2 Samuel chapter 9. The little children are going to the junior church. So as they're leaving, I'll say a comment about the song that Debbie just sang from Psalm 36 in verse number 9. For with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light shall we see light. What a great verse. That song is based on that passage of Scripture from the 36th Psalm. was written, composed, and arranged by an evangelist, Phil Schuller. And gone home to be with the Lord, but in my opinion, one of the greatest preachers that I ever knew. And I'm glad to call him a friend. And Elijah and I were just mentioning yesterday how it was, in his memory, even as a little boy, going and taking the Schullers to go to Strongbow's and Valparaiso to eat. eating at a turkey buffet. Elijah always jokes about him and his grandfather stealing cookies in their pocket on the way home out of a buffet, but we've had some good times with people. Reminds me that we shouldn't take each other for granted, that God has a plan. He crossed our paths together for a reason. Enjoy each other. Fellowship is part of a church. Yesterday, the men all went, not all the men, but a good number, about 17 of us. We drove up to Idaho Falls and we met the other Mountain Valley Baptist Church from Chalice that I named our church after. It was the first church I ever preached at in the state of Idaho about 20 years ago. And we met, I think, nine of their men. So we took over the Chuck O'Rama restaurant. And they are probably gonna have to shut down for running out of food probably, right? But anyway, we had not so much the food, but it was just the fellowship. The men that were there, right? You had a good time, say amen. It was just rejoicing, all right? And then some of the men got to go with them. with Brother Ed down to the airport and saw that DC-8 that's part of the students that are from ISU. And a couple of them took more pictures. Colligio, where did Colligio go? I saw you posted some of those pictures. You ever sat in a cockpit before? No? He's like, let's put some fuel in this thing. He wants to fly back to Nigeria, he said. Anyway. So fellowship is part of our responsibility as a church. And you come in on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Thursday night. Sometimes you can get the impression you come in, you're at church and you could spend a lot of time talking to people and then run out the door. Please don't do that. Please meet somebody here and get to know each other. One of the joys is when you start to get to know people and you're praying for them, then you see them and you say, hey, it's been a rough week. You've had a rough week, they've had a rough week. And you come into the house of God, you shake hands, And you say, I've been praying for you, because you have. And I'm going to tell you, that's part of heaven on earth, sharing the blessings together. What I'm saying will go right with the message I'm about to preach. I'm going to preach about a man that you probably In picking names, you know, for young men, you're probably not going to choose this name just because it's a mouthful. In chapter 9 of the second book of Samuel, verse number 1, we're going to read down through verse number 6 and then verse 13. And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Zeba. And when they had called him unto David, the king said unto him, art thou Zeban? He said, thy servant is he. And the king said, is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may show kindness of God unto him? Not the kindness of David, the kindness of God. And Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a son, which is lame on his feet. And the king said unto him, where is he? And Ziba said unto the king, behold, he is in the house of Micah, the son of Amiel in Lodabar. Then the king David sent and fetched him out of the house of Micah, the son of Amiel from Lodabar. Now when Mephibosheth, that's a mouthful, isn't it? The son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was come unto David. He fell on his face and did reverence, and David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant. Now go down to verse 13. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he did eat continually at the king's table, and was lame on both his feet. Let's pray. Father, I pray that in the short time we have left in our morning service that you would guide me as I preach to touch with your word, your Holy Spirit into the hearts of our people. Pray that you'd guide me as a surgeon would be guided with your hands on their hands in an open heart surgery. I pray that we would be ready to receive, to confront, and as we talked about, a dynamic confrontation with God. Please bless this in Jesus' name. Amen. Now this account from scriptures takes place after the death of Saul and Israel's first king and establishment of David as king over all Israel. David had smitten the Philistines. He obtained a kingdom that was just a disaster. The armies had been overrun by the Philistines. It was really a mess. It was a disaster. But he had beaten down the Philistines. He had overcome the Moabites. He had fought the Syrians in the Valley of Salt, having defeated 22,000 soldiers of the Syrians. And all of Israel had flocked to him as their king. Now, David's first order of business is the subject of our consideration for this meeting. He seeks out the house of Saul, who was the enemy of David. Saul had sought his life. Saul had attempted on several occasions and hunted him down like a dog. But he looks out for somebody in the house of Saul. at a time when kings would rise to power in a new dynasty and would seek out any and all of the seed of the former dynasty and they would slaughter all of them. You read about that often in the Bible, later in the Northern Kingdom especially, where the houses of these men all killed. It's wicked. But David says, we're gonna do this first. He says, I'm gonna seek out a descendant. in order to show unto that descendant, as we read and made a note, the kindness of God unto him. Jonathan was David's best friend, but he is gone. In that battle of the Philistines, when they overran the country, many of Saul's sons were killed. But the best friend of David was Jonathan, and Jonathan had a son yet alive. But as they were fleeing from the city, this little boy was, the nurse had tripped and fallen and broken the legs and apparently made lame this individual who, after some time coming of age, was incurable according to their medical procedures of the time. And he finds this Mephibosheth in the little town of Lodabar. He had fallen in the fleeing. He had lost his property. He had lost any opportunity for the crown. He had lost the use of his legs. His losses were intense and immense. but there are some things we could learn. Now, I just want you to be patient with me this morning. I'm gonna bring up three things, but I want you to do something, if you will, take down the guard this morning. You have this guard around your heart. You say, I'm gonna come to church and I'm gonna take a little bit with me, but I'm gonna guard against that pastor getting with the word of God down deep into where I might get to the wounds of your heart. To touch the past. Some of this might actually get to a place in your heart where it's been raw. And I want you to take down those guards. Not for a pastor, but for the Lord. Because David here is a good example of what the Lord does. What he wants a Christian to do on a couple levels, but especially of the Lord. My first point today deals with letting old bitterness die. David had every reason to be bitter against Saul. I mean, Nathan the prophet had come and anointed David to be king, while Saul was the king. So with the knowledge that God wanted him to be king, David was not the friend of Saul. Saul feigned friendship with him after he had killed the giant Goliath and caused a great victory at that point in time. But then got jealous because the people were coming back saying Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. He became insanely jealous and in his sinfulness Saul actually became a deranged type of individual. He sought after David for his ability to soothe him with the music of his harp. And as David then later becomes the author of much of our book of Psalms, he is gifted with music and the ability to calm the heart. And Saul requires this for his rages. Part of those rages drove him to try to kill David, and a couple times he had to flee from the presence of David, or Saul, throwing a javelin his way, sticking to the wall. He ducked right out of the way in the nick of time, as you'd say. And then he had to run for his life. He's not running from somebody who verbally hurt him, but somebody who's literally trying to kill him. Saul pursued David, Like a dog, the Bible says. Like a dog. Like running around the country with an army of people after David, who then collects together a few hundred men that follow with him and they become his trusted men throughout the entirety of their lives, even past the establishment of his kingdom. Saul pursues David to kill him. While he was gone, running from his father-in-law because he had married Michael, the daughter of Saul, Saul takes his wife and marries her off to another man. Talk about a betrayal. Have you ever been hurt? Saul was the reason that Jonathan was dead. I mean, the Bible says that David loved Jonathan, and Jonathan loved David, and it had a unique relationship as the closest friends that they could ever have had. And David would have died for Jonathan, and Jonathan would have given his life for David. And yet, because of the foolishness and irresponsibility of Saul's kingdom, and the way that he ran things, and he then gets attacked by the Philistines, and Malkitua and Itzbosheth and some of the others of the brothers of Jonathan are all slain and Jonathan is killed and then Saul takes his own life in the battle. It is Saul's fault that David's best friend is dead. Itzbosheth, another grandson, makes himself king with the help of Abner, another betrayal. We like to look at the historical figures and like this in the Bible, David rises in the Old Testament, maybe only second in place in memory to Moses as a prophet. He becomes instrumental in so many ways of establishing what they know as the kingdom, being the preparer. of the temple's construction by his son Solomon. There's so much about David that comes to the forefront in scripture and so much of it that is very important to the New Testament concerning the future child who would be the Lamb of God as a descendant of King David. King David then rises to the top, and our viewpoint says, hey, we know the end of your history, and David must have had a real easy time, but when you really instruct yourself and study the life of David, you find that he is a man born to the leadership of a country, made it great, but not by ease and not by having everything handed to him, but through great difficulty, hurt, and sacrifice, and loss. but he comes to this very place when he ought to. naturally and humanly have an attitude toward anybody from Saul's lineage as if he would like to snuff them out. The rest of the world in the culture of his day would have applauded that kind of move. Hey, it's safe. You just go kill them all so they don't rise up in rebellion against you. And David said, Hey, now that I've established my kingdom, the first order of business is to show the kindness of God to any of the descendants of that man that was my enemy. David learned something that he was getting rid of bitterness out of his heart. Today many Christians are bitter and we justify our bitterness with reasons. We have husbands bitter against wives or former wives and wives bitter against husbands and former husbands. The hurt is very real. The attacks I mean, I'm talking about those that have gone through marriage dissolvement, maybe divorce, and they call the divorce is known as the hurt that keeps on hurting. Never seems to end. We have children that hold very natural and we would say justified resentment against their parents for some ills that were done in childhood. And today the issues of bringing those things up even alarm the heart and make people go into sometimes fits of panic when they feel the wounded parts of our hearts being opened up and addressed once again. There are other Christians that sometimes have hurt you. You say, oh, I can't believe that would ever happen. Stick around. You'll find Christians are just as human, and we get in the flesh and we do wrong. Some of the hardest attacks are the ones, see, the devil knows where to get us, and some of the hardest attacks we've ever felt and the betrayals are those who claim to be your brothers in Christ. I have doubted that some, the way they've acted, are they really saved? Do they really know the Lord? Is the Holy Spirit really inside of them? And it is possible, but it's, boy, it is not right. But I'm not talking about making right those things that have been done wrong to you. You notice in this passage, he doesn't address what it was right for Saul to do. Was it right for him to have his wife torn from his side? Was it right for Saul to try to kill him and pursue him like a dog and to treat him with this kind of hostility? It was always wrong. He had every reason, just like you do, because all of us have been hurt. All of us, as I talked about last week in the sermon, how to deal with hardship, every Christian, every person in this world has somewhere in their background something that they can point to, I believe. And if you haven't, just keep living, it'll happen. Attacks from the world and worldly people are understood, but boy, it's hard when it's somebody close to you. What? And you ask the question, why? And you say, as we talked about last week, we know, and we know that all things work together, that in the hands of God, God can take care of it. But there is a step much better and a step much further in your life when you can take the old bitternesses, the things that ought to well up in your heart, they do. They come to you. They sometimes operate your mind. They occupy your thoughts. It's like you can't run from these things. And I'm saying, the next step is when you can get it out of your heart and let old bitternesses go so that you can be free. I'm not talking about was it right. The Bible says it'll never be right. These things that have happened to us and the things that people have done to you and to me, we are never going to go back in history and be able to change those things. And sometimes the people that caused these things have already died, like this case, Saul's already gone. There's nothing he can do to fix it, but God can. And someday God's gonna set it all right because the dead, small and great, are all gonna stand before him. But in the meantime, God says, I want you to take a further step. You need to get that hurt out of your heart. And he looks at, we look at this, and David said, I'm gonna do it in this way, I'm gonna find somebody who I ought to hate, and I'm gonna show him the kindness, not the kindness of David, but the kindness of God. I look back at my life and I realize that I don't deserve that God has been so good to me. Yes, I've been hurt and there are some things in my life that have been tragic. But I'm gonna tell you that when I view everything, I say the tragedy came from man and in spite of that, God has been so good to me that I could but just praise the Lord for eternity. I don't deserve that kindness and neither does somebody that has hurt me. But the freedom that you obtain by letting the bitterness out of your heart and soul is something that is worth far more than money can purchase. It is when you have, even when they don't want to be forgiven that have hurt you. Saul never came to David really and repented. That you have prepared your heart to forgive them and their atrocities no longer have any kind of jurisdiction over your soul and your emotions. It's a freedom. It's a freedom. Well, you don't know what they did to me. Well, I may not know, but I know it must've hurt. David hurt real bad. Now, I'm talking about let down those shields right now. I'm not gonna embarrass anybody, but let those things down. Stop guarding your heart. Let this word seep right down into that very core where you were hurt. And know that God loves you. And even though Even though you have come so far to the point where you have, like last week, learned to deal with some hardships, there's another step you need to take. And that's you need to get the hardships, the hurts out of your heart. You need to let these things go. So how does it happen? Well, it happens because of forgiveness. I want you to think about the word of Ephesians 4.31. I don't want you to turn there unless you want to, but Ephesians 4.31 and it says there, let all bitterness and a few other things be put away from you. Well, that means I have something to do with it. It said, let all bitterness be put away. Wait a minute, that's something I do. So when I read the scripture, I'm talking about going down deep into that place that has been damaged by the difficulties and the things that other people, they don't deserve good things. They hurt my family. They destroyed my family, you might say. They hurt me on so many levels. But God wants you to do more than deal with your hardship. He wants you to let go of that hurt. The Bible tells us, as we prayed earlier, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, you know, verse three says, he restoreth my soul. Who hurt you? Your children? Your spouse? Your parents? Society? You cannot spend your life blaming everybody else. You can, but you will not be free. And the Lord knew that true freedom comes when you can get this out of your life. It's a step that you have to take. It's not an easy step. I was dealing with some issues maybe 15 years ago. I read a book and I recently gave it to one of our people to read and we talked about this book. The things that I faced as a child. And I read this book that dealt with this problem. And I began to read it. And I didn't even realize it, but it ended like 30 pages or so. It's not a very long book. I stopped and I realized, I am shaking. And I couldn't sleep for weeks. I said, what happened? The hurt that happened to me when I was a child was never dealt with. But I found the answer through God's word. And he pulled that hurt out so that it's gone. It's not just hidden from me, it's gone. And I'm telling you, there's a freedom where you can tell them, dear psychiatrist, I've never been to one, but you'd say, I don't need to come anymore. God has healed my heart. And so many Christians that I have dealt with in 30 plus years of ministry, people get saved and I find out that the devil's had his way in your life somewhere. There's been some problem, some real difficulty or tragedy that you say, man, this has got me. And when you realize that even the people that you're tempted to be bitter against or you might be bitter against, they might not even know that you're bitter. It's like they got the best of you. and you can do nothing about it. It's like they go on with their life and then you're stuck holding the bag like, hey, I've got all the hurt from you and you don't even care. Where's God in this equation? I'll tell you where God is. There's coming a judgment day when every single thing like this will be taken care of. Every single thing. And when he takes care of it, he does a better job. He holds the keys of heaven and hell You and I can't. He says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. He tells you and I, he said, it's not for you to have vengeance. It's not even good for you to have vengeance. In fact, the Lord says, hey, I'll tell you to deal with hardship, but beyond the hardship, there has to be some kind of spiritual surgery where you let the Holy Spirit into that dark part of your heart and you let those things go and let all bitternesses die. And it's done through forgiveness and showing great kindness. And it's an amazing thing. Bitterness has been defined as grudge, hatred, extreme enmity. And none of that is where the spirit fills you. You don't find any of that in his love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. But then so many Christians, so many people in this world are held captive, are held captive by some bitterness. Well, they deserve us to be bitter. Yes, yes, he did too. He had every reason. But you will not be free as long as you are holding on to it. You will not find the freedom to go on in your spiritual development, your life for God until you can look back and say, I realized that those things were wrong and they are not right, but that's God to take care of that. But in my heart, no longer am I gonna be held a prisoner to the problems that other people have caused. And it is done by forgiveness and showing kindness. Bitterness is really, it's like a sickness that'll come in your heart. In Hebrews 12, you can read about it, it defiles every part of your heart, the Bible says, literally defiling. In other words, as a result of you live in bitterness, your heart will be defiled. so that some difficulties will come in your life later and they'll bring back all of this and all of a sudden you cannot cope with it. I cannot deal with this. Why can't you deal with it? Because somewhere there was some bitterness that was never let go and now the littler things, the minor problems of life that shouldn't be a real catastrophe are all of a sudden sending you into a rage. Where did that rage come from? Certainly you're hurting people that love you. But the rage has to be dealt with because you go back to that point of bitterness and you say, between you and God, let's do some serious surgery spiritually. And let's cut out the cancer that's in my heart. I'm not talking about an easy thing. I'm not talking about a solution that we're gonna, I want you to come and pray at the altar and dedicate this thing to God, but it'll only be the beginning of dealing with a problem. And God wants to be the healer of your heart and mind He said the peace of God that passes all understanding. Are you living in peace? He's talking about the contentment within that though you don't have everything everybody else has, it's okay, you have God. And with God you have everything you need and everything that ever could satisfy the soul. I have some other points. I think that it's important for you to forgive. And forgiveness is not depending on the person or object that you forgive. It is 100% depending on you. People talk about, well, if they don't ask forgiveness, then I can't forgive them. No. Ephesians 4, 31 said, let all bitterness depart, right? Verse 32 says, and be kind one, now listen, one to another. Tenderhearted, what does he say? Forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. When did he forgive you? When did he cry, it is finished? When did He look up in the heavens and say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do? On the cross, and when Jesus died on the cross for my sin, all of my sins were future. I wasn't there bending my knee at that point. In fact, as I lived a lot of years here, with my fist raised at heaven's door, saying, I am my own person, I'm gonna do what I want. And yet all that time Jesus had forgiveness already prepared. And it was prepared, listen, it was paid for. My heart could be free in an instant. The moment I turned to Jesus for salvation and he ripped all of that sin out of my life and gave me his righteousness, I am forever a child of God. Hey, friend, you can have that kind of freedom at salvation. But to be free from bitterness, you need to prepare the forgiveness even when the people are not ready to ask for forgiveness. It's your heart I'm talking about, not theirs. And you go down deep in that part of your heart and you don't really wanna stress this and you may not feel comfortable. You might be sitting there experiencing some of the early signs of a panic attack right in the auditorium. And I understand that because it's a difficult thing for you to face. But God loves you deeper than that. And he wants your life to be totally free. Free of those past hurts so that you can trust again. That's what happens. You get sinister, like I'm never gonna trust another person in my life. Look, you can't live that way and enjoy life. But if you'll forgive, you'll go on to trust again. You'll go on to thank God again. You'll go on to see God working in your life and recognize the hand of God and you'll go on to love one another again with a love that you never had before. You'll go on to understand that other people go through difficulties and trials and you're there to be the kind of median and helper and strengthener and comforter that other Christians need. But if you live with that bitterness, you're not comfortable with yourself and you're not really helping anybody else around you. I read the story of a man who spent his life with dirty diapers. That everywhere he went, when there was a soiled diaper, he would put it in a bag and he would carry it with him. His whole house was full of bags of soiled diapers in every kind of stage of rotting. And everyone around him said, wow, this is hard to be around because his life is filled with these soiled diapers. It was a story that a person was relating to the hurts that you're carrying with you. Everywhere you go, there's something rotten. No one else, everything is through the filter of that kind of smell. Why doesn't anybody want to be around me? Maybe because the hurt that you have is causing other people to be uncomfortable. And the only way to do it is to find forgiveness in God And the forgiveness, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, to forgive them. Forgive them. They don't deserve it. And you know what? You don't deserve God's forgiveness today. I don't either. I had some other points. I want to draw this to a conclusion today and deal, let the Holy Spirit work on your heart. But really in one sense, Mephibosheth is a representation for us of all humanity. All mankind has fallen and we're all helplessly crippled. We ought to face the wrath of the king. We live in a city of destruction, like he was living away from the capital, the presence of the king. He was living in Lodabar, dirty, cold, living in fear and wondering how he would survive. Every good thing stripped from our lives, and in spite of the king's righteous indignation to really judge each one of us for our sins, yet he sought me out. And he came himself. in the person of Jesus Christ. And he took the punishment for my sins and for yours. He sent out these messengers, these preachers that like to be loud, right? So that somebody knock on your door to tell you Jesus loved you. You don't have to die a cripple in Lodabar. In fact, as he invites you, come and see the king himself and have a relationship Have your life reborn in this sense and come and sit at the table with the King Himself as a child of the King and live in this life as a child of God. If you'll receive Christ as your Savior, Mephibosheth is a picture of those who, like John says, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. If you're lost, come now to that same King who has sought you out and sent messengers to Lodabar where you're living spiritually. And come to Jesus, become part of the family, have a place at the table with the Creator God, the Almighty, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Step out and trust God, what he's done to give you salvation. So really, this is a great story, isn't it? A story of eternal salvation that's a picture and a story of your restoration as a person dealing with the hardships and tragedies of your life. Are you ready to ask God for his help? Let's all stand together, if you will, at your seats, heads bowed and eyes closed. It's not a long sermon, I want God to deal with your heart. If you died today, do you know you're going to heaven? And if you have a question about it you don't know, we wanna show you how to be saved. Say, how do I find that salvation? First step, first step, look at your foot. Take that foot and put it out toward the aisle. Come right down here in just a moment. You come and if you're a lady, I'll have a lady show you how to be saved. If you're a man, a man will deal with you. But friend, if you need to be saved, you come get my attention. We want you to know Christ. Don't live in Lodivar and die the death of those who know not Christ, but come to Jesus today for salvation. Christian or anybody in the room, what's hurting your heart today? I think it's gonna be a process, but God wants you to let go of the old bitterness. Would you come and talk to the Lord at the old-fashioned steps here, the altar? where you can pray and begin the process and say, God, I've been hurt, I know it, but I need that bitterness to be taken out of my heart. I need God to do something that I cannot do. Would you come as the piano plays? Come and talk to the Lord. The altar is open, Christians.