God's Kindness to Lame Souls
After David had been firmly seated on the throne he inquired whether any of the house of Saul were yet living; for if so, he would like to show them kindness for the sake of his beloved friend Jonathan. An old family steward named Ziba reports to the King that there is a son of Jonathan yet living who is “lame on the feet.” This is about the only fact known in regard to the poor waif of a dethroned royal family. He is a cripple. Ever sincf his nurse had fled from the house at the tidings of Jonathan’s bloody death, and dropped the little five-year-old in her panic, he had been incurably lame in both his feet. And so fie had been sheltered in the house of one Machir, over on the eastern side of the Jordan.
As soon as David learns that a child of his bosom friend is still in the land of the living, he remembers that he had once made a covenant with Jonathan to show the “kindness of the Lord” to his house forever. He promptly sends one of the royal chariots to Lodebar with orders to bring the poor lame Mephibosheth up to court. When the abashed cripple reaches the palace, and hobbles into the King’s presence chamber he is perfectly overwhelmed. He falls on his face, and exclaims, “What is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?” Mephibosheth seems to have been a shy and gentle creature, like many others who suffer from bodily infirmities; but there is nothing which so soon lays one flat on the face as a volley of unexpected kindness. No artillery kills an enemy like a broadside of love. If Mephibosheth had been taught from his childhood to regard David as the destroyer of the dynasty of Saul, all his early prejudices must have melted at once when the monarch received him so graciously. Not 97 only receives him, but adopts him “for Jonathan’s sake” into the royal household! He sits at the King’s board every day and finds a royal table, “a good hiding place for lame legs.” In that wild age of war, and violence, when revenge was so constantly practiced, this little cabinet-picture of the fugitive cripple seated at the imperial banquets has in it the lineaments of the New Testament Gospel. It is a very pretty parable of God’s, mercy to crippled souls.
Every sinner is lamed by sin, and is wholly impotent to restore himself. When the Holy Spirit awakens a sinner to a deep conviction of his own guilt, he is ready to confess his utter unworthiness in language as strong as that used by Mephibosheth. The godly Rutherford of Scotland describes himself in the same impassionate language as having once been a “dead carcass not able to step over a straw.” John Bunyan uses quite as vehement expressions in his “Grace Abounding.” Pungent convictions of personal guilt do not appear to be as common in these days; but I doubt whether 98 any man can rightly appreciate the wonderful mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and the infinite preciousness of atoning love unless he has been broken down in penitent self-abasement. The lowliest convictions of guilt are usually the prelude to the loftiest attainments in godliness. The repentant and restored ripples are those whose feet become “like hinds’ feet” in running in the pathway of God’s commandments.
There is a beautiful parallel between David’s embassy of kindness to bring up Mephibosheth to Hebron, and the mission of the atoning Saviour to crippled humanity in its far-off wanderings. That royal chariot halting at the poor lame fellow’s door to carry him up to the King is a fine figure of divine mercy that stops at the sinner’s doorway. Grace furnishes the chariot. Grace sent the only begotten Son of God into the world that whosoever trusteth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This home-bringing of the lamed exile to the palace reminds us of that scene where the father welcomes home the wan-L.ofC. 99 derer from the far country and kills for him the fatted calf, and clothes him in the goodly robe. This reception of a repentant and believing soul is all for Jesus’s sake, even as Mephibosheth was welcomed for Jonathan’s sake. Christ’s sufferings on the cross and His intercession are at the bottom of every sinner’s salvation. When any of us get admission to the marriage-supper in our Father’s House, our song will be to Him who came to seek and to save the lost. What a family of restored cripples there will be at that supper of the King!
God’s kindness to the lame is not only manifest in the atonement, or in pardon to the penitent sinner or in converting grace; it is shown in His patient forbearance and compassion to stumbling Christians.
For Christians do stumble, and some of them shockingly. Peter was not the first or the last to catch a disgraceful fall; he never would have healed a cripple in the “Gate Beautiful” if his own spiritual lameness had not been cured by his forgiving Saviour a short time before. God’s am-
100 bulances are kept pretty busy. The difference between an impenitent sinner and a Christian is that the one is wilHng to continue weak and wicked; the other when he sHps and sprains himself is not content to he on his face, but repents and seeks recovery, and walks more circumspectly. God is very forbearing toward the feeble Christians who like Bunyan’s “Ready-tohalt” hobble on crutches; but such slay no giants, reap no harvest, and win no crown. They are not models. When a soul has once been healed by divine grace of its lameness, it ought, like the cured cripple at the temple-gate, to be walking and leaping and praising God.