THE KINDNESS OF GOD
Roland Brown
I have been drawn to this passage because I think it sets out illustratively the operation of the grace of God in the glad tidings; and we learn from illustrations. In the scripture we not only have set out for us the doctrine or teaching of the glad tidings but we have them illustrated for us in men and women like ourselves. In the passage we have read David was settled in his kingdom. It says, “Jehovah had given him rest round about from all his enemies” (2 Sam 7: 1). His kingdom had been established. That is the position with Christ. His kingdom has been established. He has been given a Name which is above every Name (see Phil. 2: 9). Soon to be publicly displayed, but already established, and to the eye of faith, we can already see Him crowned with glory and honour. We do not yet see all things made subject to Him. We shall see that. Believers shall see all things made subject to Him. But, already we see Him, by faith, as crowned with glory and honour.
His kingdom having been established, the king says, “Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” The house of Saul were David’s enemies. King Saul had tried to smite David to the wall with his spear, and he had hunted him like a partridge on the mountains (see 1 Sam 26: 20), and yet David says, “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness”. How affecting to think that God is showing kindness in the gospel to His enemies. We have to come to it that that is what we are. Whether we were born into a Christian household and brought up in it or not, the writer to the epistle to the Colossians speaks of us, “You, who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works”, Col. 1: 21. You might think that is a strange thing to say that I am an enemy of God, but each of us has within the mind of the flesh which is enmity against God. That is man as activated and animated by his natural will. I wonder if each of us has made that discovery that there is within us what is violently opposed to God and to His grace. It is a solemn discovery to make, but the king says, “that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake”. That is, kindness was to be shown to his enemies for the sake of another. How true that is in the gospel. The believer knows that his sins have been forgiven, not because he deserved to have them forgiven, but “for his name’s sake”, 1John 2: 12.
If we confess our sins God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. He is faithful to Himself and to the work of Christ, and He is righteous. Those two attributes of God, His faithfulness and His righteousness are referred to – “to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”, 1 John 1: 9.
So the man who is put forward from the house of Saul is Mephibosheth. David says, “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew the kindness of God to him?” I wonder if each of us here has been shown the kindness of God? Scripture speaks of “the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God”, Titus 3: 4. The scripture also tells us that, “The charm of a man is his kindness” (Prov. 19: 22), and that was seen supremely in the life of Jesus – the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God.
I wonder if you think of God like that, as being kind? We are exhorted in the epistle to, “be to one another kind, compassionate, forgiving one another”, Eph. 4: 32. That is an exhortation to believers to be like God. That is a feature that is characteristic of God. The kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared in the Person of Jesus. It was not that God began to be kind then, He has always been that, but it came on to view in the Person of Jesus.
The object of His grace in this passage that I have read is Mephibosheth and I wanted to speak about him typically because we are told about his condition and we are told about his position and God addresses both. We are told earlier in this book how he became lame, “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” (2 Sam. 4: 4). It does not say that she dropped him. He fell. Each of us if a fallen creature of God. All have sinned and come short, a fallen creature of God. Mephibosheth fell and the result of his fall was that he was lame on both his feet. That is there was no power with him to walk as the scripture says, “to walk and please God”, 1 Thess. 4: 1. There was no power to do that, he was lame on both his feet. People try to get by with the admission of certain shortcomings and so on. Someone said to me today, ‘We all make mistakes’, but it is a solemn thing to realise that I have no power to walk so as to please God. No power at all. The scripture says in Romans 5, “we being still without strength” (v.6). That is a very striking reference. It is speaking of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, “for we being still without strength”, no power to fulfil righteousness, no power to walk so as to please God, lame on both feet. We have a picture of him and it is really a picture of us as an enemy: that was his state, and unable to help himself, totally helpless.
Then the question is, where is he? He is found in Lodebar. I think if you care to look that up you will find that Lodebar means a place of no pasture. Nothing there to nourish life according to God. I think that is a picture to us of what the world is, what the scripture speaks of as the “present evil world” (Gal. 1: 4). There is nothing in it that will nourish life according to God. Some of us were reading in John’s epistle and the apostle says, “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2: 16), and I was very struck as we read it that he sums up everything in the world as coming under those three heads. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. There is plenty in the world that ministers to the flesh in me and to my lusts and to my pride, but there is nothing that ministers to life according to God. “All that is in the world”. John says there is nothing morally in the world that is outside those three things. He says, “And the world is passing, and its lust”. It is going on to judgment but, “he that does the will of God abides for eternity”.
The picture that we have in this passage is of a man who was an enemy and a cripple and living in a place of no pasture. God grant that by the Holy Spirit you might be convicted of that, because it is only as we appreciate the helplessness morally of our condition that we appreciate what the scripture speaks of here as the kindness of God. Because however great the need – and it was great and that the sinner is great – the grace of God is greater than the need. The scripture tells us that where sin abounded, grace has over-abounded (see Rom. 5: 20). If we think of the world as the place where sin has abounded, the grace of God has over-abounded and God said long ago, “Is my hand at all shortened that I cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver?” Isa. 50: 2. You get the thought in overabounding grace of reach. God is able to reach and it says of Christ supremely that He is able to save to the uttermost. There were none when He was here, who were too far gone, as men would say, to be reached by divine grace. He lived and moved on earth among the meanest and the poorest. He was found as a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners. He met with a woman of the city who was a sinner. Persons who you would say were so far gone in sin that they would be despised by their fellow men and women, but the grace of God over-abounded. Paul speaks of it like that in relation to himself. The grace of God over abounded towards him (see 1 Tim. 1: 14), proud, arrogant, religious man that he was, seeking to do his utmost to stamp out the name of Christ, an enemy of God if ever there was one, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. How extreme he was in his animosity against God and against Christ, and yet the kindness and love to man of a Saviour God reached him. Thank God for everyone of us in this company that can say consciously that it has reached me.
David says, “Where is he?” and he is brought from that place. The gospel has in mind not only that our sins should be forgiven, but that we should be delivered from this present evil world. “Who gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of the present evil world”, Gal. 1: 4. God has another world in view. He has something much greater in mind for you and me than simply the meeting of our sinful condition and our need. Nothing less than a portion with Christ eternally, a heavenly portion. Nothing less than that you and I, as believers, should be conformed to the image of His Son; what amazing grace that is! Mephibosheth is called and he is given to eat bread at the king’s table. He is given a portion, a portion on which he had no claim. The effect of this grace upon him was to acknowledge that. He says, “What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?”. The scripture speaks of the goodness of God leading men to repentance. One of the tests as to whether you have known something of the goodness of God is whether it has moved you to repentance. That is the effect that it has. The goodness of God produces that effect upon the soul. The threat of judgment does not produce that. Romans tells us about persons who, “knowing the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death” (Rom. 1: 32) – knowing that – “not only practice them, but have fellow delight in those who do them”. Even the threat of punishment, the threat of judgment does not bring about a softening in the heart of man. What produces a softening in the heart of man is the goodness of God. It leads men to repentance. It led that woman of the city to repentance, the goodness of God. She loved much, she came and covered His feet with tears and wiped them with her hair (see Luke 7: 44). I wonder whether the grace and goodness of God has led you to repentance towards God. It is what God enjoins in the preaching, “all men everywhere to repent”. I have already quoted the passage that says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive them. What a wonderful thing that God is able to forgive sins. Someone said that to the Lord when He said to the woman, “thy sins are forgiven thee”: he said, “Who is able to forgive sins but God alone?”, Luke 5: 21. How true that is, but God was there in the Person of Jesus and He is righteously able to forgive the sinner.
I wonder, if each of us in this room were asked how it is that God could righteously forgive the sinner, who would know why that is? Why should He be righteously able to forgive me? He points us to the cross of Jesus where the sins of all who believe were borne by Jesus. One great lover of Christ said, “He bore our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Peter 2: 24). What grace that was, that He should take my sins upon Himself, that He should take them upon Himself as though they were His own, He who was sinless, and that He should bear the judgment of God due to me on account of them. How surpassingly gracious that is! He has borne the judgment due to me. He has borne the penalty due to me in going into death. His precious blood was poured out. There could be no remission of sins without it. Scripture says, “without blood-shedding there is no remission” Heb. 9: 22. Blood had to be shed and blood has been shed. “Precious blood as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1: 19), God’s beloved Son. His blood has been shed and as a consequence of that God is able to approach the sinner with forgiveness and with all that the sinner needs. But not only what the sinner needs, but more than the sinner needs. God is approaching us in Christ with all His purposes of love. They involve meeting our need, but they involve much more than that, because we learn that, as we have to do with God, as we are reconciled to God, we who once were enemies have become reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we learn that it is not only to meet our need, but it is to meet the desires of the heart of God Himself.
This is what David says, “thou shalt eat bread at my table continually”. He was given a place among the king’s sons, given a position, and the wherewithal that belongs to the position, not only a position of favour at the king’s table, but the wherewithal. God has not only given us sonship. He has given us that. “We are all God’s sons through faith in Christ Jesus”, Gal. 3: 26. As you put your faith in Christ Jesus you become one of God’s sons. You come into relationship with God Himself, and as a son you have the liberty of God’s house. A son does not have to ask to come into the house; it is his house, he has the liberty of the house, and as one of God’s sons the fulness and the fatness of His house is yours, but not only has He given you that in His grace, but He has given you the wherewithal to enjoy it.
That refers to the precious gift that God gives, the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is a very intimate matter that God should give to us of His own Spirit (see 1 John 4: 13). Do you not think that is a remarkably intimate matter that God should do that? That His Spirit should take up His abode in us and shed abroad in our hearts His love. The consciousness of being loved by God, and the power to respond to Him and to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Mephibosheth is given this inheritance and he is given servants to bring in the wealth of it in order that he might have the wherewithal to fill out the position that grace had given him as one of the king’s sons. Somebody once said, you would never have known that he was lame on both his feet as he sat at the king’s table. He sat among the king’s sons as one entitled to be there, but all of grace.
The scripture tells us that as a result of this he became very attached to David. The great blessings in the gospel are not simply to be enjoyed by themselves, but the effect of them is that you are to be brought into attachment and attraction to the giver of them. David is only a type, and like all the types he fails, and the scriptures tell us later on that Mephibosheth was wronged by him. A wrong that it appears was never put right in his life time. But Mephibosheth said of Ziba, a man who had slandered him to the king, “Let him even take all, since my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house”, 2 Sam. 19: 30. I only refer to that because it shows the place that David had acquired in his affections. He had the privilege of sitting at his table and of eating of his bread, he had the inheritance and the wherewithal to be a prince of the royal house – all that. But in his heart the most important thing was that David should be again in peace in his own house. How attached he was to him. God intends in the preaching that we should became attached to Jesus, the One who has loved us and given Himself for us. John says in writing in the Revelation, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”, Rev. 1: 5. He has done all that, and he says, “to him be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen”. I am challenged in my own heart as I speak of it as to how much Jesus means to me. How much does He mean to you? The One through whom the kindness of God has been expressed to you. Meeting your sinful state, meeting your need, delivering you from this present evil world, securing for you an eternal heavenly portion with Himself, what grace! You say how wonderful is the believer’s portion, but how wonderful is the One who has secured it all for you. God desires that those of us who are believers as we hear the gospel week by week, and love to hear it, let us challenge our hearts as to what place Jesus has, the One in whom the kindness and love to man of a Saviour God has appeared. Paul writing to Titus says of the “grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared”, Titus 2: 11. It came on to view in the Person of Jesus. It was seen in His life; in His healing power and sympathy. It was seen supremely in His death, in His intercession for those who crucified Him – the kindness and love to man of a Saviour God. May our hearts be attracted to Him, may we be found here in greater committal and fidelity to Him until He comes and in the words of Mephibosheth, ”Let him even take all, since my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house”. I wonder if Christ has assumed that place with us? You read those words of Mephibosheth, “Let him even take all”, and they were said in relation to a man of like passions to ourselves. How supremely should we be prepared to relinquish everything here, on account of Him, on account of Christ. The apostle says, “I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ; and that I may be found in him, not having my righteousness, which would be on the principle of law, but that which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God through faith, to know him, and the power of his resurrection”, Phil. 3: 8-10. This is the language typically of Mephibosheth, that he was prepared to relinquish all that David might be again in peace in his own house. The Lord is going to take up His rights, and all who love Him long for that, not simply to be with Him, but they long for the day when He will come into His own publicly and take up His rights and exercise them to God’s glory. But may our hearts increasingly be affected by the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God, first of all leading us to repentance, but then to giving Him the supreme place of which He is infinitely worthy.
For His Name’s sake.
ST ALBANS
4 January 2004