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Second Samuel chapter 9, beginning in verse number 1, the Bible reads, 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 Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the king said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he. And the king said, Is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God unto him? 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 Makor, the son of Amiel and Lotavar. Now the thing that really stands out here is just that David just has such a desire to do what's right and just to show the kindness of God unto somebody who really doesn't deserve it, really hasn't earned it whatsoever. And he's saying, Is there anybody that's left of the house of Saul that I may show him the kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now as we read this story, this is actually a beautiful picture of salvation in this story. It's a great parable of salvation to think about Mephibosheth representing us in our helpless condition. He's lame on his feet and he ends up getting a lot of things given to him that he doesn't deserve. And he ends up being as one of the king's sons, which reminds us obviously of being saved, having eternal life. We don't deserve to go to heaven. We haven't earned our way into heaven. But yet he has made us on the kings and priests, not in his father. But is it for our sake? Is it because of the fact that we are worthy that we are saved? No, because the Bible says that it's for Jesus Christ's sake that we are saved. And so that's what this kind of represents here. But he says, Is there yet any of the house of Saul? Now remember, Saul was his archenemy. And I know we've gone over this a lot on previous weeks. But David is pretty much one of the greatest examples in the Bible of loving your enemies. And people who had done him wrong, he did not return hatred for hatred there when Saul was persecuting him and hating him and going after him. And that's exactly what Jesus taught when he said, But I say you love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you and so forth. That's what David is a perfect example of. That's part of why he was a man after God's own heart. Now notice it says in verse 3, and the king said, Is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God unto him? Now flip over to that passage in Matthew 5 because I want you to see the whole thing. Keep your finger in 2 Samuel 9 because it talks about showing him the kindness of God. Now remember, love is something that comes from God. And that's why the Bible says God is love. And it says everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. And the Bible says love is of God, meaning that it comes from God. He's the source of love. So therefore, if you study the book of 1 John, you'll see that the unsaved world doesn't really have love. They don't understand what real true love is because love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. So even just being born of God doesn't mean that you're necessarily a loving person or that you understand what love is. Because it says everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Meaning, that's something that's a process of getting to know God as you read your Bible and as you become close with God and walk with God. As Paul said, that I may know him. He said, I consider all things but dumb that I may win Christ and that I may know him. And the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. See, whether or not you're saved is whether God knows you. But you knowing him is a different story. See, the Bible says that Jesus will one day tell the unsaved, apart from me, I never knew you. So God knowing you, Jesus knowing you, is what gets you saved when you're known of God, as Galatians talks about. Whereas you knowing God, well, how well do you know him? Well, here's the answer to that question. How well do you know your Bible? Because how well you know your Bible is how well you know God. And how well you know your Bible is how well you understand what it means to truly love. And the love of God is going to dwell in you richly in all wisdom when you're filled with the Holy Ghost, the Bible said. Because the fruit of the Spirit is love. I mean, that's the first thing out of that. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, temperance. There is no law. But look at Matthew 5, verse 43, it says, He hath heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. Of course, that teaching is nowhere in the Old Testament. This is just saying people have said that. It's not a biblical teaching. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. So in this scripture here, it shows that God is our example of how to love. That's why David said, I want to show the kindness of God unto him. That's why he said, Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Here he says, Love your enemies, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. So what's the Bible saying? God loves those who don't love him. God loves his enemies in a sense. And so the Bible says here that we follow that example. Remember of course when Jesus Christ was on the cross. And he's being nailed to the cross. What did he say? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And who followed that example perfectly in the Bible? But Stephen in Acts 7. As he was being stoned by the Jews, he said, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And who was one of the people that he prayed for when he said that? Saul, who would later be the apostle Paul, was standing there. As Stephen was being stoned, saying, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. So Stephen was making an intercessory prayer even for the apostle Paul. That God would not hold that against him. And then it says in the next verse, for if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And that right there shows the difference between man's love and God's love. That's why the Bible says, for scarcely for a righteous man would one die. Yet her adventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commanded his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the difference between man's love. We love people if they love us. You know, how many wives today would say, well, I would love my husband if he loved me. Or how many husbands say, well, I'd love my wife if she would love me. But Christianity is teaching us that we love our wife whether they love us or not. We love our husband whether they love us or not. And we love those even who despitefully use us and persecute us. Now, a lot of people, of course, will just kind of disregard huge chunks of the Bible and they'll translate this as love everybody. Well, I can see where they're coming from if this were the only verse in the Bible. But what I struggle to understand is how I, the first time I read the Bible cover to cover, noticed all the verses that were talking about hating people and that there's a time to love and a time to hate and who we should hate and who God hates. I just understand are people just not reading the same Bible I'm reading or are they just not reading the Bible whatsoever or are they just not paying attention? Because I just find it hard to ignore over 20 verses that just really clearly spell out where hate plays a role. Now, the vast majority of people on this earth we should love. Obviously, the Bible tells us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. That should go without saying. Anyone that's saved, we love them. No question. Even amongst the unsaved. Ninety-some percent of the unsaved, we love them too. The only people that the Bible talks about us not loving are people that are those who, for example, love violence, people who are like child molesters. People who are reprobates anyway. They're not going to get saved anyway because they're reprobates going to Romans 1. And they're people that the Bible says are haters of the Lord and so forth. And David said, David the poster child for loving your enemies said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Well, this is David talking. No, it's in Psalms. And Psalms is God's word. God commands us to sing that song. We need to put that thing in music. Because honestly, God commands us to sing the Psalms. And I think a lot of people, you know, would to God we could get a lot of the King James Psalms put to music and sing them because we've been delinquent in that as God's people. Because we just grew up in a culture where you just don't do that in independent Baptist church. But we need to follow that. Because then maybe we'd have better doctrine. You know, if we're singing all the songs. Because there's a lot of great doctrine in the book of Psalms. In fact, a book that you'll find Jesus quoting over and over again is the book of Psalms. And a book that Paul will be quoting over and over again is the book of Psalms. It's one of the greatest books in the Bible. I mean, how many of you would say, Hey, it's one of my favorite books. Who would say it's your number one favorite book in the Bible? Yeah, a couple people. And I don't blame you. I mean, it's a wonderful book. It's a book that you keep going back to it. And it's just so interesting. There's so much depth. And there's so many different types of Psalms. Some of them tell stories. They tell Bible stories. They talk about doctrine. It's a fascinating book. Don't throw it out. It's God's word. Because the Bible quotes Psalms and says, Well spake David. It said, Well spake the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David. And then it quotes Psalms. Jesus is quoting Psalms. The apostles are quoting Psalms in Acts chapter 1. And they're even quoting some of the gnarliest Psalms in Acts chapter 1. One of the hateful Psalms is quoted in Acts chapter 1. Psalm 109. And so you don't want to just take one verse and ignore the rest of the Bible. That being said, the vast majority of people are not reprobate, evil, pedophile freaks. And so obviously we should love our enemies. What's your enemy? Those who do wrong to you. People who do you wrong. People who lie to you. People who lie about you. People who maybe at the job will blame stuff on you that you didn't even do. Right? Persecute you. Despitely use you. But here's the thing. Sometimes they're doing it in ignorance. They're not just malicious, evil, wicked haters of God. They're just an unsaved person. They don't know what love is because they haven't seen the love of Christ. Or sometimes even people that are saved. They're backslidden. Or whatever. Or they're just babes in Christ or whatever. And they don't show the proper love of God for the people in their life. And so we should love our enemies and do it for Jesus Christ's sake. To love the kindness of God unto them and be a testimony of love and kindness unto others. The Bible says, Hereby shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have loved one to another. Now look down at the Bible here. It says, If you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? Verse 47. And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the publicans so? What does it mean to salute someone? Say hi. Say hi. This shows that we should be friendly as Christians. We're going to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We should be friendly and greet people when we're out and about. Not just salute our brethren only. Not just come to church and greet people. But here's the thing. Some people come to church and they don't even greet people. We should definitely be coming to church and greeting the brethren. Greet all the brethren. But hold on a second. What about when we're out there? What about when we're at the grocery store? We're walking down the street. We shouldn't be a person who is just kind of disregarding the people around us. Because you know a lot of times just saying hi to somebody can lead you into an opportunity to give the gospel. Just by being friendly. Just by, you know, you just run into people and say hi, greet them, salute them. People that are not your brethren, people you don't know. You say hi to them, you strike up a conversation. And you can often give the gospel to people that you run into in your daily life. You just start saluting people. You know, and that's what the Bible teaches that we should do that. Let's go back to 2 Samuel chapter 9. So we see David showing the kindness of God onto Mephibosheth which is exactly what Jesus taught. He's lame in his feet. Now look at verse 5 of chapter 9. It says, Then King David sent and fetched him out of the house of Makor, the son of Amiel, from Lodobor. Now when Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was coming to David, he fell on his face and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant. And David said unto him, Fear not, for I will surely show the kindness for Jonathan my father's sake. And then we'll get to the rest in a second. But why is he telling him to fear not? Well, you know, a lot of kings in the Bible, when you read the books of, you know, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, what do they do when they take power? Kill the family. The previous king, they killed their whole family. Why? Because they don't want somebody else to come along and say, Hey, wait a minute, Saul was the king. We need a descendant of Saul on this throne. So a lot of times what they would do is wipe out the entire family to make sure that that previous kingdom could not come back. So Mephibosheth, when somebody comes and says, Oh, David wants to talk to you. We're going to take you to go see him. And he's one of the last people of the house of Saul. And David's in his kingdom, you know, he doesn't necessarily know what's going to happen. And so he fears David because of the fact that David has the power to kill him. You know, and he thinks that he might have the inclination. Of course, David is a godly man and he would never kill one of Saul's descendants. And he's been sticking up for Saul's descendants all along. But Mephibosheth here is told not to fear because he says, I will show the kindness for Jonathan, thy father's sake. But notice in verse 6, about halfway through, it says, He fell on his face and did reverence. Now, when we think about the word reverence in the Bible, the Bible talks about us reverencing God a lot. Now, what does it mean to reverence God? Well, it means to have respect for him, but here's the thing. Respect is a milder word than reverence. And a lot of the new Bible versions will sometimes substitute the word respect for reverence and change the meaning and the feel of the passage. Because honestly, respect, and the Bible does use the word respect, but respect does not convey just the power of the word reverence because the word reverence is a very strong word. I mean, you could respect someone without reverencing them. Now, if you study the word reverence, one of those sermons where I go through and look at all the mentions of reverence from start to finish in the Bible, it's often associated with fear. It's often used as a synonym for the word fear or it's associated with the word fear. And it's basically to stand in awe of, to respect and to fear. It's like when the Bible says that every man should fear his father and mother. So basically children are supposed to fear their parents. They're supposed to respect their parents. But also the Bible talks about us reverencing God. And when we think about being irreverent, what are we talking about? You know, when you think about people on TV are often very irreverent. Humor that's on TV or movies or that Hollywood puts out will often be irreverent. Another word for that is blasphemous. And if you look up blasphemy in the dictionary, it's irreverence. It's a lack of respect for God. It's a lack of fear of God. It's not standing in awe of God and understanding that He holds our destiny in His hand. And so we just flippantly will just say things about God, use His name as an expletive. And the Bible says not to take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. And yet people will blaspheme the Lord by using His name as an expletive. And you know the most offensive expletive that there is is to say Jesus Christ as an expletive. Because that's a name that's above every other name. And to use that just as something that you just throw around and have no reverence for. And the Bible says our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name. It's not to be irreverent. We have to be careful that our humor is not irreverent or disrespectful to God. And for example there are a lot of shirts out there that you can buy at the Christian bookstore that I find to be irreverent. You know when you have something that's designed after the Budweiser ad and it says this blood's for you. Or the Starbucks logo with the long hair Jesus instead of that mermaid or whatever that thing is with the hair given under her covering literally. But I'm saying like you know look you don't get the Starbucks logo and put Jesus on it and put him with the squiggly hair as you know that's irreverent. That's disrespectful. And you know anytime you're making an image of Jesus you're being disrespectful. You're irreverent. Because the Bible says look take heed when you went in the mouth Moses you saw no image. You saw no similitude. Don't make unto thee any graven image. Don't make a molten image. Because God cannot be fashioned like unto gold and silver and stone. And we need to have the proper respect for God and not drag him down to the level of just a picture of some dude. Because you know when you're carrying around a picture of Jesus that's not Jesus. There was no camera back then. No one painted Jesus while he lived. And so that picture of Jesus is a picture of some guy. Now what if somebody took a picture of you and hung it on their wall and said this is a picture of Jesus. Or what if somebody took you and put you on a cross on a picture and said this is Jesus on the cross. You know you would think that that was totally ridiculous wouldn't you? And you'd be offended by that and you'd think it was weird it would creep you out. But wait a minute. They're putting some random dude. And there's probably people out there in the world that look like that. Because I've seen some people in my life where I was like that guy looks like. I don't want to say he looks like Jesus. But you know that guy looks like what people think Jesus looks like. Have you ever seen somebody? This guy looks like Jesus. There was a guy at our church one time. He had long hair but like a real trimmed beard. And he looked like the kind of blonde haired, blue eyed, Catholic looking Jesus. And I mean we joked about it because it was like this guy could be the anti-Christ. People could fall for this guy. This guy is believable. But I'm just saying don't just put some random guy up in your house and say that's Jesus. Especially not if he has long hair because the Bible says it's a shame for a man to have long hair. There's not one scrap of evidence in the Bible that Jesus had long hair. Not even one verse that even says anything close to that. You say well if everybody's doing it, it must be true. No because this is what happened in the Renaissance. We're talking 13, 14, 1500 years after Jesus lived. We're talking over a thousand years after Christ, the Renaissance painting of Jesus made him look like an effeminate type of a guy. A lot of times they'll show him with no beard when the Bible teaches that he had a beard. You look at the prophecies in Isaiah and everything like that. But they'll show him with maybe a little goatee or not even a beard. But they'll show him just looking really girly, looking really effeminate, long hair, etc. And they made that image up only just several hundred years ago. This isn't going all the way back. Well with the Shroud of Turin. Just because the Catholics produce some fraudulent dirty old rag. And by the way, all the righteousness that they're trusting in to get them to heaven is a filthy rag. They have a filthy rag that they bring out and it shows like an outline of a dude with long hair. But they have all, I mean the Catholics for centuries have been selling little chunks of wood and saying this is a piece of the cross. Kissing it and you know, this is a piece of the cross. Oh they're relics. Or this is, some saint touched this one time. Oh no. That's what they do. Because they're superstitious. Right. Because it's like paganism. It is. It's not biblical Christianity. And so you know, the Shroud of Turin is a fraud. Right. And you know there is no, why would God sit there and make a big deal about don't make any image and everything and then leave an image. Here's a nice little pattern for you to make idols with. Use this pattern. But past and present I saw it on the History Channel. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. I saw it on the Learning Channel or whatever the channel. But it's not real. Okay. And so these guys literally were sodomites who made these paintings in Renaissance. Many of them. Now you know, I'm not saying they all were, but I'll tell you one who was. Michelangelo. Yeah. And if you have a doubt, just you know, because you say well I've seen pictures of you know Michelangelo's paintings and they're about that weird. Because the ones that are famous are the most normal ones. But one time I was at a bookstore and I was looking for some certain imagery for some artwork. And I picked up this book that was the complete works of Michelangelo just out of curiosity. And I looked at that book and I was like this is the weirdest book I've ever seen. And it was the, I was like we've only seen the normal stuff from Michelangelo. I mean it was just bizarre. Like there's no doubt that the guy was a sodomite. If you just, just go look at the picture. I mean it's just like whoa, this guy is a freak. Okay. Who's going to spend their life just painting a bunch of naked dudes? And making them all look like fags. All of them. Okay. And you know what, it wasn't just him, you know. You know, Leonardo da Vinci. Same way. All the Ninja Turtles, but no. I'm just saying you know, all these guys. You know, Raphael, Don Tello are probably swirly too. But I'm just saying that you know, you can't sit there and take an image. How in the world did I get off of this? What does this have to do with Mephibosheth or David or somebody else? Reverents. I'll be land to plan. Oh yeah, reverents. It's irreverent to drag Jesus down to the level of a feminine man. It's irreverent to make him into a statue. To make him into a plastic doll. It's irreverent to joke about this blood's for you and Starbucks and blah blah blah. You know what, we need to have reverence and respect and fear before the Lord. And look, we don't want to obviously go to a weird extreme like the Jews. The Christ rejecting, unbelieving Jews. Go to this thing of like, where they'll put like G-D for God. And they're like afraid to even say it. And here's the thing, they were so afraid to say his name for so long. They all forgot how to pronounce it. No Jew knows how to pronounce his Old Testament name. Jehovah, you know, they don't know how it was supposed to be pronounced because they just didn't say it for hundreds of years. It's too sacred. No, it's not too sacred to say, but it's too sacred to say in vain. You know, we ought to proclaim the name of Jesus. We shouldn't hide from it. And by the way, that's the name that's above every name. But when we proclaim the name of Jesus, listen, and here's a good rule of thumb for you. If you want to know how to use Jesus' name properly, you should either be talking to Jesus or about Jesus. If you're not talking to Jesus and you're not talking about Jesus, then you're using his name in vain. And by the way, you shouldn't even say, oh my God, because the Bible actually says that God is one of his names. It's not just a title as the Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses say, well, that's his title. The word title, the only time title is used in the Bible is like when they put that sign above Jesus. When he was on the cross, that's the title above him where it said this is Jesus, the King of the Jews in three languages. But the Bible doesn't use the word title. So when the Jehovah's Witnesses tell you, oh, that's his title, that's an extra biblical doctrine. That's not something they got from the word God. And so we need to be talking to Jesus or about Jesus, to God or about God, not just, oh my God. I don't even say, oh my gosh. What's the point? I don't even want to mess with it. Just find something else to yell out. And try not to be offensive with it, but find something else for when you slam the hammer down on your thumb when you're doing carpentry. Sugar booger. Here you go, folks. Leave it to you, brother Gregory. I don't think that's going to catch on. So we need to be sure that we're reverent and respectful. But here's the thing. You know what the Bible also says? It says that husbands should love their wives, and the wife, see that she reverents her husband. Now, with all this talk about reverence, let me ask you this. Wife, are you reverent to your husband? And you know what? I'd probably say that probably the vast majority of women in America today, probably 97% are irreverent to their husband. They don't look to him as someone that's in authority where they fear before him and have reverence for him and respect for him, and they realize that he's the boss. But rather, they would just shut his stupid mouth if he's not saying what they wanted to say. Disregard what he's... You can't tell me what... Instead of showing proper reverence and submission and subjection. And a lot of trendies now will say, oh, well, the Bible doesn't say wives are supposed to obey. It just says they're supposed to be in subjection and in subjection, blah, blah, blah. No. It says the word obey repeatedly. It says obedience to their own husband. It says obey. It says submit. It says be subject. But you know what? Those are all outward. Obedience, subjection, submission. That's the outward. But you know what reverence is? It's the heart. Reverence is where in your heart you actually respect your husband. And listen, ladies. Don't marry a man that you can't respect. Because God can make... Now look, if you're married and you say, well, too late. But you know what? You need to reverence him anyway. It doesn't say reverence him if he's worthy. It says reverence him, period. You know, he's supposed to love you no matter what and you're supposed to reverence him no matter what. And if you married somebody that you have a hard time reverencing, then you know what? That's your fault for marrying somebody that you can't respect. But you know what? You can respect because the Bible says I can do all things for Christ which strengthens me. And God's commanding you to do it. You can do it through Christ. And respect him for Jesus' sake because he represents Christ in the home. And so you should have reverence. You say, well, what does that mean, reverence? Well, it's a strong word. That means you should have deep respect and fear of your husband and not just sit there and just kind of casually respect him. Okay, you know. And again, I'm not going to preach a whole sermon on marriage, all the responsibilities of husbands, all the responsibilities of wives. I just want to point that out, though, with the word reverence. It says he fell on his face and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth, and he answered, Behold thy servant. And David said unto him, 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 he bowed himself and said, What is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am? And you know what? That's what we, before we were saved, we were dead in trespasses and sins. And we ought to have a humble attitude before God saying, Well, I'm not worthy of salvation. I'm not worthy to go to heaven. I'm not worthy of God blessing me. But he does. And thank God for that because God has blessed us with so many good things in addition to dying for us and saving us and so forth. And so this is a beautiful picture of that. And by the way, he said, Mephibosheth, you're going to sit at my table continually. And you know, when you get saved, it's not because you were good enough or earned it or worthy. It's all for Jesus' sake. And that's why I say it was for Jonathan's sake. And you know what? We're also, we're saved continually. It's not something where, well, you'll eat at my table as long as you have table manners. Like, well, no, you're going to be at my table continually. You're going to be at my table. And you know what? You know that it was the best food that was out there. I mean, think about it. What kings eat. And by the way, we in America in 2015 literally eat like kings. And I mean that in the most literal sense of the word because if you study history what kings ate and what the nobility ate, what was the difference between what they ate and what the common man ate? Well, a big difference was that they had an abundance of meat available to them. And you know what? Most people in America can pretty much eat as much meat as they want or at least eat a lot of meat. But not only that, kings would often bring in exotic foods from all over the world. They're bringing in spices because back then you had to risk your life to travel to India or to get the exotic spices or to travel to some island and trade with gold and silver. And a lot of times the ship doesn't make it back or a lot of times the caravan is going to be raided. So you had to risk life and limb to go get these spices. So very expensive. So who could afford them? Kings, rulers, and things that we take for granted. Who studied history a lot and can think of some spices that were something that were not readily available to the common man? Nutmeg. What's that? Nutmeg. Nutmeg, right? So look, the eggnog that you enjoy, you're drinking like a king, buddy. What else? Cinnamon. Cinnamon, nutmeg. These are things we take for granted. Cinnamon? We eat that all the time or we use that for all kinds of things. Just even the most basic things were often imported. Or just certain exotic fruits, vegetables. We could go to the grocery store right now and we would find all kinds of produce from South America. There's almost no such thing as something being in season that are out of season anymore. Because it's like, oh, it's out of season? Just bring it from the part of the world where it's in season. And we're sitting there and eating chocolate, which was something that wealthy people used to eat. We've got just an abundance of chocolate. And I eat chocolate every single day. I'm not kidding. I mean that in the most literal sense. I consume large amounts of chocolate on a daily basis. I think that dark chocolate is good for you. So I stick with mainly the dark chocolate. I eat like a king, my friend. And not only that, just exotic fruits and vegetables. Just whatever you want. I mean whatever you want. We're eating Mexican food, Italian food, Chinese food. Whatever you want. I mean it reminds me of when I was with brother Jimenez and we kept going out to Mexican food. And he always got the same thing every time. The carne asada, every time. And he told me, he said, you know what, I love Mexican food so much. And he's like, I think I can eat Mexican food every day. And I said, you know those people who do that? They're called Mexicans. They eat everything. The interesting thing about that is that we think to ourselves like, wow, that'd be really bold. You know, really crazy. Like I'm just going to limit myself to only Mexican food. But guess what? People in China pretty much eat Chinese food. And they're hungry an hour later. And people pretty much, you know, people pretty much eat Mexican food in Mexico. You know, but we in America, we just, you know, eat whatever. And just variety and just, I mean, we eat like, only kings used to be able to bring in. I mean look at what Solomon's doing when he just has so much money, so much gold. What's he bringing in? Apes, peacocks. I mean we could all go to the zoo and see that. The poorest person could go to the zoo and feel like Solomon for a day. Looking at apes, looking at peacocks. You're like, that's not that cool. But you know, it's just because you're spoiled. Because it is cool to look at apes and peacocks. Solomon thought it was cool. You know, what else? And also what's it say? He's bringing in the spices. He's bringing in the cinnamon. You know, he's bringing in all the nutmeg. He's bringing in all the, you know, saffron or whatever. Is that what that stuff's called? Saffron, you know, whatever the spice is. And he's eating exotic, tasty food. Because you know, a lot of poor people throughout history are eating some pretty bland food. Everything just tastes like salt and everything's bland and everything's plain and they're eating the same thing over and over again. Same thing over and over, same thing, same thing. In some ways that, you know, it's good for them sometimes in their indigenous diet. But, because we eat a lot of weird stuff that we bring in. But, you know, we need to appreciate what we have just in America and just be thankful for our food. And Jesus, when you see Jesus eating in the Bible, he's constantly giving thanks. He gives thanks, then he eats. And we need to do that when we eat. Thank the Lord for our food. And not just as a ritual, you know, did you just take this food, bless our bodies, did you say amen? But actually, mean it and think about it. Wow, God really has blessed me with some amazing food. But when Mephibosheth is gonna eat at the king's table, this is a big deal. I mean, he's gonna be eating good for the rest of his life. That means he's gonna be healthy because he's getting all this nutrition of, you know, high quality foods. He's, just his taste buds are having a party in his mouth, you know, three times a day. And, you know, his needs are provided. God's providing his daily bread. And not only that, but he gets some lands and things to earn, or to own, rather. And so he sits at his table continually. It says in verse 9, Then the king called to Ziba, Saul's servant, and said unto him, I have given unto thy master's son all that pertain to Saul and to all his house. Thou, therefore, and thy sons and thy servants shall till the land before him, and thou shalt bring in the fruits, that thy master's son may have food to eat. But Mephibosheth, thy master's son, shall eat bread all the way at my table. Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then said Ziba unto the king, according to all that my lord, the king had commanded his servant, socialized servant do. As for Mephibosheth, said the king, he shall eat at my table as one of the king's sons. And you know what? We are one of the king's sons, as we're saying. Amen. And not only that, but the Bible says that we will eat and drink in the kingdom of God. Amen. After Jesus resurrected, he ate. Amen. What did he eat? Fish. He was not a vegan. Honey. A lot of vegans don't even do honey. He was doing fish. He's doing honey. He's constantly asking for food after he's resurrected. Hey, did he have you any meat? And so that shows that we, when we're in our resurrected body that will be fashioned like unto his body, the Bible says, Blessed is he that eateth and drinketh in the kingdom of God. So once we get up to heaven, we're going to eat. I mean, that's going to be some wonderful food. But you know, we don't deserve it. But we've been saved, and God has made us as the king's sons, and he's going to bless us with all this wonderful food. We have the spiritual food of the Bible while we're on this earth. We have physical food from all over the world because we live in America. We're going to go to heaven and dine and feast eternally with the saints. You know, we're very blessed. You know, when was the last time you thought about it? And you're lame. You know, like, I don't mean you personally. Spiritually. Because what was Mephibos said? Lame. Lame of his feet. And you know what? That's a picture of us spiritually just helpless, not able to succeed on our own, not able to stand on our own two feet. Yep. Relying on the Lord for our food. Relying on the Lord to take care of us and to give us blessings. It says in verse 12, And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah, and all that dwelt in the house of Ziba were servants unto Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem for he to eat continually at the king's table and was lame on both his feet. Let's put our eyes on that word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful story, Lord, about Mephibosheth, and help us to realize that spiritually we are like Mephibosheth and that you are like David unto us. You've shown us kindness and love, and the Bible says that it's through your love and kindness that grace had the beard unto us. And, Lord, help us never forget that and never lose sight of that, that we are spiritually lame and that you have given us everything that we have and will continue to provide for us. Blessed be your name, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.