Tonight I felt led to tell about a totally worthy heavenly Father and a worthy Savior, who showed unmerited favor to a very unworthy son of earth. But before I do that , I think it good to offer a wonderful insight the Lord gave to me earlier today. It struck me in such a way that I just had to share it here this evening. In my daily study of God's Word, the 9th chapter of 2 Samuel, verse 13, blazed with heavenly light right in front of me. It reads:
So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem; for he did eat continually
at the King's (David's) table; and he was lame on both his feet."
Here was David, now Israel's second king. That in itself was a work of God's grace and mercy, especially since Saul's own biological son Jonathan should have been the logical heir to his father's throne. But the Lord's ways are not man's ways, for His long range purpose, and eternal purpose was to be brought about through a young shepherd lad named David. David himself came up in a family of eight brothers, the youngest of them all.
Now, after several years of faith testing by his faithful God, David finally was recognized as Israel's king. Earlier there developed a close friendship between David and Jonathan, Saul's son.
Jonathan knew that David, and not he, would be the next king after his father died. Both Jonathan and his father Saul were killed in battle against the Philistines on Mt. Gilboa. This account is recorded in chapter 31 of 1 Samuel. Before Jonathan's death, he asked David to show mercy to his father's house. David, being a man of integrity and strong faith in God, did not forget the promise he made to his friend.
In the 9th chapter, David calls one of Saul's servants named Ziba, to find out if there was any member of his master's household to whom he could show kindness. Ziba told him about Mephibosheth, a son of David's friend Jonathan.
Now, it is here where I wish to give what the Lord showed me from this passage. Mephibosheth, as far as anyone could tell, was a man who did nothing whatsoever to merit David's favor. In fact, he might well have felt that David summoned him because he was of the house of his enemy Saul, and that David was planning to have him put to death. It might have been that Mephibosheth knew about several member of Saul's family who had been executed after David came to power in Israel. So, it would seem logical that he feared appearing before David. When Mephibosheth came into the king's house, "he fell on his face, and did reverence," ( verse 6).
What a surprise this fellow might have felt when he heard David say to him, {verse 7), "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."
And what Mephibosheth said to David is what really took hold of my heart: "And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dog as I am?"
David then said to the Ziba the servant, "As for Mephibosheth, he shall eat at my table, as one of the king's sons."
As I already said, there is not a single trait found in Jonathan's son, other than the fact that he was Jonathan's son, that made him a deserving recipient of King David's show of kindness and mercy. But mercy was shown. And not only was mercy shown, but Mephibosheth openly acknowledged his unworthiness of David's mercy and kindness. An entire lifetime of generosity, bestowed on one who really did not deserve it.
And that is my own testimony, dear reader. If you have bothered to read this far, it is my hope you will be interested enough to continue. For it is here that you might hopefully discover for your own life, a work of grace you will never find anywhere else. That grace can be found only in Jesus Christ. You see, on September 10th of this year, I celebrated my thirtieth year as a recipient of that very grace. It is a grace I do not, never did, nor never will, deserve. And what is grace? I am referring to the grace of God. It is, as my present posting is entitled, unmerited favor. Just as Kind David had shown mercy and kindness to a man who did not deserve that kindness, God my heavenly Father through faith and trust in His Son Jesus Christ, showed me that wonderful mercy in a much more wondrous way, even far beyond that which David, an earthly potentate, had shown to an unworthy earthling.
I wanted to write this tonight because it may be that someone out there may be like Mephibosheth. Like this man, who was lame, and might well have been considerably incapacitated due to his crippled condition, we are all unable to do anything to deserve or earn a place at the King's table. Paul's words come to mind here:
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time,
Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6)
There is much I could continue with here, especially with regard to use of further Scripture, but I trust that for you, as it has been for me these past thirty years, you can say with confidence that you are eating from the Bread of Life, God's Son Jesus Christ. I hope you rejoice in that fact that even though you had once been an undeserving, hell-bound sinner the same as I had been, now you can say you are a forgiven, saved, mercy-shown, heaven-bound child of the King.
Kindness was clearly shown by David to Mephibosheth, but it could never be the everlasting kindness that Christ shows to men, women, and young persons. He already showed that kindness when He hung on a cross on a hill called Golgotha. His blood He freely shed for us all. And He will gladly forgive and pardon forever anyone who will fall down before Him and say, "Lord, I am no better than a dead dog. I am a sinner. I deserve nothing better than eternal separation from you in a place called hell. But I know now that you died for me, a sinner, so that I could live with You, and eat at Your table forever.
If you have never prayed that prayer, or at least expressed this in your own words, then you will never be allowed to sit with Christ when He comes in His glory and sits down with His saints at the great supper. It is my hope that you will do this while there is time. If time stops for you, it will be too late. Time stops for those who die. And not one of us knows when that time will come. Eternity begins right after one dies, and where you and I spend that eternity, will be determined by whether or not we trusted Him to be our Lord and Savior.
I will end tonight with these words of Christ, recorded in Revelation 3:20:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will
hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him,
and will sup with him, and he with Me."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment