Isaiah 56:10 Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep.

If you were going to be the watch-person, would you not try and do your best to watch out for any danger coming?

It is a sad reflection on the Jews to see such words written down about their leaders – the Scribes and Pharisees!

Yet, this is how God was seeing them at the time because they had lost sight on where they were going and what they should be doing.

Just because we can spout bible verses does not mean we understand them or believe them – take in God’s Word and bury it in your heart!

Isaiah 57:17 I was enraged by their sinful greed; I punished them, and hid my face in anger, yet they kept on in their wilful ways.

If a friend is not going to listen to us when we are trying to correct them, what do we do?

As mentioned yesterday, we pray for them, earnestly! We ask God to do what we cannot do…

And sometimes we have to walk away from them for a spell so they can think about what they are doing wrong.

Jesus did not walk away from anyone whom He knew would turn to Him, His correction was often enough to set the person right.

Psalm 141:5 Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness; let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it, for my prayer will still be against the deeds of evildoers.

If your friends beat you up (not physically but mentally or spiritually) then I would question two things: 1. Am I doing something wrong or 2. Are they doing something wrong?

Much of the time we may well find out we have strayed from God’s path and they are trying to remind us of where we should be going!

Having true friends who do point out when you go wrong is compared here with an excellent oil – how good it is to rub on our skins.

When our friends then get into trouble, we should also be the true friends who point out their errors and we should also be praying for them!