so so Grace is God's kindness toward
us, and it is exceedingly great. Justice gives every man exactly
what he deserves. Justice never considers circumstance,
age, or condition. Justice never considers extenuating
things. Justice gives every man exactly
that which is his due. 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 Lindsay 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. It 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 hell-deserving. 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 was talking
to you like that. 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 objects 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's 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 between Israel and the Gibeonites. And now,
because of Saul's prison 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
Nephibosheth 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. Second
Samuel 21 verse 7, but the king spared Mephibosheth. 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 Mephibosheth,
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
sons, 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. 1st Samuel or chapter 20 rather 1st 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. David said I do 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 when he understood that the kingdom was about to be taken
from the house of Saul he said no David we made a covenant swear
again to me 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's sent for Mephibosheth,
brought him to the king's palace. I read this text of scripture
and I think to myself, if I had been Mephibosheth, 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. Mephibosheth must have trembled,
terrified. He must have been horrified.
The king has found me and says for me to come to the power.
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 blessed 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. He said, fear not. Don't be afraid. I've 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's sake. 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. When the poor
crippled son of Jonathan 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 king's sons. 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 mercies 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 altogether 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 Second Chronicles, Meribale. That is, it is a quarreler
of shame. Mephibosheth means shameful and
a shameful thing he was. He was poor, destitute, helpless. 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. That's my name, Mr. Boucher. Shameful things we are. This
is what the scripture says. We are all as an unclean thing. That doesn't mean we've got some
smudges and fingerprints on us. 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 finger. That's not
what it's talking about. That's not what it's talking
about. Utterly an unclean thing. As one who
has not only fallen into an open sewer, one who has reveled in
the open sewer and comes out, or others and other folks who
never smelled a sewer before, they look at him and utter disgust. Bobby Estes, that's what you
are before God Almighty by nature. Leap to it. An unclean thing. 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
sores. Man at his bestest age. A man when he's got his finest
three-piece suit and comes to church on Sunday morning with
the Bible tucked under his arm, man at his bestest age. all together And it's just a puff of wind
a shameful thing Like the leper we have an incurable disease
like the harlot We are defiled your name in mind is Mephibosheth
a shameful thing in heart in will in word indeed shameful
Mephibosheth was 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's
foot God. They like their little totem
pole God. They like their little peanut God. They 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 lofty throne of heaven and you're in his hands. 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 Nephibosheth, 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
in enemies to god almighty The problem was not with god the
problem with us And we lived in this world from our youth
going forth from our mother's womb speaking lies 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
looked 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. Just
as God looks 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, vanquishing 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, He said, I stretched
out my hand and I called to you. Imagine what God condescends
to stretch out the arms of mercy to guilty, doomed, damned 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 unbelief
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 with your fists wearing his face. Now, whenever
you, whenever you reconcile to God, you take your fist out of
his face and you bow before him and say, behold, my servant. Mephibosheth This man became
lame through a fall. Look in verse 3 here, 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 of Saul that
I may show him the kindness of God unto him? And Ziba said unto
the king, Jonathan hath yet a son, which is lame on his feet. That's a pretty good picture
of us. 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. Now I know folks like to latch
on to the text where he says, ye will not come to me that ye
might have life. 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 has sent me
draw him. Oh preacher, you keep Preaching like that you make
us think that we're just shut up to God's mercy and the 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 fibucia 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 Makar, the son of Amiel in Lodibar. Now, Phibosheth was a long way
off from the king, far away from Jerusalem. He was down in Lodibar. There was no prophet down there,
no preacher down there. that 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. We've sold ourselves to Satan. I remember as a boy, the old
movies, these horror flicks would come on, talk about me and making
a 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 of envy. 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, selling yourself willingly into bondage. A loaded
bar, it means the place of no bread. No bread. You remember that prodigal? 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 want to go 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 fain have filled his belly with the husk
that the swine did eat. But there's no possibility that
happened. When will you learn? when we were. Lodibar, no bread
is written across the fields of this world. All of them, all
of them. Rex Bartley, there is no satisfaction
for our souls in this world. That dear 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. Because we're
going to have to part with 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 temporary. That grandbaby
we're expecting? I expect we'll go about as crazy
as everybody else does when they 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, all
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 setteth the solitary
in families. He bringeth out those that are
bound with chains. But the rebellious dwell in a
dry land. That's what God said in Psalm
16. Dry land. You who live in your
rebellion against God and you seek satisfaction in your pleasures
and in your lust and in your ambitions, and you, I'm gonna
make something of myself in this world. I'll show everybody. You
live in a dry land. Ain't nothing to do. Now you're
sitting and you just ain't. I wouldn't if it wasn't for snooty
folks who didn't like it. There's no satisfaction here.
No satisfaction. Secondly, Mephibosheth shows
us God's grace in his calling. He was called by the king. Look at verse five. Then King David sent and fetched
him. Fetched him out of the house
of Makkah, the son of Abimele from Lodebar. 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 fetch them. 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 This man came in to David and
he knew his only hope was that David would 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 Phibosheth, fear not, I will surely show thee kindness.
I wonder if you can do that now. 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, if
you will, it's because he's fetched you to himself and he'll receive
you just like David received Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was
received in all his deformity, just like he was, without any
improvement, without any change. David received this poor cripple,
and the Lord God receives sinners in Christ as poor cripples with
no change, with no corrections, with nothing that they do to
me in their ways, just as I am without one flea. 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 altogether
for the sake of somebody else. for Jonathan's sake. And God
receives us all together for Christ's sake. 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 are him by whom we draw near unto God. He is that way by which
we come to God. When Mephibosheth came to David,
it was there that he learned to have a proper estimate of
himself. In verse eight we read, he bowed himself and said, what
is thy servant? That thou shouldest look upon
such a dead dog as I am. We see Mephibosheth in his change,
showing us a picture of God's grace as well. I'll just give
you the highlights, but listen. When Mephibosheth came to David,
he got more than he had lost in his father Saul in his house. He didn't just get back Saul's
possessions and Saul's property. He was made to sit as one of
the king's sons at the king's table. And in Christ Jesus, he
says, I restored that 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 deformity. He was
still a lame, crippled man. Crippled on both his feet, but
sitting under the king's table, all his deformity was out of
sight. Are you listening? Coming to
Christ by faith, taking our place at the king's table. Oh, what
a privilege. We're still vile sinners, long as we live in this world.
But Merle, his blood, his righteousness, covers all our sin, all our deformity
from the eyes of our God. Now, sinner, come to Christ. Come, you weary, heavy laden,
lost and ruined. By the fall, if you tarry till
you're better, you'll never come at all. God helped you to come,
for Christ's sake.