Becoming Companions - Part 1: One Alone - Ecclesiastes 4:7-8

Well, this morning we continue on here in Ecclesiastes chapter 4, and if you're looking at the bulletin, you'll see that the title here is Part 1, because there'll be a multi-part series as we venture toward the end of this chapter.

And as you can see, even in the reading we've done in the second half of this chapter, the focus really is on companionship. And so I've titled this series Becoming Companions, although in some ways we're just setting the broad foundation for this this morning.

We're not quite going to be talking about companionship yet, albeit in a very, very broad and foundational sense. And I'll explain that as we go along. Of course, what we've seen at the beginning of Ecclesiastes 4 is this opening lament about oppression that exists under the sun, the way that grasping for the wind, toiling with heavy toil actually leads to a dog-eat-dog kind of economy, where rather than seeking to bless your neighbor and working toward the fruitfulness of interdependency, you climb on top of your neighbor and step on whatever toes or backs you have to in order to just get a little ahead.

And so you're working for yourself against others. This is why in every break room, as we said, the management complains about the employees and the employees complain about the management and everyone's out for everyone else.

The Quiet Hand and the Good Gifts of Labor

I don't know if you've ever felt the heat of a coworker hunting for your position. I have felt that heat. It is not a pleasant place to be. And the king is lamenting this oppression that exists under the sun.

And as we saw even last week, he again begins to reflect on the good things that can be found and the way that our toil is actually something that can bless our lives if we're willing to do it with one quiet hand, not two restless hands frenzied about grasping for the wind, but a quiet hand that labors and receives and entrusts all to the will of the Heavenly Father.

And so that was our big focus last week. Now we're heading toward this theme of companionship, but we're just looking at verses seven and eight this morning. And we're going to see here, he introduces the theme of companionship by almost alarmingly looking at the one who has no companion, and he's going to look at the state of this one who has no companion and what they fail to see or reflect upon as they have two hands full of toil.

Okay, so Ecclesiastes chapter four, beginning in verse seven. Then I returned and I saw vanity under the sun. There is one alone without companion. He has neither son nor brother, yet there's no end to all of his labors.

His eye is never satisfied with riches and he never asks, for whom do I toil and deprive myself of good? This also is vanity and a grave misfortune. If there's one big foundation that we'll see this morning that I think will help us make our way to verse 16 in the weeks to come, it's this.

Our work, our labor under the sun belongs to one another, and that's the beginning and the end of how we are to love our neighbor. Remember, Jesus tells us what the first and great commandment is. It's to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.

And the second commandment is like it. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Now there's something about the creational purpose of God and our labor even in a perfect world that was meant to enhance and bless our appreciation of our Creator and our appreciation of our fellow image bearers.

That was true long before the fall corrupted and began to decay our love for God and our love for fellow image bearers. But that commandment nevertheless exists, and as we'll see, our work belongs to one another even still.

That's the beginning and the end of the command to love your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. This has everything to do with our work under the sun. The fruitfulness of our labor, our time, our energy, our strength, that which flows out of loving God.

It relates to our work. Now we're having as work here not necessarily your nine to five, not necessarily your homeschooling curricula, you know, from nine to five perhaps, if you're like us. It takes that long.

But rather, any effort, any use of resources or time, any way of relating, we can describe this as an interdependency that is purposed by God. We love God by loving our neighbor, and we love our neighbor by loving God.

God has purposed it to be so. Now what is the king pointing out here beginning in verse seven? I returned, he said, I saw vanity under the sun. So he's telling us that there's something that I'm returning to now to carry on the theme that I saw beginning in the first few chapters.

I'm looking at vanity again, and here's what I found. Here's one who's all alone. He doesn't have a companion. Again, companionship is going to be something that grows on this broad foundation. And how does he describe that solitary life?

He has neither son nor brother. Now this is a synecdoche. It's a very fancy literary term to say you use parts to describe a whole. Certainly he's saying this man has no family. He's going to be talking about companionship in a broad sense in the next verses.

Two are better than one, and he doesn't define who that second one is. The second youth comes along when the king's popularity fades. But right here he's using family language, and a little more specific than family language.

Not many commentators pick this up, but I think it's important. In the Old Testament, especially in Leveret Law, what would a son or a brother be? A son or a brother would be an heir. They would be an heir of your labor, an heir of your estate, of your portion, your inheritance.

And so here's one who's toiling away, but where's all that toil, where's all that amassed wealth going to go? He doesn't have an heir. He doesn't have a way of continuing the purpose of his toil, because he doesn't have a son to be his heir.

He doesn't have a brother to take over his estate and maintain his allotment. He is truly alone, without companion. We're going to see this come up again in chapter nine, when he seems to describe the relationship of a man to his spouse, to his wife.

And we're looking at companionship in a very different sense in chapter nine. He's looking at the vanity of being alone, and here, because he's back at this theme of working and wondering, where's my inheritance going to go?

Whoever receives it didn't lift a finger for it, and they certainly won't remember me. So we're right back into that context of chapter one and two, and he says it's vanity. But we also see now, for the first time, he realizes our work actually involves others.

That no work under the sun is purely solitary. We're always engaging in interdependency as fellow image bearers. There's nothing you have, nothing you're wearing, nothing that you're enjoying, nothing that you're dwelling in that hasn't involved the labor of others.

Who made your shoes? Who sewed the buttons on your shirts? Who made the air conditioners that are barely keeping this room cool? We're always relying on the labor of others. So you begin to see what this king is valuing.

He's had a long journey to get here in chapter four. What he values in this life under the sun, which is full of vanity and grasping of the wind, is recognizing that there's good gifts to be received with a quiet hand, so long as that hand doesn't become restless and grasp in a frenzy to amass more, when that more isn't going to go anywhere.

You're not laboring for an heir. Why are you laboring? Why are your hands full of toil? Shouldn't you just have the quiet hand? Shouldn't you just be receiving and enjoying life as it comes? Why are you working so hard, so long?

Where is it all going? He condemns endless work without using that work to be a blessing or a resource for others. You don't need as much as you're gaining by work. Who is it for? That's the burning question here.

You don't need as much as you're producing, so who is it for? Endless work without an inheritance? Endless work without an heir? Endless work without a family that's able to receive the fruit of your labor and multiply it?

Endless work without neighbors to be generous toward? This ends up rather than being a means of good, it's a deprivation of good. You see that in the last part of verse 8. For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?

This isn't actually me enjoying good, this is me depriving myself of good. Somehow the more I toil and the more I have, the less good I'm receiving. So it is with restless, frenzied hands. And to top it all off, his hands are so busy, so restless, so frenzied in a grasp for the wind, that he can't even pause to reflect on his dire situation.

Now this is not in the original, this is not in the Hebrew. A translator has supplied it as a sort of question, a prompting question. He never asks. It's almost like he can't even stop to think, not even for a moment.

He doesn't even ask, wait, why am I working two shifts? Where is my savings account going? Why do I need all this stuff? Have you ever moved a home that you've lived in for many years? Does it not haunt you how many things come out of the crevices and cupboards and closets?

You're like, how in the world? We're going to end up on The Hoarder Show if anyone sees this. No one can come over for a month. How did we pack this much away? If you're like me, sometimes it's fun. Like, I forgot all about this.

And you spend half the day playing with some toy you forgot about. It's amazing how much we hoard away, how much we don't need. If you want a litmus test for this, to help you delineate a want from a need, how much do you really need during an extended power outage?

An extended power outage. Some of you are fortunate enough to have a generator. What do you use a generator for? Essentials, a refrigerator, maybe a heat source. Maybe you want to take a shower. That's about it.

You want to distinguish a want from a need, lose power for a while. You'll find that things you thought were needs are actually really just wants, luxuries in life. But we amass a lot of luxury in life, and we're all uncomfortable to admit we're living quite large, like Scrooge McDuck.

Where is that all going? Who's that all for? That's the issue. So there doesn't, of course, have to be a tension between hard work and enjoying what is good. That's been the thing we've seen with every so-called carpe diem statement.

We change that to say it's not seize the day. That's the worst thing you could say the point is. It's receive the day, accape diem, hands open to enjoy the good that comes, even in toil under the sun.

That means work is not the be-all and the end-all of my life. This is a condemnation of the workaholic who has no destination for the fruit of his labor. There's no point to it all, but he keeps devoting himself to his work.

Workaholism, Oppression, and the Failure to See Neighbors

The workaholic in this sense is our bridge back to the beginning of the chapter. Rather than blessing his neighbors with the good that he enjoys from his labor, he ends up oppressing his neighbors. Everyone's competition.

I worked hard for the things that I have. I'm not going to share with you. The workaholic would just as soon step upon his neighbor rather than bless his neighbor. I saw this video of a social media influencer who was in some South American country.

And, of course, everyone wants to be in a moment on the live stream. And they have this incredible spread of food at some restaurant that the host has brought out, hoping to gain perhaps some simple publicity.

And there was this row of boys, and you could tell from distended stomachs they were hungry. And they just stood there at the end of that table, waiting, staring at the food. Very polite. They didn't try to sneak something off the edge of the plate.

They just stood there. And here's this influencer who had maybe a handful, maybe two handfuls from a spread that could feed an army platoon. He didn't even connect the dots. I don't need this. Who's this for?

There's people all around me that really do need it, that really would want it. I don't need it. Where's it all for? He didn't share a morsel. He didn't share a morsel. They just left. The restaurant staff took it all away by the end of the night.

So you see, the oppression goes hand in hand with this workaholic mentality. This is all part of the art of getting ahead. You've got to be a dog if you're living life in a dog-eat-dog world. And that leads you to this solitary way of looking at life.

Everyone is either a means to my personal gain, my personal goals in life, or they're an obstacle, a hindrance to it. I use them to get where I want to go, or I avoid them to get where I want to go. That is one alone without a companion.

And that one is so busy getting ahead, he doesn't even know why he's getting ahead. Who's he getting ahead for? This is what the king describes. Look at the next verse. There's no end to his labor. He'll never stop working.

Time is money. And his eye is never satisfied with riches. He has houses he'll never visit, rooms and houses he'll never appear in. He has cars he'll never drive, things he'll never open, watches he'll never wear.

Who's that all for? That's the idea. And this is what Jesus describes in his own way, slightly different to the king in Jerusalem, and he puts it in this way as a declarative statement, and indeed as a warning.

And we need to understand, as Christopher Ash said at a Bolton conference some years ago, in the Western world we are the global 1%. We are the global 1%. And Jesus said, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.

They can't stop. They can't think. They're at the buffet table and they don't see the need around them. They don't see the opportunities crying out to them. They don't know how to open their hands that have been filled by God's abundance to become a blessing to those around them as salt and light.

Jesus describes the soil of a man's heart in one way in Mark 4 as this. This is the one who has the seed, that is God's Word, sown among thorns. They hear the Word of God, but the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, desires for other things.

I don't want this, I want that. And once you get that, what do you want? That. And once you get that, what do you want? That. Everything that you thought would satisfy you has not satisfied you. What are we describing?

The eye is never satisfied with riches. Gain is never enough. When I was a junior in high school, you know what I thought would complete my life? An 04 Subaru Outback and a Nikon DSLR and a MacBook. I thought, if I have these things, I will have the best life.

This will be the perfect life. That's how naive, how short-sighted a high schooler mentality could be. If I could just have this, I'd be living large, taking pictures, Photoshop editing on my snazzy laptop, which at the time was like three inches thick, had like eight megabyte drive.

Having my 04 Subaru, that would now be a rust bucket, condemned to be a taxi in Cuba. This is the naive mentality. If I just have that, but the eye is never satisfied, it's never enough. And Jesus says, that chokes the word of God, suffocates it.

You care more about life, more about the other things that you think will make your life more enriched, more fulfilling. You think that will make you fruitful. If I could just get there, and just have this, I'll be fruitful.

But what does Jesus say in Mark 4? It becomes unfruitful. This man thinks, if I get more, I'll be able to bless more. Not only does he fail to bless others, he can't even bless himself. Why do I deprive myself of good?

You see, the command is actually, for our good. Not just for God's glory, but for our good. To love our neighbor as ourself is actually one of the best ways to live life. We had that as a focus not that long ago.

It was the blessed words of our Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul said. It is better to give than to receive. It's hard, Jesus said, for someone who cares more about the things of life, is always desiring with this unsatisfied eye, the next thing in life, to be a fruitful follower.

It's so hard that they barely, hardly enter the kingdom. So that rich young ruler, full of all the promise and potential of his parents' hopes, goes away what? Sorrowful. You think his parents saw it?

I don't think so. What did the rabbi say to you, honey? No, I don't want to talk about it, Mom. Oh, it's so good. We got a great photo of you with him. It's one thing to draw near to Jesus, straddling desires for other things, other gains under the sun, and saying, Jesus, you can come along with that too.

I'm willing to do a package deal. You can get very close to Jesus. You can straddle pretty close to Jesus, but you can't enter. You can't follow. And so it's hard for a world-oriented, wealth-deceived, covetous person to become a fruitful follower of the Lord Jesus, to walk in the ways of loving God and loving neighbor.

Wealth, Self-Sufficiency, and the Need for God

Another image of the one that the king seems to describe here comes from Hosea 13. He describes his own people in this way. I'm the Lord your God. Ever since the land of Egypt, you will know no God but me, and there's no Savior besides me.

I knew you in the wilderness. Remember when you had nothing? What do the rappers say? Started from the bottom, now we're here? That was Israel. Started at the bottom. Started in the wilderness. Now we're here.

Land of plenty, flowing with milk and honey. I knew you in the wilderness. When you were in a land of great drought, I was splitting rocks open for you to drink. I was casting bread, showering like rain from the heavens so you had something to eat.

And as soon as I brought you into a land of pasture and you had your full, your hearts became exalted. And what happened? You forgot about me. Do you see why the covetous person becomes an unfruitful follower of Jesus?

Do you see why a wealth-deceived, unsatisfied eye cannot enter the kingdom of God? Can't remember God. Can't see God. It's too busy toiling to get more. They're all set, in other words. There's no need.

There's no desperation. They're not looking for something beyond themselves. They have everything they need. They just need to work harder. They have everything they want, or at least could want, if they just keep working harder.

There's a self-sufficiency, not a dependence. They can never stop to reflect, wait, why am I doing this? What's my life about? They can never have that James 4 pause that says, I'm a vapor. I'm a vapor.

Why am I devoting myself to toil and depriving myself of what's good in this life under the sun? We quoted Kevin O 'Leary last week from Shark Tank. Let me remind you of the quote, because here's one who doesn't pause to think about why he's working.

You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to be successful, your personal life, your family life, maybe more. If people think it's less, they're wrong, and they will fail. So you want to be successful?

Sacrifice your marriage. Sacrifice your family. Sacrifice your health. Sacrifice the hours of the day. Sacrifice it all. Anything less than that, and you won't be successful. He doesn't even pause to go, wait, what am I being successful for?

Where's it all going? Who's it all for? What does Jesus say? Where your heart is, that's where your treasure will be also. Where your heart is, is where your treasure will be also. And so it begs the question, where's my heart?

Where's my treasure? How am I looking at my life? Are my hands open, receiving what God gives? Do I have a quiet hand, working quietly, thankful that I have a means to provide for myself and for others around me?

Do I see God's generosity abounding toward me, and do I seek to be abounding in generosity toward others? Of course, the danger is in the love of wealth. We have to always make these little careful qualifications.

Possessing Wealth Versus Loving Wealth

Some of you are aware there was a rather consequential book some years ago written by David Platt called Radical, and essentially the fruit of that book was to shame Christians into not abandoning house and home and land and field and jumping on a kayak to Sentinel Island with John Allen Chow.

Everyone needs to do that. I would say, praise God that there are radical calls that the Lord gives to people like John Allen Chow that ends up being a blessed martyrdom for the sake of the kingdom. Praise the Lord for that.

But not all those calls are normative for the people of God. The people of God are salt and light in many other ways. Michael Horton wrote a tremendous counterbalance, and rather than the book titled Radical, his book is called Ordinary.

Do you have Radical? Do you have Ordinary? Really, really helpful counter-corrective that actually you need a reformer like Martin Luther, but you can't have a Germany full of Martin Luthers. You need moms and dads and grandpas and grandmas.

You need shopkeepers and bakers and iron forgers. You need a lot of people doing a lot of things to run a society where there can be salt and light drawing sons and daughters to the faith. So we make a distinction between the possession of wealth and the love of wealth.

The possession of wealth is not condemned in Scripture. In fact, God is often pleased to use wealthy people for mighty advancements in the kingdom of God. Somebody's got to bankroll the Reformation, the Revival.

Richard Baxter, who I'll mention toward the end of the sermon today, unfortunately had some rather suspect issues in his theology of justification. That aside, we republish everything else about Richard Baxter.

We just never will republish that stuff. But Richard Baxter had the good providence to marry a very wealthy woman. And that wealthy woman in the times of persecution after the Great Ejection would buy out large halls for him to preach in because he was sort of doing it on the run.

So she'd just bring out a wad of cash and say, can we use the hall for a few hours? And he'd go and he'd preach until the warden or the sheriff was drawn near to the town and then he'd be off on the horse again with his wife.

It pays to marry well. So the possession of wealth is not the issue. It's the love of wealth. And here's the thing about the love of wealth. You can have the love of wealth even if you lack wealth. I hope no one sits here deluded and self-deceived when Jesus says a hard word like, it's easier for a man to pass through the eye of a needle.

Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to enter the kingdom of God and go, that's not me. I only have 75 grand in my 401K. We are the wealthy. Is the point. Whatever position you're in.

I know what it's like to eat beefaroni and pluck quarters off of cardboard sleeves. Still, there's a level of wealth to my life. Even in that situation in this society at this time, we are those who might have our hearts set upon gain, upon riches, upon the desire for other things.

That is what Scripture condemns. It's more easy, it's more natural the more you have. When you're building that second barn, that temptation is waiting in the wings. But anyone can have that love of wealth as a deceit, as a snare for their soul.

Well, Ecclesiastes goes on. The rest of verse 8. Here's the eye. It's unsatisfied with riches. And this one never asked. Now, as I said, that's not original in the Hebrew. It's actually implied according to some translations.

But other translations leave it out entirely. So it's either a statement. It simply goes right into it. Nor is his eye satisfied with riches. For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good? The safest thing to do is so he says.

This is just a sort of abrupt, I think, lament. He's finally pausing to see it. And he's lamenting. What was this all for? You can picture this man toward the end of his life. And he goes, why did I do that?

Why did I deprive myself of so much good time I had with my wife and my children and my grandchildren, time with neighbors, the things I loved doing, the things that I always wanted to do? Why did I just burn it all away with toil that got me nowhere?

I think it's a lament. For whom am I toiling? It's this abrupt cry. And I think that's why it's so abrupt. We don't even have time to be introduced to it. It's just a cry that leaps off the page. Because that's how that cry comes in life.

It leaps off the page of your life at an inopportune time. I was with a brother some weeks ago who's nearing the sunset of life. And that was a sentiment he had under his breath. I wasted so much time.

I wasted so much time working and I don't even know why. I don't even know why. I didn't have to do that. I'd still be here. Just like this. It's a lament. It's an eruption. So in chapter four, we're turning to the theme of our labor under the sun and then we're relating that to our neighbor.

Labor as a Corporate Enterprise

And we can begin to see as we're moving toward companionship, again, the purpose of God's creation for our social life as human beings, for the fruit of our labor as human beings, is a corporate enterprise, not an individual enterprise.

It's a corporate enterprise. It involves interdependency. It involves support. From it, we have opportunities to bless and be blessed by our neighbors and from that, we develop companionship, friendship, interdependency, support.

This is true of all human labor under the sun, working and amassing fruit from our labor in exchange for the fruit of others' labor. And the idea is this is actually the broad foundation for how to love our neighbors according to that great command and also it's the foundation for companionship in life.

We're going to be talking specifically in the next few weeks about companionship in the Christian life, companionship in the church and within the church, not just companionship as the church but even companionship within the church.

Working and amassing fruit from our labor, we hardly pause to ask what is it all for? Why did I work so much? What is it all for? But even if we did pause to ask, that's the wrong question. The right question is right here in our text.

It's not what is it all for? It's who is it all for? That's the right question. Who is it all for? That's the question you have to answer. Now this answer includes you of course. I have to eat. I require shelter and food and clothes.

Who is it all for? I'm included in that who but I don't exhaust that who. And I'm not the end or the ultimate object of the who. In fact, my neighbors are not even. Those around me, my dependents and those that I have opportunity to meet and bless, they're not the object or end of my labor but rather my God, my creator is the object and end of my labor.

I work heartily unto the Lord. And when I order my love rightly in that way, I order my labor rightly as well. I can finally begin to answer the question who is it all for? Who is it all for? Who is it all for?

Loving the Neighbor Without Restricting the Neighbor

So it's our work relating to one another and it begins with that simple question, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? Well, you know the story and for the sake of time, I won't recount it word for word but remember Jesus' answer to that question and the question was posed in this way.

I know that the great commandment is to love the Lord my God with all that I have and all that I am and I know the second command is like the first command. The second table says I'm to love my neighbor but I don't really want to do that to some people so can you just help me define who my neighbor is and who my neighbor isn't?

That was the question. I get that I got to love neighbors but I mean, you know, which neighbors? And Jesus' answer is a story. A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves. They stripped him, beat him, departed.

He was half dead. Of course the priest and the Levite, they passed by and then the mortal enemy of the Jews in the second temple period, a Samaritan comes by and when he saw him, he had compassion, bandaged him, paid from the fruit of his labor, whatever that labor was, for this man to be taken care of, brought him to the innkeeper and said, whatever you need, when I come back, I will pay it.

And Jesus simply turns the question back of the three, which was the neighbor? So our neighbor is not the person who happens to be identical to us. It's not the person that's kin to us. It's not the person with similar interests to us.

Not the person that belongs naturally to our circle of preferences and tastes. Not someone that we're acquainted with because we just naturally like them and get along with them. A neighbor is anyone.

Anyone. And if we're reading rightly, Luke 10, even our enemy. Of course it's easy to like some people more than others and we'll get into that in the next few weeks as we talk about the foundations for companionship, but we have to start with the broadest foundation of all, the second commandment.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself. How do you work for yourself? How do you labor for yourself? You are to love your neighbor in that way. What goals do you have in mind and what joys do you have in the fruit of your labor?

You are to love your neighbor in that same way. We don't think this way because we think our labor is more about us. This is what I do for me. Maybe you can have crumbs from the table. Maybe. But this is about me.

This is my work. This is what I've earned. So we start with the broad foundation. You shall love your neighbor in the way you love yourself. You shall bless your neighbor in the way that you bless yourself.

You should be thoughtful of your neighbor in the way that you're thoughtful of yourself. Paul puts it this way to the church. Let each of you to esteem others better than himself. What a challenging command.

How could you possibly do that? We're constantly gauging and reacting against others. Are they at my level above, beneath? What do they have that I don't? How can I assuage my discomfort about where they're at and kind of mask that envy by assuaging my conscience.

Well, I've got this going for me. Well, I really see some flaws like that. In fact, I might tell a few other people about it. We don't know how challenging this command is to love your neighbor as yourself to esteem someone better than yourself.

Could you count on one hand how many times you've done that? You shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's the rub. We're lovers of self, not lovers of neighbor, not after the fall. Despising, hating one another.

This is how we were before Christ came. When we're hungry, we make sure we find something to eat. When we're feeling sick, we make sure we're given attention and care. We operate every day around our felt needs and desires.

And Jesus says, yeah, that's how you're to love your neighbors. That's where your labor goes. That's what it's for. This commandment is like. That's a really important part of this whole equation. It's not the first and great commandment, but it's like it.

It's inseparable from it to the degree that it's not possible to love the Lord, your God, with all that you are and all that you have, if you're not loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Jesus says in Luke 14, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

That's the kind of love that exclusively belongs to Jesus, but when you love Jesus with that kind of love, you can't help but love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus gets an above all love. Jesus gets a love in its own class entirely.

But if we're loving Jesus like that, we will be loving our neighbors like we love ourselves. Neighbor love, in this way, has to become neighbor hate if it's in competition to our love for God. That's where we're going to be at the end of chapter four.

Ordering Love: God First, Neighbor Second

And let me tell you, that can go wrong quick. I remember a young man that was a very dear friend of mine. He was the best man at my wedding. We would go out to Denny's late at night after we'd get off the grocery market shift at 11, and we'd sit there and talk about R .C. Sproul for hours and eat buffalo chicken melts.

One of the best times of my life. He was baptized. We used to exhort each other. We went on a little missions trip together. Just went to all these random towns in Vermont, New Hampshire, trying to witness to people, do some open air preaching, pass out tracts and Bibles.

We had a trunk full of them. And he met someone that he was afraid if he lost the opportunity to pursue her, he would never have another chance at a relationship. And I tried to wound him very faithfully to say, brother, this is a fork in the road.