Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org, donate, or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program.

Speaker 3

On today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

You say, well, Pastor, you've convinced me. I know I need friends, I need companions.

Where do I go to find those kind of friends who'll give me assistance and encouragement and provide accountability? Where do you go?

Well, the Bible says God has created three realms to satisfy our need for companionship.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. We often think of loneliness as a condition over which we have no control. But in reality, some of that loneliness we experience is actually the result of our own choices.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress teaches that whether you're married or single, God desires companionship for everyone.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

Speaker 3

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. In the history of mankind, we have never been more connected to one another than right now. Smartphones and computers have allowed us to reach anyone in the world at any time. Even so, loneliness is an epidemic. In today's message, we're going to talk about God's plan for companionship as a means for your fulfillment in life.

This message is part of my practical teaching series called "Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life," which concludes this week. And so I want you to receive my book for this teaching series before it's too late. My book is also called "Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life." But that's not all, because I'm also going to send you David Green's new book, "The Legacy Life." David is the founder of Hobby Lobby, but this book isn't about building businesses or accumulating wealth. It's about understanding that you and I are part of something much bigger than our individual lives.

David frames it this way: we each have a role in God's redemptive story, one that doesn't end when our life ends. Both books, David's and mine, are yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.

Okay, let's get started. I titled today's message "Choosing Companionship Over Loneliness."

Speaker 2

God has designed companionship as a way to ensure our emotional and spiritual fulfillment in life. What are the advantages of companionship that most people miss? Turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Ecclesiastes 4. You know, Solomon had it all: money, wealth, power. But one thing he lacked was companionship. Say, lacked companionship. What about those 700 wives and 300 concubines? Isn't that enough to keep him busy? Well, that provided something, but not what he needed most—not companionship.

Listen to what he says in Ecclesiastes 4:7-8: "Then I looked again at vanity. Under the sun, there was a certain man without a dependent, having neither son nor brother. Yet there was no end to all of his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches, and he never even asked, 'For whom am I laboring or depriving myself of pleasure?' This is vanity." To work all your life, to go through life without anybody to share it with—that is meaningless. And then in verse nine, he offers that well-known verse: "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor."

Why are two better than one? Why do you need to go through life in companionship rather than alone? Solomon illustrates four reasons—four values of companionship. First of all, he says companionship offers us assistance in times of crisis. Look at verse 10: "For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion, but woe to the one who falls when there's not another to lift him up." There's an old Swedish proverb that says, "Shared joy is a double joy. Shared sorrow is half a sorrow." That's what Solomon is saying here.

Imagine two people walking along together. If one stumbles, the other one is there to lift him up, to keep him from stumbling. Rarely do two people stumble at the same time. And it's the same way with going through life. When you're going through life with a companion or a group of friends, if you fall into temptation, if you fall into despair or depression, chances are the other person isn't going through that at the same time; they're able to lift you up. And that's why we need to go through life in the companionship of other people.

Not only that, secondly, companionship offers support when we feel alone. Look at verse 11: "Furthermore, if two lie down together, they keep warm. But how can one be warm alone?" He's not talking about body temperature here. What he's talking about is those cold times of life that you experience. All of us experience them—maybe the move to a new city, the beginning of a new job, or the death of a loved one. During those cold moments of life, you need a companion to provide warmth.

Remember the Old Testament story of Ruth and Naomi? Ruth had suffered the loss of her husband, and her mother-in-law, Naomi, was also a widow. After Ruth's husband died, Naomi said, "You need to move back in with your parents and find yourself a husband." Ruth wouldn't hear of it. She needed Naomi, and she believed her mother-in-law needed her as well. In one of the most beautiful passages of all of the Bible, Ruth 1:16, Ruth said to Naomi, "Do not entreat me to leave you or to keep me from following after you, for where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God." During that cold time of her life, Ruth knew she needed the warmth of her mother-in-law. We all need other people for those cold times in life.

Thirdly, companionship offers us protection when we are under siege. Look at verse 12: "And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart." You know, you take a rope; if it's just one little strand, you can break that real easily. Two strands are a little harder, but three strands are almost impossible. It's the same thing with people. Have you ever felt like the apostle Paul when he said, "We were afflicted on every side, conflicts from without, fears from within"? Have you ever felt like you had attacks coming from every direction? You know, problems rarely come alone; they come in bunches. And when those attacks come, how much better to have somebody stand with you?

I am so grateful. As I look back on the churches Amy and I have served in, in every one of those churches, there are always people who are ready to stand with us, to provide assistance when we felt like we were under siege. If I was being unfairly attacked, I had friends and leaders in the church who would stand up to defend me. If I was being attacked by circumstances, there were people who were willing to help me gain perspective, who would say, "You know what, Robert, this isn't normal. Something spiritual is going on. We're going to pray for you and for your protection." I hate to think what it would have been like to go through those attacks without the benefit of other people to offer protection.

You know, pastors aren't the only ones who experience those kinds of attacks. We all have circumstances that conspire against us. We have an enemy who's out to destroy us. And listen to me: one thing I've discovered as a pastor for 40 years is that one of Satan's favorite tactics in your life is to isolate you from other people. Once he gets you alone, separated from the church, separated from your family members, you're spiritual roadkill. Before you know it, he has a much more difficult time attacking you and succeeding if there are two of you standing together. If there are three or four standing together, praying together, protecting one another, it's impossible. And that's why we need other people—they provide protection when we're under siege.

Number four: companionship offers accountability when we are prone to wander from the faith. I cannot tell you the number of Christian leaders I have known through the years who have suddenly fallen into immorality or disbelief, leaving thousands of people disillusioned as a result. Correction: I shouldn't have said that. They didn't fall suddenly into immorality or disbelief; it was a long process that most people didn't see. See, that's how spiritual defection and sin occurs—a gradual erosion in our life. A little compromise here and there, more and more times skipped spending with God in prayer and reading His Word, growing cynicism toward other people and the things of God. Many times those things are happening apart from the eyes of anybody else. But then our final and sudden fall is spectacular; it's seen by everyone.

That's what happened to Solomon. Solomon had started out—remember when he was named king? He said, "Lord, I'm gonna serve you with a whole heart. The only thing I want—not riches, not power—I just want wisdom from you." Remember that in Solomon? And God was so pleased that He gave him all those other things as well. That's how Solomon started. Unfortunately, it's not how he ended. 1 Kings 11:4 records his downfall: "For it came about when Solomon was old." When he was old—not when he was young. When he was old is when he fell away from God. Don't think getting old is any guarantee of godliness. Being old doesn't make you godly automatically. Being old doesn't exempt you from sin and temptation. It was when Solomon was old that his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David, his father, had been.

You know the tragedy of Solomon's life? There was nobody to call him out on those small defections that were taking place in his faith. Nobody who cared enough about Solomon to say, "You know what? I've noticed something in your life. I love you, I care about you. But if you keep going down this road, you're going to end up in a bad place." Do you have somebody like that in your life? Somebody who loves you enough, is concerned about you enough that they're willing to tell you the truth? That's what companionship does—it offers us accountability when we're prone to wander.

You say, "Well, Pastor, you've convinced me. I know I need friends; I need companions. Where do I go to find those kinds of friends who'll give me assistance, encouragement, and provide accountability? Where do you go?" Well, the Bible says God has created three realms to satisfy our need for companionship. In the final few minutes we have, let me just mention the three realms of relationships that come from God.

First of all, marriage. Marriage. God's plan is for us to find companionship in marriage. Genesis 2:18: remember, after God finished His crowning work of creating man, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him, opposite him, to complement him." Now, I've always thought that was strange—that God said, "It's not good for Adam to be alone." Adam wasn't alone; he was surrounded by all those animals. More importantly, he had a right relationship with God. I mean, he and God were having a great time together in the garden—no sin anywhere, perfect fellowship. But you know what God was saying? "Fellowship with me, Adam, isn't enough. You need something more."

And by the way, that's true of you. Don't be super spiritual. Don't be more spiritual than God is. "I don't need anybody except God." Yes, you do. God created you as a human being. You need other humans—not just animals and not just the spirit. You need other people. And that's why God said, "I'm gonna make a helper for Adam." And by the way, that wasn't unique to Adam. At the end of Genesis 2:24-25, Moses said, "This is God's plan for most people. For this cause, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now, I said this is God's plan for most people. There are some people, as 1 Corinthians 7 says, who have the gift of being single. Not everybody's plan—God's plan for everybody is to be married for most people. Yes, there are some people who have what Paul calls the gift of celibacy. I remember when we were teenagers growing up, we'd hear people tell that, and we would just pray, "Oh, God, please don't give me that gift." It's a gift nobody wants. Well, that's not really true. There are some people who do want that gift. And that's the way to know if you have the gift of singleness: if you enjoy it and that's what you want, that means you've got the gift. For most people, that's not God's plan for their life; they find companionship in marriage.

But marriage is not the only place to find companionship. In fact, if you're depending on your mate to provide every need for companionship you have, you're placing a burden on them that they cannot meet, and your marriage can't survive. God wants you to have friends as well as a mate. And that leads to that second realm of relationship: friendships. Again, Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friend loves at all times." You know, there are four different levels of friendship that might help you understand God's plan for your life.

First, there are acquaintances. These are people you meet, you know, at the grocery store in the checkout line. Most people make an average of 500 to 2,500 new acquaintances every year—just people they meet randomly. These are people you don't know their name and probably will never have any relationship with. Acquaintances. Secondly, there are casual friends. These are people that you know on a first-name basis; you may or may not socialize with, but usually your conversations are very superficial—about the weather, sports, and so forth. Those friendships may last only months or may last a lifetime.

Thirdly, there are close friends. These are people who have a mutual agreement on things like spiritual issues, politics, and so forth. That number is anywhere from 5 to 25 people—people who are considered to be close friends. But finally, there are intimate friends. Usually, people only have anywhere from one to no more than five intimate friends. These are friendships that last a lifetime. These are friendships that span geographical boundaries. Even if you move away from one another and are separated for a period of time, when you're with that person, it's just like you pick up where you left off. These are the people that you are most likely to call in times of a crisis in your life—intimate friends.

God's plan is for us to have friends at all levels. The trouble is when you expect a casual friend to be an intimate friend, and they're not. But God's plan is to have all those levels of friendships, and that leads to a third realm of relationship: the church. The church. You know, what's interesting about the church is you find all four levels of friendship right there in the church: acquaintances—people you don't know, you don't even know their name; people you know on a first-name basis; people you feel comfortable talking to and share agreement about spiritual issues; and then your intimate friends as well.

But what's interesting is even though you have all four levels in the church, collectively those four groups form a power that helps keep you grounded spiritually as well as emotionally. There is power in being connected to a body of believers. Now, last week, Phil Robertson was here, and I was listening again to the interview on the way to church, and he said some tremendous things. But there's one thing he said that I know what he meant, but I'm afraid it could be misconstrued, and that's the idea that somehow coming to church isn't important. He didn't say that; he was talking about the need for us to leave the church and go out to be a witness to other people.

And it's true: the world isn't going to get saved by our coming to church. The purpose of our coming to church is to get equipped to go out to where people are. But more importantly, coming together as a church is absolutely vital to our own spiritual health. It's not optional. And that's why the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 10:24-25, "Let us consider how we can stimulate, motivate one another to love and good deeds by not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more, as you see the day drawing near."

The writer of Hebrews is saying the reason we're not to forsake coming to church and assembling together—the reason we come to church—is not to satisfy some legalistic, cold, sterile requirement; it's to meet the need we have to encourage one another and motivate one another to faith and to good deeds. Let me illustrate that for you. Have you ever watched a fire burning in a fireplace and seen the wood in there, the wood embers, and how that wood grows and glows bright red when it's burning in the fire? And yet if you take that piece of wood out of a fireplace and set it aside, so quickly it goes from red to gray to a steely black. But when you take that cold piece of wood and put it back in the fireplace, it ignites again and begins to glow brightly.

It's the same way with Christians in the church. When you isolate or separate a Christian from other believers, that Christian's faith can grow cold very, very quickly. But it's when we're in the presence of other believers—worshiping, being instructed in God's Word, praying together—that continues to stimulate us to love and to good deeds. We need one another. I was reading this week the words of the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre said, "Hell is other people." How's that for cynical? Hell is other people. Yes, other people can be a nuisance; they can be annoying. But I'm here to tell you what real hell is: it's loneliness.

In fact, that's going to be the final state of those who die without Christ. They're not just going to be separated from God; they're going to be separated from other people. Yes, there will be billions of people in hell. Jesus said if you go to hell, there will be a mass of people with you there. The only thing is you won't know it because it's a place of utter darkness. You'll spend eternity not just separated from God, but from other people as well, where there's weeping, wailing, and the gnashing of teeth. Hell is loneliness. But God's cornerstone plan for most of us is companionship so that we can experience the emotional and spiritual fulfillment that God desires for each one of us.

Speaker 3

God has created his children for companionship. This is one of the 11 topics I address in my book called *Choose Your Change, Your Life*. Remember, the deadline for requesting a copy is the end of this week, so request a copy today.

Before we close, let me come back to something that's been on my mind all program long. David Green's book *The Legacy Life* has fundamentally changed how I think about the years I have left. David built Hobby Lobby into a household name, but that's not what this book is about. It's about a far more important question: What values will outlive you?

Most of us spend our working years focused on security, ensuring we're comfortable. David doesn't dismiss that, but he challenges us to aim higher. What if our lives could bless people we'll never meet? What if the work we do today could bear fruit in our grandchildren's generation and beyond? That's exactly what happens when you partner with a ministry committed to proclaiming Christ. You're planting seeds with an eternal harvest.

And when you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory, today, I want to thank you by sending both *The Legacy Life* and my own book, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. Here's David to tell you more.

Speaker 1

When you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you a copy of the legacy life. Plus, you'll also receive the book by Dr. Robert Jeffress titled *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. To request these resources, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. To give by text, simply send PTV to 78800, and when your gift is $100 or more, we'll also send you the audio and video discs for the *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life* teaching series. Plus, you'll receive a study guide for individual or group study. To request the complete package of resources, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could also send your request by mail to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222.

Well, there's one final topic in our series titled *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*, and this next subject is perhaps the most important one of all. I'm David J. Mullins inviting you back next time to learn how to choose intimacy with God over isolation. That's right here on Pathway to Victory.

*Pathway to Victory* with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Alaska's pristine wilderness showcases God's glory like nowhere else on earth, and you're invited to experience it firsthand on the Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Cruise to Alaska Set Sail with amy and me June 13, 2026 for seven unforgettable days, enjoy daily Bible teaching, worship led by Michael o', Brien, and laughter with Dennis Swanberg. All aboard Holland America's five Star Con.

Speaker 1

This journey will refresh your soul, so reserve your Cabin today. Call 888-280-6747 or visit ptv.org.

You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or you can follow the link in our show notes.

We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska? You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it, so what are you waiting for?

Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Koningsdam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur. It's beautiful. These moments in God's creation will deepen your faith in powerful ways. It really will. Experience five-star dining, luxurious staterooms, and visiting iconic ports like Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. We're also bringing along our own Christian entertainment. You'll love it.

Seats are filling up, so book your spot today at ptv.org.