Grace is God's kindness toward
us, and it is exceedingly great. Justice gives every man exactly
what he deserves. Justice never considers second
stance, age, or condition. Justice never considers extenuating
things. Justice gives every man exactly
that which is his gift. It shows no favor, it gives no
mercy, but grace. Grace is the free favor of God
toward us in Christ. It is unmerited, unwarranted,
and unexpected. Grace is purely a matter of charity. That's all it is. As a matter
of fact, the word charity comes from the word that is commonly
translated grace. It is purely a matter of charity,
exercised sovereignly and spontaneously, arising purely from the heart
of God. As Menzies has been showing you
in the exposition of Romans 9 in the last few weeks, God's grace
and mercy toward us has nothing to do with what we are or what
we do. It is altogether God's sovereign
act, arising spontaneously from his heart. is attracted by nothing
in us, but repelled by everything about us. Divine grace is God's
free favor, bestowing all the gifts of his kindness, mercy,
and love upon lost sinners for Christ's sake. It is not just
shown to those who have no merit, grace is shown to those who have
much demerit. It is not merely bestowed upon
the ill-deserving grace is bestowed freely upon the held as others.
If ever we grasp the gospel, if ever we understand the teaching
of this book with regard to God's free sovereign grace in Jesus
Christ, then all notion of merit will vanish from our hearts.
We will be made to understand that the creature has absolutely
no merit before God Almighty. None whatsoever. We deserve nothing
from God but his wrath. Let me make that as personal
as I possibly can. If I could sit down beside each
one of you, put my arms around your shoulders, and look you
square in the eyes, I want you to hear me just like I talked
to you, I said. You deserve nothing from God but eternal damnation. You understand that? You have
no merit before God Almighty. You have no worth before God
Almighty, except as the object of His just wrath. That's true
of you, and that's true of me. We are justified, listen now,
freely by His grace. By grace are you saved. Salvation
is the work only of God's free grace in Jesus Christ. The scripture
tells us that as plainly and as repeatedly as it possibly
can throughout the Old Testament as well as the New. Now, there's
an old saying, one picture is worth a thousand words. Well,
let me give you one picture. Turn to 2 Samuel chapter 21 and
verse 7. David has killed the last sons
of Saul's house. Remember, Saul did not honor
the treaty made with Israel, made between Israel and the Gibeonites,
and now because of Saul's treason against the Gibeonites, God requires
David to give to the Gibeonites that which they required. They
said, we'll have seven sons of Saul. Give us his seven sons,
we'll hang them up, and that'll put an end to the matter. And
so David takes Saul's last seven sons, except one. And he was
the eighth. He was the one son who didn't
count. He was the one son nobody looked at. He was the one son
nobody cared for. He takes all of Saul's sons except
Mephibosheth and hangs them up to die as a matter of divine
justice. The slaughter of Saul's sons
was justice. The slaughter of Saul's sons
was exactly what was due to Saul's house as a matter of right, justice,
and truth. Now look at the text. 2 Samuel
21, verse 7. But the king spared Mithibusheth. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, by grace he has
saved us through Jesus Christ the Lord. The king spared Mithibusheth,
the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's
oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of
Saul. Now who was this Prince Mephibosheth? He is Jonathan's last surviving
son, the last living survivor of Saul's royal house. When the
news reached the palace that Saul and Jonathan both were slain
on the battlefield of Gilboa. Mephibosheth's nurse picked him
up, he was just a boy, five years old, and she fled for refuge,
to get out of the way, for she knew of certainty that the house
of Saul was fallen, and Saul's son, in the customary manner,
would surely be slain. And so she fled with the baby,
seeking to save his life. But as she did, in her panic,
the baby fell. And when he fell, he crippled
both his feet. And he was from that day on lame on both his
feet. Now turn back with me, if you
will, to the passage we read earlier in 2 Samuel chapter 9. When you open this passage of
Scripture, 16 years had now passed since David and Jonathan had
made their covenant together. You can read about that covenant
in chapter 21 of 1 Samuel, or chapter 20 rather of 1 Samuel,
I think it is. along about verses 14 through 17 or 18. Jonathan
knew that God had given the kingdom to David. And he knew that in
order for God to give the kingdom to David, he had to die. He understood
that. Jonathan understood that he was
going to be killed one way or another and he was perfectly
content because he loved David. But he took David aside and he
said, now David, swear to me. Swear to me. that you will be
merciful, gracious, and kind to my sons after I'm dead. Swear to me that you'll not destroy
my house." And David said, I did. And the love between Jonathan
and David, we're told in Scripture, was greater than the love of
a man and a woman one for another. Jonathan loved David as his own
soul, and David loved Jonathan as his own soul. And then a second
time, Jonathan called David out into the field when he understood
that the kingdom was about to be taken from the house of Saul.
He said, now David, we made a covenant. Swear against it. Swear to me
that you will not destroy my family. And so David now seeks
an opportunity to fulfill his covenant responsibilities to
his beloved companion, Jonathan. And he sent for Mephibosheth.
brought into the king's palace. I read this text of scripture
and I think to myself, if I had been the sibyl here, and I'd
been in hiding all these years, and suddenly I found out the
king found out where I was, I suspect if I could figure out
any way to do so, I'd crawl into a hole and try to hide some more.
That's exactly what happened when I found out God had found
me. When I found out God's eye was
upon me. Nethemus yet must have been terrified. He must have been horrified.
The king has found me and sent me to come to the palace. Now
that wasn't an invitation. This man was king. And I've got
to go to the palace. Whatever he does to me, he's
the king. I've got to go to the palace.
And then I think to myself, What a blessing surprise this man
found. When he fell down before David
and said, behold thy servant, here I am. I'm in your hands.
You're the king. I'm your servant. You can do
whatever you want to. And David saw the fear and trembling
on his face. Don't be afraid. I'm not brought
you here to destroy you. I brought you here to be merciful
to you, to fulfill the kindness of God to you, for Jonathan said. Now follow along with me as I
show you how this story sets forth the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Behind the noble kindness of
David toward Mephibosheth, the gospel of God's marvelous grace
towards us shines forth most beautifully. And the poor crippled
son of Jonathan who was brought from Lodibar to Jerusalem, and
made to sit at the king's table, you will see as we go through
this story that words could never begin to express this man's gratitude. And when a slave to sin and satan
is set free from the curse of God's law, and set free in righteousness
to serve Jesus Christ the Lord, made to be an heir of God and
joint heir with Jesus Christ, made to sit at the king's table
as one of the kings of God, eternity itself will be insufficient.
to express the gratitude that is due to his name from our unworthy
hearts. David's kindness then to Jonathan,
or to Mephibosheth for Jonathan's sake, is a beautiful clear picture
of God's loving kindness and tender mercy to sinners for Christ's
sake. Let me show you as we go along.
I'll call your attention to four or five things. First, Mephibosheth
shows us God's grace and mercy by displaying his condition.
Mephibosheth was in a very miserable condition when the king sought
him out. He was altogether unworthy of
David's attention, his regard, or his favor. But David freely
showed kindness to Mephibosheth for Jonathan's sake. It didn't
have a thing to do with Mephibosheth. David didn't even know who Mephibosheth
was until he brought him into his palace. He wasn't even aware
of Mephibosheth's existence until he brought him into his palace.
So his kindness toward this man had absolutely nothing to do
with this man himself. It was all together for the sake
of another, for Jonathan's sake. And so it is that God Almighty
shows grace and mercy to us, not because of us, but because
of Christ Jesus, his son, for Christ's sake. And his condition,
Mephibosheth's condition, is a pretty good representation
of our condition by nature. His name, Mephibosheth, means
shameful. Shameful. He's given another
name in the book of 2nd Chronicles, Meribel. That is, it is a quarreler
of shame. Mephibosheth means shameful and
a shameful thing he was. He was poor, destitute, Well indeed may all the sons
and daughters of Adam wear the name Mephibosheth. That's your
name. That's your name. That's your
name. Mephibosheth. Shameful things
we are. This is what the scripture said.
We are all as an unclean thing. That doesn't mean we've got some
smudges and fingerprints on her. I went out and shined my shoes
earlier this morning. I came back in the house after
taking a shower and had some black polish on my fingers. That's
not what it's all about. That's not what it's all about.
That's talking about an unclean soul. As one who has
not only fallen into an open sewer, one who has rebels in
the open so and comes out for others and other folks who who
didn't never notice there before they look at it and utter disgust. Bobby Estes, that's what you
are before God Almighty. Listen to this. From the sole of the foot, even
to the crown of the head, there's no soundness in us but wounds
and bruises and putrefying, oozing soil. Man at his best to save. A man when he's got in his finest
three-piece suit, he comes to church on Sunday morning with
the Bible tucked under his arm. Man at his best to save. is all
together. Just a puff of wind. A shameful
thing. Like the leper, we have an incurable
disease. Like the harlot, we are defiled. Your name and mine is Mephibosheth,
a shameful thing. In heart, in will, in word, indeed
shameful. Mephibosheth is not only shameful,
he was the king's enemy. This man was one of Saul's sons,
a natural enemy to David, hiding from David. Now David wasn't
his enemy, but he was David's enemy. This man was one who well
represents all of God's elect in this world. By nature, we
are the sons of Adam, and all the sons of Adam are the enemies
of God. The scripture says the carnal
mind is enmity against God. Now that doesn't mean that the
carnal mind has some objection to God. That's not it at all.
It means the carnal mind, the carnal heart, every thought,
every aspect of your reason, every aspect of your soul, every
aspect of your being, despises God Almighty. Man hates God. That's our nature. Now I don't
mean by that that men hate their notions of God. They like their
little rabbit foot God. They like their little totem
pole God. They like their little peanut God that can use whatever
they want to. They like their ideas and notions about God because
they make their God like themselves, kindly, puny, and sickly. The
man thinks he can take his God and do with him what he will.
And so he loves that idea of God. But man by nature despises
the fact that God Almighty sits on the loftiest throne of heaven
and you're in his head. and he can either save you or
damn you. It's all together up to him. Man despises the fact
that God is perfectly righteous and demands perfect righteousness.
He is perfectly holy and demands perfect holiness. Man by nature
then is God's enemy. And we were like the biblical
chef hiding from God when he saved us. But God never was,
never is, and never shall be the enemy of his people. I get
letters from folks who try to get things sorted out theologically
and they think about God's immutability and say, but the scripture says
we're children of wrath even as others. The scripture says
we were enemies to God like everybody else. The scripture says we were
in our works children of wrath even as others. And in our minds
enemies to God Almighty. The problem was not with God,
the problem was us. And we lived in this world for
my youth, going forth from my mother's womb, seeking life with
a fish of square in God's nose. But God never was angry with
his people. God never was looking on his children as the objects
of his wrath. You see, in salvation, God does
not, he does not cease to be wrath, he takes away the curse
of his wrath. God in his grace and mercy always
looks upon his children as the objects of his love and favor
and grace, for he looks on us in Christ from the foundation
of the world, that land slain before the world began. looked on us in mercy and grace,
having reconciled us when we were yet enemies by the death
of his son. Now he beseeches lost, lame,
languishing sinners to be reconciled to him." He sent me here today to preach the gospel of his grace
to you. And as he does, this is what he says, because I stretched
out my hand and I called to you. Imagine that! God comes to sin to stretch out
the arms of mercy to guilty, doomed, dead sinners and calls
us to be reconciled to God. Quit fighting against God! You're
going to lose! Quit your warfare against God!
You can't possibly win! Be reconciled to God! You see,
the problem with underneath is not that men and women do not,
just simply do not believe that Jesus came or that Jesus is the
son of God or that Jesus died at Calvary. The problem is that
you hate God and you live in this place. Now, whenever you,
uh, whenever you reconcile to God, you take this out of his
face and you bow before him and say, behold, I said, yes. this man became lame through
a fall. Look in verse 3 here of 2 Samuel
9. You can read of the actual event
itself in 2 Samuel chapter 4 verse 4. But here we're told the king
said, is there not yet any of the house you saw that I may
show him the kindness of God unto him? And God said unto the
king, Jonathan hath yet a son which is lame on his feet. That's a pretty good picture
there. God created man upright, but we failed. And when we failed
in our father Adam, we became lame spiritually, altogether
helpless spiritually. That's the reason our Savior
says, no man can come unto me. I know folks like to latch on
to the text where he says, ye will not come to me that ye might
have long. And that's true. You won't do
it. You won't do it. But the problem is not just with
your will. The problem with your will is
in your ability. No man can come to me. Because you're lame spiritually.
You don't have the ability to decide for Jesus. You don't have
the ability to decide to come to Christ. You don't have the
ability to lift yourself from the gates of hell to the gates
of glory. No man can come to me, except
the Father which hath sent me is all here. So preacher, you
keep Preaching like that and you make us think that we're
just shut up to God's mercy and that salvation is altogether
up to Him. It has nothing to do with our will, our decision,
our works. You heard exactly what I said. Either God Almighty
will come your way and call you by His grace or He'll pass you
by and it's totally up to Him. Totally up to Him. And the Sibyl's
guest was in a far, far country. Look at verse 4. The king said
to Ziba, where is it? And Ziba said to the king, behold,
he's in the house of nature, the son of Amiel in Lodibah. Now, Sebuchad was a long way
off from the king, far away from Jerusalem. He was down in Lodibah. There was no prophet down there,
no preacher down there. He was far off from the place
of blessing. Far off from the place of sacrifice,
far off from the place of worship, far off from God, down in the
house of Maker. The word Maker means soul. A soul, I say, to take. I remember as a boy, old movies
and horror flicks would come on. talk about me and making
the deal with the devil, we made a deal with the devil a long
time ago. We sold our souls to the devil,
sold our souls in bondage to sin in our father Adam and every
day we live in rebellion to God. You who are without faith in
Christ, you're not in a position to do this. You sat here this
morning for whatever reason, but you sat here this morning
deliberately choosing to continue a path of rebellion and hatred
against God Almighty! Telling yourself, willingly,
in the bondage. Lodibara. It means the place
of no brilliance. No brilliance. Remember that
particle? He wasted his substance in riotous
living and he went and joined himself to a citizen of that
country. Dr. Gill said he joined himself to a self-righteous,
legalist preacher. And he said, you ain't going
back to your father's house. You can work your way back into his good graces.
Come feed my hogs. And he went and fed the man's
hogs. And he would say, have filled his belly with the husk
that the swine did eat. But there's no possibility of
that happening. When will you learn? Loaded hard. No bread is written
across the fields of this world. All of it. All of it. But there is no satisfaction
for our souls in this world. That good lady there? Oh, I love
that girl. And she loves me. But one of
these days, that's going to cause a lot of dissatisfaction for
one of us or the other. One of these days. But we're
going to have to talk to one another. That little girl over
in Lexington? Oh, I love that girl. But there's
no satisfaction for my soul there. That's just simple love. That
grandbaby we're expecting? Oh, I expect we'll go back crazy. Somebody else doesn't get grandchildren.
But there's no satisfaction. No satisfaction. There's no satisfaction
for your immortal soul in this world. Will you ever learn that?
If not in husband, or wife, or son, or daughter, or grandchildren,
certainly not in all the money you can put in the bank, or the
houses you can build, and all the property you can amass. No
satisfaction. As long as you seek for it in
this world, you'll never find it. God set us for solitary and
family. He bringeth out those that are
bound with pain, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. For God's encompassion, dry land. You, you who live in your rebellion
against God, you seek satisfaction in your pleasures and in your
lusts and in your ambitions, and you, you, I'm going to make
something of myself in this world. I'll show everybody. You live
in a dry land. There ain't nothing to drink.
There ain't nothing to eat. You sit and you eat anything.
I wouldn't if it wasn't for some of these folks who didn't like
it. There's no satisfaction here.
No satisfaction. Secondly, the Bible just shows
us God's grace in his calling. He was called by the king. Think of Versailles. Then King David sent and fetched
him. Fetched him out of the house
of Mathias, the son of Ammiel from Lodibah. David sought Mephibosheth
and fetched Mephibosheth. He didn't ask him if he would
pretty please like to come. He fetched him. And when God
the Holy Spirit comes to lost, ruined, doomed, damned sinners,
the only way they ever come to Christ is Him to thank Him. Thank
God for His fetching grace. He sends His Spirit to seek and
find His people who have strayed far away from Him, and He always
finds them. He always brings them home. He
says, follow me, and they follow Him. He says, come, and they
come. Mephibosheth came to David in reverent submission. In verse
6, he fell on his face and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth,
and he answered, Behold thy face. This man came in to David and
he knew his only hope was that David be merciful. And what he
did is he just, he threw himself at David's feet. And when David
spoke, He said, I'm yours. I'm yours, you can do with me
what you will. And David broke his silence by saying to Timbuktu,
fear not, I will surely show thee kindness. I wonder if you
can do that. Will you? Oh, will you now cast
yourself at the feet of King Jesus as his servant in the hands
of this great king? I promise you, if you will, you
were. It's because he touched you to
himself. And he'll receive you just like they have received
the Fibber Chef. The Fibber Chef was received in all his deformities. Just like he was. Without any
improvement. Without any change. David received
this poor cripple, and the Lord God received sinners in Christ
as poor cripples with no change, with no correction, with nothing
that they do to mend their ways, just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come
to thee, O Lamb of God, I come." This man, Mephibosheth, was received
All together for the sake of somebody else. For Jonathan's
sake. And God receives us all together
for Christ. All together because of his covenant
with Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Redeemer. On the basis of
who Christ is and what Christ has done. Because of his righteousness,
his obedience, his death, the merit of his person and his work.
Jesus Christ is that by which we, or him by whom we draw near
unto God. He is that way by which we come
to God. When the Fibber Chef came to
David, it was there that he learned
to have a proper estimate of himself. In verse 8 we read,
he bowed himself and said, what is thy self? That thou shouldest look upon
such a dead dog as I am. We've seen the Fibber Chef in
his chains, showing us a picture of God's grace as well. I'll
just give you the highlights to listen. When the Fibber Chef came to
David, he got more than he had lost in his father's sorrow of
his heart. He didn't just get back Saul's
possessions and Saul's property, He was made to sit in one of
the king's thrones at the king's table. And in Christ Jesus, he
says, I restored life which I took not away. He gives us life eternal
here and heavenly glory hereafter. This man, Mephibosheth, came
to David and he sat under the king's table with all his He's still a lame, crippled man,
crippled on both his feet. The fitting of the king's table,
all his deformity was out of sight. He listened. Coming to Christ, I say, taking
our place at the king's table. We're still vile, long as we live in this world.
But Earl, his blood, his life, covers all our sins, all our
deformities, in the eyes of our God. Oh, now, said Earl, come to Christ. Come, you weary, heavy laden,
lost and ruined, by the fall, you'll see terror, feel your
better, you'll never God bless you today.