Good morning. Turn with me, if
you will, to the book of Romans, chapter six. And we'll start by reading just
the last couple of verses of chapter five, starting in verse
19. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? Therefore, we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. For if we've been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead
is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ,
being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we are
thankful that you have atone for the sins of your people,
Lord, that you chose us, purchased us, called us, and that you've
accomplished salvation. Lord, we thank you that in all
things your will is done, and we know that as we head into
the new year, all things will be done according to thy will,
and we're thankful for that, Lord. We cannot add or take away from
your word, from your accomplishments. Lord, we confess that we're sinful and wicked, but that your
son is holy. Lord, we ask that in the coming
weeks you prepare the men who are gonna speak here. We are
thankful that you give us a time and place to come together and worship you, Lord. We ask that
you would enable us to do that and that you would prepare not
only those men, Lord, but our hearts and ears to receive your
word. It's in Christ's name we pray,
amen. Number 158 from the hardback
temple, 158. Let's stand together. ? With all thy quickening powers
? ? Kindle a flame of sacred love ? ? In these cold parts
of ours ? ? Look how we grovel here below ? ? On of these earthly
toys ? ? Our souls how heavily they go ? ? To reach eternal
joys ? ? In vain we tune our voice ? ? In vain we strive to rise ? ?
Hosanna's languish on our tongues ? ? And our devotions rise ?
? Dear Lord and Child we hail thee ? ? At this fore-dying rate ? Our
love so great, so bold to Thee ? And thine to us so great ?
Come Holy Spirit and ? With all thy quickening powers
? Come shed abroad the Savior's blood ? And that shall kindle
ours Please be seated. I love that hymn. I believe that
Isaac Watts was taught of God. The things that he expressed
in that hymn are exactly the things that I experience. I was thinking in light of the
first hour's message about John Newton, the author of Amazing
Grace, he said, Toward the very end of his life, he said, when
I was a young man, I knew a lot of things. He said, now in my
latter days, and mine's not what it used to be, he said, I only
know two things for sure. First, that I'm a great sinner,
and second, that Christ Jesus is a great Savior. Where sin
abounds, grace does much more bound. That's, I hope the Lord
will enable us to Remember those things if we forget everything
else. I'm a great sinner. Christ Jesus is a great Savior. If you'd like to open your Bibles
with me, we're gonna begin in 1 Samuel, I'm sorry, 1 Samuel
20. 1 Samuel 20. I've titled this message Fetching
Grace. Fetching Grace. I need God to
fetch me, so prone to wander, so prone to leave the God I love. We need the Lord to send his
spirit in power to fetch us to the king's table and bring us
back to feast on the bread and the wine, the body and blood
of Christ. If the Lord doesn't fetch us,
if he leaves us to ourselves, we'll wander away completely.
What a merciful God we have that he never lets his children fall. He leaves the 99, he goes out
after the one. He always brings them in. He
said, I'll not lose one of my sheep. I'll not lose one. That's our Lord's promise. We'll begin this message by reading
a few verses in 1 Samuel chapter 20. Those of you that have been
with us in our study of 1 Samuel know about David and Jonathan
and how Saul was pursuing out of jealousy to have David put
to death because of David's popularity among the people. God was with
David and God was not with Saul. Saul was a king and Saul was
afraid that David was going to take his throne. God had already
anointed David to be Saul's successor. Saul's days had already been
numbered and Jonathan, Saul's son, knew that. Jonathan would
have been the successor of Saul's throne as the son of the king. And yet God knit Jonathan's heart
together with David's. And a couple of chapters ago,
you remember that we saw that David and Jonathan made a covenant.
They made a promise to one another to protect one another and to
be on one another's side, regardless of what happened, regardless
of what Saul did. And now Saul's rage has become
more and more unreasonable. And he's pursuing David with
great zeal and anger. And Jonathan gets word of it
and Jonathan goes and warns David. And Jonathan hides David from
his father. And now Jonathan and David come back
together in verse 14 of chapter 20. And Jonathan says to David, and
thou shalt not only yet while I live, show me the kindness
of the Lord that I die not. I shall not only while I live
yet show me the kindness of the Lord. We already made a covenant
that we would stick together and protect one another from
my father. But now I want to extend this
covenant to my descendants, not only Do you need promise to me
that you'll remain faithful to me? But also, verse 15, thou
shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever. No, not
when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David, everyone from
the face of the earth. In other words, David, when your
kingdom is established and all of your enemies are destroyed,
Remember my descendants, remember my children. So Jonathan made
a covenant with the house of David saying, let the Lord even
require it at the hand of David's enemies. In other words, David,
if you're not faithful to this covenant, let the Lord raise
up your enemies against you. And Jonathan caused David to
swear again because he loved him. For he loved him as he loved
his own soul. Now we're gonna look at David
and Jonathan and Jonathan's descendant, Mephibosheth, as the fulfillment
of this covenant promise. Look at the last verse before
we move to 2 Samuel. Look at the last verse of this
chapter, verse 42. And Jonathan said to David, Go
in peace for as much as we have sworn both of us in the name
of the Lord saying, the Lord be between me and thee and between
my seed and thy seed forever. And he rose and departed and
Jonathan went into the city. We cannot look at these verses
without considering 2 Samuel chapter 9, so we'll go there.
2 Samuel chapter 9. Saul and Jonathan are dead. God has prospered David. His kingdom has been established
and all of his enemies have been subdued. He had the right as king to eliminate
any threat that might be left over from the previous regime.
So Jonathan could have been rightfully put to death as a threat to the
security of David's reign. Because, I mean, not Jonathan,
but Jonathan's children. And in particular, Mephibosheth,
only one left. Only one left. And so we pick
up the story here, David's going to remember the covenant that
he made with Jonathan. And as we read this story, I
read probably the most prolific writer of the early 1700s that wrote a lot of things that
are true about the gospel. He was probably the last of the
Puritans. And I read all the comments that
he made on 2 Samuel chapter 9. He made not a single mention
of Christ, the covenant of grace, the fetching of sinners, the
picture of Mephibosheth being a type of you and me and Jonathan
being a type of Christ and David being a type of God the Father
who's going to show mercy towards the descendants of Jonathan because
of the covenant that David had made with him. And I thought,
you know, We've seen this so many times
in looking at these Old Testament stories. If we don't see the
gospel, we don't see Christ. We haven't profited from God's
Word at all. These are they which testify
of me. We must look at these stories as pictures of what God
would fulfill in the person of his Son. I remind you that the
apostles and the Lord Jesus himself only had the Old Testament scriptures
to preach from. They didn't have a New Testament.
And yet you read some of these old writers and they didn't see
the gospel in the Old Testament. Other than a few verses, which
they called messianic. They didn't know the whole Bible
is messianic. They didn't know that it was all about him. So
I pray that the Holy Spirit would in light in the eyes of our understanding
and enable us to see ourselves in Mephibosheth and see Christ
in Jonathan and see God the Father in David. Second Samuel chapter
nine, David said, is there yet any that is left of the house
of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? David was very secure in his
reign. He knew that God had put him
there and he knew that there was no threat from anyone. He, as I said, he had the right
to eliminate Mephibosheth but instead he reflects back on that
covenant that he made and he says, is there anyone left from
the household of Saul that I might show him kindness for Jonathan's
sake? And there was of the house of
Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called
him unto David, the king said unto him, art thou Ziba? And
he said, thy servant is he. And David said, is there not
yet any of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness
of God unto him? And Ziba said unto the king,
Jonathan yet has a son, hath yet a son, which is lame on his
feet. And the king said unto him, where
is he? And Ziba said unto the king, behold, he is in the house
of nature, the son of Amel in Lodabar. Then King David sent
and fetched him out of the house of nature, the house, the son
of Amel from Lodabar. And that's where the title of
this message comes from, God's Fetching Grace. Now when Mephibosheth,
the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was come unto David,
he fell on his face and did reverence. And David said unto Mephibosheth,
and he answered, David said, Mephibosheth, I can just see
the tone and the facial expression of King David when he looked
at Jonathan's son and saw the image of Jonathan in Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth walks into the room.
David loved Mephibosheth as his own soul. We just read that.
And David saw Mephibosheth and said, oh, Mephibosheth. Oh, Mephibosheth, either you
are the son of Jonathan And Mephibosheth responded by
saying, behold thy servant. And David said unto him, fear
not. Don't you know Mephibosheth thought that Ziba had come and
got him and they discovered him. He's hiding out, that's what
he was doing. And bringing him to the king to have him put to
death. The first words out of David's mouth is fear not. Don't
be afraid Mephibosheth, not here to hurt you, here to save you. Don't be afraid. For I will surely show thee kindness
for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the
land of Saul thy father, and thou shalt eat bread at my table
continually. And he bowed himself and said,
what is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead
dog as I am? Then the king called Ziba, Saul's
servant, and said unto him, I have given unto thy master's son all
that pertaineth to Saul. Now Saul was the king. Saul had
vast lands and possessions and servants. And now he's given
it all back to Mephibosheth. I have given unto him thy master's
son, all that pertaineth to Saul and to all his house. Thou therefore
and thy sons and thy servants shall till the land for him and
thou shall bring in the fruit that thy master's son may have
food to eat. But Mephibosheth thy master's
son shall eat bread always at my table. Now Ziba had 15 sons
and 20 servants. Then said Ziba unto the king,
according to all that my Lord the king hath commanded his servant,
so shall thy servant do. As for Mephibosheth, said the
king, he shall eat at my table as one of the king's sons. And Mephibosheth had a young
son whose name was Micah. And all that dwelt in the house
of Ziba were servants unto Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem. And the fourth time, this is
mentioned in this one brief chapter, for he did eat continually at
the king's table and was lame in both his feet. What was the cause of David's
kindness toward Mephibosheth. You say, well, it was that covenant
that Jonathan and David had made. And that's true. Before time
ever was, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit, before the angels were made, before there was any eternal
covenant and eternally passed, God made a covenant with his
son. And in that covenant, God the
Father promised to give to a son a bride. God the Son entered
into that covenant and promised to redeem those whom the Father
had given him. God the Holy Spirit entered into
that covenant and promised to make all those whom the Father
had chosen and all those for whom Christ had redeemed to give
them faith and make them willing in the day of his power. There's
our hope. The hope of our salvation is
not dependent upon the faithfulness of our promises to God. It's
God's promise to God. And our God cannot lie. Is there any way that the triune
Godhead, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit could fail in fulfilling that covenant? No way. You see, Adam was put under a
covenant of works when he was put in the garden but the covenant
of grace was long before the covenant of works. And God knowing
that Adam would not be able to keep the covenant of grace, the
covenant of works, put Adam under that covenant so that God would
glorify himself in fulfilling his own covenant that he had
made in the salvation of his people. So that covenant is the cause
of David's kindness toward Mephibosheth. He said, I'm going to show you
kindness for Jonathan, thy father's sake. But don't miss this brethren,
because if all we see is the covenant, then we're prone to
make this nothing more than a legal contract. We're prone to make
this nothing more than God being obligated by a covenant promise
that he made to fulfill. What was the reason for the covenant? Because that's the first cause
of our salvation. The covenant itself came about
as a result of something else. Why did Jonathan and David make
a covenant? Because they loved one another. They loved one another. And that
is the first cause of our salvation. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. It's the love of Christ that
constraineth us. It's not the threats of judgment.
It's not some fulfilling of just a legal contract. God made that
covenant promise out of love. The father's love for his son.
And love for all those that he placed in his son. By election. He loved him. I was talking to
a friend in another country this past week, and he said to me,
young man, he said to me, he said, I've met the love of my
life. I said, what's her name? He said, Anna. I said, well,
you tell Anna that if she loves you, we already love her before
we ever met her. You tell her that. And we look
forward to meeting her. And isn't that the way it is? You know, ideally, when a child
marries, we don't lose a son or a daughter, we gain a son-in-law
or a daughter-in-law, don't we? In a loving home, that's the
way it works. And that's the way it worked
in this covenant. The father looks at his son and
he loves his son perfectly. Holy, infinitely. And he loves
all those that he placed in his son in the same way that he loves
his son. That's what our Lord said when
he prayed to his father in John chapter seven, he said, father,
you've loved them even as you've loved me. I pray not for the world, I pray
for them which thou has given me out of the world. That's the first cause of our
salvation, brethren. It is the love of God. And the greatest evidence and
demonstration of God's love is on full display at Calvary's
Cross. That's where we see the evidence
of God's love. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and gave his Son to be the propitiation
of our sins. For God so loved that he gave. Here is the evidence that the
Lord Jesus Christ, no man took his life from him. He gave, he
laid his life down. And no greater love hath no man
than this, than he lay his life down for his friend. We have
a friend. We have a friend that sticketh
closer than a brother and he loves us infinitely. And it's the love of God that
constraineth us. It's the goodness of God that
God uses in the message of the gospel as fetching grace. It's not threats of judgment
or anger or threats of hell. That's not the way that God draws
his, those things are true. God's angry with the wicked every
day and hell's a reality, but he doesn't use that threat for
his children. He. He causes them to see the
evidence of his love for them. And it is his love for them that
breaks their heart. It is his love for them that
draws them out. It is his love for them that
causes them to come and love him because he first loved them. Is that not true? And let us resist the thought
of making God to be altogether such a one as ourselves. Our
love is so inconsistent, it's so fickle, it's so filled with
love, with selfishness. You've seen this, I've seen it. People that are head over heels
in love with one another at the marriage altar become each other's
worst enemy at the judge's bench. That's the way our love is, isn't
it? It can come and go and it can turn. Not God's love. Not God's love. Our God's immutable. His love doesn't change. He loves
one way. He loves perfectly. He loves
infinitely. He loves completely. And there's
nothing that you and I can do to change that. We can't. You know, we, we sin
against one another and there comes a point where we say, you
know what? I can't deal with that anymore. God, God never
does that. He keeps loving, keeps forgiving.
He keeps fetching. David said to Ziob, he said,
go fetch him. I'm so thankful. that the Lord's fetching grace
is faithful and consistent, and that his love never changes,
because that's what I need every day. I need him to fetch me. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross, he wasn't just fulfilling covenant promises.
Yes, God was doing business with God, And yes, those promises
that were made in the covenant of grace had to be fulfilled.
A sacrifice had to be made in order for those God that had
elected to be saved. But that was the result of something
else. And that something else was God's
love. It was the love of God that caused
Christ to go to the cross. The second thing I see in this
story beyond the cause of fetching grace is the person of fetching
grace, the person of fetching grace. And in our story, his
name is Ziba and he's no lowly servant. We just read in this
chapter that he had 15 sons and 20 servants. Perhaps Ziba I suspect
that Ziba knew where Mephibosheth was the whole time. He was Saul's number one servant. He had authority over the household
of Saul. Maybe he was protecting Mephibosheth. Maybe he thought, you know, there
come a day when David's gonna die, Mephibosheth's gonna take
the throne and I get my position back. I don't know what Ziba
was thinking. So Zebi in our story is a picture
of the Holy Spirit where God the Father says, go get him,
go get him. And Paul said this, speaking
of his experience on the road to Damascus. He said, when it
pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called
me by his grace to reveal his son in me. There comes a day
when the Spirit of God fulfills His part in the covenant of grace
out of love for His Father and love for the Son. Out of He,
He goes out and He makes those whom the Father elected and those
who the Son redeemed, He makes them willing. What a glorious
day it is when the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and
makes it effectual to our hearts. Spirit of God can't be resisted.
Can't be resisted, He's irresistible. The Lord Jesus said, it's expedient
for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. But when He comes, He will convict
the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because
they believe not on me. And when the Holy Spirit comes
to your heart and to my heart, He causes us to see that the
root of our problem is our unbelief, our rebellion against God. It's
saying, God, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to have it my
way. I'm not going to bow. I'm not going to bow. I'm not
going to submit. I'm going to raise my fist to heaven. I'm
going to have it my way. The Spirit of God says, no, not
going to be that way. And he makes us to be a sinner.
He causes us to see our unbelief and then he causes us to see
that all our righteousness is in heaven, of righteousness because
I go to my Father. When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended
back into glory and took his rightful place at the right hand
of the majesty on high, the Father said, sit down here at my right
hand until I make all my enemies thy footstool. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is seated, and all of his people are seated in him,
in heavenly places in Christ, so that we have no righteousness
of our own, but God has made him, God has made him sin for
us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our righteousness. David said, I
will speak of thy righteousness, even of thine only. All our righteousness
is as filthy rags. That's a work of the spirit of
God. I've said this before, I think I said it last Sunday. All the
unrighteous of this world, without exception, believe themselves
to be righteous. All the unbelievers believe that
they have something that will recommend them to God, something
that they can present to God. I mean, the guy The guy in the
lowest place in prison can find another prisoner that's worse
than he is. I've been there, I know that. At least I know
what he's done. All the unrighteous believe themselves
to be righteous. And all the righteous, all those
who have a true righteousness in Christ, believe themselves
to be unrighteous. they believe they have no righteousness
outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a work of the Spirit of
God. That's what Ziba did when he fetched Mephibosheth and brought
him to the king. He showed him the righteousness
of the king and of judgment because the prince of this world has
been judged. David said, Mephibosheth, don't worry about it. Don't be
afraid. I'm not here to hurt you. All my enemies have been
eliminated. My kingdom is unthreatened. God
has established my kingdom. I'm not worried about you or
anybody else. I'm resting perfectly. And that's
why when we read about the kingdom of David in the New Testament
and the Jews wanting to reestablish the kingdom of David because
it was only during the reign of David and a little bit of
Solomon's reign that Israel had any peace. Israel was the dominant
nation of the world during the reign of David and Solomon and
only then, before that and after that, they were under somebody
else's authority. So they saw David's reign as the kingdom
to be And that's what this Lord Jesus as the son of David, he
has no enemies. He has no, he's not threatened.
He's not worried about somebody taking his throne. God's established
him. God has set him down. And so
he's able to say to his children, I love you. Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you. My
enemies have been destroyed. When the Lord Jesus bowed his
mighty head on the cross, he said, when he said, it's finished
father into thy, the works of the devil were destroyed. God's
people were delivered. Sin was put away once and for
all. Righteousness was established. Sentence has been made. All we're waiting for now is
the execution of that sentence when he'll be chained and thrown
into the pit. Spirit of God, he makes you a
sinner, he makes you to see where all your righteousness is and
he makes you to see that the kingdom of God is established,
it's established by God. And what God has done as we saw
in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, We know that whatever God doeth,
you can't add to it and you can't take away from it. Why? Because
God did it that we might fear him. The fetching grace of the Spirit
of God is effectual and it is irresistible. When God says to The tax collector, Matthew, follow
me. And immediately he got up from
his table and he followed after Christ. When God said to Saul of Tarsus,
when he asked him, who art thou Lord? I am Jesus whom thou persecute. Oh Lord, what would you have
me to do? The conviction of the spirit of God is effectual. It
cannot be resisted. It's only for God's people. So the cause of fetching grace
is the covenant established on love. The person of fetching
grace is the Holy Spirit. And he is the third person of
the triune Godhead. The object of fetching grace
is Mephibosheth here in our story. What is his position? Well, he
was the son of Jonathan. You know, the Bible refers to
the people of God as the sons of God. People of the world,
they would say, well, everybody's a child of God. No, they're not.
Not by adoption, by creation, but not by adoption. By adoption,
only those that are in Christ are the children of God. To as
many as receive him, to them gave he the power to become the
sons of God. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Now everybody's
a son of God. Is there anyone left from the
household of Saul that I might show him kindness for Jonathan's
sake? Well, Jonathan's got a son. And David saw Jonathan said,
oh, Mephibosheth, don't be afraid. You're the child of the one whom
I loved. I'm not going to lose any of
my children. I love the story of David being in battle against
the Philistines and he leaves the wives and children of all
of his men and himself in a town called Ziklag and they defeat
the Philistines but they come back to be reunited to their
families and at a distance they see that Ziklag has been set
on fire. And all they see is smoke on
the horizon and when they get to Ziklag, there's not a single
person there. They're all gone. And David's
men wanted to kill him. And the scripture says that David
comforted himself in the Lord. He prayed to God, Lord, what
do I do? And the Lord sent him a messenger
to tell him where they had taken the wives and children. And to
make a long story short, David pursued his wives and his children. And the last phrase in that story
is, and David recovered all. Not a single child, not a single
wife was lost. He recovered every one of them.
When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, the scripture
says not a hoof was left behind. Not of every single Israelite
and their animals came out of Egypt, nothing was left behind
and so it is with the Lord Jesus Christ. He fetches every one
of his children, he saved them all and he will bring all of
them to himself. Turn with me to John chapter
11, John chapter 11. This was right after, I mentioned
this, I think in the first hour, this was right after Lazarus'
race from the dead. And the scripture says that those
people that observed that miracle, some of them believed, some of
them ran back and told the Pharisees. And now the Pharisees get together
and Caiaphas is the high priest. And so in chapter 11, verse 49,
And one of them named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same
year, said unto them, you know nothing at all, nor consider
that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people
and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of
himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that
Jesus should die for that nation and not for that nation only,
but that also he should gather together in one the children
of God that were scattered abroad. Caiaphas now thinking that he's
giving the Sanhedrin his wisdom. God puts words in his mouth and
God says, don't you know that one man must die for the nation
so that all of the children of God in Israel and that are scattered
abroad in Samaria and Judea and other most parts of the world
all the children of God shall be saved. The objects of God's fetching
grace are his children. They're his children. And we love our children. What
parent would not gladly lay down their life for their child? And
if you be an evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more you heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him. Oh, his love for us is infinitely more than ours
could ever be for our own children. Where was Mephibosheth? Well, the scripture says that
he was in the house of nature. Now, mature translated means
sold, sold. And that's where God finds his
children. He finds them sold under sin. Slaves to sin, in
bondage and in prison to sin. A prison that they cannot break
themselves loose from. They're in the house of nature.
They have been sold. They were sold by their father,
Adam. They came into this world with a nature that was bound
to sin. They could do nothing but sin
and they remain slaves to it. And that's where God, you say,
well, I'm not a slave to sin. I can quit that anytime I want.
I can change. you might be able to quit a bad
habit. No question about that. People do that all the time.
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about stop
being a sinner. We're talking about the ability
to believe God, to trust Christ. And no sinner has that capacity.
Why? Because they've been sold. Paul
said, the law is spiritual, but I'm carnal, sold under sin. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Thanks be to God through Christ
Jesus, I'm free. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to set the prisoner free, to take those who've been
sold of sin and fetch them and bring them to the king's table.
And that's exactly what Ziba does. That's what David does. He goes to, he goes to Matre
and he gets him. First Kings chapter 21, Elijah's
talking to Ahab and Ahab says, you have found me. And Elijah
says, yeah, I found me because thou have sold thyself to work
evil in the sight of the Lord. That's what we are. Everything
about us, as long as we're in nature, as long as we're not
sitting at the king's table, everything about us is evil. Don't you love Job's declaration? When God finally reveals himself
to Job, Job's first thing out of his mouth, behold, I see something
I've never seen before. I am vile. When Daniel saw the Lord, he
said, my comeliness, my strength, my beauty, those things that
I thought were good have been turned into corruption.
Isaiah, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, he said,
woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. I live among the people of unclean lips. My eyes have
seen the King. I'm a dead man. I was in, I'm in nature. I'm
a slave, I'm sold. I need someone to come set me
free. I can't, I can't loose myself from
this. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
set the prisoner free. But the natural man won't come
to that conclusion. You see all three of those examples
I just gave were examples of believers. The natural man will
say, I'm not a slave to sin. I can decide for God anytime
I want. I'll choose Jesus on my deathbed.
I'll give my heart to Him when I'm finished enjoying all the
pleasures of this life. That's what I'll do. No, you
won't. No, you won't. You can't. You're sold. You're a slave. You're in bondage.
You can't change that. God's got to change it. We live by nature in nature and only God can make us to believe
that and if you believe that, it's because you've been taught
of God. If you're still raising your
fist to heaven and say, well that's not me, you haven't been
taught of God. As soon as God makes you to be
a sinner, you at the same time have been
made a saint. And notice also in our text,
not only was he in mature, which translated means sold, but he
was in the land of Lodabar, which translated means not a pasture. There's no food in Lodabar. It's
a desert place. It's a wilderness. There's no
bread in Lodabar. Oh, we, like the prodigal, have
been feeding on the husk that the swine do eat until Ziba comes
to us in that pig pen and says to us, changes our mind and says
to us, oh, in my father's house, if I could just be a servant
in my father's house, and he turns our hearts and makes us
to go home. We live by nature in Lodobar.
We're like the Ethiopian eunuch in Gaza. And Gaza translated
means stronghold. It was a desert place. And he
was reading the Bible, but he had no understanding. And in
religion, that's where many of God's people he calls out of
religion. A lot of the children of God
he calls out of religion. He lets them experience that.
Maybe show them the difference. But they're like the Ethiopian
eunuch, they're reading the Bible but they don't know what it means.
Understand it's what thou readest? How can I? How can I? And an unbeliever won't say that
unless he's one of God's children, one of the objects of God's fetching
grace. Because the natural man will
say, I know what I believe. They'll fight you tooth and toenail
over what they believe. God's children live in Lodabar
until he brings them to the king's table, a land where there is
no pasture. And like that Philippian jailer
who was managing a prison only to find out that he was himself
the greatest prisoner of all. He was in prison to his own sin. What must I do to be saved? That
was his cry. Why? Because the Spirit of God
fetched him, found him in nature in Lodabar, brought the gospel
to him through the Apostle Paul and caused him to cry out for
mercy. These stories are repeated over
and over and over again every time one of God's people is fetched. It's fetching grace. And David said, the Lord is my
shepherd. No longer do I live in Lodabar.
No longer do I live in Lodabar. I shall not want for he maketh
me to lie down now in green pastures. He restored my soul. What was the condition of, we
see who the object of God's fetching grace was Mephibosheth, the son
of Jonathan. as are all the objects of God's
saving grace. We see that he was sold under
sin and that he was in a place where there was no bread, a place
where there was no pasture. And we see something about his
condition. He was crippled. He's crippled in both his feet. He couldn't walk. And back in
chapter four of this same book, the scriptures tell us what happened,
that the handmaiden of Jonathan's wife, After Jonathan had been
killed and Saul had been killed, she grabs up Mephibosheth as
a five-year-old and flees. You can imagine the confusion
of what all's going on as the enemy's coming in to destroy
any descendants that could be found. And she falls, and the
fall is severe. And both of Mephibosheth's feet
or ankles are broken or damaged in some way and they were never
repaired and now he's old enough to have a child of his own but
he can't walk. Someone's got to carry him around. Reminded of that man at the gate
called Beautiful. who was not able to go in to
the temple and worship God because he was crippled. And Peter looked at him and said,
silver and gold have we none, but such as we have, give we
unto thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, stand and walk.
He's begging for alms. He's begging for alms. That's where we are. A man for 38 years crippled at
the pool of Bethesda. The Lord said, what are you doing
here? What would you have me to do
for you? Well, when the angel comes and serves the water, I've
got no man to help me. Someone else always gets there
before I do. I can't take care of him. I can't
get there. And you and I are so spiritually crippled, we can't
get to God. We can't walk to him, we can't
stand in his presence, we can't run to him. We're crippled. As a result of what? As a result
of the fall. And it was great confusion in
that fall. This wasn't just a bruising of
the knee in this fall or the crippling of feet. This was a
headlong fall that resulted in separation from God by our father
Adam. And when Adam sinned, all sinned. Adam, you read that in Romans
chapter 5. By one man's sin, it all died. It's a great fall. Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. What is that tree of the knowledge
of good and evil? Or where do we get the knowledge
of good and evil? From the law. Is that not where
we get the knowledge of good and evil? From the law? There
were two trees in the garden. It was the tree of life and we
know that that tree is Christ. And then there was the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. God said don't touch that tree. Don't
eat of that tree. In the same way that he told
the children of Israel, don't touch that mountain, Mount Sinai.
Any man that touches it, you will pierce him through with
a lance. If an animal gets close to it and touches it, you kill
him. The law cannot be approached. The law cannot be touched. The
law is holy. Only the Lord Jesus Christ was
able to fulfill the demands of the law. But Adam ate of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that's what you
and I do. But there's another mountain besides Mount Sinai,
it's called Mount Calvary. We flee to that mountain. And
that's where we find the hope of one who himself is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We
have salvation in the one. who was able to touch God's law
without being condemned, without being defiled, without being
judged. He lived perfectly by God's law. The law could find no fault in
him until he was made sin on Calvary's cross. And then the
law poured out full judgment against him for the sins of the
children of God. And I'm sorry we've gone over,
I want to just close with this. This is so glorious, this is
so glorious. Four times in this chapter the
scripture says, and Mephibosheth ate at the king's table all the
days of his life. And when we go to Revelation
chapter 19, we find that there's a wedding feast. And the Lord
Jesus Christ is there. And all those who have been fetched
by his grace, all those that were in nature, in the land of
Lodabar, all the children of Jonathan, for the covenant sake
and for love's sake, have been brought into the kingdom of God.
And they're all sitting at the wedding feast of the lamb. and
they eat at the King's table all the days of their life, which will never end. Mephibosheth,
sit here at my table. Ziba, you go out and you use
your servants and you till the land and you take care of all
that. Mephibosheth, sit at my table. I'm gonna feed him. I'm gonna provide for him. Child
of God, if you've been fetched by grace, you get hungry a lot,
don't you? That's the Spirit of God at work
in you. You want to know God. You want to know Christ. You've
not yet apprehended that which has apprehended you. You are
always pursuing. Why are you doing that? Because
God said, you're going to sit at my table all the days of your
life. And we're sitting at his table
right now. And every day of our lives, the
Spirit of God causes us to come again and again and again and
hide our crippled feet under his tablecloth and eat the bread
of life, the manna that came down from heaven and drink the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We eat of his flesh and drink
of his blood. We feast on him all the days of our life. in
this life and in the life to come. Fetching grace. Oh, how we need it. Tom, you
come please and close us in with a hymn. 38 in the Sproul hymn. Let's stand together. Well, I've lost power for some
reason, so we'll do this a cappella. Number 38. Come every sinner saved by grace,
you who by faith God's Son embrace. Tell all who hear your voice
below, the debt of love to Christ you owe. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee.