---

How long, O Jehovah, wilt thou be angry forever? The duration of Divine judgment may seem long to pious feeling; it is known not to be long, when faith begins to read it aright. The Divine wrath is ever in the control of the Divine righteousness and the Divine love. There is no personal feeling in it. When its ends are reached, the Divine wrath is satisfied. God's people may comfort themselves with the assurance that there are three limitations always being put on the Divine wrath.

I. THE DIVINE HONOUR. Of that honour God is jealous. We may be quite sure that he will never act, or continue to act, in such ways as would reasonably give men wrong thoughts concerning him. Take one thing: the good man may be quite sure that God will never so act as to produce impressions of personal vindictiveness. We may not think of God as "hating" anything that he has made. His judgments are official, parts of the wise ordering of his kingdom. No man could have high ideas of the Divine honour who failed to realize the strict limitations of the Divine wrath. Judgments on frail men could not honour the God of righteousness and love, if they were continued forever. They end when their object is gained.

II. THE DIVINE PURPOSE. This too must be seen to be official, not personal. The well being of the creature, not his own pleasure, we are to regard as the purpose ever set before God. It is, however, a moral purpose concerning a moral being; and call be best represented by the aims cherished in the family life. Parents hold ever before them the good manhood and womanhood of their children; and in their efforts to secure these things, strict limitations have to be put on times of wrath and judgment. If God's purpose is to fit us to be with him, and to have us with him, his anger can but be a "hiding of his face for a little moment;" it cannot be forever. If God's purpose is our betterment, no agency used by him can be unduly continued. If it were, "our souls would fail before him." Illustrate from the Church in the wilderness; the times of the prophets; such Christian times as the age of our Queen Mary. The Divine purpose of dispensations of wrath must be fully accomplished; and therefore troubles, calamities, and persecutions may have to stay wearyingly long, until the souls of the martyred cry out, "How long, O Lord, how long!" But God has the long ages to work in, and his purposes are ever "ripening fast, unfolding every hour."

III. THE DIVINE PITY. The psalmist found comfort in thinking of this. "He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." His judgments and his chastisements are always strictly limited to that which we are able to bear. There is something very like untrustfulness in the plaint of our text. He who is sure of the Divine pity and love has no voice in which to utter the fear that his judgments can be forever." - R.T.

---

---

KJV: How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?

WEB: How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?