Let us open our Bibles this evening to 2 Samuel, chapter 9. I'm going
to read again verses 6 and 7. 2 Samuel, chapter 9, verse 6. Now, when Mephibosheth, the son
of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was coming to David. He fell
on his face and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant. And David said unto him, Fear
not, for I will surely show thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's
sake. We began last Sunday evening
looking at several things that the Bible tells us about this
man named Mephibosheth. And I mentioned that I had chosen
seven things, seven truths that we find in the Word of God, which
mirror the truth about every child of God. There may be more,
but seven things that I have marked down for us to consider,
things that are recorded about this man by the name of Mephibosheth,
which are true of every child of God. We looked at the first
of the seven last time, and that was that Mephibosheth was the
subject of a covenant made before his birth. He was the subject
of a covenant made before his birth. That's true of every child
of God. The covenant was made between
two persons, Jonathan and David. And the covenant that we are
speaking of tonight, the everlasting covenant, was also made between
two persons, the Father and the Son. And this covenant, we saw,
was put into execution by the death of one who was one of the
covenanters. And we know that the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ sealed the covenant. He said, this is
my blood of the new covenant. This covenant in which everyone
that God chose, God the Father chose in eternal election and
gave unto his son. Gave them unto him as his sheep
and he to be our pastor. Gave unto him to be members of
his body and he to be the head of this body. given unto him
to be his bride, and he to be the bridegroom. And we saw also
that Jonathan who died, one of the covenanters who died to seal
the covenant between David and Jonathan, that he died in battle. And you remember the Lord Jesus
Christ, he laid down his life, it's true, but he was in battle.
And he was battling all of the enemies that his people have,
that is, sin, death, hell, Satan, and he overcame each and every
one. Now tonight, the second thing
I want us to consider, now that happened in eternity. That happened
before Mephibosheth was born. And that covenant took place
before the world began, before any of us were born. But now
we're going to look at some things that Mephibosheth experienced
in time. And these two are important.
But the second thing I would mention about this is Mephibosheth
was incapacitated. Now the word incapacitate, what
does it mean? It means to deprive of ability
or qualification or strength. That's what it means to be incapacitated,
to be deprived of ability, qualification, and strength. And you notice
here in this chapter, we did not read it tonight, but if you
will, in verse 3, we are told, And the king said, that is David,
he asked this servant, Ziba, is there not yet any of the house
of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God unto him? And
Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a son which is laying
on his feet. He was incapacitated. And if
you look back tonight to chapter number 4, 2 Samuel chapter 4,
we read that He was incapacitated through a fall. Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son
that was lame on his feet. He was five years old when the
tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse
took him up and fled, and it came to pass, as she made haste
to flee, that he fell and became lame. We see that this man was
incapacitated, and he was incapacitated through a fall. Now, all of us
here tonight recognize the fact that we too became incapacitated
through a fall. Our Lord said, no man can come
to me. Now, he didn't say no man may
come to me. In fact, he said, come unto me
all ye that labor and are heavy laden. He invited men to come
to him. But at the same time, he told
us that no man can, no man has the ability, all men are incapacitated
in this matter of coming to Christ. This man, Mephibosheth, he was
lame, and do you notice it says, on his feet. He was lame on his
feet, or in his feet. I think in one place it says
on his feet. And in the other text that we
read, it says, in his feet. Well, there are two things that
I would mention that picture to us the condition of every
one of God's children by nature. And that is, first of all, we
became incapacitated by fall. Now, it's true that Adam was
our head and our representative, and in him we fell. We fail,
we sin, for all have sinned, and that means at one time, at
one point, all have sinned. All of humanity were in Adam. He was our head, he was our representative,
and when he sinned, we sinned. When he fell, we fell. You say, I don't like that. Well,
when you say the other side of it, you will like it. When you
think about the fact that we could be lost, we could become
sinners through the work of a representative that reminds us that we may be
saved. We may be made righteous through
a representative. Whether we like it or not, whether
men like it or not, and I realize most people don't when they first
hear it, but it's the truth. It's the truth of the Word of
God. Paul in Romans 5, he said, Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. If you can find a man who is
alive, let's say he's a thousand years old, or two thousand years
old, or four thousand years old, then maybe, maybe Adam didn't
represent him. But I don't believe you'll find
anyone that old. Most men, to prove that Adam
did represent them, die. Even babies, even children, as
Paul said, who have not sinned, after the similitude of Adam's
transgression, even children die. Which shows us that we all
sinned in Adam. We fail. But the second thing
I point out to us, when he fell and became incapacitated on his
feet, he didn't lose his feet. It doesn't tell us that he became
lame because his feet were somehow cut off. And here's the truth,
the reason I mention this to us. Our inability and the inability
of all men It's not because we lost our mind, it's not because
we lost our affections, and it's not because we lost our will.
He still had his feet, yet he was incapacitated. And we as
men, we have an understanding, but the problem is, it's darkened. It's darkened. And we still have
our affections, but the problem is we love ourselves. And yes, we still have a will,
but the problem is our will is in bondage. And so we choose
those things according to our affection and according to our
understanding. It's always in that order when
you think about this. It's always in the same order.
The understanding, the affections, and then the will. That's the
reason when we preach the gospel, we preach to men to understand
the gospel. And God grants, God commands
the light. The same God who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness in Genesis chapter 1. He commands
the light to shine in the hearts of his people so that we may
see before we couldn't see. Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. He cannot perceive the things
of God. We might see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. We have our feet. Just like Mephibosheth,
he had his feet, and man has a will. There's no question about
that. And some people, you know, they
love to talk about man's free will. Well, man has a will, and
it's free. You know, man, I heard a preacher
say this many years ago, a man is free to jump over the moon. Right? But you can't do it. Pray, yes, but no ability. And our Lord, as I already said,
said, No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me,
draw him. And another thing on this point,
that Mephibosheth was incapacitated, do you notice where he lived?
He lived in a town, according to verse 5, called Lodibor. Now what is important about that? Well, the meaning of the town
means a place of no pasture, a place of no pasture, or the
house of no bread. And that is the condition of
all men, all of us, when we were born into this world. And we
will remain in Lodibar unless, as we will see next, The king
summons us. So, number one, he was the subject
of a covenant made before his birth, and number two, he was
incapacitated by fall. Now, number three, he received
a gracious summons. He received a gracious summons. Notice that in verse 5 of chapter
9. Then king David sent and fetched
him out of the house of Matre, the son of Amiel from Lodibor. When the king's messenger, whoever
David sent to fetch Mephibosheth, one of his servants, maybe several
of his servants, but what do you imagine Mephibosheth must
have thought when they saw this man coming down the road? And
he didn't pass by their house, he stopped at their house, and
they recognized that he was a messenger from the king. What do you think
he experienced? What do you imagine must have
been in his heart? Now I said he received a gracious
summons from the king, but when that summons first came, no doubt
his heart was filled with fear. Because it was just commonplace
when a man took the throne that he destroyed all of the heirs
to that throne. That was just commonplace. And
Mephibosheth was the man who was in line to be the king. He was the son of Jonathan. Jonathan
was Saul's eldest son. And Mephibosheth was his son.
He should have been on the throne. And when this messenger comes,
To this house where Mephibosheth lived, I would imagine he was
filled with fear. Maybe he has come to rid the
world of me. He may see me as a threat to
his throne, no matter what Mephibosheth may have thought in his heart.
He didn't know what David thought. He may be coming to take me out
of this world. He sees me as a threat. You know,
Solomon later wrote in Ecclesiastes, where the word of a king is. Now this man was king, King David. Where the word of a king is,
there is power. And who may say unto him, what
doest thou? Now this is a king, a king. He has power. In a kingdom of
that type, he had all power. And no one questions his decisions. This was a summons from the king. And this king had the power.
And there was no question that Mephibosheth was going to come.
No question at all. Not when the king. In the word
of a king, there is power. And this king said, Fetch him. There's no doubt. There's no
maybe, there's no perhaps so that he's going to come. No,
he's going to come because the king said, fetch him. The king sent. When he came to
David, then he learned, but it was not until he came to the
king that he learned that this was a gracious Now that was my
point. He received a gracious summons,
but until he came into the presence of the king, and until he heard
the king speak, fear not. He may not have known it was
a gracious summons. Fear not, Mephibosheth. And do
you notice that he called him by name? What did our Lord say? I know my sheep. and I call them
by name." That's what David said to this man when he came in and
did reverence unto the king, prostrated himself before the
king, and the king said, Mephibosheth, fear not. That's when he realized,
because he said, fear not, this summons that I have received,
it's a gracious summons. It's a gracious summons. When
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he summons one of his chosen people
unto himself, I mean when the Holy Spirit comes to the heart
of an individual and comes in power and convicting power of
the Holy Spirit, then one sees himself as worthy of death. And this doesn't seem all that
gracious. Not when a person comes under
conviction of sin. It doesn't seem that this summons
is a gracious summons. And man begins to fear. The scripture
says, when he has come, he shall convince the world of sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment. Now that strikes fear into the
heart of a sinner. I am a sinner. He convinces me
of that, and of righteousness, that God requires a righteousness
that I cannot render. And there's a judgment. So when
this summons first comes to the heart, are you following with
me? Do you understand what I'm saying? When a man that is chosen
of God, just like Mephibosheth was named in a covenant, when
a man or woman was a subject of a covenant of grace made before
the foundation of the world, and we come into this world incapacitated,
and when God begins to deal with us, when God begins to work in
our hearts, we don't see it as a gracious summons at first.
It may strike fear. And we begin to seek the Lord.
And many times we come to the conclusion that we'll never find
the Lord. That the Lord will never have
mercy on us. And Satan, he is always around
to cause fear in the hearts of those that God is dealing with. Yet, when a person is enabled
by the Spirit of God to close with Christ, to trust Christ,
to submit to Christ, just to raise up the white flag, unconditional
surrender, Lord, have mercy on me. And then, we realize it's
a gracious, it's a gracious summons. He's called me unto himself to
show mercy to me. Now, the fourth thing that I
want to bring to us tonight, so we can see those three things.
Subject of a covenant before his birth, lame, we're incapacitated
by birth, and we receive a gracious summons from the Lord Jesus Christ
through his Spirit. And the fourth thing, Mephibosheth
was promised continued provision. Look in verse 7 here, 2 Samuel
chapter 9. Continued provisions. And David
said unto him, Fear not. For I will surely show thee kindness
for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the
land of Saul thy father, and thou shalt eat bread at my table
continually. Now, we are not given in the
Scriptures the provisions for David's table. But if his table
was anything like Solomon's table. We are given the provisions for
Solomon's table, the daily provisions for Solomon's table. Let me read
them to you. Fifteen bushels of fine flour. How many biscuits do you think
you could make with fifteen bushels of fine flour? Thirty bushels
of meal. Ten fatted oxen. 20 oxen out
of the pastures, a hundred sheep, besides harts, roebucks, fallow
deer, and fatted fowl. Can you imagine? That was a daily
provision. That's how Solomon's table was
set every day, with all of that. Now, Mephibosheth, I'm restoring
the land to you that was your father, your grandfather's, But
you, you yourself, you're going to eat at my table every day. You're going to put those lame
feet of yours under my table, and every day. And the point
I bring out here to us is that God has promised to meet our
needs, provide for us every day, all along the way. There's a
scripture in Psalm which says, Blessed be the Lord who daily,
not once a month or once a year, who daily loadeth us with benefits,
even the God of our salvation. He promises to meet all of our
needs, all of our needs, like Paul told those believers in
the church at Philippi, but my God shall supply all your needs
according to his riches in Christ Jesus. And one of the ways that
God provides for us is he's given us these exceeding great and
precious promises. This is one of the ways he provides
for us. He has given us so many of these
promises in the word of God. Let me mention one that is found
in Psalm chapter 50 and verse 15. God said, Call upon me in
the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt
glorify me. As I looked at that promise,
and it is a promise, what came to my mind is, he does not specify
what kind of trouble. What kind of trouble? Call upon
me in the day of trouble, whatever trouble you have. Call upon me,
and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Now we know from the account
that David himself, now David told Mephibosheth, I'm going
to take care of you. You're going to eat at my table
every day. I have all your provisions for
you. Now we know, and we're going
to see this in just a moment. The time quickly came when David
himself needed help. That will never happen to our
king. That will never happen to our
king. The one who promises us to meet all of our needs, he'll
never need help from anyone for all things are his. Now here's
the fifth thing. If you look in 2 Samuel chapter
16, the fifth thing that we see here
is that Mephibosheth was accused and slandered to the king. Chapter 16, verses 1 through
4. And when David was a little past
the top of the hill, and David is fleeing for his life. Remember
his wicked son Absalom had tried to usurp the throne, to take
the throne from David. And so David and a few of his
household, they had to flee. And as he's fleeing, the scripture
said when David was a little past the top of the hill, Now,
we've read of him before, haven't we? This was Saul's servant. This was Mephibosheth's servant,
Ziba. And so as David and his household,
those with him, are there fleeing, well, here comes this servant
of Mephibosheth, and he's got a couple of donkeys saddled,
and upon them he has two hundred loaves of bread and a hundred
bunches of raisins and a hundred summer fruits and a bottle of
wine. In other words, this man David, he had promised Mephibosheth,
I'll meet all of your needs, but now we see that he needs
help. And here comes Ziba. He's got
these donkeys loaded down with provisions, raisins and bread
and so forth, summer fruits and a bottle of wine. And the king
said unto Ziba, What meanest thou by these? And Ziba said,
The donkeys 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? Who is he talking about? Mephibosheth. Where is thy master's
son? 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 pertaineth unto Mephibosheth. And Ziba said,
I humbly beseech thee that I may find grace in thy sight, O Lord
king. King David fled for his life,
and here comes Ziba, Mephibosheth's servant, and he slandered Mephibosheth
to the king, and he accused him of believing and thinking that
he now was going to be the king. The kingdom would be restored
to the house of Saul, and he would be on the throne. He lied. He lied about Mephibosheth. And
notice this, David was deceived. He was deceived. He believed
what this servant said. And so he said, well, all the
property that was his, it's yours. It's all yours now. That's no
doubt what he wanted. Our adversary, the devil, he
too is called the accuser of the brethren. which accuseth
them before God day and night. That which Ziba accused Mephibosheth
of doing was a lie. But think about this, if the
accuser, Satan, if he accuses us of sin and we are guilty,
he's not lying. He's accusing us, telling God,
our Savior, the truth about us. But thank God we have an advocate
with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. Now,
Mephibosheth, he didn't have an advocate, did he? This servant
of his came and accused him to the king, and the king was deceived,
no one stood up, no one spoke out for Mephibosheth, and so
the king made a judgment and gave all the property of this
man to the servant. When we sin, We have an advocate
with the Father. We have one, and he doesn't deny
that we've sinned, and he doesn't excuse our sin, and we are guilty,
but yet he pleads his blood and his righteousness. Father, forgive
them. I died. I shed my blood for him. And that advocate is always there. There's never a time, there's
never a time when he is not always there at the right hand of the
Father making intercession for all who come unto God by him. And he will never be deceived.
David was deceived, but God will never be deceived. Now the sixth
thing is Mephibosheth manifested his love for David. I want us
to see this in chapter 19, 2 Samuel chapter 19. I'm sure you're familiar
with the story of how God delivered David, how Absalom was killed
in battle. David now is on his way back
to Jerusalem, chapter 19 and verse 24. And Mephibosheth, the son of
Saul, came down to meet the king. He's on his way back, the king
is. The battle's been fought, his enemy's been destroyed, and
he's going back to take the throne. Here comes Mephibosheth. His
servant had slandered him, his servant had lied, and David had
made a judgment. 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, when is 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 has 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 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 this matter?
I have said, Thou and Zabba divide the land. And Mephibosheth said
unto the king, Let him have it all. Take it all. He wasn't in love with what the
king had done for him, he was in love with the king. The king
who had shown him favor, who had had mercy upon him, when
as he said, all of his family were as dead men before the king. All the king had to do was speak
the word, and all of them would have been cut off. I'm not interested in the property.
I'm just thankful that you've come back. Let him have it all. Yea, let him take it all, for
as much as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his
own house. Mephibosheth sincerely loved
David, who had saved him from death and destruction. It wasn't
the property, it was the king. Many people are like those in
the Gospel of John who followed the Lord for the loaves and the
fishes, but some follow him because of him. Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. To whom shall we go? Now here's
the last thing. Look in 2 Samuel chapter 21. Like Mephibosheth, all of God's
children, we too, are preserved. Chapter 21, verse 1. Then there
was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year.
And David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, It is
for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. Now, these Gibeonites, they made
a league or something like a covenant with the nation of Israel in
the days of Joshua. They deceived the Israelites.
They deceived Joshua. Remember, they came all dressed
up in rags and had moldy bread and said, ìWho are you?î They
said, ìWell, weíre people from way, way over there. Way, way
over there.î We want you to make a covenant with us, a league
with us, to let us live. And they said, okay. They didn't
inquire of the Lord. And about a day or two later,
they came to their cities. They were not foreigners from
some country way, way off. No, they were inhabitants of
the land of Palestine, the land of Canaan. What are we going
to do? They've deceived us. We're going
to honor the commitment. We're going to honor the covenant.
Now it is true they shall be drawers of water. They'll be out there pulling
that water out of the well, and they'll be cutting wood for the
fire, the wood used in sacrifice, but they're going to live. Well,
when Saul came to the throne, he just decided he would kill
them. And here we see that God sent
a famine in the land, and he told David, it's because of Saul
he slew the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites
and said unto them, Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel,
but of the remnant of the Amorites. And the children of Israel had
sworn unto them, and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the
children of Israel in Judah. Wherefore David said unto the
Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And wherewith shall I make
the atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?
And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor
gold of Saul, nor of his house, neither for us shalt thou kill
any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say,
that will I do for you. And they answered the king, The
man that consumed us, that is Saul, and that devised against
us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the
coasts of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered unto
us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gebeah of Saul,
whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give
them. But the king spared Mephibosheth. He gave him seven sons. And incidentally,
one of those seven had the same name, Mephibosheth. But he did
not give him Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. He who was the
subject of that everlasting covenant. He was preserved. And we know
that all of God's people, we too, we are preserved in Christ. Nothing, nothing shall separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. No one will
take us out of his hand. He keeps us secure. May the Lord bless this word
to us tonight. We'll sing a couple of verses
of a hymn.