Comfort for the Despoding

"Oh that I were as in months past." Job 29:2. For the most part, the gracious Shepherd leads His people beside the still waters and makes them to lie down in green pastures. But at times they wander through a wilderness where there is no water and they find no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul faints within them and they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. Though many of His people live in almost constant joy and find that religion's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace, yet there are many who pass through fire and through water men ride over their heads they endure all manner of trouble and sorrow. The duty of the minister is to preach to different characters. Sometimes we admonish the confident, lest they should become presumptuous. Oftentimes we stir up the slumbering, lest they should sleep the sleep of death. Frequently we comfort the desponding and this is our duty this morning or if not to comfort them, to give them some exhortation which may, by God's help, be the means of bringing them out of the sad condition into which they have fallen, so that they may not be obliged to cry out forever "Oh that I were as in months past!" At once to the subject: A complaint its cause and cure. And then close up with an exhortation to stir up your pure minds, if you are in such a position.