David was every thing to Ittai, and life was nothing. No man had better friends than David had in his day. What we want is to be attached to the Lord Jesus Christ as Ittai was attached to David. JACOB. The key to all Jacob’s difficulties will be found in the twentieth chapter of Matthew. It is the story of the laborers in the vineyard. The thought is in the second verse. The first men hired agreed to the bargain. The men would not go until the owner of the vineyard had made a bargain with them. He told them that he would pay them what was right. They got a penny. He gave them the lawful wages. They probably asked: “And is this all you are going to give us?” Jacob was all the time making bargains. The Christians who are making bargains with the Lord do not get as much as those who trust Him. It does not pay to make bargains with the Lord. Jacob is a twin brother of most of us. Where you find one Joseph or one Daniel you will find a hundred Jacobs. We are not willing, all of us, to take God at His word and trust Him. There is a strong contrast between the character of Joseph and Jacob. The one trusted God implicitly, but Jacob wanted to trust Him no farther than he could see God. There would have been a great deal of murmuring if Jacob had been thrown into jail in Egypt. No doubt Jacob got much of his weakness from his mother. There was a division in that home. Isaac favored Esau, and Rebekah favored Jacob. Such dissensions are just the thing to stir up the old Adam in the man. A mother and a father have no right to take this course. Rebekah plans continually to keep Jacob at home. The very thing that Rebekah tries to achieve, in that she fails. By nature Esau was the better of the two. If such a mean and contemptible nature as Jacob’s can be saved, then there is hope for all of us. The Lord promised to Jacob from the bottom of the ladder what he should have. Jacob gets up and says: “If God will be with me and keep and clothe me, then shall the Lord be my God.” What a low and contemptible idea he had! God had promised him all from Dan to Beersheba. That is the difficulty with the people at the present time. If God will bless us in our basket and store, we shall have Him for our God. We find Jacob after this in Haran, driving bargains all the time, and the worst of it is he gets beat every time. He had to work seven years for his wife, and then gets another woman in her place. He is paid back in his own coin. We must not think that God will allow us to deceive without punishing us for it. Jacob forgot all the vows which he made at Bethel, but God did not forget His. Some of God’s promises are unconditional. The promise which He made at Bethel was unconditional.