1 Samuel 7

Chapter 7. Mephibosheth, or Mercy Meeting MiseryWhen we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…. For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:6, Romans 5:10)David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom lean show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Samuel 9:1)David had now become established upon the throne, and had extended his empire far and wide by numerous conquests, until his kingdom reached from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and covered all the region that God had promised in His covenant with Abraham as the inheritance of Israel. Not only so, he had recognized his Jehovah as the true Sovereign of Israel, and installed the sacred ark in the tabernacle in Zion as a symbol of Jehovah’s presence and sovereignty over all the kingdom. Israel was a true theocracy, and David was only a vice-regent of a greater King. His business, therefore, was to represent Jehovah in all his works and in all his ways. This gave a high and holy dignity to his person, and a lofty incentive and inspiration to his life. As the representative of Jehovah, and as the great type of the coming Messiah, it became him to walk with a perfect heart, and to show forth in his life the attributes and character of the God he represented. This is indeed the true motive of Christian living. It is only as we stand in the name and stead of Christ, and endeavor to live as those who are called to show forth the character of our great Example and Head, that we shall be lifted above the selfishness and sinfulness of fallen humanity and enabled to walk worthy of our high calling. David’s Kindness David, instead of setting an example of royal arrogance and selfishness, felt it incumbent upon him to be a pattern of lowliness, righteousness and mercy. And so, as soon as his throne was established, he began to look about him for objects upon whom he could bestow his kindness. He did not wait for the need to present itself, but he was seeking for an object upon which to pour out his own beneficence and love. It is one thing for us to respond to the appeal of charity when it comes to us, and it is quite another thing for us to be looking about for objects for our beneficence. This is godlike. God did not wait until man came supplicating at His feet, but the Father sought the wandering prodigal. Before Adam ever asked for mercy, we hear the pleading of God’s voice amid the trees of the garden, calling, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). And so we find David asking with beautiful benignity, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Samuel 9:1). In this, David was an example of loftier kindness—even the mercy of that heavenly Father who is ever seeking as well as saving the lost and waiting to be gracious. We have a beautiful example in this incident, of the mercy of God and the abundant grace which, for Jesus’ sake, He vouchsafes to the most hapless and miserable of sinful men.

Section I: the Picture of the Sinner’s Condition

Section I—the Picture of the Sinner’s ConditionUnder the Curse

1. Mephibosheth was a true illustration of the sinner’s curse. He was under the shadow of the house of Saul. He was born of a family whose head had left an inheritance of sorrow to all his seed. Saul’s sins had ruined his house, and slain all his children but this poor cripple, in consequence of his follies and crimes. And poor Mephibosheth had been spared only because he wasn’t worth killing. This is our lost condition by nature. We are born in the world with an inherited curse. We may argue and criticize as we please the doctrine of the fall, but the stern fact remains today patent to every observer that men still inherit in the present life the sins of their ancestors. The pagan father bequeaths his blindness, superstition and degradation to his children. A drunken parent transmits to his posterity a heritage of woe, and all the fine-spun arguments of the critic do not prevent the bitter blight of this hereditary curse. Heredity is a fact in the human life today, and how do we know but that it will be a fact in the eternal tomorrow? God’s Book tells us it will be. And so poor Mephibosheth inherited the curse of Saul, and the sinner inherits the curse of fallen humanity. “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). It is not that God delights in inflicting hereditary suffering, but it is one of God’s own laws, and the only way He can prevent its operation is through the intervention of His mercy, which is now offered to every child of fallen Adam. Helpless
2. Mephibosheth was helpless. He was lame in both his feet. He was unable to move without assistance, and he is a vivid type of the helplessness as well as the guilt of our human race. People idly talk about the injustice and cruelty of teaching that the heathen must be lost without the gospel. And they lightly tell us that God is bound in justice to save all men, irrespective of Christ’s atonement, if they do right and live up to the light they have. We are perfectly willing to concede that a just and righteous God will always accept a righteous man, and that if there is a heathen on the face of the earth who has obeyed the light of his conscience he will receive divine approval. But here the question ends in a pure theory, for the fact remains that there is not a human being on the face of the earth that is able to live up to the light of his conscience without supernatural assistance. The very essence of man’s fall is helplessness. Like Mephibosheth, he is lame in both his feet, and the cry of the wisest and noblest sages in every age has been, “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Romans 7:21). I know better, but I do not do it. I see the right and hate the wrong, but something attracts me into it all the same. I condemn myself, and yet I do the things which I condemn. Man’s supreme need is not only mercy to forgive his past sins, but also power to take away his sinful nature and make him fit for God’s heaven. The only remedy, therefore, for fallen humanity is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit to impart a new nature and to give supernatural assistance to enable us to do the will of God. Worthless
3. Mephibosheth was a type of the sinner’s worthlessness. As he described his own condition he was but a “dead dog,” utterly unworthy of David’s generosity. God loves not because we deserve it, but because He cannot help it. There is something in Him that draws Him to us, not something in us that claims His approval. “I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!” (Ezekiel 36:32). Salvation is an act of unmerited mercy, and God is able to love, to pity and to choose the things that are despised, and to place a sovereign value all His own on souls which might be called even the devil’s castaways. Separated From God
4. Mephibosheth represented the sinner’s separation from God. He was living away across Jordan somewhere in the land of Gilead, far from Jerusalem, among strangers, a type of the poor sinner—“excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12-13).

Section II: the Fathers Mercy

Section II—the Fathers MercyGod’s Mercy The question of David, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness?” (2 Samuel 9:1) is just a revealing of the heart of God and His great mercy to poor, lost, sinful men. But it was not unconditional mercy. It was all “for Jonathan’s sake.” There are people today who love to make light of the old gospel of Christ’s atonement and the mercy of God through a Mediator. They tell us that the Father can forgive at His own pleasure and they need no intercessor by whom to approach Him, but can go as the prodigal came to the father, without any reference to the blood of Calvary or the name of Jesus. These people forget that the parable of the prodigal son is only the last of three parables in the 15th chapter of Luke, and that there are two that go before without which the third would be impossible. It is true that the father was waiting to be gracious to his returning son, but we must not forget that before that story could be written it was necessary that the Good Shepherd should go far out into the dark mountains and the cruel night, and suffer bitterly before He could find the lost sheep; and it was necessary that the woman should sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found the treasure. These two parables express the part of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in our salvation, and open the way for the Father’s part in welcoming back the returning son. The Good Shepherd is the Son of man going all the way to Calvary to find and save us. The seeking woman is the Holy Spirit sweeping our house and illuminating our dark soul to find the lost treasure. When the Son and the Spirit have done their part, then the Father’s heart is open, and the Father’s way is clear to receive us and bless us. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). You may come and plead for mercy in heaven if you only do it for Jesus’ sake. After all the cost of Calvary, God will never dishonor nor ignore the dying agony and the precious blood of Jesus Christ, our crucified Redeemer.

Section III: God’s Royal Bounty to the Returning Sinner

Section III—God’s Royal Bounty to the Returning SinnerRestoration

1. David gave back to Mephibosheth all the lands of Saul, restoring his lost inheritance in full. And so God gives us back all that we have forfeited through sin, and it is indeed true In Him the tribes of Adam boast More blessings than their father lost. Sonship2. But this is not all. God also gives us His own royal bounty. Mephibosheth not only received his forfeited inheritance back, but he was accepted as the child of the king and henceforth ate at the king’s table, and was shown all the hospitality of the royal palace. And so God takes us into His heart and home, and makes us His very sons and daughters, and shares with us all the fullness of His love, grace and glory, saying to us, “My son,… you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (Luke 15:31). How rich our inheritance as the children of the King! How infinite our resources! How glorious our prospects! How we should dwell on high, above all low and groveling things, and bear the dignity of princes of heaven, so that men looking upon us shall say once more, “Each of them looked like the children of the king.” How unworthy to be living a life of discontent, strife and misery. “All things are yours” (1 Corinthians 3:21). Let us live as if we meant it, and had translated the old psalm into our shining faces and victorious lives, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want…. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows” (Psalms 23:1, Psalms 23:5).

Section IV: the Grateful Return

Section IV—the Grateful ReturnMephibosheth was not unmindful or unworthy of David’s generosity. Humble Gratitude

1. He sets us a beautiful example of humility. He calls himself a “dead dog” (2 Samuel 9:8), and he really meant it. He expressed what is just as true of every sinner. The only trouble is that we don’t quite believe it. There is nothing more useless and contemptible than a dead dog. Other animals are of some use when dead, but a dog is worse than worthless. Well for some of us if we were truly dead dogs. There is a good deal of a live dog about many professing Christians, with all the snarl and strife of savage brutes. What we need and what Christ expects is that we should take the place of the dead dog and die out forevermore to all our rights and all our pretensions, and get forever out of the way, that Christ may come in with a new life and be forever the Substitute of our worthless, wretched self. The only secret of a sanctified life is to pass sentence of death on all that belongs to you in your natural and former state and never recall it. Once there lived another man within me, Child of earth, of self, of Satan he, But I’ve nailed him to the cross of Jesus, And that man is nothing now to me. That is the only place of rest, the only place of holiness, the only way to find the all-sufficiency of Christ. Now it is the grace of Christ that brings us there. It is His mercy that slays us. It is when we receive His generous love that we loathe ourselves and want to pass forever out of view. Oh, let us let Him love us to death! Loyalty
2. Mephibosheth was loyal as well as lowly. True, his loyalty was questioned, and he was greatly slandered by Ziba, his unfaithful servant, who complained to David that Mephibosheth was false. But this made no difference to him. He was not loyal as long as David believed in his loyalty. He was not loyal for the sake of being considered loyal, but he was loyal on principle, loyal for David’s sake and his own. It was in him to be loyal, and he could not be disloyal. So loyal indeed was he, that when David came back months later, after his own sad exile, he found that Mephibosheth had been fasting in sackcloth and sorrow all the days of his absence, and nothing could make him happy until the king came back unto his own again. And when he found that Ziba had ingratiated himself into the favor of David and cheated him out of his inheritance, he manifested a sublime indifference and answered nobly, “Let him take everything, now that my lord the king has arrived home safely” (2 Samuel 19:30). Beautiful spirit of disinterested fidelity and noble unselfishness! Unable to enjoy the world until our King has received His inheritance and been requited for His shame and cruel death. Oh, if the followers of Christ were only as true! Oh, if He could but see some of us waiting and watching in grief and sorrow because of His dishonor and his absence! Oh, if we were but as indifferent to the end, and would obey fully, and say, like Mephibosheth, when men take advantage of us, when fortune fails and earthly things go by, “Let them go. Let them take all, but give me Jesus and my blessed hope and inheritance with Him!” Oh, to have such a hope of His coming, such a realization of His kingdom, such a stake in His future reign, such an inheritance laid up with Him, that the world has dropped away from us by the superior attraction of the world to come! This is true loyalty, and this alone is worthy of His grace and the glory in store for us at His return.