Maschil Of Ethan, A Majestic Song

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I
make known Your faithfulness to all generations. ForIhave said, Mercy
shall be built up forever: Your faithfulness shall You establish in the
very heavens." Psalm 89:1,2.

THIS Psalm is one of the very choicest songs in the night. Midst a
stream of troubled thoughts there stands a fair island of rescue and
redemption which supplies standing room for wonder and worship while
the music of the words, like the murmuring of a river, sounds sweetly
in our ears! Read the Psalm carefully and it will awaken your sympathy,
for he who wrote it was bearing bitter reproach and was almost
broken-hearted by the grievous calamities of his nation. Yet his faith
was strong in the faithfulness of God and so he sang of the stability
of the Divine Covenant when the outlook of circumstances was dark and
cheerless. Nor did he ever sing more sweetly than he sang in that night
of his sorrow. Greatly does it glorify God for us to sing His high
praises in storms of adversity and on beds of affliction. It magnifies
His mercy if we can bless and adore Him when He takes, as well as when
He gives.

It is good that out of the very mouth of the burning furnace there
should come a yet more burning note of grateful praise! I am told that
there is a great deal of relief to sorrow in complaining–that the
utterance of our murmurs may, sometimes, tend to relieve our pain or
sorrow. I suppose it is so. Certainly it is a good thing to weep, for I
have heard it from the mouth of many witnesses. Most of us have felt
that there are griefs too deep for tears and that a flood of tears
proves that the sorrow has begun to abate. But, I think, the best
relief for sorrow is to sing–this man tried it, at any rate. When
mercy seems to have departed, it is well to sing of departed mercy!
When no present blessing appears, it is a present blessing to remember
the blessing of the years gone by and to rehearse the praises of God
for all His former mercies towards us. Two sorts of songs we ought to
keep up even if the present appears to yield us no theme for
sonnets–the song of the past for what God has done and the song of the
future for the Grace we have not yet tasted–the Covenant blessings
held in the pierced hand, safe and sure against the time to come!

Brothers and Sisters, I want you, at this time, to feel the spirit of
gratitude within your hearts. Though your mind should be heavy, your
countenance sad and your circumstances gloomy–still let the generous
impulse kindle and glow. Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord! It does
not seem to me to be much for us to sing God's praises in fair weather.
The shouts of, "Harvest home," over the loaded wagons are proper, but
they are only natural. Who would not sing, then? What bird in all the
country is silent when the sun is rising and the dews of spring are
sparkling? But the choicest choir charms the stars of night and no note
is sweeter, even to the human ear, than that which comes from the bare
bough amidst the abundant snows of dark winter!

sons of sorrow, your hearts are tuned to notes which the joyful cannot
reach! Yours is the full compass and swell. You are harps upon which
the Chief Player on stringed instruments can display His matchless
skill to a larger degree than upon the less afflicted. I pray He may do
so now, by leading you to be first in the song. We must, all of us,
follow, but some of us will not readily yield to be outstripped in this
holy exercise. Like Elijah, we will try to run before the king's
chariot in this matter of praise! Accounting ourselves the greatest
debtors of all to the Grace and mercy of God, we must and will sing
loudest of the crowd and make even–

"Hea ven's resounding arches ring With shouts of Sovereign Grace."

1 invite your attention to two things. First, we shall look at the work
of the Eternal Builder–"Mercy shall be built up forever." Then,
secondly, we shall listen to the resolve of an everlasting singer–"I
will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever." I take the second verse
first–it is necessary for the handling of our subject. You know, in
the book of Common Prayer, the rubric prescribes concerning a certain
form of words that it is, "to be said or sung." We will do both. The
first

part we will have is the verse which begins, "I have said." And then
the second part shall be the verse which begins, "I will sing." It
shall be said and sung, too! God grant we may say it in the depth of
our heart and afterwards that our mouth may sing it and make it known
unto all generations! May the Spirit of all Grace fill us with His own
power!

I. First, then, let us contemplate THE ETERNAL BUILDER AND HIS
WONDERFUL WORK. "I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever: Your
faithfulness shall You establish in the very heavens." I can see a vast
mass of ruins. Heaps upon heaps they lie around me. A stately edifice
has tottered to the ground! Some terrible disaster has occurred. There
it lies–cornice, pillar, pinnacle–everything of ornament and of
utility broken, scattered, dislocated. The world is strewn with the
debris. Journey where you will, the desolation is before your eyes. Who
has done this? Who has cast down this temple? What hand has ruined this
magnificent structure? Manhood! Manhood it is which has been destroyed
and Sin was the agent that effected the Fall. It is man broken by his
sin–iniquity has done it!

you Devastator, what destructions have you worked in the earth! What
desolation you have made unto the ends of the world! Everywhere is
ruin! Everywhere is ruin! Futile attempts are made to rebuild this
temple upon its own heap and the Babel towers arise out of the rubbish
and abide, for a season, but they are soon broken down and the mountain
of decay and corruption becomes even more hopeless of restoration! All
that man has done with his greatest effort is but to make a huge
display of his total failure to recover his position, to realize his
pretentious plans, or to restore his own fleeting memories of better
things. They may build and they may pile up stone upon stone and cement
them together with untempered mortar, but their rude structure shall
all crumble to the dust, again, for the first ruin will be perpetuated
even to the last!

So must it be, for sin destroys all. I am vexed in my spirit and sorely
troubled as I look at these ruins–fit habitations for owls and the
dragon, the mole and the bat. Alas for manhood, that it should be thus
fallen and destroyed! But what else do I see? I behold the great
original Builder coming forth from the ivory palaces to undo this
mischief. He comes not with implements of destruction, that He may cast
down and destroy every vestige, but I see Him advancing with plummet
and line, that He may raise, set up and establish, on the sure
Foundation, a noble pile that shall not crumble with time, but endure
throughout all ages!

He comes forth with mercy. So "I said" as I saw the vision," Mercy
shall be built up forever." There was no material but mercy with which
a temple could be constructed among men. What can meet the guilt of
human crimes but mercy? What can redress the misery occasioned by
wanton transgression but mercy? Mere kindness could not do it. Power
alone– even Omnipotence–could not accomplish it. Wisdom could not
even commence until Mercy stood at her right hand. But when I saw Mercy
interpose, I understood the meaning. Something was to be done that
would change the dreary picture that made my heart groan, for at the
advent of Mercy the walls would soon rise until the roof ascended high
and the palace received within its renovated glory the sublime
Architect who built it!

1 knew that now there would be songs instead of sighs since God had
come and come in mercy! Beloved Brothers and Sisters, blessed was that
day when Mercy, the Benjamin of God, His last-born attribute, appeared!
Surely it was the son of our sorrow, but it was the son of His right
hand. There had been no need of mercy if it had not been for our
sin–thus from direst evil the Lord took occasion to display the
greatest good! When Mercy came–God's darling, for He says He delights
in mercy–then was there hope that the ruins of the Fall would no
longer be the perpetual misery of men! I said, "Mercy shall be built
up."

Now, if you closely scan the passage, you will clearly perceive that
the Psalmist has the idea of God's mercy being manifest in building
because a great breach has to be repaired and the ruins of mankind are
to be restored. As for building, it is a very substantial operation. A
building is something which is palpable and tangible to our senses. We
may have plans and schemes which are only visionary, but when it comes
to building, as those know who have to build, there is something real
being done, something more than surveying the ground and drawing the
model. And oh, what real work God has done for men! What real work in
the gift of His dear Son! The product of His infinite purpose now
becomes evident. He is working out His great designs after the counsel
of His own will!

What real work there is in the regeneration of His people! That is no
fiction! Mercy is built and the blessings that you and I have received
have not mocked us–they have not been the dream of fanatics nor the
fancy of enthusiasts. God has done real work for you and for me, as we
can bear testimony and as we do bear testimony at this hour. "For I
have said, Mercy shall be built." That is no sham, no dream! It is the
act and deed of God! Mercy has been built. A thing that is built is a
fixed thing. It exists– really exists and exists according to a
substantial plan. It is presumed to be permanent. True, all

earthly structures will mold and decay and man's buildings will
dissolve in the last great fire, but still, a building is more durable
than a tent, or a temporary lodge in a garden of cucumbers and, "I have
said, Mercy shall be built."

It is not a movable berth, but a fixed habitation–I have found it so.
And have not you? God's mercy began with some of you–no, I must not
talk about when it began–I mean you began to perceive it many years
ago. Now, when these heads that are now bald or gray had bushy locks,
black as a raven's–when you were curly-headed boys and girls that
clambered on your father's knee–you remember, even then, the mercy of
your God and it has continued with you! It is a fixed, substantial,
real thing. Not the old house at home has been more fixed than the
mercy of God! There has been a warm place for you by the fireside from
your childhood until now and a mother's love has not failed. The mercy
of God to you has been more substantial than a house has ever been. You
can endorse the declaration of David–"I have said, Mercy shall be

built."

A building is an orderly thing as well as a fixed thing. There is a
scheme and design about it. Mercy shall be built. God has gone about
blessing us with designs that only His own infinite perfections could
have completed. We have not seen the design, yet, in the full
proportion. We shall be lost in wonder, love and praise when we see it
all carried out, but we already perceive some lines, some distinct
traces of a grand design as we caught first one thought of God and then
another, of His mercy toward us. Mercy shall be built. I see that it
shall. This is no load of bricks. It is polished stones built one upon
another! God's Grace and goodness toward us have not come by chance, or
as the blind distribution of a God who gave to all alike and for none
with any special purpose.

No, but there has been as much a specialty of purpose to me as if I
were the only one He loved, though, praised be His name, He has blessed
and is blessing multitudes of others beside me! As I discovered that in
all His dealings of mercy there was a plan, I said, "Mercy shall be
built" and so it has been. Yes, more! If I had the time I would like to
picture to you the digging out of that foundation of mercy in the olden
times–the marking out of the lines of mercy in the predestinating
purpose and the ancient Covenant of God. Then I would appeal to your
experience and entreat you to observe how progressively, line upon
line, the many promises have been verified to you up till now. With
what transport you would say, "Yes, the figure may run, if it likes, on
all fours! Yes, and may go on as many legs as a centipede and yet there
shall be no spoiling of it, the metaphor is so good! Mercy has been in
course of construction and is now being raised."

So the song begins, "Mercy shall be built." But now he says, "Mercy
shall be built up." Will you try to think, for a minute, upon these
words–"built up"? It is not merely a long, low wall of mercy that is
formed to make an enclosure or to define a boundary–it is a
magnificent pile of mercy whose lofty heights shall draw admiring gazes
that is being built up. God puts mercy on top of mercy and He gives us
one favor that we may be ready to receive another! There are some
Covenant blessings that you and I are not ready to receive yet. They
would not be suitable to our present circumstances. "I have many things
to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now." Weak eyes that are
gradually recovering their use must not have too much light. A man
half-starved must not be fed at once upon substantial meat–he must
have the nutrient gently administered to him.

An excess of rain might inundate the land and wash up the plants, while
gentle showers would refresh the thirsty soil and invigorate the herbs
and the trees. Even so, mercy is bestowed upon us in measure. God does
not give us every spiritual blessing at once. There are the blessings
of our childhood in Grace which we, perhaps, shall not so much enjoy
when we come to be strong men. But then the blessings of the strong man
and of the father would crush the child and God abounds toward us in
all wisdom and prudence in the distribution of His gifts. And, as I
thought of that, I said, "Yes, mercy shall be built up. There shall be
one mercy on another." Would that I had a vivid imagination and a
tongue gifted with eloquence–then I would try to portray the 12
courses of the new Jerusalem and show how the stones of fair colors are
set, one next to the other, so that the colors set each other off and
blend into a wondrous harmony!

But I can clearly see that the mercy of the azure shall not come first.
There shall be the mercy of the emerald to underlie it and there shall
be an advance made in the preciousness of the stones with which God
shall build us up and we cannot tell what the next is to be–certainly
not what the next after that is to be, nor the next after that and the
one to follow after that! But as I saw half-a-dozen of the courses of
God's mercy, I said, "His mercy shall be built up." I can see it
rising, tier on tier and course on course and it gathers wonders. The
longer I gaze, the more I am lost in contemplation. Silent with
astonishment, spell-bound with the fascinating vision, I think, I
believe, I know that–"Mercy shall be built up."

Moreover, my expectations are awakened. I am waiting eagerly for the
next scene. The designs of mercy are not exhausted. The deeds of mercy
are not all told. The display of mercy must reach higher than has ever
yet dawned upon my imagination. Its foundations were laid low. In great
mercy He gave me a broken heart. That was pure mercy, for God accepts
broken hearts–they are very precious in His sight. But it was a higher
mercy when He gave me a new heart which was bound up and united in His
fear and filled with His joy! Oh, Brothers and Sisters, let us remember
how He showed us the evil of sin and caused us to feel a sense of
shame!

That was a choice mercy, but it was a clearer mercy when He gave us a
sense of pardon. Oh, it was a blessed day when He gave us the little
faith that tremblingly touched His garment's hem! It was better when He
gave us faith as small as a grain of mustard seed that grew. It has
been better, still, when, by faith, we have been able to do many mighty
works for Him. We do not know what we shall do when He gives us more
faith! Far less can we imagine how our powers shall develop in Heaven,
where faith will come to its full perfection! It will not die, as some
idly pretend. There we shall implicitly believe in God. With the place
of His Throne as the point of our survey, we shall see nothing but His
sovereign will to shape events–so with joyful assurance of hope we
shall look onward to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ and the glory
that is to follow. We shall sit in Heaven and sing that the Lord
reigns! We shall gaze upon the earth and behold how it trembles at the
coming of the King of kings! And with radiant faces we shall smile at
Satan's rage! We do not know what any one of our Graces may be built up
into, but if you are conscious of any growth in any Grace, you have
learned enough to appreciate the oracle that speaks in this wise–"I
have said, Mercy shall be built up forever."

Once again would I read this verse with very great emphasis and ask you
to notice how it rebukes the proud and the haughty and how it
encourages the meek and lowly in spirit. "I have said, Mercy shall be
built up forever." In the edification of the saints there is nothing
but mercy! Some people seem to fancy that when we get to a certain
point in Grace we do not need to plead for mercy. My dear Friends, if
any of you get into that humor that you say, "I need not make any
confession of sin. I need not ask pardon of sin," you are trifling with
the very Truths of God of which you think you are the most strong in! I
do not care what doctrine it is that brings you there, you are in a
dangerous state if you stop there. Get away from there quickly!

Your right position is at the Throne of Grace and the Throne of Grace
is meant for people that need Grace and you need Grace now! Perhaps
never more than now. Without new mercies every morning, as the manna
that fed the Israelites of old, your days will be full of misery. Your
Lord and Master taught you to say not only, "Our Father which are in
Heaven," and, "Your kingdom come," but He bade you constantly to pray,
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against
us." "I have no trespasses," one says. Brother, go home and look at
your heart. I will have no argument with you. Take the bandage off your
eyes. You are about as full of sin as an egg is full of meat. Among the
rest of your many sins there is this rotten egg of an accursed pride as
to your own state of heart! I said, no matter what you say, "Mercy
shall be built up forever."

I expect God to deal with me on the footing of mercy as long as I live.
I do not expect that He shall build me up in any way but according to
His Grace and pity and forgiving love. If there are any creatures in
this world that can boast of having got beyond the need of asking for
mercy, I have not learned their secret of self-deception! I know of
some professors who climb so high up the ladder that they come down the
other side. I fancy that is very much like the wonderful growing in
perfection of which they boast about! It means full often going up so
high that they are pure saints in their own esteem, but soon they have
gone down so low that they are poor lost sheep in the estimation of the
Churches of Christ! God grant you may not fall by any such process. "I
have said, Mercy shall be built up forever."

Brothers and Sisters, if you and I ever get to the gate of Heaven and
stand upon the alabaster doorstep with our finger on the glittering
latch–unless the Mercy of God carries us over the threshold we shall
be dragged down to Hell even from the gates of Heaven! Mercy, mercy,
mercy! His mercy endures forever because we always need it! As long as
we are in this world we shall have to make our appeal to mercy and cry,
"Father, I have sinned. Blot out my transgressions!" Well, that is, as
I have said, what the text declares, "I have said, Mercy shall be built
up," nothing else but mercy. There will not come a point when the
angelic masons shall stop and say, "Now then, the next course is to be
merit. So far it has been mercy–but now the next course is to be
perfection in the flesh–that course has no need of mercy."

No, no! Mercy, mercy, mercy till the very top stone shall be brought
forth with shouts of, "Grace, Grace unto it." "Mercy shall be built
up." Yet glance your eyes onward. "I said, mercy shall be built up
forever." Forever? Well, I have been

peering back into the past and I discover that nothing else but mercy
can account for my being or my well-being. By the Grace of God I am
what I am. The Psalm of my life, though filled with varied stanzas, has
but one chorus–His mercy endures forever. Will you look back, Beloved,
on all the building of your life and character? Any of it that has been
real building–gold and silver and precious stones–has all been mercy
and so the building will go on! The operation is proceeding slowly but
surely. What? Though at this present hour you may be in grievous
trouble, mercy is being built up for you.

"Oh, no," you say, "I am tottering and my days are declining and I feel
I shall be utterly cast down." Yes, you may be very conscious of your
weakness and infirmity, but the mercy of the Lord is steadfast–its
foundation abides firm–not a single stone can be moved from its
setting! The work is going on, storm or tempest notwithstanding. There
is nothing precarious about the fact that mercy shall be built up
forever. Let not the murky atmosphere that surrounds you blind your
eyes–the eyes of your understanding–to this glorious word, "forever."
Rather say, "If I am well set in this fabric of Mercy, my castings down
are often the way in which God builds up His mercy. I shall be built up
forever! And oh, if it goes on being built up forever–I am ravished
with the thought, though I cannot give expression to it–what will it
grow to? What will it grow to?"

If it is going to be built up in the case of any one of you, say 70
years, oh it will be a grand pinnacle, an everlasting monument to the
Eternal Builder's praise! But you see it will go on–it will be built
up forever. What? Never cease? No, never! But shall it never come to a
pause? No, mercy shall be built up forever–it shall go on towering
upward. Do you imagine that it will go at a slower rate, by-and-by?
That is not likely. It is not God's way. He generally quickens His
speed as He ripens His purposes! So I suspect that He will go on
building up His mercy, tier on tier, height on height, forever! Says
one, "Will its colossal altitude pierce the clouds and rise above the
clear azure of the sky?" It will. Read the text–"Your faithfulness
shall You establish in the very heavens"–not in the heavens, only, but
in the, "very heavens"–the heaven of heavens! He will build up to that
height!

He will go on building you up, dear Brother, dear Sister, till He gets
you to Heaven. He will build you up till He makes a heavenly man or
woman of you, till where Christ is, you shall be–and what Christ is,
as far as He is Man–you shall be! And with God, Himself, you shall be
allied–a child of God, an heir of Heaven, a joint-heir with Jesus
Christ. I wish I had an imagination, I say again, bold and clear,
uncramped by all ideas of the masonry of men, free to expand and still
to cry, "Excelsior." Palaces, I think, are paltry, and castles and
cathedrals are only grand in comparison with the little cots that
nestle on the plain. Even mountains, high as the Himalayan range or
broad as the Andes, though their peaks are so lofty to our reckoning,
are mere specks on the surface of the great globe, itself, and our
earth is small among the celestial orbs, a little sister of the larger
planets.

Figures quite fail me–my description must take another turn. I try and
try again to realize the gradual rising of this temple of Mercy which
shall be built up forever. Within the bounds of my feeble vision, I can
discern that it has risen above death, above sin, above fear, above all
danger! It has risen above the terrors of the Judgment Day! It has
outsoared the "wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." It towers
above all our thoughts. Our bliss ascends above an angel's enjoyments
and he has pleasures that were never checked by a pang but he does not
know the ineffable delight of free Grace and dying love! It has
ascended above all that I dare to speak of, for even the little I know
has about it something that it were not lawful for a man to utter! It
is built up into the very arms of Christ where His saints shall lie
imparadised forever, equal with Himself upon His throne!

"I said, Mercy shall be built up forever." The building-up will go on
throughout eternity. Yes, and what is once built up will never fall
down, neither in whole nor in part. There is the mercy of it! God is
such a Builder that He finishes what He begins and what He accomplishes
is forever. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." He
does not do and undo, or build for His people after a Covenant fashion
and then cast down, again, because the counsel of His heart has
changed. So let us sing and praise and bless the name of the Lord! I do
hope that, from what little our experience has taught us already, we
are prepared to cry, like the Psalmist, "I have said, Mercy shall be
built up forever: Your faithfulness shall You establish in the very
heavens."

II. Well, now, we come back to the first verse. There are first that
shall be last and last that shall be first, so is it with our text. We
have looked at the Eternal Builder, let us now listen to AN EVERLASTING
SINGER. "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth
will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations." Here is a good
and godly resolution–"I will sing." The singing of the heart is
intended and the singing of the voice is expressed, for he mentions his

mouth. And equally true is it that the singing of his pen is implied,
since the Psalms that he wrote were for others to sing in generations
that should follow.

He says, "I will sing." I do not know what else he could do. There is
God building in mercy. We cannot assist Him in that! We have no mercy
to contribute and what is built is to be all of mercy. We cannot impart
anything to the great temple which He is building. But we can sit down
and sing. It seems delightful that there should be no sound of hammer
or noise of axe–that there should be no other sound than the voice of
song as when they fabled of the ancient player upon the instruments
that he built temples by the force of song! So shall God build up His
Church and so shall He build us as living stones into the sacred
structure and so shall we sit and muse on His mercy till the music
breaks from our tongue and we rise to our feet and stand and sing about
it! I will sing of the mercy while the mercy is being built up. "I will
sing of the mercies of the

Lord."

But will he not soon sink these sweet notes and relapse into silence?
No. He says, "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever." Will he
not grow weary and wish for some other occupation? No, for true praise
is a thirsty thing and when it drinks from a golden chalice it soon
empties it and yearns for deeper draughts with strong desire. It could
drink up Jordan at a draught! This singing praise to God is a spiritual
passion. The saved soul delights itself in the Lord and sings on and on
and on unwearily. "I will sing forever," he says. Not, "I will get
others to perform and then I will retire from the service," but rather,
"I will, myself, sing. My own tongue shall take the solo, whoever may
refuse to join in the chorus. I will sing and with my mouth will I make
known Your faithfulness." Oh, that is blessed–that singing personally
and individually!

It is a blessed thing to be one of a choir in the praise of God and we
like to have others with us in this happy employment. Still, for all
that, the 103rd Psalm is a most beautiful solo. It begins, "Bless the
Lord, O my Soul," and it finishes up with, "Bless the Lord, O my Soul."
There must be personal, singular praise, for we have received personal
and singular mercies! I will sing, I will sing, I will sing of the
mercies of the Lord forever! Now note his subject. "I will sing of the
mercies of the Lord." What, not of anything else? Are the mercies of
the Lord his exclusive theme? "Arma virumque cano"– "Arms and the man,
I sing," says the Latin poet. "Mercies and my God, I sing," says the
Hebrew Seer. "I will sing of mercies," says the devout Christian. This
is the fountain of mercy where, if a man drinks, he will sing far
better than he that drinks of the Castalian fountain and on Parnassus
begins to tune His harp–

"Praise the mount, oh, fix me on it, Mount of God's unchanging lo ve."

Here we are taught a melodious sonnet, "sung by flaming tongues above."
"I will sing of mercies, I will sing of mercies forever," he says and,
I suppose, the reason is because God's mercies would be built up
forever. The morning stars sang together when God's work of Creation
was completed. Suppose God created a world every day? Surely the
morning stars would sing every day. Ah, but God gives us a world of
mercies every day and, therefore, let us sing of His mercies forever!
Any one day that you live, my Brothers and Sisters, there is enough
mercy packed away into it to make you sing not only through that day
but through the rest of your life! I have thought, sometimes, when I
have received great mercies of God, that I almost wanted to pull up and
to "rest and be thankful" and say to Him, "My blessed Lord, do not send
me any more for a little while. I really must take stock of these.
Come, my good secretaries, take down notes and keep a register of all
His mercies." Let us gratefully respond for the manifold gifts we have
received and send back our heartiest praise to God who is the Giver of
every good thing.

But, dear me! Before I could put the basketfuls away on the shelf,
there came wagons loaded with more mercy! What was one to do, then, but
to sit on the top of the pile and sing for joy of heart? Then let us
lift each parcel and look at each label and lay them up in the house
and say, "Is it not full of mercy? As for me, I will go and sit, like
David, before the Lord and say, 'Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my
house, that You have brought me up to now? And is this the manner of
man, O Lord God?'" I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever
because I shall never have finished with them! It is true, as Addison
puts it–

"Eternity is too short To utter all Your praise."

You will never accomplish the simple task of acknowledgments because
there will be constantly more mercies coming! You will always be in
arrears! In Heaven itself you will never have praised God sufficiently.
You will need to begin Heaven over, again, and have another eternity,
if such a thing could be, to praise Him for the fresh benefits that He
bestows. "For I have said, Mercy shall be built up forever: therefore
will I sing of the mercies of the Lord forever."

What a spectacle it will be as you sit in Heaven and watch God building
up His mercies forever, or, if it may be, to wander over all the worlds
that God has made, for I suppose we may do that and yet still have
Heaven for our home. Heaven is everywhere to the heart that lives in
God. What a wonderful sight it will be to see God going on building up
His mercy. Ah, we have not acquired an idea of the grandeur of the plan
of mercy. No thought can conceive, no words can paint the grandeur of
His Justice. Ah, my dear Brothers and Sisters, although there have been
expressions and metaphors used about the wrath to come which cannot be
found in Scripture and are not to be justified, yet I am persuaded that
there is no exaggeration possible of the inviolability of God's Law, of
the truthfulness of His threats, of the terror of His indignation, or
of the holiness of Jehovah–a holiness that shall constrain universal
homage but you must always take care that you balance all your
thoughts.

In the retributions of His wrath, there shall be a revelation of His
righteousness, for no sentence of His majesty will ever cast a shadow
over His mercy and every enemy will be speechless before the equity of
His award! They that hate Him shall hide their faces from Him–in
burning shame they shall depart to perpetual banishment from His
Presence. Their condemnation will not dim the purity of His attributes.
The glory of the redeemed will also reveal the righteousness of Jehovah
and His saints will be perfectly satisfied when they are conformed to
His likeness. On the summit of the eternal hill you shall sit down and
survey that Mercy City, now in course of construction, built up! It
lies four square. Its height is the same as its breadth, ever towering,
ever widening, ever coming to that Divine completion which,
nevertheless, it has, in another sense, already attained.

We know that God in His mercy shall be All in All. "I will sing of the
mercy of the Lord forever," for I shall see His mercy built up forever.
This singing of Ethan was intended to be instructive. How large a class
did he want to teach? He intended to make known God's mercy to all
generations. Dear, dear–if a man teaches one generation, is not that
enough? Modern thought does not adventure beyond the tithe of a century
and it gets tame and tasteless before half that tiny span of
sensationalism has given it time to evaporate. But the echoes of the
Truths of God are not so transient–they endure and, by means of the
printing press, we can teach generation after generation, leaving books
behind us as this good man has bequeathed this Psalm–which is teaching
us, tonight, perhaps, more largely than it taught any generation nearer
to him.

Will you transmit blessed testimonies to your children's children? It
should be your desire to do something in the present life that will
live after you are gone. It is one proof to us of our immortality that
we instinctively long for a sort of immortality here. Let us strive to
get it, not by carving our names on some stone, or writing our epitaphs
upon a pillar as Absalom did when he had nothing else by which to
commemorate himself, but get to work to do something which shall be a
testimony to the mercy of God that others shall see when we are gone.

Ethan said, "God's mercy shall be built up forever," and he is teaching
us still that blessed fact. Suppose you cannot write and your influence
is very narrow, yet you shall go on singing of God's praise forever and
you shall go on teaching generations yet to come. You Sunday school
teachers, you shall be Sunday school teachers forever. "Oh," you say,
"no, I cannot expect that." Well, but you shall. You know it will
always be Sunday when you get to Heaven. There will never be any other
day, there–one everlasting Sabbath–and through you and by you shall
be made known to angels and principalities and powers the manifold
wisdom of God!

I teach some of you now and I often think you could better teach me,
some of you old experienced saints. You will teach me, by-and-by. When
we are in Glory we shall, all of us, be able to tell one another
something of God's mercy. Your view of it, you know, differs from mine
and mine from my Brother's. You, my dear Friend, see mercy from one
point and your wife, even though she is one with you, sees it from
another point and detects another sparkle of it which your eyes have
never caught. So shall we barter and exchange our knowledge in Heaven
and trade together and grow richer in our knowledge of God! "I have
said, Mercy shall be built up forever: Your faithfulness shall You
establish in the very heavens." Then I said, "I will sing of the
mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I make known Your
faithfulness to all generations."

We will go on exulting in God's mercy as long as we have any being and
that shall be forever and ever! When we have been in Heaven millions of
years, we shall not need any other subject to speak of but the mercy of
our blessed God and we shall find auditors with charmed ears to sit and
listen to the matchless tale and some that will ask us to tell it yet
again! They will come to Heaven, you know, as long as the world lasts,
some out of every generation. We shall see them streaming in at the
gates more numerously, I hope, as the years roll by, till the Lord
comes. And we will continue to tell to fresh corners what the Lord has
done for us.

We can never stop! We can never cease! But as the heavens are telling
the Glory of God and every star declares in wondrous diversity His
praise, so where the stars differ from one another in the Glory of God
above, the saints shall be forever telling the story which shall remain
untold–the love we knew, but which surpassed our knowledge–the Grace
of which we drank, but yet was deeper than our draughts! We will be
telling of the bounty in which we swam until we seemed to lose
ourselves in love–the favor which was still greater than our utmost
conceptions and rose above our most eager desires. God bless you,
Brothers and Sisters, and send you away singing–

"All that remains for me

Is but to love and sing,

And wait until the angels come,

To bear me to my King!"
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Cheer for the Worker and Hope for London