If you would, please join me
by opening your Bibles to the Old Testament book of Micah, chapter 6 and verse 8. Well, what if, after all, preacher
or not, it is not well with my soul? May the Lord have mercy upon
us and give us what we cannot give ourselves. We can sing it, we can say it,
but we can't make it true. Once upon a time, I saw an advertisement
in the local paper in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And it was one
of the largest Methodist churches in town. And it's a pretty good
size advertisement. And the bold type says, will
you come back to church if we promise not to throw the book
at you? Now what does that smell like? And here's the fine print. In our church, we believe in
a loving and forgiving God, but not a just God, and therefore
he cannot be a savior. Come and join us this Sunday
when we open up the good book in worship. Because you see,
they're saying we don't like some things in this book, the
very same things you don't like. And so we ain't gonna mention
them. And that's the conspiracy that has led us to the mess we're
in to this day. And here's the cure. Micah 6 verse 8. My title is, What Does God Require
of Me? He has showed you, O man, what
is good, And what does the Lord require of you? There are but
three things mentioned and they are utterly simple and yet beyond our ability to
exhaust, to do justly, The prepositional phrase at the
end of the verse should be attached to each of these three things.
To do justly with our God. We must tell the truth about
God. Secondly, it says to love mercy
with our God. God is a God of mercy. But he cannot show mercy at the
expense of his truth or his justice. And the third one is, if the first two are impossible,
this is infinitely impossible to walk humbly with your God. Now, if you haven't figured it
out, that all three of these things are above and beyond us, And if God does not give this
to us, we won't ever have it. So let's look at these three
things. To do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with our God. If you would, turn to Psalm 51,
David's famous psalm of contrition and repentance. And in the third
and fourth verses of Psalm 51, he said, For I acknowledge my
transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you,
you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight,
that you might be justified when you speak, and be clear when
you judge." Whatever God does is right. He is a just God, and
thankfully a Savior. Try one more text on this point. It'd be found in Luke's Gospel,
chapter 7. And there are many other places
in our Bibles that can confirm these things to us and help us
to see them. To do justly with our God, beginning
at verse 29 of Luke chapter 7, Luke 7, 29, and all the people
that heard Him, This is John the Baptist they're
referring to. And the publicans justified God
being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and
lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being
not baptized of him. Now you've got two groups of
people. You've got the publicans and the sinners. And then you've
got the Pharisees and the lawyers or the scribes. And these two
are totally 180 degrees difference. One is justifying God and the
one is ignoring and putting out of his mind and his thoughts
the fact that the God of the Bible is just and righteous and
holy. But verse 35 sorts it out for
us pretty well. but wisdom is justified of all
her children. The people that God saves, he
teaches us the truth about himself and ourself and how mercy comes
to sinners through the merit and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ
alone. That's an awesome thing to do justly with our God. with our God. All right, let's
take the second one. Not only to do justly, but to
love mercy. To love mercy. Now, do you know this Bible tells
us who this mercy is? How about trying Luke chapter
one? I'm already in Luke and I'm looking
beyond it. That's ridiculous. Luke chapter
one. Look at verse 72. Luke one 72. This wonderful declaration to Zacharias. to perform the
mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant. This mercy that is promised is
none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 78, through
the tender mercy of our God. Whereby the day spring from on
high has visited us. And the Lord Jesus has indeed. This is a prophecy in Luke chapter
one. But he's coming and he's almost
here when this takes place. And now we look back 2,000 years
and it's been true forever. It was true before he came, when
he came, after he came. cannot change. God cannot change. Either He's not God before or
He's not God after, one of the two. If you're God, you are changeless. And the same is true with this
mercy that is promised. This mercy in Genesis was Christ,
and in the Revelation it's Christ. It's always Christ. Christ and
Him crucified. Now if you'll go to the Psalms
again, this time to Psalm 85. 85th Psalm. Here is a beautiful, beautiful
arrangement regarding loving mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Sinners need mercy. But we need a just God. Verses 10 and 11 in Psalm 85. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the
earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven." Now when
did this become true? In the covenant of grace in old
eternity. In the saving, glorious person
of our Lord Jesus Christ when He was born into this world.
When our Lord went to the tree. These attributes of God, written
here as if there were some differences between them, some difficulties
that they were not exactly the best of friends at the moment,
but this is only apparent, it's not real. For Christ ever came,
for this world was ever made, these matters were already determined. So that in verse 10 of Psalm
85, mercy and truth are meeting and rejoicing because when meeting
in Christ and in God's grace in him, and these things meet
again when these things come to us individually one by one
in the new birth. Mercy and truth meet together
and righteousness and peace have kissed each other. So if you
love justice, You also must love mercy. And this truth, and our Lord
Jesus is the truth, shall spring out of the earth, and spring
out of the earth he did, and righteousness shall look down
from heaven. Now that's, those two statements,
those two verses, I tell you they're an infinite, infinite
weight and importance. Let's try another psalm while
we're right here. Psalm 130. Somebody read that or how did
we hear this this weekend? I think it was here. Tom Harding? All right. Yes, he read this,
didn't he? My brain's coming awake here.
Psalm 130, verses three and four. We sing this to a little chorus.
If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared."
If God counted our sins, not one human being, not one single
son and daughter of Adam could stand before God. We just don't
have it. But the God-man Christ Jesus
did, and he honored every attribute of God and magnified it and the
law. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand? Who shall stand? Shoot, I might as well sing it
for you. If thou, O Lord, should mark
iniquities, who shall stand? Who shall stand? If thou, O Lord,
should mark iniquities, ♪ O Lord, who shall stand ♪ But there is
forgiveness with thee ♪ But there is forgiveness with thee ♪ But
there is forgiveness with thee ♪ That thou mayest be feared
Now, men, if you try that, you might want to lower it. That
was too high. All right, the third thing in Micah 6, 8. Let's
go back to our text again. Let's read it again. He has showed you, O man, what
is good. What is good, by the way? God
is good. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And what does the Lord require
of me? To do justly, to love mercy, and finally to
walk humbly with my God. First thing I want to do with
that third point is to illustrate it. So if you'll turn with me
to 2 Kings chapter 8. Elisha is God's prophet. in 2 Kings chapter 8. He has
gone to Damascus, which is outside of Israel. And the king in Syria
is Ben-Hadad. And he's had a terrible sickness. And somebody tells him that the
prophet of God has come in to Damascus. And so he sends his
servant to go inquire of this prophet if he is going to recover
from his sickness. And so the person, Hazel is his
name, now watch what he does. He goes
to the Lord's prophet, and let me see, I believe it's 30, 40 camels in verse 9, 40 camels burden. That is whatever 40 camels can
carry, that's what he was carrying to this prophet to give him a
gift. And so he asked Elisha, if his master would recover?"
Oh, he says, yes. But then, look at verse 10. Elisha said to him, go and say
unto Ben, hey dad, you may certainly recover. How be it the Lord has
showed me that he shall surely die. And he settled his countenance
steadfastly upon Hazel until he was ashamed. And the man of
God, the prophet, wept. And Hazel said, why weep you,
my lord? And he answered, because I know
the evil that you will do unto the children of Israel. Their
strongholds will you set on fire, and their young man will you
slay with a sword, and you'll dash their children and rip up
their women with child. And look what Hazel said, but
what is your servant, a dog? that he should do this great
thing? Now there's only two responses
that we can make to Micah 6.8. And one is to the honor and glory
of God, confessing ourselves to be unworthy, dead, God-hating
sinners. And the other is to be offended
by what is being said like Hazel. He says, what am I, a dog? Sure, we're dogs. You remember
the woman in Matthew 15? She wasn't offended when our
Lord implied that she was a Gentile dog. She said, yes, master, but
even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's
table. This man, Hazel, is going back
and give the king good news that he's going to recover. And that
night he's going to put a pillow over his face and smother him
to death. And he's offended that the prophet
has said such to him. Now the other side of that coin
is in 2 Samuel. I'm trying to go the wrong way
again. 2 Samuel chapter 8. This is David and Mephibosheth.
So I'll shorten it up just a little bit. After David had fetched Mephibosheth. Now, when a person is converted,
who is looking for whom? God is looking for us. and he never fails to find us
and to bring us to himself. It doesn't matter who the person
is. It doesn't matter how wicked they've been or how self-righteous
they've been. These things are of no consequence
when it comes to God dealing with our souls. So here's Mephibosheth
shaking in his boots because David has the right to put to
death any of Saul's kin left on the face of this earth. And
yet, here's what he said. Verse 8, David had just promised
Jonathan, I mean Mephibosheth for Jonathan's
sake, that's like saying for Christ's sake. Verse 8, and he
bowed himself and said, what is your servant that you should
look upon such a dead dog as I am? The very thing that made
Hazel mad, believers confess and know to be true. And it ain't
a game. It's not a game. Let's do a little more referencing. Oh, let's see. I tell you what.
I'm taking too long, I'm sure. I'm getting some of it back from
last night. First Timothy chapter one. Now
here's a little statement in our Bibles that might have escaped
your notice. Though some of you, I doubt it
has. So I'll just remind you of what it says. like Marvin,
for example. Verse 13, these are the words
of the Apostle Paul, and this is just a simple statement, but
I tell you there is a lot in it. He said about himself, who
was before Before what? Before Christ. Before conversion. Before the Damascus Road. I was
before a blasphemer. Now you meet some people who
claim to be believers, but they don't have a before. You understand? I know what you were before because
I know what I was before, a sinner, undone and lost and spiritually
dead and on my way to hell. I was before, yes, me too, a
blasphemer. And he goes on to add in that
verse, and injurious, but I obtained mercy in that God counted me
faithful, putting me into the ministry. Here's the rule. If there ain't
a before, there ain't an after. If you ain't never been the chief
of sinners, you're still the chief of sinners and you just
don't know it. One more scripture and I'm going
to wrap it up. Romans chapter 7. Now I'm not a stranger to what these things that we
are looking at and emphasizing and trying to put across to you
in a way that you can remember it. You can take this to any church
in this town or any church in our town or anybody else's town
and you won't last five minutes. This truth will not be tolerated
unless God has conquered the souls of the persons to whom
you speak. And Romans chapter 7 is a case
in point. I want to start at verse 18 and
read through verse 25. Now, this passage has been in
my Bible ever since I've had this Bible. That was a long, long time ago.
But I'll tell you one thing, I didn't know anything about
Romans 7 and a whole lot of other places I could mention. But generally today, people insist
on telling us that this is Paul talking about himself before
his conversion. But that's not true. You have
to violate the scripture itself right here in this passage to
make it say that. He says in verse 18, For I know
that in me, that is, in my flesh, in my natural man, in what I
am in Adam, dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would do,
I do not. But the evil that I do, which
I would not, that I do. Now if I do that which I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me,
my old nature. The old man having conflict with
the new one. This conflict is never begun
until a person is converted. And then the war is on. And the
war doesn't quit until we go to the grave where Christ returns
one or the other. Verse 21, I find then a law,
a principle, a rule, that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that
I was, uh-uh, that I am. Now everybody knows the difference
in was and am. And it's only stupid, blind religious
people like ourselves that love it the other way around until
God conquers us by His grace. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? And here's the
only acceptable answer. I thank God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. Thank you. What does God require of me? The other answer to that is he
requires only what he gives. Only what he gives.