Do we know who's reading tonight?
Is anybody on the schedule and know it? If you're reading and
you know it, say amen. It's Jason Farrell. Is it? OK. I don't know. Somebody steal my January? All
right, let's turn to 2 Samuel 19 and read our text together. 2nd Samuel 19 verse 24 And Mephibosheth the son of Saul
came down to meet the king And had neither dressed his feet
Nor trimmed his beard nor washed his clothes From the day the
king departed until the day he came again in peace And it came
to pass, when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that
the king said unto him, wherefore wentest thou, wentest not thou
with me, Mephibosheth? And he answered, my lord, O king,
my servant deceived me, for thy servant said, I will saddle me
and ask that I may ride thereon and go to the king, because thy
servant is lame. and he hath slandered thy servant
unto my lord the king. But my lord the king is as an
angel of God. Do therefore what is good in
thine eyes. For all of my father's house
were but dead men before my lord the king, yet didst thou set
thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What
right therefore have I yet to cry any more unto the king? And the king said unto him, why
speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, thou and
Zabba divide the land. And Mephibosheth said unto the
king, yea, let him take all. For as much as my lord the king
is come again in peace unto his own house. Let's pray. Our gracious father in God, thank
you Thank you, Lord, for all your many tender mercies upon
us, upon each one here, each family, upon this church throughout
these years. Thank you, Lord, for bringing
us together again tonight. May we never take for granted
the great blessing and privilege it is to meet in your name. Pray, Lord, your presence with
us lest we meet in vain. How we long and need to have
you with us, Lord, to teach us to comfort, to strengthen and
encourage, to reveal yourself to us, to reveal God to our hearts. Bless us tonight, Lord, in your
love and power and mercy. May we see in these words your
beauty and glory and grace. In Christ's name we ask, amen. Well, we know the context. If
you've been looking at chapter 19, King David is returning from
exile. His son Mephibosheth has died
in battle. David's coming home to take back
his rightful place on the throne of Israel as God's anointed king. And Mephibosheth, Jonathan's
son, it says Saul's son in the text, as he was his grandson.
Grandchildren were often just called the sons of men. Saul's
son, but Jonathan's son, Saul's grandson, Mephibosheth, who was
lame on both of his feet, whom David had taken in in chapter
nine because of a covenant made with Jonathan. He said, is there
any left of the house of Saul that I may yet show mercy unto
them for Jonathan's sake? Being told of Mephibosheth, he
sent and fetched him and took him into his own home and assigned Zabba and all of the
servants to serve Mephibosheth. And he ate at the king's table, as
we saw in our text tonight. And clearly here, Mephibosheth
had been very troubled about David being in exile. He was
not happy that David had been betrayed by his son Absalom.
We see in this verse 24, Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to
meet the king and had neither dressed his feet nor trimmed
his beard nor washed his clothes. From the day the king departed
until the day he came again in peace, he neglected himself. Similar to fasting when there's
great sorrow, even food, the very necessary food for our bodies
is put off for a time. because of great mourning. These
are all signs of mourning. And so we have here the first
indication that Mephibosheth's true feelings for David are not
what Ziba had reported. And we'll look at that to refresh
our memory. And this is important because
the last we heard of Mephibosheth was in chapter 16. Go ahead and
look at it with me, 2 Samuel 16. verse 1. We'll get a little context
here and then we'll get into the meat of our text. But the
last we had heard of Mephibosheth was in 2 Samuel 16 verse 1, and
when David was a little past the top of the hill, this is
when he's leaving, Jerusalem, leaving his home, leaving his
throne, going into exile to save his own life and that of his
supporters, his faithful, loyal servants. He was leaving town. And when he was a little past
the top of the hill, behold Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth,
the one that David had said, you're going to take care of
Mephibosheth from now on, back in chapter 9. Ziba met with David
with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them 200 loaves of bread,
and 100 bunches of raisins, and 100 of summer fruits, and a bottle
of wine. And the king said unto Ziba,
what meanest thou by these? And Ziba said, the asses be for
the king's household to ride on, and the bread and summer
fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine that such as be
faint in the wilderness may drink. And the king said, and where
is thy master's son? Where is Mephibosheth? And Ziba
said unto the king, behold, he abideth at Jerusalem, for he
said, today shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom
of my father. Then said the king to Ziba, behold,
thine are all that pertain unto Mephibosheth. So Ziba told David,
Mephibosheth has stayed in Jerusalem because he sees an opportunity
here. The one really seeing an opportunity here is Ziba. He
comes and gives these gifts to the king, trying to get into
the good graces of the king, and tells him a lie. But he's
saying Mephibosheth sees an opportunity here. He stayed in Jerusalem
because now that you're off the throne, he is a rightful heir
to the throne, being a son of Saul, the one that God had anointed
king before. And so he's going to rival and
maybe make a play here rather than Absalom in your absence. And so David on news of that,
he says, all right, everything I gave to Mephibosheth, it's
yours now, Zabba. And Zabba said, I humbly beseech
thee that I may find grace in thy sight, my lord, O king. So this no doubt added, as we
saw then, the great It added to the considerable sorrow that
David was going through at that time. Explains the next verse
in our text. Look at verse 25 back in chapter
19. And it came to pass when he was
come to Jerusalem, Mephibosheth was come to Jerusalem to meet
the king, that the king said unto him, wherefore wentest not
thou with me? Mephibosheth, where were you?
Where were you when I was when I was down. And there may
be some anger in this question. You could imagine that. A sense
of betrayal, no doubt some hurt. Some heartache. Where were you? Why didn't you come with me?
After all David had done for Mephibosheth, he thinks still
that Mephibosheth had betrayed him, just like Absalom had. And
all the other sorrow upon sorrow that was heaped upon David at
that time, knowing that all of this was because of his own sin.
He was in a terrible low place, and Mephibosheth, he thinks,
kicked him while he was down. We've all probably been kicked
while we were down before. Not fun. David may also be testing Mephibosheth. David may, see he thinks he knows
the real reason why Mephibosheth stayed, and he may be seeing
if Mephibosheth's gonna come clean about it and be honest,
like Shimei was in the previous, in this same chapter. Or is he
gonna, is he gonna lie about it? But think about the essential
spiritual truth here. In all of these stories, the
key to understanding all of the scriptures is to see Christ and
the things of Christ in the text. And that's so clear, really,
here. David had shown great mercy to Mephibosheth, and so he had
every right to wonder and to ask this question, didn't he?
Where were you? Where were you? Why didn't you come with me?
Our Lord asks this wretched world. He asks his enemies in this world.
This, many good works have I showed you from my father. For which
of these works do you stone me? John 10, 32. And does not the
Lord have the right to ask his people? Having shown great mercy
to us personally, each one of us individually. Might he ask
us? Does he have not the right to
ask us? Perhaps, for example, could you
not watch with me for one hour? Is there any situation ever in
our lives where this question would apply as coming from our
Savior to us? Why wentest not thou with me? Would that question have ever
had context in your life? I'm thankful that the truth of
the matter is what it is in Mephibosheth's case. And I pray that that will
be the truth in our case. That all we really ever wanted
was to be with him. By God's grace, may that be so.
You hear what he said? He said, look at verse 26. And
he answered, my lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For thy
servant, that's Mephibosheth, he's referring to himself as
your servant. For thy servant said, I will saddle me an ass
that I may ride thereon and go to the king. That's all Mephibosheth ever
wanted. From the day that David sent and fetched him and sat
him at his own table and he said to David, why, O King, who am
I that you would look upon such a dead dog as I am? All Mephibosheth
ever wanted was to be with him. Now, look at verse 26 again,
and this is kind of a choppy sentence, isn't it? He said,
My Lord, O my King, my servant deceived me, for that servant
said, I will settle me and ask that I may ride thereon and go
to the king, because that servant is lame. Well, he didn't saddle
an ass and say, I'm going to go to the king because he's lame.
What he's saying here is, it didn't work out the way I wanted
it to because my servant deceived me. I was coming. I said to him, get my stuff together. We're
going to go to the king. But he deceived me, and he got
away with it. Why? Because I was lame. But
he kind of jumbles the sentence, doesn't he? And I believe it's
true. to what he said, because he was anxious to explain to
David what actually happened. Have you ever been so anxious
to sell somebody the truth that you just stumbled all over your
words? Trying to tell him that's kind of almost what it sounds
like, doesn't it? He wanted David to know so badly
the truth. And when you look at each phrase
of his answer, though, it's clear what happened. Mephibosheth intended
to go. He's sincere about that. He said,
I'm going to go to the king. And maybe he told Ziba himself,
because Ziba was his main servant. It's likely that he told Ziba,
saddle me and ask. We're going. We're going to go
be with David. And Ziba deceived him. And the
deception maybe, it says he deceived me. He doesn't elaborate on that.
Maybe since he went to David and said, well, Mephibosheth
is not your friend. He thinks he's going to be put
on the throne now that you're being exiled, and so he's going
to stay behind and, you know, not good. He might have also
played Mephibosheth the same way and said, David doesn't want
you to go with him. He said, what good is Mephibosheth? What's
he going to do? That'd be the kind of thing this
type of person might say. You know, what are you gonna
you're laying me on both your feet. You're not gonna be any
help to David now He needs men that can fight they can defend
him that can Be a help in some way. I don't know if he said
that or not. He may Have just delayed getting the animals ready
and the stuff ready long enough for it to be too late for Mephibosheth
to catch up and deceived him that way. We don't know for sure,
but whatever the deception part was, it was Mephibosheth's lameness
ultimately that kept him from David. He don't need to count
on Ziba if he's not lame on both of his feet. He'll saddle his
own ass and get to David, right? But he said, because thy servant
is lame. And here again, spiritual teaching. He wouldn't have needed Zabba's
cooperation had he not been lame. And this is the spiritual Truth
here, this is a sad commentary on our condition as believers.
The Lord has had mercy on us. We down at his table, he expects
our loyalty. He expects and deserves our allegiance,
does he not? And you know what? We're still
lame on both of our feet. Romans 7, 14, for we know that
the law is spiritual, but I'm carnal, sold under sin. For that
which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would
not, I can sin unto the law that it's good. David deserves my
loyalty. He deserves my allegiance. And
I want to go to him. But listen to what Paul said.
Now then, it is no more I that sin, that do it, that fail, but
sin that dwelleth in me. It's not the new me. It's not
for lack of desire. Verse 18, for I know that in
me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is
present with me. Saddle it up, I'm going to the
king. But how to perform that which
is good, I find not. I'm still lame. God help us,
we're still lame, aren't we? For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find then a law that when I
would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the
law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man
that I am. Who's gonna deliver me? Who's
gonna save me? And think about what Mephibosheth
said in the next couple of verses. David, I wanted to get to you,
but I'm lame. I couldn't come, I couldn't get
to you. But here's the thing, you're God's angel. You do with
me whatever seems good to you. Who's gonna save me? I thank
God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I'm going to cast my soul
upon Him and trust Him that He's able. The truth is now, the answer
to the question, here's the truth. The answer to the question, could
you not watch with me for one hour? You know what the answer
to that is? No, you can't. You can't. I can't either. We cannot. Now we might, we might
watch anyway. We might if the Lord gives us
strength. If the Lord works in us both to will and to do of
His good pleasure, Philippians 2.13, we might well watch with
Him. But you know what? The minute
we say, Lord I'll watch with you, when everybody else walks
away I'll watch with you, we're going to find out how lame we
are. You know what's especially beautiful
about this verse, though, these last two verses in our text?
Think about this. What possible good could Mephibosheth
have been to David if he had gone? What purpose would it have served?
Honestly, I don't know if Ziba played that against him or not
and told him that to just, you know, Sealed the deception. He deceived David and he deceived
Mephibosheth. Not sure exactly what he said
to Mephibosheth. We didn't see that part, but
what good would Mephibosheth have done? He'd have just been
nothing but trouble. David would have had to assign men that could
have been doing other stuff to help Mephibosheth. What would
be the point? But David wanted him with him
anyway. Why didn't you come? Why didn't
you come with me? But David, he's lame on both.
Why didn't you come with me? Why didn't you come? He sure didn't need Mephibosheth
to fight for him. Mephibosheth had no gift for
counsel or strategy. Nobody ever asked Mephibosheth,
what should we do now? But David just loved him. He
loved him for Jonathan's sake. and he wanted him with him. Verse 27. And he hath slandered thy servant
unto my lord the king, but my lord the king is as an angel
of God. Do therefore what is good in
thine eyes. Not only did Ziba deceive me,
Mephibosheth says, but he lied to you about me. What great damage a lie can do. What great damage. To be dishonest
to the king, not alone worthy of death, lie to one of the king's subjects
in such a way as to keep them from the king. As to drive a
wedge between them and the king. How abominable is that? This is all false religion. They
give the Lord the Judas kiss, you heard boy Ziba was laying
it on thick wasn't he? Oh my Lord the King if I could
just find grace in your sight. They get out their hymn books
and they sing, Oh How I Love Jesus. And they're stabbing everybody
in the back, but themselves. It's all about me, me, me, me. They think they're deceiving
the Lord with their phony allegiance. I mean, it's really just them
trying to benefit themselves. And they tell lies to those who
would be with the king. to keep them from being with
the king. What a horrible, horrible thing. The Lord said to the religious
Jews in Luke 11, 52, woe unto you lawyers, for you've taken
away the key of knowledge. You entered not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in, you hindered. Not only do you hate David, Ziba,
and you want to be on the throne yourself, but you don't want
anybody else to be loyal to him either. Mess it all up. But look at what Mephibosheth
said to David. The word angel is messenger or representative. You're God's representative.
You're God's king. You're God's authority. Christ is the angel and the messenger
of the covenant. And whatever is good in his eyes,
he's going to do it. And you know what? That's what
we want. If you just want to be with Him, if you just want
Him to be honored, you want to see Him on His throne, that's
Mephibosheth. Then what do you want? You want
whatever's good in His eyes. Do it. Salvation is casting your soul
upon Him that doeth all things well. Christ is the messenger of the
covenant, the angel of the covenant, in that he himself is the gospel.
He brings the message of God in his own person. God has spoken
into us in these last days by his son. The good news is a person. He is the righteousness of God
that I need, and I need to hear about it. You remember what he
said? He had set forth him to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood. To declare, I say
it this time, his righteousness. How did he do that? By setting
forth his son as a sin offering. The person of Christ is the declaration
of God's righteousness for sinners. And propitiation means sin offering. I need a sin offering. I need
the sin offering. I need God's lamb. Christ is all that I need. And
I know that He's all that I need because He told me. He's the
messenger. He's the angel. You're the angel of God. And He has made unto us by grace
through faith in Him all that we need. Wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, redemption. Verse 28 in our text. For all of my father's house
were but dead men. You see the gospel here? We were
dead. We were dead before my Lord the
King. To one another, everybody, you
know, this world, boy, we're really living. But before God,
you're dead. Yet didst thou set thy servant
among them that did eat at thine own table." You see what he said? Why would he say we were dead?
All of the servants, all of my father's house, Saul, the house
of Saul, were dead men before you. What does that mean? Well,
David was expected to kill all of them as rivals to the throne.
Look how Saul had treated David. And now, technically, like Ziba
told on Mephibosheth, though it wasn't true, they all had
expectation as being in the line of the throne of the king, the
lineage of royalty. And so it was expected. Mephibosheth
thought that's why he's hiding out in Lodabar. He expected the king, but instead
of killing them, Instead of killing Mephibosheth, what did he do?
You sat me down at your own table. What right, therefore, have I
yet to cry any more unto the king? Here we are on the first
day of a new year. And this must be our testimony
today. May it be so. Look what the king
has done for us. What more could we want? What
more could we ask? Look what he's done for us. What
do you want? You know, people are talking
about, well, this year, you know, and there's nothing wrong with having
goals and wanting to succeed and wanting to do things. But
look, we're talking about spiritually now. You don't get better than where
we are right now, spiritually. It don't get better. And everything
else is just added. I mean, let's be honest, right?
Look at what the Lord has done for us. We were as dead men and
women before him. When Saul, Mephibosheth's grandfather,
was killed in battle and David became the rightful king, God's
anointed king, the expectation was that all of Saul's house
would be put to the sword. And that's what Mephibosheth
is talking there about. But David sent and fetched him.
And I'm sure he thought, this is it. He found out where I was
at. I don't know who told him. He
found out where I was. And he sent for me. And I'm a goner. That's probably what Barabbas
thought when they said to him, come out. Get out here. Well,
this is it. My last moment. Seeing that the Lord Jesus Christ
is sovereign. Now think about, this is us.
We're Mephibosheth here. Christ is on the throne. You
know what that means? It means you're going to hell. That's
what it means. It means you're a dead man unless he has mercy
on you. That's what it means. He's the
sovereign and you're not. And all of us by nature are rivals
to his throne, or we think we are, we presume to be, we boast
it, We say I will, I will, I will, like our daddy Satan by nature. We richly deserve death in every
sense of the word. We were as dead men. If you've
never confessed before God that he would have done the right
thing, if he would have put you straight in hell, then you don't
know God. And that's the picture here in
our text, we're dead men. Listen to 2nd Corinthians 514.
For the love of Christ constraineth us. For we thus judge that if
one died for all, then we were all dead. That's why he had to
die for us, because we were dead. We were goners. Under the law,
no hope. and that he died for all that
they which live, that they which sit at his table should not henceforth
live unto themselves. Mephibosheth didn't even change
his cloth, he didn't shave his beard or anything while David
was gone. We should not henceforth live
unto ourselves but unto him which died for us and rose again. Instead of killing us and putting
us in hell, he sat us down at his table. What do you want this
year? That's the title of the message
tonight. What do you want? What did Mephibosheth want? What
did he want? He said, look what you did for
me. How can I even ask for anything
more? Word had come back around, you
see, to Mephibosheth about what Zabba had told David. How did
Mephibosheth know that Zabba had slandered him? He said, my
servant slandered your servant unto the king. How did he know
that? Well, word had gotten back to
him. That's kind of a big deal. Everybody's saying, well, did
you hear about Mephibosheth? After all David did for him,
he betrayed him and wants to be king now. Yeah, like he's
gonna ever be king, that lame fool. He's not ever gonna be
king. You know what was going on, and it got back to him. Ziba
didn't fess up. Word got back to Mephibosheth
what had happened, what he had done. And it was all lies, but Mephibosheth
is saying here, if you believe it, if you kill me for it yet,
I'll die blessed beyond my wildest dreams. Who would have ever thought
I ever would have sat one day at the king's table? I'm ready, I'm ready. What you've done for me is all
I need. Oh, and one more thing now, one
more thing. Think about this. This is most
important because it wasn't even really what David had done for
Mephibosheth that Mephibosheth delighted in. It wasn't just,
sitting at the king's table to Mephibosheth was not just a matter
of him eating better than he did in Lodabar, although I'm
sure he was happy to do it. It wasn't just about that. You
know how I know that? Well, look at verse 29. And the king said unto him, Why
speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, thou and
Ziba, divide the land so David and I've told you before when
we looked ahead at this when we were in chapters nine and
sixteen where we flashed back tonight we flashed ahead then
and looked at this and I you probably remember that I said
I'm not I'm not sure exactly why David handled this the way
that he did I know that Ziba also had come down to meet David
we saw it in this chapter I believe like Shimei had Shimei had cursed
David to his face and David said You're not gonna die. He forgave him. He forgave him
for the horrible thing that he had done. You remember that Abishai wanted
to take Shimei out right then. He cursed the king. Should he
not die? And so Ziba came down, and we
don't have a lot of details about what Ziba said, but he may have
come like Shimei did and said, forgive me. I don't know. I don't know what
happened. But David did not kill Ziba any more than he killed
Shimei. And he said, y'all just split
it now. He gave it to Mephibosheth, and then he said, everything
I gave to Mephibosheth is yours, Ziba. Now, he said, just split
it. Just split it. I'm not sure exactly
why he did that, but there was a lot of mercy going around that
day, wasn't there? I'm thankful for that. There's a lot of mercy. He's plenteous in mercy, isn't
he? He's plenteous in mercy. And Mephibosheth said unto the
king, yea, let him take all. For as much as my lord the king
is come again in peace unto his own house. That's how I know
it wasn't just about eating good and dressing good and having
everything done for him. He just loved David. He loved
David because David first loved him. The king is on his throne where
he belongs tonight. He's getting the glory that he
deserves. Everybody's bowing to him that knows him and that's
what we've been waiting for What I want And again, this is
the question, what do you want in 2020? What do you want? What
do you want tonight? But Phibosheth said in effect
what I want is not for the king to do anything for me I don't
want the stuff that the king can give me give it all to Zabba.
I just want him. I just want to be with him that
he's home, that he's where he belongs, that he's on the throne,
that he rules and reigns in the armies of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth. That's my desire. That's my glory,
his glory. Now, in 2020, I'd be dishonest
if I said that I don't want any of the comforts and luxuries
that I've enjoyed in 2019. I don't want any of that. I just want to be miserable.
I want to be homeless and broke and, you know, sick. I wouldn't
be honest, would I? But I'll tell you this, I'd also
be dishonest if I said that any of that means anything without
Him. It just doesn't, does it? It
doesn't mean anything. Christ is on the throne where
He belongs. We still sitting at his table.
Thank God, his rightful sovereign king. Raineth. What do you need? You remember
when the Lord sent his disciples out? To preach for him, he said
in Luke 2235, he said unto them when I sent you without purse,
you didn't have any savings. You didn't have any. You didn't
even have a lunchbox with you. You didn't even have an extra
pair of shoes. I sent you out without any of that. Did you
lack anything? I love this, don't you? Because
it reminds me. And they said, nothing. Nothing. The Lord is our shepherd. We
shall not want. And look now. We are His servants and He has
sent us into this world to honor Him, to tell of Him, to worship
Him, to rejoice in Him. He's commanded us to rest in
Him, to rejoice. What a beautiful commandment,
rejoice. Quit being the way you are and be joyful for a change. How about, that's one for me.
All of it, He commands us. And the key word in that statement
is His. We are His servants in this world. Do you lack anything? What do
you want? Bless God. I believe I can say
this with all my heart, honestly. I have what I want. I have what
I want. Let's pray.