like when the whole host of heaven
sing at the same time. When I was just listening to
you sing, it was in such harmony, just sitting here listening to
you. I quit singing, I just wanted to listen to you. But it sounded
so good and it was such harmony together. And I thought, what
will it be like when we really sing the praises of God in unity,
a number that cannot be numbered, singing all at the same time
His praises. That's just, that's gonna be
phenomenal. Turn to 2 Samuel 9. Doug, lead us in prayer. Our Father, we thank you, Lord.
This is another day that you've given us. Come to this house,
and Lord, we pray this morning that you would especially bless
everyone that's here this morning. Lord, help us to be here for
no other reason than to hear your word read, to glorify and
praise our God. Lord, who is so good to us. Your mercy is new every morning. Lord, just help us to rightly
praise you this morning. Give you all the glory and honor.
Help our brother, Lord, to be the sheep this morning. Lord, we came to hear a word
from you. Lord, forgive us for our many
sins. Lord, we pray for we ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. This morning I was watching some
of you walk in and I thought, this is what it's all about. Coming together, praising God, giving unto him the glory due
unto his name, his children gathering together be taught by their father. There's no other reason and purpose
for this world to be here except for you and God's children that
he has in this world and sheep that he has yet to bring in.
And when he brings them in, this will be over with. But we come
here together to sing his praises, to learn of him, to learn from
him, and to go out into this world as lights in the world.
You ever go out at nighttime? I'll get on my subject here in
a minute. I gotta get this off my mind. Have you ever gone out
in the nighttime out in a country where there's no light? You look
up into the heavens and you see all those twinkling stars. You ever think that's what God's
children are on this earth? They're just these lights in
the nighttime. Out here in this dark world,
there's the stars out there. God's children. And when he's
finally gathered them all in, he'll put an end to this. But
in 2 Samuel 9, we have a beautiful, beautiful picture of God's mercy
and grace to us, and David and Mephibosheth, and the covenant
that was made between David and Jonathan over his son. So we're going to look at this
this morning. Now, as you know, the children of Israel wanted
a king. God gave them a king. And you
know, Saul, as we looked at the last time, Saul offered a sacrifice,
which was not what he was to do. That's for the priest. And
so he stepped out of bounds and rebelled against God. And God
rejected the people's king. And after that, he set up David,
who was a man who said to be a man after God's own heart.
And he put David as king over Israel. And David, as you know,
is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the first
things that David does as a king, he does something that I think
is probably totally unexpected. He says, is there yet any of
the house of Saul that I may show kindness? You know, David killed Mephibosheth's
uncle. His uncle was an enemy of David. And David was beheaded, and I
think they cut off both his feet. But here is Mephibosheth. And
I have no doubt he hears about this, and he's down there in
Lodibar, and we'll look at this in a minute, but he's down there
in Lodibar, and I have no doubt he's down there scared to death.
He's just wondering and waiting when David's gonna come and get
him. But this takes a real twist. It takes a real twist. He says,
and David said, You know, when a king speaks,
things happen, don't they? I mean a real king, a sovereign
king. When he speaks, you know, the Word of God says where the
Word of a king is, there's power. There's not a committee going
to get together and see if this is really the right thing to
do. No, when he speaks, this is what's going to be done. And
he says here, IS THERE YET ANY THAT IS LEFT OF THE HOUSE OF
SAUL, THAT I MAY SHOW HIM KINDNESS FOR JONATHAN'S SAKE? NOT THAT
I MAY KILL HIM, THAT I MAY PUT AWAY MY ENEMY, BUT THAT I MAY
SHOW HIM KINDNESS FOR JONATHAN'S SAKE. AND ZIBA SPOKE UP, HE WAS
A FORMER SERVANT OF THE HOUSE OF SAUL, AND HE TELLS DAVID,
THERE IS ONE LEFT, THERE'S ONE LEFT, HIS NAME'S MEPHIBOSHETH. And he's crippled. He's a cripple. He fell. His nurse dropped him. He's crippled through no fault
of his own. That's interesting, isn't it? I'm a sinner through
no fault of my own. I'm not a sinner because I did
something wrong. I was born one, and that's why I did something
wrong. That's why I do things wrong. Mephibosheth was crippled
through no fault of his own. He was dropped by his nurse. Now, I want to pick out some
things here as we go along and to develop this lesson, this
message. You know, it may be a lesson,
but it's still always a message. It's still the same. I treat
both, I treat the Bible lesson and the next message, I treat
them both the same. Now, in verse 1, And the king
said, as I already mentioned, He gave his word, he sent out
his word, He asked if there was any left of the house of Saul,
and there is, there's Mephibosheth, so he sends out his word to get
him. He's gonna get him. You see,
when the king speaks, nobody stands against it. I mean, at
the peril of your life, you can. But our God is sovereign. See, David is a type of our Lord,
and our Lord is sovereign. He's sovereign in all things,
and this is of great importance because I believe this is where
the biggest rebellion is, is who's Lord? Who's going to be
God? Who's going to be King? Is it
God of heaven and earth? Is it going to be us? Is it going
to be a man, me, you, or any others? God's sovereignty is
the most hated of all the attributes of God. God saying what happens. God determining the end from
the beginning. God doing and not asking permission
is upsetting to man. It's upsetting. Anytime you go
into, I've preached a couple of funerals, my dad's and my
mother's, and there was some people there that knew them for
years, Armenians. Boy, they, especially when I
preach dad's, They left there they were saying amen in the
beginning, but then I got about the middle of it. I didn't hear
one amen And they didn't even say they didn't say a word to
me when they left they spoke to me when I came there When
I when I arrived they all shook my hands and good to see him
and when I left Not a one of them did they all walked out
and didn't most of them didn't even look at me Because I set
forth first of all at God's sovereignty and God's sovereignty. God is sovereign over all things.
He reigns with total authority in heaven and earth. And when
I say God is sovereign, I'm talking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the sovereign of heaven and earth. Our God is sovereign
over all the events in this world. All the things that happen are
providential. And God rules and reigns over everything and He
causes everything to happen. from the vapors that we looked
at Thursday going up until wars. It says, He maketh wars to cease
until the end of the earth. If He didn't, they would not
stop. But He has His way. He has His way in the wars as
well as He does in the weather. And when He has accomplished
His purpose, He'll put a stop to it. Our God is sovereign. David said, Is there any of the
house of Saul? I'm going to show kindness to
him. He's not asking. He's saying, I'm gonna show kindness
to him. Now in verse three, I want you
to look at verse three. And the king said, after Ziba
had told him, in verse two, Ziba told him there was. And the king
said, is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may
show the kindness of God unto him? And Ziba said to the king,
Jonathan yet hath yet a son, which is lame on his feet. Jonathan
has a son. The word kindness here has the
meaning of mercy, that I may show mercy, that I may show undeserved
mercy. Mephibosheth does not deserve
what David is going to do for him. He doesn't deserve it. As we know, the house of Saul
was an enemy of David. Saul tried to kill him. Saul's
uncle went after him. And he tried to kill him, but
God saves sinners that were once his enemies. You know, every
one of us was an enemy of God. Every one of us, we were born
natural enemies of God. But David here in verse three,
David found that in his heart, because of who David is, The
kind of man he is, the kind of character he has, he found it in his heart to show
mercy to any that was left of the house of Saul. Our God delights to show mercy. Do you delight to have it? You
know God delights to show mercy far more than you and I delight
to have it. I wish I delighted to have His
mercy as much as He delights to show it to me. God delights,
it says in the scriptures. He delights to show mercy. There
is forgiveness, it says in Psalm 130. There's forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. Lord, if you should mark iniquity,
who shall stand? But there's forgiveness with
you. There's mercy with you. There's mercy with the Lord.
Adam's race is a fallen race. It's a rebellious race and it
deserves no mercy. Nobody deserves mercy. If you
deserved it, it wouldn't be mercy, it'd be a debt God's paying.
Mercy is something we don't deserve. And God's not indebted to me
and you. God did not save me or you because of a debt He owed
to us. He's obligated to us. No. God
saved us Because it pleased Him to save us. It pleased God to
make you His people. That's why He saved you. It pleased
God to make you one of His. That's why. You know, false religion, if
you'll listen to the religion out here of our day, most of
the time it's speaking about works. They don't call it works. They don't call it works. But
now listen, if the Lord has done all He can do and the rest is
left up to you and that's not works, that's not grace, if ANYTHING,
ANYTHING is left up to me, it is not grace and it's not mercy. Today's religion speaks of rewards,
health, wealth, Service, that's one of the things that I remember
about the place I used to go to before I heard the gospel.
It was always about going out and witnessing. And they really
put a lot of emphasis on going out and witnessing. They went
out every Tuesday night. They'd go out every Tuesday night
and get a group of them and go out to somebody's home and knock
on their door and go in there and witness to them. I went with them one time, and
I'm sure glad that person we talked to didn't pay attention
to us. I'm glad he didn't listen. He just was like, you know, I'm
glad he did. Now, I'm glad he didn't listen. But the religion, the language
of religion is rewards and service, blessings, material blessings. It has nothing to do with redemption.
It has nothing to do with the glory of God and redemption.
You know, Paul said this about himself. He said, I obtained
mercy. I obtained, God gave it to me.
God gave it to me. I wasn't looking for it. Wasn't
even asking for it. Paul thought he had, Paul thought
he didn't need mercy. He thought he lived well enough
that he didn't need it. But he said, I obtained mercy.
And like that sinner standing there, that sinner and that Pharisee,
and that sinner standing there saying, Lord, be merciful to
me, the sinner. Lord, be merciful. And then here's
another thing about Mephibosheth. It says he was lame on his feet,
both feet, both feet. He couldn't walk. Ziba told David that Jonathan
had a son called Mephibosheth and he lived down there in Lodibar.
That means no pasture. I looked that up and it means,
some say it's a house with no bread, but it means no pasture. It's barren. It's barren. This Mephibosheth was as poor
as poor could be. He was the grandson of a king.
You know, we were the son of a king, too. Adam. Are we not sons and daughters
of Adam? And Adam was a king. Adam was king over this earth.
But Adam FAILED. And Adam DIED. And you and I
are what? POOR, BROKEN, MISERABLE SINNERS. That's exactly what we are. That's exactly what we are. We
live in a place of no pasture. There is no pasture in this world,
is there? Here is the green pastures right
here, the Word of God, right here is the green pastures. He
leadeth me into green pastures, and it is His Word. But I am
telling you this, this whole world, this whole GLOBE IS A
BARREN LAND, IT'S BARREN, IT IS SPIRITUALLY DEAD, SPIRITUALLY
BARREN, THERE'S NOTHING FOR US IN THE WORLD, THERE'S NOTHING
FOR US IN THIS WORLD. Boy, I see that as I get older,
THERE'S NOTHING FOR ME, ALL I HAVE, I HAVE IN CHRIST, AND ALL THE PASTURE I HAVE, I
HAVE IN THE WORD OF GOD, THAT'S WHAT I HAVE. He was lame on both feet, he's
down in a loaded bar in a desert place, and I think he's down
there hiding out. No doubt they took him down there
and he's living with Maker, he couldn't even afford his own
house. The word lame here is because
of his fall. And it describes him completely.
It describes him completely and it describes us. But we're not
only lame, we're dead. We're dead. And this spiritual deadness has
affected every part of our being, every faculty we have. Our minds
are messed up. Are they not? Our emotions are
messed up. Everything about us is messed
up. It really is. It's messed up. I know that that's not a popular
message in today's society. It never has been a popular message,
period, since the beginning, since the fall. But it's definitely
not a popular message now that we're so messed up. And I'd be
popular with Big Pharma. They got a drug for it. They got a drug for your messed
up problem. I'll tell you what, only one can fix me. No one can
fix me, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the truth. He's the one that can fix me. But we're messed up by nature,
I tell you. Everything, every faculty about
us is messed up. But look here what David
says. Ziba says there's one of the house of Jonathan, Mephibosheth,
his son, but he's lame on both feet, And David sent, in verse
5, look here, then King David sent and fetched him. Now the
title of this was Fetching Grace. That's the title of it, Fetching
Grace. You know, I said before, when I'm reading something or
a passage of scripture I'm thinking of preaching from, I have to
get the title first. That's just me, I have to get
the title first and I build the message around the title. And
I saw this one fetching, fetching, fetching. That's what the Lord
did when He saved me and you, He fetched us. He didn't give us an offer, He
fetched us. David purposed to show mercy
to the house of Saul if anybody was left. And when he heard of
Jonathan down at Lodibari, he sent for him. He sent for him. He sent for him, you know why?
He loved Jonathan. And he loved, Jonathan has a
son. Now he loves Jonathan's son,
just like he loves Jonathan. The father loveth the son and
has given him all things. And if the father has given me
to Christ, he loves me as he loves Christ. And because of
that, he's gonna fetch me. He's gonna get me. He's going
to send for me. He said His love and affection
on us even before the world began. He said His love and affection
on us in Christ. I wish we could get a hold of
that. I wish I could get a hold of that. The eternal everlasting
love of God to me in Christ. It can never diminish. Our love
is up and down. Our love can go up and down because
of our sinfulness, but His love never wavers. His love never
wavers. And you'll notice He sent for
him. Our Lord came into this world. He said He was sent by
the Father into the world. He came into this world. He became
bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, obeyed the law, honor
the law. He magnified the law and honored
it in our place. And now God, to be a just God
and a Savior, He can fetch us and bring us home. A bunch of
crippled, broken sinners like me and you, He can bring home
and put us in His presence. And when I read this, He sent
and fetched him. My first thought when I read
that was, first of all, grace. He fetched us by his grace. But
I thought he sent the Holy Spirit. He sent the Holy Spirit to fetch
his people. That's exactly what the Holy
Spirit is doing right now. He's fetching all the Lord's
Mephibosheth over this world. And the Holy Spirit is fetching
them. He's going after them. Now, some servants are sent down
to Lodibar. He thought he was hid. We're
never hid, are we? God knows where we are. But he
sent some servants down there to get him, to fetch him. I guarantee
you, when they knocked on that door, and they asked for Mephibosheth,
they said, the king sent for you. I have no doubt that scared
him to death. To him at that time was a death
sentence. When the Holy Spirit fetches,
when He fetches the Lord's sheep for the first time, it scares
them. You know why? Because He makes
them to know they deserve death. You and I know, that's the first
thing that I can relate to in this portion of scripture. One
of the first things, other than being crippled, one of the first
things I can relate to is this. He's gonna kill me. God can kill
me. You ever been afraid of God? If not, you've never met Him.
God is holy. God is just. And you and I are
nothing but sin. We're the total opposite of God.
We are enemies. Our house, Adam's house, is the
enemy of God. I am by nature an enemy of God.
And now He's arrested me. He has sent for me. The Holy
Spirit has fetched me. And the Holy Spirit has made
known to me, the King has called you. He's called you. And I have no doubt it scared
Him to death. It scared Him. You see, let me
pick up here in verse six. And now when Mephibosheth, the
son of Jonathan, the son of Saul was come to David, this is how
I know he was afraid. He fell on his face and he did
reverence. Here is where salvation starts,
a right fear of God. When Mephibosheth was summoned,
To come before the king, he knew he was going to die. He knew
David had the right to cut his head off just like he did his
uncle's head and cut his feet off. He knew he could do that. And when he came into the king's
presence, he didn't throw out his arms to hug him and kiss
him. He fell on his face. He fell on his face trembling,
and he's asking for mercy. It says there he did reverence. That's called worship. That's
worship. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant. I'm your servant. You can do
with me what you will. He says here, and David said
unto him, Fear not. That's not what he
expected to hear. That's not what he expected to
hear. Boy, I tell you, when you first awaken, and you realize
that the king has summoned you, and you deserve to die, and you
can die right now, God can kill you. And the word comes out from
the king, and he looks at you, and he says to you, Fear not. Did I hear that right? Did I hear that right? Fear not. You have nothing to be afraid
of. I'm of the house of your enemies. You have nothing to
be afraid of. You have nothing to be afraid
of. For I will surely, verse 7, for
I will surely, truly, Show thee kindness. Now listen,
for Jonathan, thy father's sake. I'm gonna show you mercy, kindness,
forgiveness because of who your father is. For Jonathan's sake. For Jonathan's sake. Let us never forget this. God
made a covenant with his son, Jesus Christ concerning me and
you all those who believe he made a covenant and for Christ's
sake God's forgiven you and me that's why God's forgiven boy
how we ought to live our lives As we saw Thursday, we ought
to live our lives in such praise. We ought to live our lives just
laid out for Him. I'm your servant, my soul, what
you've done for me, I deserve to die, yet you've given me eternity,
you've given me life, you've given me pardon, forgiveness,
cleansing, a new nature. Our Lord became our surety. He
became our Redeemer, our King. When we deserve to die and we're
going to live. Oh man. Oh, David said to him,
fear not. I'm going to show you kind. I'm
going to show you mercy for Christ's sake. And I will restore thee
all the land of Saul thy father, and thou shalt eat bread at my
table." Continue, I'm going to restore everything. You know,
we've been, everything's been restored to us and much more.
Adam was king on this earth, but he was not in heaven. He
was not king in heaven. He was not king over the angels. He walked on this earth. He walked
in a place called Eden. We're going to walk in a place
called paradise. It's called paradise. It's going to be a
new earth. And God's going to dwell with
us. God's going to be our God and we're going to be His people.
This is going to happen soon. This is about to happen. This
is about to happen. And you're going to eat at His
table continually. And he bowed himself. That's
exactly what we ought to do right now. Because of what God has
done for us in Christ, we ought to bow ourselves right now in
just absolute submission and in praise and honor and just
thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for
not leaving me alone. Thank you. And he bowed himself
and he said, What is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon
such a dead dog as I am? This is offensive to human nature,
to be called a dead dog. You know, here's a real test,
I think, of grace in the heart. We can call, I can call you a
dog sitting here and ain't nobody going to be offended. I just
read it. That Syro-Phoenician woman, the
Lord called her a dog. But when you're called something
out there, does it offend you? You say, you know, you're pretty
close to being right. You're close to being right.
You might have said it out of dislike to me, Whatever you call
me, I'm pretty well it. I'm pretty well it. But Mephibosheth
is saying here, I'm a dead dog. I'm worthless to you. I'm not
going to add anything to you. They had to carry me up here.
He couldn't walk up there. He was summoned and somebody
had to carry him. It's the Holy Spirit that gets
us and brings us to Christ and reveals Christ to us. They had to carry him to the
Lord. They had to fetch him. I'm just a dead dog. That's all
I am. What am I to you, Lord? I don't
add anything to you at all. Then the king called Ziba, Saul's
servant, and he said to him, I have given unto thy master's
son all that pertains to Saul and to all his house. It's all
his. Thou therefore and thy sons and thy servants shall till the
land for him, and thou shalt bring in the fruits that thy
master's son may have food to eat." You know what I thought
of? I've got to close this, but when I read that, thou shalt
till the land for him, bring in the fruit, I thought of all
these Gentiles, the whole world out here, the whole world is
tilling this earth for us. People go into business and they've
made it big in business, they've employed a lot of people, and
all this you see going on is nothing more than Ziba tilling
the ground for us. That's all it is. This Gentile
world is just tilling the ground for us until God takes us out
of it. They're feeding us. You know
this world, believe it or not, is really serving us. It's really
doing that. If God makes all things work
together for our good, are they not serving us? But Mephibosheth, thy master's
son, shall eat bread always at my table. We're going to take
the Lord's table Thursday night. And the bread we eat is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the table we sit at is His.
Now Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants. Ziba had no idea he had 15 sons
and 20 servants for Mephibosheth. He had no clue, that's why he
had them. His wife, oh, you know, they really thought having a
lot of children back then was really something. I mean, that
was something. But he had them all to take care of Mephibosheth.
This world's to take care of us. All right, then said Ziba,
Then said Ziba unto the king, According to all 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 Mekah. And all that dwelt in the house
of Ziba were servants unto Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem,
and he did eat continually at the king's table, and was lame
on both his feet." He was still a sinner. He was still a sinner. Brethren, we're sinners all the
way home. Fetching grace. All right.