God's Mercy Endures Forever

"...Who remembered us in our low estate, for His mercy endureth for ever." -Psalm 136:23 [KJV]

O my soul, never, never forget these two things, thy Lord’s memory, and His mercy. The one was towards thee from eternity: the other endures for ever. What hast thou to do in this little space of time, but to love, serve, and delight in thy mindful, ever merciful Lord? 

(1st.) Consider thy low estate. Never lose sight of that. Never forget it, lest thou grow vain in thy imagination, and unmindful of our Lord’s love. At hell’s dark door we lay. Lower we could not be, unless shut up in the bottomless pit. Most awful state! O tremble at the thought! dead in sin. A child of wrath by nature. Under the curse of the law, and the power of the devil. Blind to our danger. Insensible of our destruction. Not a desire to escape damnation. Nay, we sported ourselves with our own deceivings. 

Yet, (2d.) He remembered us. Who? Jehovah: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father loved us from eternity, before we fell. He remembered and pitied us when fallen. The Son was mindful of us in eternity, and engaged to redeem us from our low estate. The Spirit, with equal love, seeing we could never rise, nor come out of the horrible pit into which we were fallen, undertook to quicken our dead souls, to come to Jesus for all the blessings of salvation. O what love and remembrance is here! Study it, O my soul, all thy days. A whole eternity will be swallowed up in wonder, love, and praise. 

(3d.) Mercy is the effect of His long remembrance. Why does God delight in mercy? Because God is love. Never look at your mercies, but remember they all flow from God’s love. Consider that precious word, “God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love, wherewith He loved us,” (mind great love is the cause of rich mercy. See when it abounded to us, and the effects of it) “even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by grace ye are saved” (Ephesians 2:4, 5.) 

Therefore, (4th.) “His mercy endureth for ever.” Some talk of the mercy of God, without scriptural views of His love. Hence they make mercy to endure but for a few days or years to poor sinners, then it comes to an end, and they who were once the objects of mercy, become the subjects of God’s curse or damnation. Thus they give the lie to the Spirit of truth. But His mercy endureth for ever, because the love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, changes not. 

(5th.) Study to improve thy Lord’s memory of thee, and His mercy to thee. Did He remember thy person in love, in thy low estate, and will He remember thy sins no more? (see Hebrews 8:12.) Then in thy lowest state of dejection remember Him. Look to Him, and call upon Him, that thou mayest walk worthy of the Lord (Colossians 1:10.)

-preacher William Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)