There are many things that boys need in their life in order to become a Godly man. One important thing he needs is to have a courageous and decisive leader over him. His father needs to teach him the right way to become a Godly man. Another thing is for him to choose wisely the friends he has. Instead of his friends leading him astray, he needs to lead them on the right path. The conquest of Mount suribachi is a great story of being courageous and having decisive leadership.

Mount Suribachi. It's captured my attention since I was a little boy, but today it stands tall in my mind as a symbol of courageous and decisive and visionary leadership. It reminds me of how important it is to prepare a boy to lead decisively. The Bible makes it clear that men are created to lead and they're to lead for heavenly objectives. Not only are they created to lead, they're required by God to lead because God has invested in men an authority that involves being the point man in strategic objectives.

It always makes me smile when I hear the words of Bill Henderson who was part of that unit whose responsibility it was to conquer Mount Suribachi. He talked about the importance of leadership and he said as a leader you've got to lead. You don't say, boys go take Hill 382. You say, come on boys, let's go take Hill 382. It was Bill's outfit that cut across the neck of the island of Iwo Jima for the objective of taking Mount Suribachi.

It was their first major milestone toward victory but Suribachi was an ominous enemy. One man said that Suribachi seemed to take on a life of its own and it was as if it was looming over the top of these men and that it represented to the Marines something more evil than the Japanese itself. Well the battle for Iwo Jima and particularly the conquering of Mount Suribachi to me is a parable of courageous and decisive leadership. There are two things that really matter to a boy in his life and the first is that he has a strong spirit of courageous and decisive leadership. And the second thing is that he chooses wisely the friends that he shares that journey where that decisive leadership will take him.

Boys need to be like Caleb who said, now therefore give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day. For you heard in that day how the Anakim were there and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron. Well that passage of scripture defines for me what had to be in the heart of those men who took Mount Suribachi.

They had to have it within their heart, a mighty vision to conquer, a mighty enemy, and they had to have it in their heart something that said, give me that mountain. Well the duties of biblical manhood require decisive and courageous leadership and guess what it's a father's job to help a boy find out how to do that kind of leadership in his life. And if those patterns are impressed in his soul, in his boyhood, they'll carry him on his whole life long. A father must prepare his son for decisive and courageous and indomitable leadership. This is crucial because there are so many mountains that a boy will have to climb in his adulthood.

There is ground he will have to secure. And there's something about a mountain that beckons us to conquer it. And there will be many mountains in front of a boy. Not only are there mountains in the years of his manhood, but there are also mountains in the years of his boyhood. There's something about a mountain that beckons us, that calls out to our souls to conquer it.

You know I have several towering peaks in my mind. Mount Everest, Mount Fuji, Mount St. Helens. I can see them in my mind's eye. Mount Shasta, Mount McKinley, Half Dome, those mountains I can see them now but The most captivating mountain in my mind is not much of a mountain at all.

It's an inactive volcano. It's only 556 feet high, and that is Mount Suribachi. The Marines called it hot rocks. The Japanese called it surabachi-yama. And this mountain inspires an awe that draws leadership out of men.

And it is the most ominous kind of awe that reminds us how important it is for fathers to forge deep within the souls of boys what it means to be a courageous and a decisive leader. Well in order for our our boys to take Mount Suribachi they had to storm the gates of the enemy to get it. Many would die before we would raise our banner on that island and I'm confident that these Marines who took Mount Suribachi this looming face of the devil over their heads had to have what was in Caleb's heart when he said give me this mountain Young men need to be trained just like Caleb was Caleb knew that the domination of the Lord was the only reasonable answer to the evils of the Canaanites. That rock fortress called Suribachi was manned by over 2, 000 Japanese soldiers under the control of Colonel Astuchi who operated independently from the other officers. Kurobayashi figured that these 2, 000 might be able to last a week or two.

He misjudged. The 28th Marines defeated the Japanese strongholds as they pushed across the neck of that island. And it took them three days instead of three weeks. And what they found there was a complex, natural fortress. It was a honeycombed killing machine with dozens of caves running through it.

My dad says that when he looked up at Mount Suribachi, it was like a pulsating Christmas tree. There was so much firepower pouring out of it. And of course it was on this volcano that one of the most famous pictures and in all of history was taken by Joe Rosenthal. The moment was bigger than life for the Japanese because for the first time in 5, 000 years a foreign flag flew on Japanese soil. Well, Mount Suribachi for the Japanese was the most effective vantage point on the island.

Almost every target on the island was visible from the top. American soldiers were like sitting ducks as long as Surabachi was in the hands of the enemy. This was one reason why the first day of battle was so bloody. Wherever anyone was on the island, he could be picked off. Well, that's why there was one marine casualty for every yard gained on D-Day on February 19th.

Eyewitness Joseph Alexander described the scene from the top of the mountain. He said, the wreckage was indescribable. For two miles the debris was so thick that there were only a few places where landing craft could still get in. The wrecked hulls of scores of landing boats testified to the price we had to pay to put our troops ashore. Tanks and half-tracks lay crippled where they'd bogged down in the coarse sand.

Amphibian tractors, victims of mines and well-aimed shells, lay flopped on their backs. Cranes brought ashore to unload cargo, tilted at insane angles, and bulldozers were smashed in their own roadways. This was the wreckage that was the result of the Japanese occupation of Mount Suribachi. With that mountain looming overhead, they prepared the assault. The Marines were totally exposed in that assault, but there would be victory.

And when it fell, and when our flag was raised, the witnesses say that you could hear the hoops and the hollers and the cheers rise from all over the island but for the US Marines it fell because it was like the devil himself it had to be taken and there would be no winning of the Pacific War without it if we did not take Suribachi the Japanese would continue their expansionism because it was a strategic target. But after the mountain was taken and became our own it was transformed. Communications equipment was put up, observation posts were set up to monitor the activity on the island and what was a beast what was the devil became a comfortable asset. My dad stood on that mountain not many days after the flag was raised. He and his friend Arthur Bury jumped in an unmanned Jeep and drove up there and for as long as I can remember I pictured my dad standing there looking down at that smoke and the debris and the wreckage and the vehicles that were clogging the beach.

I've replayed that scene so many times in my head. Now my dad was up there and in the first few minutes that passed, looking over the island landscape, he looked over and saw a Japanese soldier still holding out just a few yards away even though they we had already taken the mountain and so they hopped back in that Jeep and came down Mount Suribachi to go do their job on Iwo Jima which was to fly airplanes but when the enemy was cleared for Mount Suribachi It became a symbol of safety for the pilots who were seeking a friendly runway. For the fly boys, Mount Suribachi wasn't the devil himself at all. It was home sweet home. It was like an angel in the Pacific Ocean waving and saying everything's okay now come on home boys.

This transformation was the direct result of courageous visionary leadership. Now this to me is what Mount Suribachi symbolizes for fathers in training their sons to be visionary leaders and the first principle is this is that men lead courageously to take back ground that's been destroyed by the devil. To take things that are being used for evil and to use them for good. And fathers have such a critical role in life to help their sons to see what's out of order and then to go and put it in order in the same way that our boys did with Mount Suribachi. Boys should learn how to lead courageously but for what?

For transformation. Like the transformation of Suribachi through courageous vision something horrible can be transformed into something wonderful. And this is the kind of leadership that fathers need to engage their sons in. A father needs to look out there and see what's out of order and say, come on boys, let's go take that hill. Let's go put it in order.

Let's go make this thing a garden. It's been destroyed. Let's make something beautiful out of something that isn't. It's the kind of work that Isaiah, the prophet, prophesied about. He said, those from among you shall build the old waste places.

You shall raise up the foundations of many generations and you shall be called the repairer of the breach the restorer of streets to dwell in what a wonderful calling It is to fulfill what is said there in Isaiah 58 12 that we would be called repairers of the breach and restorers of the streets. This is what fathers need to teach their sons how to do. Fathers should not be out teaching their sons how to do one irrelevant thing after another but to take real problems and make good out of them our boys on Iwo Jima they set themselves to routing the enemy from that rock fortress and then it belonged to them. They took back the gates of the enemy and Suribachi evil as it was under enemy control became an Ebenezer. It became a physical reminder of the deliverance that God had accomplished.

And here's what happened. An objective was identified, a plan was crafted, and effort was mounted, no matter the cost. Sons need to see this pattern of leadership lived out in their fathers. Fathers need to sit down with their sons and they say, son here's the enemy and identify him. Son here's the objective, here's the end point that we need to go accomplish.

Son, here's the plan that we're going to mount to go do it. And son, here's the effort that it's going to take. And son, we will take it no matter the cost. That is courageous visionary decisive leadership and that's the kind of leadership a father needs to teach his son to engage in. You know sons need the maturity to see things that have been ruined by evil, instead of cowering back or being passive, but to press forward for the kingdom of God.

One of the principles of spiritual maturity and spiritual wisdom that fathers need to pass on to their sons is this and that is that nothing is too far gone because God is mighty enough to reclaim any territory that's been ruined And we should never give up in the dark day, but to persevere as we reclaim the waste places. There are many who are afraid to go and reclaim things that have been battered and scarred, but godly men are not. They see the objective, and they move toward the objective with resolution, with courage, and with decisiveness. Why? Because God has invested in men a particular power, and it's the power of visionary leadership.

Men are designed by God to do this kind of work. But we are really only authorized to draw from the heart and the mind of God in all of our leading. Men don't just lead in any direction. They don't lead according to their own passions. They don't dredge up from their own emotions what they should do.

Men must go to the eternal Word of God. They must go to the standard. They must not draw from their own hearts. They must draw from the heart of God. There are several elements of God's requirements for men in leadership.

There are areas that men must exercise leadership. And the First is the leadership of their own lives. God gives a man stewardship of his own life. We might call this self-government. In this realm, a boy is charged with the mastery of his own affections, of his activities, of his thoughts, of the meditations of his heart, of the things he listens to, of the people he is with, the things he reads.

And to accomplish this, a boy must have particular goals and objectives regarding his own self-government. Father, sit down with your sons and help them understand that that God has put within their control their own self-government and that he has given them principles with which to govern their lives. Well that's one area of leadership. It's leadership over yourself. The second kind of leadership is the kind of leadership that is exercised in other realms.

For instance, a son will most likely be called on to provide leadership for his wife and become the leader of his children. And that's another area of leadership that is given by Almighty God. Another area of leadership would be in the area of His friends. Choose your friends carefully, because your friends will take you in a particular direction. And sons need to understand that when they are with a friend they don't stand there as a follower they stand there as a leader and God would have boys yes boys little boys lead in a right direction leadership is not just for adults leadership is for little children for little girls and little boys as they have it in their minds that they're being governed by God and they exercise that government in their lives and they take all of their friends in the right direction.

Those are the best kinds of friends. If you're engaged in decisive leadership it matters the kinds of people that are with you in that leadership. Your friends matter a lot And if you're willing and if you're capable, if you have the resolve to lead your friends in a godly direction, believe me, God will give you that mountain. There's a third area of leadership that God may give to a boy or a man and that is he may give a boy leadership of a company. He may give him leadership of a nation or a board of directors or something like that.

These are particular manhood callings that have their own strategic objectives and there are there are conquerings that are involved in all of those areas of leadership. But here's the most important thing and that is this biblical vision is the most important issue for a boy's leadership the most important visionary document ever written is the Bible and this is where all vision should begin because Scripture so beautifully paints the pictures of life and relationships and business and church and home and work and government and it's the only reliable roadmap for all of these things. The beauty of Scripture is that it not only shows you how to get from point A to point B, but it also gives you the endpoints of what things should look like in the end. There's no way to overestimate how important it is to conform our visions to the Word of God. The Bible says it as clear as a bell, without vision the people perish.

And so as we train our sons to be visionary leaders it's so important that they've got the right reference point, that they understand what Paul said to the Corinthians, that the head of every man is Christ. God has designed men so that they would have a head, that they would have a leader, and then he invests in them a derivative leadership to carry on the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world. And a boy's vision also should be consistent with his own calling. Each man's goals should be consistent with the way that they've been built. We're all made differently.

We all have different functions. That's why Paul said, I planted and Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labors. For we are God's fellow workers.

You are God's field. You are God's building. And it is incumbent upon men and boys to understand that they are laborers in God's field that Christ is their head that the word is their guide and the fields are the people that God gives them. We cannot leave the subject of decisive leadership without speaking of the issue of perseverance in leadership and the leverage of perseverance. How perseverance is what makes the leadership complete.

If you have leadership without perseverance, nothing is completed. And so courage and endurance are always required for leadership. And it's the only way that efforts are sustained to the end. For example, it's the power of obedient leadership that made Joshua in the battle for Ai so comprehensively effective. God committed leadership to Joshua and the Bible says that Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of AI Joshua 8 26 perseverance is critical You can have all the leadership gifts in the world.

You can have all the smarts in the world. But if you don't have perseverance, it doesn't really matter how smart you are or how gifted you are. We also should speak about the importance of decisiveness in leadership. Mount Suribachi represents decisiveness to me. This means that there's a jump-off point where a clear and decisive objectives are identified and they're engaged.

There's a point where you jump off and that's what decisiveness is all about. That's what was in Caleb's heart when he said give me that mountain. Often men sit idle for years and they don't move forward But Caleb is a great example to help us understand decisiveness. Caleb had fortress taking faith. It wasn't a passive faith, but it was a faith that took a step forward.

And those steps that he took forward were completely under the authority of God. He wasn't just jumping out on his own. Six times in Joshua chapter 14 we are told that Caleb, quote, followed the Lord, unquote. Caleb's decisiveness was regulated by the Lord. He was full of the Lord.

But decisiveness is necessary. You can have all the dreams and visions you want, but in the same way that all the dreams and the visions and gifts don't get you anywhere without perseverance, in the same way they won't get you anywhere without decisiveness, You must jump off and move forward. Well, the boys who attacked Iwo Jima and vanquished Mount Suribachi are a great example for what it means to see an objective, to accept a challenge, to engage a plan, to endure the suffering, and then finally, eat the fruits of victory. They accommodated themselves. They made themselves obedient to rules and regulations.

They took orders. They said, yes sir, even when their hearts were screaming against them to say no sir that is the power of vision it takes all these different elements to execute great plans you know I've thought about how strange it must have been for the fighter pilots to come on the island for Iwo Jima. It was an act of faith. What was my dad, a fighter pilot, doing on a ship headed toward Iwo Jima. There were no planes on Iwo Jima to fly, and there were still 22, 000 Japanese soldiers dug into that vast matrix of caves, holding a vow, each one, to kill 10 Americans before they died.

Iwo Jima was a tiny rock infested by the enemy. But in the minds of the American generals, the island had to be taken. And in their minds, it had already been taken. Because of their vision they were turning Iwo Jima into an air assault station to destroy the Empire of Japan. They had vision and the vision was sustained and the vision led to victory and that is what courageous decisive leadership is all about.

One of the problems with decisive leadership is that there are times when other men around you do not see the completion because they don't understand it and they might even mock you or they might take it lightly and they might abandon the effort and this is where visionary leadership can really shine. There are times when completing a vision involves loneliness and that's when we must press on. Let me give you some questions that you might use to discuss some of these issues. Here's a question. Describe a situation you know about where something started out with terrible and ominous implications but was transformed into something wonderful.

Discuss your particular skills and gifts and how they fit into courageous leadership in the future can you articulate clearly the vision you have to your son and can he articulate his vision to you? Do those visions have particular objectives and milestones? Is there a plan? Is there a timeline? Are there specific enough goals so that you know when you have achieved them?

What is the mountain that you need to conquer? What area of evil around you that calls for the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ? What are the resources and the methods that you should engage as you go about claiming it? And as we are claiming and reclaiming, we must always remember how important it is to say, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart, not be all else to me save that thou art. That thou art.

Thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping. Thy presence my light. That is the heart of Godly Vision. Now as we are engaged in decisive and strategic leadership, one of the most important issues is, Who is it that will be with us as we go on these journeys? It matters who you follow, and it matters who leads with you.

And This brings up the subject of friendships. This brings up the subject of comrades. This brings up the principles that form what God has to say about friendship. And to me, the battle for Iwo Jima also reminds me of the importance of friendship. It reminds me of the passage of Scripture in Proverbs 27 verse 10 that says, do not forsake your own friend or your father's friend.

The Bible makes a big deal about friendship. Christ defined the terms of friendship more powerfully, more clearly than anyone ever did when he said, greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15, 13. Preparing sons for friendship means that a father communicates the biblical teaching on the subject and that he demonstrates it in his own life. Some of the principles of godly friendship were illustrated in some really interesting ways in the battle for Iwo Jima.

You know it was 60 years after the battle that I finally met my father's best friend on Iwo Jima. And after spending a few hours with my father's friend, it was easy for me to see why they were friends. They keyed off of one another. The humor rolled out the welcome mat as they were together. The peals of laughter that I saw with my dad and his best friend on Iwo Jima just reminded me of how important laughter is for friendship and how it's always good medicine.

And boy did we laugh while we were together. For many years I heard about this mythical man and the adventures that he and my father had together. It's interesting to think about the chemistry that men have when they're in battle. Something forges their souls together. Something causes them to have remembrances that will carry with them until the day that they die.

And I believe that friendship and these kinds of qualities are a gift from heaven, for it is God who gives us friends who provide laughter and camaraderie through life. Ever since I was a boy, my dad told me about the harrowing experiences that his best friend had during World War II. His name is Arthur Burry, and he had a number of difficult experiences with the airplanes that they flew and we would laugh as my dad Recounted the different planes that Arthur Burry tore up. We had three days together there in Fredericksburg, Texas We had three days together there in Fredericksburg and we spent a lot of time talking about Iwo Jima and airplanes and friendship. Now I just had to ask Burry how many planes he had wrecked And he said, I think maybe one.

And I retorted, Dad, I thought Bury tore up a lot of airplanes. And Bury responded, well, there was one, but that was immaterial. So he at least admitted to one plane. So the next day I asked I said, Bury we want to know about the planes you crashed and some of the lessons that you learned. And Bury said, apparently after the first one I didn't learn much.

So I said, so how many did you crash? He said oh I don't really know. He says well one plane was damaged while he was flying low in a P-51. He said he followed his flight flight leader through power lines and it hit the propeller and put a crease on the leading edge of both wings. He said, I don't I don't count that one because I was following my flight leader.

So now we were up to two planes. On the third day, on the third day I kept wearing him down for more stories and finally he said I also lost the plane during gunnery training in Long Island he said that one doesn't really count because we were training I don't remember very much about that one the engine quit I think and I had to crash I pancaked into a potato field without my wheels down and then the farmer came out and called the base and then he said that he came okay then the farmer came out and called the base and they picked him up. My dad says that when they went out to pick him up he was sitting there on the wing with a grin on his face with a cigar in his mouth. He told me that the United States Air Force got a bill from that farmer for the damages to his crops because the big trucks that came in to haul the airframe off out of that field. When he was done with that story I said, Bury were there any more?

And he said, well another time my brakes went out and I plowed into another airplane at Bellows Field. It was a P-47. He said, I wouldn't really count that one, would you, because there's a brake failure? I said, well, I think I can count that as four wrecked planes, Bree. Rats, he said.

And then he really opened up. He said, you know, then there's a time I dumped a plane in the ocean and floated and floated there for six days he said I wouldn't count that one either because the engine just quit running He said you know when you take off anything can happen. I said Burry that makes five airplanes thank you very much. We laugh so much hearing Burry's commentary in the growing list of plane wrecks, the times he had crashed and these were the most powerful expensive and collectible planes in history. And in Burry's words, all these crashes were, quote, immaterial.

And then he tells me that one day he was flying off of Bellows Field in Hawaii just before they went to Iwo Jima in a P-47 and the engine quit. And he looked around and he found a spot to land on top of a mountain and on the way in he tangled up a bunch of telephone wires and severed some telephone poles while he was coming in. His plane screeched to a halt just a few feet away from the edge of a cliff overlooking Hawaii and he had just knocked out Admiral Nimitz's radio communications with North America. That makes six planes. You know I thought of the humor and the understatement and that somehow that must have been the cartilage of his relationship with my easygoing father.

I can see why they were friends. They both loved to laugh and they were a delight to be with. And as I think about my father on Iwo Jima, I know for certain that even though there was death and carnage and fire, There was also a gift from God that oiled the situations, and it was a gift from God called friendship. Friendship and laughter between a man and his friends are wonderful gifts in the midst of harsh and disappointing things in this world. God is the originator of friendship.

There is a power of friendship, though, that I think that we need to acknowledge. It's strange to me how friends can affect one another. Friends take one another in directions that they never could anticipate. So it's important that you choose your friends carefully. Friends always have a profound effect on your life.

For example, The writing of this book and the giving of this talk is really the result of a bunch of friendships. Many years ago I started having Memorial Day celebrations on our farm in North Carolina to honor the dead who served our country. And in that first event that we had several years ago, a man named Jim Dyer came to share his story of his exploits in Vietnam. And sometime later after that celebration, he walked into my office and he put down an audio cassette tape on my desk and he said, Scott, you need to listen to this tape. And so, I listened to that tape.

And who was the one giving the speech? It was Bill Henderson, who was sharing his testimony about Iwo Jima I was so captivated by this that story that I spent an entire weekend transcribing that story I wanted to get every word of Bill Henderson's story and after listening to that audio tape that Jim gave me I had to meet that man and I did. We arranged a meeting we had a nice lunch together and we struck up a friendship and then one day later on I met him in his office and he showed me original documents and maps that he had with him on Iwo Jima and then I asked him if there was anybody else in the area that he knew who was on Iwo Jima and he said you know you probably don't know Buck Bunn but he was a B-29 pilot there. I said Buck Bunn I used to be in a Sunday school class with Buck Bunn so I talked to Buck Bunn and got his story and found out some amazing things and then I shared this story with Doug Phillips and Doug Phillips was so encouraged by the story we my father and I put Bill Henderson on an airplane and we flew to Fredericksburg Texas to film interviews with Bill Henderson and my father.

It was friendships that caused all of these things to happen. We put Bill Henderson and my dad in front of that camera in Fredericksburg, Texas, and something snapped that ended up leading us to actually go to the island of Iwo Jima. That trip to Iwo Jima was the result of the visionary thinking of Doug Phillips. All these things happened as a result of friendship. You know, when you match men up, things can happen.

When you match men with other men who have gigantic visions like Doug, you watch out. Something interesting is about to happen and you'll have to hang on to your hat. So when we were doing the interviews in Fredericksburg, Doug asked these men if they would be willing to return to Iwo Jima and it was an interesting question because The logistical issues are difficult, the costs, the time involved, and there's one huge barrier and that's this, that the island of Iwo Jima is under the control of Japanese government and they only permit American citizens to tour the island one day every year and those who are allowed to tour our veterans are relative relatives of veterans and you can only be there during daylight hours so it's a difficult trip to even think about Well both Bill Henderson and my father were adamant that they would not go back to Iwo Jima and I'll never forget Bill Henderson's reply to Doug's question about going back to Iwo Jima. Bill dryly said no thank you I've already visited Iwo Jima. A year later we asked him again if he would go and he said, been there, done that.

And then a few months later, For some strange reason, both Bill and my father agreed to make the journey for the 60th anniversary of the battle. Doug and I breathed a big sigh of relief and then a gasp of fear because we weren't really sure how we could pull it off. It would be an epic journey and it would consume lots of time and lots of resources. Remember, choose your friends wisely. You'll key off of one another and they'll take you in directions that you may never be able to anticipate, or maybe even want, if they're the wrong directions.

And so you need to be careful about who you choose as your friends. And you need to be Careful what kind of friend you are, because you too will take your friends in directions, either in irrelevant directions or in relevant, meaningful, good directions. This is why we should have friends who have great and godly thoughts. Maybe by God's grace we will be positively impressed by them. Maybe we will go with them to the promised land.

On the other hand if we choose small-minded friends or worldly friends we might be directed in places that will just take us deeper into your relevancy. Friendship is such a critical gift of God that we must manage it carefully. And I'd like to give you 10 guideposts for the management of friendship. And here's the first one. First, teach your son that friendship is a gift of God.

Proverbs 27 verse 9 speaks of the beauty of this gift. It reads like this, ointment and perfume delight the heart, and the sweetness of a man's friend gives delight by hearty counsel. God provides many gifts in life and friendship is one of those gifts and it eases the bumps and the bruises and that sometimes come upon us in this life and sometimes friendship provides a sharpening effect for us. As Proverbs 27 17 says, as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. Not only do friendships sharpen, they sometimes inflict wounds that turn out to be emblems of faithfulness.

As Proverbs 27, 6 describes, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Yes, sometimes the iron sharpening iron leads to wounds, but the best of friends understand that they are all for the best intentions and that they can cause friendships to grow. Unfortunately some men are loners and they are deprived of the gift of friendship. Some men go through their whole life long and they never break the lone wolf habit. And they end up living their lives without cultivating something that God had provided for their comfort, for their counsel, for the expansion of his kingdom, and for their laughter.

Here's a second guidepost for the building of friendship. Second, help your son understand that friendships are valuable not because they're always smooth But because they serve to test love and loyalty, God gives friendship to forge gold in a man's heart, the gold of loyalty. Friendship is tested when things happen that tempt us to cultivate feelings of dishonor and lack of love toward a friend. We discover things, quirks, lapses, whatever in their personalities or their spiritual lives and our love is tested. What will we do?

How will we handle the information of the imperfections of a friend? The temptation is to despise a friend. The temptation is to tell a tale about a friend or to gossip about him. Instead of rejection, We ought to be the kind of friend who sees the quirks and relates to them as terms of endearment and the lapses in their personalities as opportunities to pour on more grace, more prayer, more love, but instead so many men just allow those things to separate them. This is one reason why Proverbs 27 10 counsels with perfect clarity, Do not forsake your own friend or your Father's friend.

When friendship is tested, we must absolutely remember the counsel of the Apostle Paul. Love does not keep an account of wrong suffered. 1 Corinthians 13 1-3 and what I'm going to call the original Peter principle. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4-8.

So the second thing that a father can do to help his son be a great friend is to teach his son that friendship is valuable, not because they're always smooth, but because they serve to test love. The third thing a father can do to help his son be a great friend is to help his son realize that if the man wants friends he must be friendly. Those four words, he must be friendly, are direct quotation from Proverbs 18 24. This statement was one of the favorite sayings of my grandfather, and he quoted it over and over again, And he quoted it whenever he observed that someone was in his realm who was not reaching out in friendship. He almost always quoted it when there was someone who was disappointed.

Someone who was in the church that said, well, nobody's friendly to me here. He would say if a man wants friends he must be friendly. And that confirms what is true about friendship. The men who have friends are initiators of friendship. The friendless are always waiting around for someone to befriend them.

And because friendship never happens to them, they just keep walking on the track of the lone wolf. That's not necessary. Because God calls us to be friendly and to make friendship happen. If you lack friends, be friendly and you will have friends. The fourth thing that a father can do to help his son be a great friend is he can show him how important it is to choose friends carefully.

Now I'm going to talk out of two sides of my mouth here because on the one hand, I believe that in many senses, a Christian man ought to be the friend of all men. A Christian man should be flexible in his friendships. He should not be hard bitten. He shouldn't be too over demanding. But on the other hand, a man needs to make his closest friends particular kinds of friends.

There should be discrimination and prioritization for a man's closest friends. Proverbs 22 24 says this, make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man do not go. Now that doesn't mean that we are unfriendly with an angry man. It means that we don't bring them into our closest council of friends. Friends have an enormous influence on us.

Paul said, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits." 1 Corinthians 15, 33. This is why I tend to look for three things in my closest friends, which I hope are the marks of my own friendship toward them as well. The best kind of friend should have at least three qualities. These are the ones that I want to possess as a friend, And these are the ones that I look for.

First, we should be able to see the fruits of the Spirit in a friend and that he demonstrates some semblance of a Spirit-directed life. He is a person marked by the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the marks of a okay we'll kill that those those are the marks that I look for for my closest friends second we should be able to see that they have a particular impact and that they encourage in us love and good deeds. They should be friends that when we key off of them, we're improved by it. And thirdly, that we should see that they sincerely promote a holy lifestyle, and they stimulate in us a desire for holiness instead of worldliness.

It does no man good to hang tightly with worldly friends because it will make them only more worldly than they ever really wanted to be and so it is true that not only should we look for these qualities but we ought to strive to provide these same things for our friends. Well the fifth guidepost for friendship is this. To show him how to maintain long and loyal friendships. Friends are sometimes tempted to betrayal and it has devastating results both socially and in relationship to God. Psalm 15 3 speaks of those who will be allowed to the end of the presence of the Lord and remarkably it has to do with friendship and neighborliness.

The Psalm reads that those who will be allowed in the presence of the Lord, that those who are allowed in the presence of the Lord are those who do not backbite with the tongue nor does evil to his neighbor nor does he take up a reproach against his friend. Taking up a reproach against a friend has serious consequences. Paul tells Timothy that you will sometimes find traitors and slanderers in the church, that they're wolves in sheep's clothing. 2 Timothy 3, 3 through 5. David lamented this problem when he said even my own familiar friend whom I trusted whom I ate my bread has lifted up his heel against me.

This is recorded in Psalm 41 verse 9 we are actually commanded to maintain long friendships as is indicated in Proverbs 27 verse 10 do not forsake your friend or your father's friend. So the fifth guidepost for fathers to help their sons in friendship is to show them how to maintain long and loyal friendships. The sixth guidepost for friendship is that a father would warn his son about becoming like Job's friends. Job's friends presumed that they knew why the calamities were falling upon him. Friends often judge one another because they think they understand the hearts of their friends, or they think they understand why certain things are happening.

And then they wrongfully believe that they know what's going on in their friend's life and they use it to criticize the friend or distance themselves from him. My experience is my experience is that when men do this after a while and sometimes after only after many years they look back on it and they realize that it was a mistake. Job's friends were unmerciful toward him. They judged his heart. They judged his actions.

And they did not know that God was doing something to test Job, to demonstrate his love. God was doing something to test Job. God was doing something to demonstrate the glory of God. And Job's friends belittled him at the lowest point of his life when he desperately needed their encouragement they kicked him when he was down the lesson from job is this when your friend is down don't presume that he's sinned and don't presume that you know the secrets of what is happening. And pray the prayer of David in Psalm 19, 13 and 14.

Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy side, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." Well the seventh thing a father can do to help his son is to help him become a low maintenance friend. High maintenance friends are always demanding. They demand time, they demand attention, they're easily offended, they are easily offended, they feel that they don't get their share, and they make themselves a burden instead of an inspiration.

Proverbs 27 verse 14 speaks of one characteristic of a high-maintenance friend he demands attention in inappropriate ways and at inappropriate times he says he who blesses his friend with a loud voice rising early in the morning it will be counted a curse to him. Well low maintenance friends aren't like this at all. Low maintenance friends are like the kind of friends who you can pick up with at any time. They, okay, forget that. Low maintenance friends are the kinds of friends who can just pick up where they left off, and they don't smother one another, and they don't obsess about the attention they're getting or not getting.

A counsel of a wise fa- the counsel of- The counsel of a wise father would go like this, be content regardless whether you are invited or in the presence of that friend. Often it's nothing more than self-love than is the culprit in a high maintenance relationship. Fathers, teach your sons to be low maintenance friends. Teach your sons to be able to pick up at a moment's notice with a friend and express the love and the kindness and all the fruits of the Spirit whenever you're with him. The eighth guidepost for friendship is this.

Give your son the scripture to warn him to avoid being surety for a friend. Proverbs 17, 18 makes it clear that making yourself responsible for a friend's debts is a sign of foolishness for, quote, a man devoid of understanding shakes his hand in a pledge and becomes surety for a friend. Friends should avoid getting tangled up financially with one another, especially becoming liable for their obligations. And let me add, my understanding of the principles of friendship and surety teach us that partnerships are a bad idea. They seldom turn out well and they always open friends up to pressures that may ultimately destroy that friendship.

Friends should be very very reluctant to go into partnerships with one another. There are dangers and I am encouraging my own son. I'm warning him to become a surety or to become a partner with a dear friend, lest that friendship detonate under the pressures of financial responsibilities. The ninth guidepost for friendship is this. Explain to your son that the most important personality to teach us about friendship is the Lord Jesus Christ.

John reports that Jesus said to his disciples, no longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you." John 15 15. The Lord demonstrates that the best qualities of friendship a man can ever have are the qualities of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18 24. The implication is that Christ is that friend who sticks closer than a brother.

And this teaches us that, I'll say it again, this teaches us that friends can even be closer than relatives. It contradicts the saying blood is thicker than water. No, blood is not thicker than water. If Christ is in your friend, then your bond in the blood of Christ is thicker than the blood of any relative you'll ever have. Christ fulfills all the requirements of exemplary friendship.

For he was both holy and he was happy. The writer of Hebrews describes him as having, quote, loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions." Hebrews 1 9. Now without trivializing Christ's character or his mighty name or his perfect holiness, we can say from this scripture that Christ was the exemplary example. Okay.

We can say that confidence that the Lord Jesus Christ was the best and the happiest friend that anyone ever had. In this sense, it is appropriate for us to pray that the Lord would make us happy friends. If you pray that you would be a happy friend, you're praying that you would be like the Lord Jesus Christ because Christ was the happiest of all the apostolic band. Scripture gives us so many words and relationships that help—okay, stop that now. Scripture is full of direction and principle regarding friendship.

Paul, when he was writing to Philemon, captures the kinds of Christ-like friendships that God can create in His Church. The text reads, Paul to Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer. May God give us beloved friends and fellow laborers, and may we also be these kinds of friends. This is one of the powerful legacies that my father has given to our family. There's nothing like happy fathers and faithful friends.

A cheerful heart is good medicine between friends, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. As fathers train their sons to engage in decisive, courageous leadership, the kind of leadership that says, give me that mountain. They also ought to instruct their sons regarding the power of friendship and the beautiful instruction that comes from God's holy word that would help men become the kind of friend that Jesus was. He was holy and he was happy. Well here are some questions you might consider regarding friendship.

What are the best qualities of friendship that you see in the scriptures? What kinds of friends should be avoided? Let me say it again. What kinds of friends should be avoided? What does the Bible say about making friends?

What should a Christian consider when picking his friends? How can friends sin against one another? And what are the marks of Christ's friendship? For there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.