So as we read it, let us look
for our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Psalms for many generations
was the sole textbook for singing the praises of God in Christ. To the chief musician, a psalm
for the sons of Korah. That chief musician is none other
than Christ himself and the sons of Korah, whose father perished
when God opened this earth and swallowed him and all that appertained
to him alive straight into hell. If anybody is grateful for the
mercy and grace of God in Christ, it's these these descendants
of Korah. Verse 1, Lord, you have been
favorable unto your land. You have brought back the captivity
of Jacob. And he's done that for you if
you are a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's been
favorable unto our lives, and He's brought us back from the
captivity of sin. Verse 2, you have forgiven the
iniquity of your people. You have covered all their sin. God cannot forgive iniquity without
a ransom for sin. And that's what this statement
is about. You've forgiven the iniquity of your people. Well,
how can He do that? Because He's found a covering
for their sins. Well, what is the covering? It's
the blood of Christ. Verse 3, you have taken away
all your wrath. You have turned yourself from
the fierceness of your anger." Now, God never turns. But we use an expression, because
we can't understand this unless we look at it in a human way. If God forgives our sins, And
before he did, he did not forgive them. It looks like to us that
he's turned. He's changed. But he hasn't. This gospel is as old as eternity. You've taken away all your wrath. You have turned yourself from
the fierceness of your anger. Turn us, O God, of our salvation
and cause your anger toward us to cease. Will you be angry with
us forever? Will you draw out your anger
to all generations? Will you not revive us again
that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your mercy, O
Lord, and grant us your salvation. I will hear what God the Lord
will speak, for He will speak peace to His people and to his
saints, but let them not turn again to folly. Surely God's
salvation is near them that fear him." Do you fear God? Do I fear God? God's salvation
is near those that fear him. Now listen carefully to the Especially
verses 10 and 11. Mercy and truth. These were God's
attributes. Remember that little blue book
by A.W. Pink? Some in the foyer, I think.
The attributes of God. Well, mercy is an attribute of
God, and truth is an attribute of God. And there is such a thing
as at least looking at it in this light, that mercy and truth
are on opposite sides. They're not together. And look
what it says. Mercy and truth are met together. They've kissed and made up. They've
shook hands. And the same is true in verse
11. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness
shall look down from heaven. And when righteousness looks
down from heaven, God gives us the righteousness of Christ. And truth may be at odds with
righteousness in our poor ability to understand, I'm talking about. Verse 12 and 13, Yea, the Lord
shall give that which is good, And our land and our lives shall
yield the increase. Righteousness shall go before
him and shall set us in the way of his steps. Let me read verse
13 again now with a slight change. Really a significant change,
but saying the same thing. Instead of saying righteousness,
we say the righteous. God and man in one person, the
Lord Jesus. Christ shall go before Him. And if our Lord satisfies the
claims of God against us and saves us by His grace, then He
shall set us in the way of His steps. Now, if you'll turn one
more... No, I can't say that. If you'll
turn in your Bibles to the book of Micah, let me see what that
says. That's right before Habakkuk
and right after Jonah. Micah chapter 6. I tried to preach this yesterday
morning in Kingsport, Tennessee. There must have been six or eight
preachers there. I'm pretty nervous anyway, but
that just about did me under. And I don't think I did very
well, but of course everybody tells you they did. But it doesn't
necessarily make it so. So anyway, I'm going to try it
again this morning. And we've got to get down to
business. We've got a number of scriptures to look at. Micah 6.8. He, God, the Lord, has showed
you, O man, human beings, what is good, and what does the
Lord require of you? Three things. To do justly, to do right, to be on the side of justice.
Secondly, to love mercy. Who loves mercy? I'll tell you
a simple answer, and it's absolutely the truth. Whomever God saves
in mercy, those are the people that love mercy. If we don't
get mercy, we're going to perish. If we don't receive God's mercy
in Christ, that, by the way, is the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. I'll show you that in just a little bit. But if we
don't have mercy, we'll perish, every one of us. And then it
says, and to walk humbly with your God. And this phrase, with
your God, is to be tied to those three things, to do justly, to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Now, if somebody
were to ask you or me, do you walk humbly before God? True humility will not allow
you to say, yes, I do. Because when we look at ourselves,
we're not pleased with what we see. The only way we're pleased
is when we're unable to see Christ. Here's the title this morning,
What Does God Require of Me? And here's the answer. To do
justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Now, let's just pause a second
here about this word, humbly. Humble. I used to preach in Texas, in
Houston, for David Pledger at Lincolnwood Baptist Church. I
went three or four times, I don't remember. Every time I got ready
to go, on the telephone, he'd say, now, what do you want to
see when you get here? I said, David, I don't want to
see anything. And he just kept pressing that
last time, I think it was. Maybe that's the reason I ain't
been back. But I said, David, there's one thing above all else
that I would love to see in Texas. He said, what is it? I said,
an humble Texan. He said, there aren't any. I
said, I know it. That's why I'd like to meet one
that you hadn't known about. He said, I can take you to a
place called humble Texas, but I can't show you a humble Texas.
And he's right. At least the ones I've met live
up to that category. We're probably in the same boat
they are, we just don't want to admit it. Walking humbly with God. That's like at the end of the
day, getting ready to go to bed and we're going to write something
on the calendar for the day. I walked humbly with God. You see what I mean? It's a contradiction. It's a contradiction. Alright, let's see what we can
do with it. Let's take the first one. To do justly with my God. We're closer to Psalms right
at the moment than we will be in a minute, so let's go back
to the book of Psalms. And if you would, turn to Psalm
51. Now David, after Bathsheba, after
having her husband killed, David is confessing before God his
sin. And here, I'll have to shorten
it, so in verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 51, here you'll find these words,
For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have
I sinned and done this evil in your sight. That you, God, might
be justified when you speak and be clear when you judge. God must be just. And if justice is satisfied,
He can be merciful. But you can't have mercy at the
expense of justice. You can't have righteousness
at the expense of truth. You follow me? Every aspect of
God's being, all of his attributes, have to be honored in order for
God to save sinners in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
All right, the second scripture, if you'll turn to Luke chapter
7. Now, if you read a good many verses
in Psalm 51, You could take this definition of what is taking
place in that verse. That David is taking God's side
against himself. Now here's another statement
of that in Luke chapter 7, beginning at verse 29. Now it's talking
about John the Baptist and the people that John the Baptist
baptized. Now strangely enough, there were
no Pharisees, no Sadducees, no religious lawyers. It was the
common folk. It was the poor people. It wasn't
the priesthood. So here in verse 29 we read,
And all the people that heard him, heard John the Baptist,
and the publicans, those despised publicans, When our Lord was
telling his disciples to avoid certain people and certain
things, he used the publicans as a prime example. They were
despicable people. Yet the Lord said, my goodness,
at least one of them was an apostle. Matthew was a publican, a Jew
that was collecting taxes for the Romans and getting rich in
the process. Verse 29, and all the people
that heard him, and the publicans, justified God. They declared
that if they went to hell, God would be just to send us there.
Now if you don't believe that about yourself, you're not a
believer, and I ain't either. We've done enough sinning to
last an eternity. And the problem is, we grew up with religion that
was more sinful than the despicable deeds that we did. Self-righteousness
smells in the nostrils of God. You know why? Because it competes
against the righteousness of His Son. But I want to be able
to earn it. Well, you go right ahead, but
God's not interested. You can revitalize this whole
world, you can make professing Christians out of all of them,
and God ain't going to pay you no mind until He sends you to
hell. And that's where you're bound,
and me too, if God in His grace and mercy in Christ does not
stop us. Alright, but look at verse 30
in Luke 7. and all the people that heard him, that heard John
the Baptist. Now, I said he didn't baptize
any Pharisees and scribes, but that doesn't mean they weren't
there. The Pharisees and lawyers rejected
the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of John the
Baptist. Now, who's John the Baptist? Well, he's about the most famous
person out of the human race. Our Lord put accolades all over
John after John's death. And except for the Lord Jesus
Christ, nobody else wearing our flesh has ever come close. Some people believed John and
some didn't. Then down at verse number 35,
but wisdom Christ is our wisdom, but wisdom is justified of all
her children. So who was saved under John?
Everybody God intended to save. Who's saved under the gospel
these last 2,000 years? Everybody God pleased to save,
the ones that He gave to Christ in old eternity, of whom the
Lord Jesus said He'll not lose one single solitary one, not
one. Everyone whom God saves in Christ
deserves to go to hell and not to heaven. I hate to disappoint
you, but you're going the other way if you belong to Him. Do
you follow me? This is not science class. These
things are so. And they're stated so in our
Bibles as clearly as possible. It's called taking sides with
God, I think I said that once, against ourselves. I'll need
to say it again. Since we've still got Luke, how
about going to chapter 23 for just one little brief statement.
It's the words of the dying thief. The one that our Savior took
with Him to paradise, He said, today you shall be with Me in
paradise. Let's see, the verse number in
Luke 23 is verse 41. Well, if I would get in the right
chapter, I bet you I could find that. Yes, right where it was supposed
to be. Oh my goodness. There are two thieves, one on either
side of our Savior. To begin with, they're both casting
insults right in His face. All three of them now hanging
on these crosses, dying. Dying. And they throw insults. If you're who you say you are,
come down from the cross, and while you're at it, take us with
you." They had no interest in Him, but they certainly were
interested in getting off that cross. And now, some time has
elapsed. This earth has been dark for three hours. And one of the thieves said to
the other one, Let me start at verse 39. One of the male factors
which were hanged railed on him, saying, If you be Christ, save
yourself and us. But the other answering rebuked
him, saying, Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same
condemnation? Now here it is. And we indeed
justly. That's what it means to do justly,
is to tell God to His face If he did what he should with
us, he'd damn us. This man says, we belong here.
We've earned this kind of punishment. We indeed justly, for we receive
the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing
amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when you come into your kingdom. And these famous
words, our Lord said, Amen. I say unto you, today, not tomorrow,
not next week, not next year, today you shall be with me in
paradise. Now that thief didn't do anything
but sin. He had no good works. He didn't
have a good heart. And neither do we. This is for
fools and people determined to destroy themselves in hell. who
claim to be what they know, and anybody that knows them very
well knows it ain't so. We can be good when we want to
and bad when we want to. All right, let's go to the second
thing. While you're in Luke, if you'd go back to chapter 1
now. Well, you can't go back to it
if you didn't already go there, so just turn to it. Now you have to admit, whatever
else you think of this verse that we're on, to do justly,
to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. That is as simple
as words can ever put it. This is what God requires of
you, and this is what He requires of me. The first one is what? to do justly, to do like that
old poor dying thief. He told his fellow companion
in crime, don't say this to this man. You and I are here because
we deserve to be here. But this man, the God-man, has
done nothing amiss. And then he turned to the Savior
and pled for mercy. And mercy is what he got. And
the second thing on our list in Micah 6.8 is to love mercy. With my God to love mercy. Look at verses 72 and 78 in the
first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. To perform the mercy promised. to perform the mercy promised. This is God's promise that in
His Son, the Lord Jesus, who is pictured and typified throughout
the whole of the Old Testament, and of course in the Gospels
and in the New Testament, here He is said to perform the mercy
promised. And Christ is the promised mercy. So when we're told To love mercy. It means to love the mercy of
God in Christ. Therefore, it means to love Christ. Now, this is not hard. There's
nobody in this place this morning that's too young to understand
these words. I can get my dictionary out and come up with a few highfalutin
words, but it just ain't worth the trouble. It's better to communicate
in the language that we use every day. To love mercy is to love the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And if you don't, you don't have
mercy. All right, here's another one.
I should have told you to hang on to Psalm 85, but if you didn't,
I can't wait for you. Of course, I got to find it myself,
it looks like. It would be nice if you could
see it. Psalm 85, verses 10 and 11. Mercy and truth are met together. Now, it's not actually this way,
but it appears to us to be this way. When it comes to divine, eternal
things, things concerning God and Christ and mercy and grace,
it's like being in a foreign country and not able to speak
the language. We're at a severe disadvantage.
So it appears to us in these two verses, Psalm 85, verses
10 and 11, that these attributes are somehow at odds with each
other. And so the statement in verse
9, verse 10, says, mercy and truth are met together. My soul,
they're part of the being of God. They've always been together. Ah, but when it comes to saving
real sinners, this could be a problem. Therefore, God's mercy is never
given to sinners that exacts a price out of his
righteousness. You follow me now? Mercy and
truth are met together. They've always been this way,
but it appears if God was going to save people that don't deserve
to be saved, then truth might just suffer. But no, before time
began, God, the triune God that we sung about this morning, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, they entered into a covenant. called the everlasting,
in Hebrews 13.20, it's called the everlasting covenant of grace. So, the divine three, and to
show you this in an even different kind of way, but not related
to what we're talking about, I think it's Genesis 1.26, they
said, Here's the language of the King
James Bible at least, let us, plural, make man in our plural
image. And so Adam is made in the image
of God, namely in the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ in appearance. You see? So in that covenant,
These four glorious things in Psalm 85, mercy and truth and righteousness
and peace, these are at full harmony with each other. Now
how can that be? Does truth leave some things off and not
demand so much of us? Well, what if they said to me,
well, you've got to be handsome. I'd be gone. I'd never make it.
That's how it is. That's exactly how it is. But when our Lord Jesus came
to this earth and went to the cross, there, my friend, for
all to see, mercy and truth meeting in the death of our Lord Jesus
Christ and righteousness and peace springing out of that wonderful
sacrifice and all that it accomplished. It paid the sin debt for every
last one of the people that God gave to Christ in old eternity.
And if you'll read that little tract that was in your bulletin
today, you might even discover that this guy might have lived
about 400 years ago, but he's pretty smart. Nobody's ever successfully
refuted that thing to this day. And it doesn't take you all day
to read it. It's short. It's microscopic,
but it's short. So we conclude, if we're to have any dealings
with God, it must be on the footing of mercy. Lord, give us mercy. We don't want what you owe us.
Just give us mercy. Thirdly, now remember this third
one in Micah 6.8. If you want to turn, if you don't,
it won't matter to me. Somebody's moved my marker anyway. It's like humble Texans, you
know. It says to walk humbly with your God. Humbly. I'm going to give you an illustration
before I finish what I'd like to say based on this. And we're
not too far away from there. If you'll turn, first of all,
to 2 Kings 8. Now, I expect most of you will remember
these illustrations. 2 Kings 8, and if you'll put your
finger there, or a piece of paper, whatever you wish to use. 2 Kings 8, and then go back to
2 Samuel 9. So if you'll hold those two places,
I think it will be helpful for us to see this in as clear a
light as is possible, humanly speaking. 2 Kings 8, 2 Samuel 9. Let's go to 2 Kings 8 first of
all. Let me see if I can just recap
some of this from a broken memory bank. Elisha, E-L-I, the Old
Testament spelling, E-L-I-S-H. S-H-A, Elisha, not Elijah. Elisha is prophet in Israel. The king of Syria is Ben-Hadad. And Elisha goes to the Syrian
capital, which is where Ben-Hadad's palace is. But Ben-Hadad has
been sick. And he calls his most trusted
aide to himself, and he says, I want you to go down there to
where that prophet is, and he said, I want you to find out
from him if God's going to let me get over this sickness or
if I'm going to die from it. And this fellow by the name of
Hazel, a pretty despicable fellow, He took 40 camel's burdens of
gifts to this prophet to try to bribe him, just like Naaman
the Syrian did regarding his leprosy. And that was Elisha,
and he wouldn't take one single bit of it. And his servant snipped
out of the house after Elijah had sent the message that he
wouldn't accept any of those gifts. And so he went and said
his master changed his mind, and Naaman's leprosy wound up
on Elisha's servant. So here's Elisha. Ben-Hadad sends
this servant and he comes to Elisha and he says, my master
wishes to know if he's going to survive this illness. And
Elisha said, yes, he will. But, he said, that's not all
I need to say. Alright, let's jump down to verse 10. And Elisha said to this servant,
you may certainly recover. Say unto him, you may certainly
recover. Howbeit the Lord has showed me
that the king shall surely die. And Elisha settled his countenance
steadfastly until the servant of Ben-Hadad was ashamed. And the man of God 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 men will you
slay with a sword. You will dash their children and rip up their
women with child. And Hazel said, Here is the whole
purpose of coming to this chapter. Do you hear what I just read
you that Elisha said that was the true description of this
man? He and Hazel said, but what is your
servant? A dog. You've not given me the first
compliment. You have painted me in the awfulest of colors
that I should do this great thing. And Elisha answered, The Lord
has showed me that you shall be king over Syria. So the man
goes back to see his king, gives him a positive report. Yes, you
indeed will recover. That night he took the king's
pillow and suffocated him to death. And the next day the throne
was his." Now if you go to that other text, 2 Samuel chapter
9, we'll spend just A moment on
this, you should be more familiar with this, I think. I've got
written as the title to 2 Samuel 9, Fetching Grace. Anybody that's ever had a dog
and throw a stick or something, and the dog will fetch it for
you. This is called fetching grace. No matter who God saves, no matter
what generation of time or place on the earth, God fetches us,
and then we come to Him. And his fetch is not if you want
to, but with the command comes the enabling power to obey the
command. So that when God says in the
gospel, Believe on my Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, it compels
us to do so. It's irresistible. We can't resist
it. That's the only kind of grace there is, by the way, is irresistible
grace. David had made a covenant with Jonathan. Jonathan is the
father of Mephibosheth. And he and David had covenanted
that if something happened to either one of them, they would
each be responsible for the other one's loved ones and so forth.
And so David is trying to find out if any of Saul's descendants
are still alive in this world. And there's one little fellow
down there in Lodabar, a place of no pasture. He's crippled
on both feet. And David said to his most trusted
servant, go fetch him. And he did so. Now what do you think this son
of Jonathan, the grandson of Saul, what kind of thoughts do
you reckon was running in his mind? Now he knows how this thing
of kings and queens and rulers, he knows that they get their
way. If they want you dead, your good is dead. And he knows that
David has a perfect right to stop him from living at any time
he so pleases. So this man is brought back to
the palace in fear and trembling. And in verse 8 of 2 Samuel chapter
9, he bowed himself and said, this is Mephibosheth. I call
him Mr. Pibb. What is your servant? What is your servant? That you
should look upon such a dead dog as I am." Now here we have
one man complaining that Elisha is describing him as if he were
a dog, and here's another man that makes himself a dog and
confesses the same before his king. Now if that ain't the difference
between believing and trusting Christ and not, I don't know
what is. This is a wonderful picture. You couldn't draw it
with... The best artist in the world
couldn't draw that any plainer than it's put just in words. Oh, Lordy. I'm going to be out
of time. How about... Oh, by the way, before it slips
my mind, There might not have been an
humble Texan in 2 Samuel 9, but there was an humble sinner. And David saved him. Temporally speaking, I'm talking
about. But it's a picture of what God does for us in Christ. What was that verse? 1 Timothy
1.13. I'm leaving out a bunch. Don't give up on me yet. 1 Timothy chapter 1. Chapter
1. Now one of the reasons people who preach the true gospel
of Christ, one of the reasons that we have to be so explicit
and so plain is that we are so full of this ungodly religion
all around us. In our families, in our friends,
in the school, on the job, wherever you go, you've got false religion
all around you. And I'll guarantee you this,
if you tell them, just describe the God you believe God to be,
and you've lost your friend. Unless God does something for
them, you've lost them. But it's incumbent on preachers
to make these things as clear as words can possibly make it. Paul is speaking about himself
after his conversion, of course. Many years after, as a matter
of fact. But he still remembers who he
was when Christ stopped him and unhorsed him on the road to Damascus. He's not forgotten that. He said,
who was before. Before. a blasphemer, and a persecutor and injurious. Saul of Tarsus killed more people
than David ever dreamed about. Hailing men and women to prison,
and when he could, he had them put to death. And the same man was the overseer over the stoning
of Stephen in Acts chapter 7. Now here's that same man talking
about himself, and he said, who was before. Here's the whole
point, the whole thing. If you don't have a before, you
can't have an after. If I don't see myself for what
I really am in God's sight, I have no reason to go to His Son. And
if it does for us like it did for Hazel in 2 Kings 8, we ain't
coming or going. Who was before. Do I have a before? Hey, I have
a before. I can say I was a false preacher
for a long time. That's the worst crime you could
hang around a man's neck. But that was me. And if God had
left me alone, I'd still be there. Lord, Lord help us. So one more question and I won't
finish. I'm going to be through. Is there
an humble Texan here this morning? I'm not funny now, I'm serious.
An humble text. If God has saved you and you
wish to let us in on it, you can come right up here and I'll
sit down and listen. Alright, 223. Oh, I'm sorry, darling. Go ahead.