"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

"Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day?" -Genesis 40:7 [KJV]   A sympathizing spirit at all times becomes Christians. They are called “to rejoice with them who do rejoice, and to weep with them who weep” (Romans 12:15.) Joseph could not observe the sad looks of his fellow prisoners, without inquiring the cause. They said, “We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter for it.” Mind the use Joseph made of the distress. He refers them to the Lord. “Do not interpretations belong unto God?” O may the Lord help us to make some improvement of this.    Consider, (1st.) Christians are all fellow prisoners in a body of sin and death.    (2d.) We are all subject, at one time or another, to have cause for sad looks.    (3d.) We should imitate Joseph. Be of a sympathizing spirit. Feel for one another’s distress. Inquire the cause of our brethren’s sad looks.    (4th.) As he did, so we should refer to the Lord. Aim, as enabled by the Lo...

"...and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." -Hebrews 11:13 [KJV] My soul, hast thou also witnessed this confession before many witnesses? See whether thou hast the same evidences they had. In the first place, they were led to see that here they had no continuing city. Sin, sorrow, sickness, death, inhabited this region.  Every thing said to them in that sweet voice of God, "Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted."   What sayest thou, my soul, to this first view of the subject? Look at it under another. Hast thou learnt, and so learnt as to prize it, the blessedness of that promise, "...there is a rest that remaineth for the people of God?"   What sayest thou to this also, my soul? Dost thou see that Jesus is that rest , and is He the Object of thy desire in rest? For the prophet saith, He is the rest wherewith He will cause the weary to rest, and He is their refreshing   (see Isaiah 2...

"I will satisfy her poor with bread." -Psalm 132:15 [KJV] What a sweetness there is in the word "satisfy!" The world cannot satisfy you and me. Have we not tried, some of us perhaps for many years, to get some satisfaction from it? But can wife or husband "satisfy" us? Can children or relatives "satisfy" us? Can all the world calls good or great "satisfy" us? Can the pleasures of sin "satisfy" us? Is there not in all an aching void? Do we not reap dissatisfaction and disappointment from everything that is of the creature, and of the flesh?  Do we not find that there is little else but sorrow to be reaped from everything in this world? I am sure I find, and have found for some years, that there is little else to be gathered from the world but disappointment, dissatisfaction, "vanity and vexation of spirit." The poor soul looks round upon the world and the creature, upon all the occupations, amusements ...