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How many voices there are that seem to deny the blessed declaration which is repeated in every verse of this psalm, and in so many other psalms and Scriptures beside!

I. THE VOICE OF EARTHLY SORROW SEEMS TO DENY IT. "What!" says one, "his mercy endureth for ever? And I, once so happily placed, and to whom all life was bright, and now so utterly poor, a ruined man: how can his mercy endure forever? I cannot believe it." And here is another who has been bitterly bereaved, the light of his home gone out. And another whose heart smarts within him from a sense of cruel wrong which has been inflicted on him, and which has embittered all his life. And another whose existence is one long pain. And another racked with anxiety. Oh, how many such there are to whom the talk of God's mercy seems as an impossible and an idle thought!

II. AND THE VOICE OF THE POPULAR THEOLOGY HAS PRACTICALLY DENIED IT. For it represents God as a moral Governor who has attached a tremendous penalty to sin - a penalty at the very thought of which the heart shudders, and who would inflict this on mankind generally, for that all have sinned, only that mercy interposes, and by the sacrifice of Christ opens a way of escape for all who will believe. Now, in this representation there is very much that is scriptural and true, but it errs in representing the foundation of the Divine character as that of the magistrate rather than of the father. As if his great purpose were to maintain a law rather than to train and to teach, to restore and to redeem. And hence they limit this salvation to the baptized, or to the elect, or to those who dwell in Christian lands. And they limit it likewise to the present life. Thus, practically, they seem to deny the ever-enduring character of God's mercy.

III. AND THERE IS MUCH IN SCRIPTURE THAT SEEMS TO SUPPORT THIS DENIAL. Certainly there are no direct statements that teach that outside the limits of faith in Christ, and of the present life, there is yet salvation, and there are many which seem to distinctly say there is not.

IV. AND THERE ARE AWFUL FACTS IN LIFE WHICH POINT IN THE SAME DIRECTION. Men, many of them, do, so far as we can see, die in their sins, having no part nor lot in the kingdom of God.

V. BUT, IN SPITE OF ALL THIS, GOD'S MERCY ENDURETH FOREVER.

1. It must be so because of his declared character. God is love. He is our Father. His mercy is not an attribute external to himself, something that he has assumed; but it is what he is in his own inherent nature. Therefore so long as God exists, his mercy must exist likewise, that is, must endure forever.

2. Because of his declared purpose. He has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. He will have all men to be saved. He gave his only begotten Son to die for us all, and to him every knee shall bow. "The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." Can his purpose, then, be forever thwarted?

3. The manifest design of all his dealings with us. His perpetual goodness. The afflictions and sorrows he sends, they are for good, not ill; for healing, not harm. And the punishments he inflicts, they are not in vengeance, but to subdue the perverse will Love is at the heart of things, the ultimate reason of them all.

4. What he has already done. The most stubborn wills he has subdued, and does subdue day by day. The resources of his mercy are not exhausted or exhaustible. - S.C.

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KJV: O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

WEB: Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good; for his loving kindness endures forever.