actually turned and looked at Peter.
Can you imagine denying the Lord three times and then Jesus just turns around and looks
at him.
I mean, you probably want to just die.
I mean, can you imagine saying I would die for you and then you deny him three times
and then he turns around and looks at you.
That look, I mean, man, talk about being disappointment.
I mean, this guy said he would die for me.
He won't even say he knows who I am.
He says, I don't even know that guy.
And he was clearly lying.
Everybody knew he was lying.
I mean, they're like, this guy, he's got a Galilean speech.
We saw him there.
He cut off one of the guy's ears.
You're probably not going to forget the guy that cut your ear off.
I mean, you're just not, like a couple hours later, you're not going to forget that guy.
I mean, they knew this guy was with Jesus Christ.
He's, he's basically just disappointing himself.
He's basically just ruining it for himself.
You know, we ought not to get too, uh, too high of a thought of ourselves that we could
even do something similar.
If Peter could deny Christ, I mean, I, I know that if I was in a difficult situation, maybe
with the threat of death, cause I'm sure Peter, he was a real threat.
I mean, he thought maybe he would die or go to jail or something bad.
So it wasn't like just an honest, you know, Christ or something, just a passing on the
street.
He denied.
No.
I mean, this was, you know, a serious thing, but we'd say he wasn't willing to die for
Christ.
Was he?
He wasn't willing to admit that he knew Christ in that moment.
When it came to the fear of death, he caved.
You know, and I think of, uh, college.
I hated it when I had to do a group project.
You know why?
Because the other people always disappointed me.
They just never ever came through with anything.
I remember we had a marketing class and in this marketing class, a lot of people had
to take that class that weren't business majors at all.
Like some of them were just farmers and like ranchers, but they just had to take these
marketing classes and they didn't know anything about business.
They didn't care about business.
They knew how to ride horses and take care of cattle and I got a partner.
He was a, he was a cowboy and we had to do two things.
We had to do a PowerPoint presentation and then we had to, we had to do like a short,
um, 20 questions that we had to answer with like a short paragraph form.
So basically she had 20 questions about and you had to come up with a marketing strategy.
So you just pick any company in the world, you know, Nike, Walmart, McDonald's, and just
come up with a marketing strategy for them.
Like you're going to come up with some new banner or some new website or some new advertisement.
Didn't matter what it was.
You just had to make a marketing campaign and we had to use like the, the, the strategies
that we learned in her book of what's a good marketing campaign.
So I said, I'll do the PowerPoint cause I felt like that was a little bit harder.
Maybe I need to make sure I do this one right.
He can just answer the questions and I can just edit it a little bit later.
So I get the PowerPoint done and then I, I'm constantly, you know, having them for this,
this word document.
Finally, he emails me this word doc and it's got 20 questions laid out.
Okay.
And she said, answer in short paragraph or a couple sentences.
Not even one answer was more than one word.
And when he returned to me, I mean every single answer was one word.
And in one of the questions it was like, what is a good way to develop a marketing strategy
to effectively sell our products?
And his answer was advertising.
I mean a one word response, not even spelled right.
I mean I just laughed for like 30 minutes straight because of how I was like, I have
to write all of this.
I mean, what's my advertising strategy?
Advertising.
Oh, what a genius idea.
I can't believe nobody thought of advertising as a marketing strategy.
I mean, but that's how people are.
People are going to disappoint you.
People are not going to come through.
Every time there was an option not to do it with a partner, I was like, please, I don't
want a partner.
Don't give me a partner.
I'm not saying there aren't good partners out there.
There aren't good people.
You can't find somebody that's reliable in some ways.
We need to make sure if it's something important that we don't put our trust in another person,
another man.
We see, there's people thrown out of Faithful or Baptist Church because they're frauds,
because they're phonies, because they're indicting people, because they're not doing the things
right.
They're disappointments.
Last one is slanders.
You see, friends can sometimes slander you.
I don't think we have time, but there was a story with Ziba and Mephibosheth and Ziba
comes unto David and he lies about his friend.
He says, man, Mephibosheth, you just stayed back with the camp.
He wants to be restored to kingdom and you're just lying about Mephibosheth.
And when Mephibosheth comes back to David, he says, hey, my servant slandered me.
I thought he was my best friend.
I thought he was looking out for me.
He's always been taking care of me.
Throughout the story, Ziba doesn't do anything wrong.
He seems like a good guy.
He even comes unto David with a bunch of food and supplies.
You're thinking this is a good guy and then all of a sudden he has a chance.
He slanders the guy.
He slanders Mephibosheth.
You never know when your friend, think about Gehazi.
I mean, this guy just sneaks off after Elisha, you know, Gil's name in the Syrian and from
his leprosy and he sneaks off and tries to get the money.
He's just a traitor in his heart.
Maybe Elisha knew that.
I mean, he knows it when he comes back because the Lord tells him.
And then the leprosy comes upon his servant.
But you know, friends can be slanderers.
We need to be careful because friends can be fraudulent.
What's a good friend?
He's faithful though.
Friends can revile you.
What is a good friend?
He rejoices with you.
Friends can indict you.
What is a good friend?
He imputes righteousness unto you.
Friends can exclude you, but a good friend would embrace you.
Friends can be not there, but a good friend would be never failing.
The Lord Jesus Christ is never failing.
You know, a friend can disappoint you, but a good friend will deliver you.
A friend can slander you, but a good friend will be your shield.
And you know what?
All those attributes are attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why?
Because he's the friend that will stick closer than a brother.
You can't put your trust in the brother.
You can't put your trust in the wife or the husband or the friend.
You got to put it all in Jesus Christ.
Don't give a friend something that you can't lose.
Put all of it on Jesus Christ.
It says, our soul waited for the Lord.
He is our help and our shield.
For the Lord God is a son and a shield.
The Lord will give grace and glory.
No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
If you put your trust in God and he follows commandments, he'll be your son and your shield.
He'll be the friend that you can rely on.
He'll be the person that you can trust.
Don't put your trust in me.
Let's go with some prayer.
Thank you, Father, so much for your Word.
Thank you so much that you're the reliable one that we can trust in.
That you're such a great friend.
That we know we can put all our faith and trust in you.
I pray that we wouldn't put too much reliance or confidence in man.
In the son of man or in princes.
Or the one that would lie in our bosom or even our friend.
But that we put it all in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the name we pray, Amen.