“And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee … Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death; tarry here, and watch with me” – Matt 26:37, 38.
“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him” – Job 2:11.
“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend” – Prov. 27:17.
Friendship speaks of intimacy and confident trust.
“A friend in need”, they say, is a friend indeed”
“Henceforth I call you not servant; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my father, I have made known unto you”, the Lord declared of His disciples earlier in John 15:15.
And in His greatest hour of need, he took three out of these trusted friends, His closest friends, the very same ones He took to the mount of transfiguration: He took with him Peter and two sons of Zebedee to bare His heart to them that they might stand by him and with Him. He began to say to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death; tarry here, and watch with me”. But, alas, they disappointed Him at that decisive hour, when He needed them most.

They all ignored His request and plight as they went to sleep and had their rest. These were the disciples He raised from servants to the status of friendship in John 15; the disciples He made known to, all things He had heard from His Father. These were the friends He was going to lay down His life for as He said in John 15: 13.

“Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends”. Even in His hour of betrayal, He still loved Judas and called him His friend (Matt. 26:50). Of a truth, the Lord is a friend indeed. Proverbs 18:24 says, “ A man who hath friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend who sticketh closer than a brother”, and in another development, it is said that “A friend loveth at all times” (Prov. 17:17). A hymn writer once wrote: “What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and grieves to bear …Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?.


He bears all our sins and grieves; He shares in our sorrows, trials and temptations; He is a friend and a friend that loveth at all times. He is the “Iron that sharpeneth iron; a man (or friend) that sharpeneth the countenance of his friends” as Proverbs 27:17 puts it. And yet in His hour of trial, when He desired that friends tarry with Him and watch with Him in agonizing prayer, he was disappointed. He is not a disappointment but was Himself disappointed.

His disciples could not show themselves friendly; they could not, sharpen the sorrowful countenance of their friend. It really pains when closest friends disappoint. Many a times, we are badly wounded and hurt by the friends when all is well; when there is something they are getting, but when the tide changes, then we have nobody. That is the world. It really hurts when good friends who should stand by one in the hour of his trials begin to make excuses and keep a distance. At such a time:


“And one shall say unto him (that is isolated), what are these wounds in thine hands? The he shall answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends” – Zech. 13:16.
Wounds by the enemies do not hurt as much as those inflicted by trusted friends. It could be you have never really been in friendship before. You won’t know the depth of what I am saying. Friends make promises and fail to keep them; friends find faults when what one needs from them is comfort and love. I mean, it kills. I do not know what “watching” and “praying” , “tarrying in prayer” of the disciples could have achieved for Jesus. Yet He needed them and their prayers.

In Job’s own experience in his greatest moments of need, he lamented that:
“My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar (close) friends have forgotten me” – Job 19:14.
Just like our friends do, or we do, they had earlier promised to mourn with him and to comfort him before they began to find faults with him.
“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came everyone from his own place …for they made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him” – Job 2:11

But we were soon to learn from Job that those familiar, closet friends had forgotten him and that they had turns out to be “Miserable comforters” (Job 19:14; 16:2). The Psalmist recalls his own role in the lives of his bosom friends when they were in trouble:
“But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. I behave myself as though he had been my friend or brother; I bowed down heavily, as one who mourneth for his mother” – Ps. 35: 13, 14

Continue reading: http://heisleadinguson.org/index.php/front/454-idling-away-prayer-time-2?showall=1&limitstart=

..............God won't.........