What Doth the Lord Require?

Let's open our Bibles to Micah chapter 6. Micah chapter 6. I was telling Todd last night that I could use his introduction that he gave yesterday concerning the passage of Scripture about denying yourself and taking up your cross and following after Christ.

Men want to make a work out of that. If that's true with that passage, it's certainly true of this passage. I've read and listened to others that have spoken on this text, and without exception, everybody that I've listened to has made a work out of this passage. And at first glance, it might seem to all of us that this is something that God requires of us to do, and then we'll have acceptance with him. I hope the Lord will give us a proper understanding of this text. If I preach it the way it is most often preached, sinners will be convicted.

Shared this text with somebody recently and they said, wow, that's a hard thing to do. That's a hard thing to do. If that's what God requires of me, I don't know. And yet, Men will spend their entire lives trying to do this in hopes of working their way to heaven, earning favor with God.

The Lord makes that clear. When he says that on the day of judgment, many will stand before me and say, but Lord, we've done many wonderful works in thy name. and only to hear after a lifelong of labor, those most dreaded words, depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. I don't wanna be in that place. I wanna understand what the Lord is telling us here.

If we preach it as a work, believers would be convicted with no comfort. and the self-righteous will be comforted with no conviction. It's been said that we are to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And I hope that the gospel will be preached in such a way as to afflict any of us that might be resting in our own works and comfort those who find all the hope of their salvation in the finished work of Christ. The thing about our text, it's found in Micah 6, verse 8, and I have titled this message, What Doth the Lord Require of Thee?

As I said, at first glance, It sounds like, okay, what's God require of me? What do I have to do? What work can I work in order to work the works of God? This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent. God's work in us, giving us faith to rest all the hope of our salvation, not in our works, but in Christ's work.

Rich young ruler. good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? That's our nature. We come into this world thinking that the reward of heaven is the result of our works. And unless the Lord gives us his Holy Spirit, we will live our entire lives believing that.

Uh, they, which are after the flesh, they do mind the things of the flesh, but they, they're after the spirit, the things of the spirit. We look not on those things which are seen, but those for those things, what you're seeing are temporal. We look on those things, which are not saying the things which are not saying are spiritual and the natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit. They are spiritually discerned.

You can't know them. And so if we're to properly understand what the Lord is saying here, that we're gonna have to have the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our understanding, enlighten our hearts. We will take God's word. You know, in 2 Timothy 2, the Lord said that those who have no love for the truth, They have no love for Christ.

They have no need for a righteousness outside of themselves. They go about trying to establish their own righteousness, not knowing that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. They go about their lives thinking that if I do this, then I will fulfill what God requires of me. And he will reward me for that.

Um, and, uh, um, In 2 Timothy chapter two, those who have no love for the truth, God shall send them a strong delusion that they might believe the lie. By what means does God send the strong delusion that causes men to believe in a salvation that is dependent upon something they do? Well, his word. His word. Men rest the scriptures to their own destruction. God has written his word in such a way as to give the unbeliever enough rope to hang himself. God, men take this verse of scripture and they make a work out of it. And I believe that that is the means by which the Lord sends a strong delusion to those who have no love for Christ. and they rest their hopes in doing what God requires of them to do.

Before we get into our verse, let's go back to Isaiah chapter 28. I wanted to show you this, because this is what I'm trying to say right now. In Isaiah chapter 28, We'll begin reading at verse nine. Whom shall he teach knowledge? The knowledge of God. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. The truth of the gospel. Who's God gonna teach that to? And of whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. Children. Children, except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Children, we have a one-year-old great-granddaughter right now, and it's just amazing to watch her every day discover something new. And little by little, she's learning about the world that she lives in. And that's how growth and grace is. It's little by little. The trees of righteousness grow slowly. Weeds grow quick, don't they? We see that in our own lives. We see how quickly sin can spring up and bear fruit. But growth in grace? That's little by little.

And that's what the Lord's gonna say here, look. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. And with stammering lips and another tongue will I speak to this people. I stand before you as a man with stammering lips, hoping that The Lord will take this voice of one crying in the wilderness and point us to the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world. That's always our hope, isn't it? But here's how the Lord grows us. Here's how he teaches us, little by little, precept by precept. Now, those who are in the flesh, they walk by sight.

And so a man who doesn't have the spirit of God is looking for a precept that he can put into practice. He is incapable of seeing a person that he must follow, following after Christ. He's incapable of that. I had a man listen to me preach for years and he left the church. He's now in a Pentecostal church and having all that he looked for. But the last thing he said to me, he said, preacher, he said, you keep saying, look to Christ. And we were standing in his living room and he raised his hands above his head and he looked up to a ceiling and he said, I'm looking and I don't see him. I don't see him.

And now he's got precepts upon precepts, line upon line. And he has some affirmation, some false hope, false security in his salvation because he can see. He can see the working of the Spirit of God and the speaking of tongues and all the foolishness that goes on in those places.

Look at the next verse, verse 12, to whom he said, this is the rest wherewith he may cause the weary to rest and this is the refreshing, yet they would not hear. precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little, in the volume of the book it is written of me.

They would not see how these doctrines and how this knowledge and how this truth in God's word pointed men to Christ. All they could see was the precepts. And they turned the word of God into a rule book. And that's what the next verse says. But the word of the Lord was unto them." And if I can insert a couple of words here just to clarify what I do believe is the meaning of this verse. The word of the Lord was unto them, nothing more. than a precept upon precept, a line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may fall and stumble over the word of God." Now I say all that in order to set the the tone for what I believe we have here in the book of Micah. If you'll go back with me to our text. Men are looking for steps. They're looking for steps. They're looking for principles to practice.

The Lord said, when you build an altar, don't put steps on it. We've been different places where they have these ancient altars and they make sacrifice on the altars and along the sides of the altars are steps. And what the Lord say, if you make steps on the altar, on your way up the altar, you're gonna do nothing but expose your nakedness. You can just see a priest in a robe walking up these steep steps to make sacrifice at the top, exposing his nakedness. If we make steps to heaven, that's what the Tower of Babel was. Let us make for ourselves a name and let us build a city on a tower that reaches up into heaven. Everybody who walks after the flesh is looking for steps. And God says, if you try to take steps to get to heaven, you're going to do nothing but expose your own spiritual nakedness before God. Goes all the way back to Adam, doesn't it? Trying to sew together fig leaves to cover his nakedness. Didn't work. Didn't work. A lamb had to be slain. Blood had to be shed.

So I hope that, you know, I was thinking about how everybody wants a procedure to follow. Now, we're going to be getting on an airplane tomorrow, and I want that pilot to go through all the pre-flight steps that have to be gone through before he takes off. And I've watched pilots do that. There's certain things, right, Cyril? You've got to do one thing right after the other. You've got to follow the steps if you're going to have a safe flight. I want a pilot to do that. If I'm gonna have surgery, there's protocols that a surgeon will follow in order to make sure that that surgery is successful.

There are places in life where steps and procedures and precepts are required, but not when it comes to the salvation of our souls. And if we make steps out of this verse, then we've perverted the grace of God into a works gospel. Finally, to our text, verse eight.

He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Most will interpret doing justly as being fair and honest and faithful, doing that which is right. Don't lie, steal, don't defraud your fellow man. Certainly all those things are true. If I can just live my life as an honest, faithful man, then I will have done that which God requires of me, to do justly.

Most will interpret mercy, loving mercy, as helping your fellow man and be merciful towards the needy, showing kindness and compassion and concern toward others. Well, if I just can go through my life helping other people. And the world is full of men that are giving their lives sacrificially to help others, to help the needy. in hopes that they will do that which was required of them so that God will reward them and say, you've well done, good and faithful servant. You've met them, I've been there, you know, you have family members and friends, some of you have been there. Spending your whole life working your way to heaven. and then to walk humbly before thy God.

Oh, how much, how much feigned humility there is in religion. It's really offensive, isn't it? To see how people can be so outwardly humble with one another. You know, see who's gonna be the most humble in the church. Heard a story about a guy that got a badge for being the most humble in the church. They had to take it away from him because he wore it. You know, it's just, but that's the way, you know, religious folks are.

And what's even more offensive than that is when I see feigned humility in my own life. When I try to pretend to be something. To walk humbly with thy dog. To feign humility among men may be offensive, but to feign humility before God is soul damning. It is soul damning to pretend to be humble in the sight of God. Like that publican who went to the temple to pray, God, I thank thee that I'm not like other men. That's feigned humility before God.

And he left unjustified. Now, the problem with these three steps, being steps, is if we interpret them the way we just discussed them to be, is that it's a reverse order of what God says in every other place. Love your neighbor. Well, start out with good actions, responsibilities, and behavior, love your neighbor, and then love God. That's just the opposite of what the Lord said.

What are the two greatest commandments? Love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul, and then love your neighbor as yourself. When the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount was preaching and teaching, he said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things to be added unto you. When Solomon concluded Ecclesiastes, he said, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. So if the Lord is giving us steps here and that's what happens, well, I'm going to be faithful in my behavior.

I'm going to be considerate towards others and then I'll be able to walk in the presence of God. I hope that we see by now that that's not what this verse means. So what is it to do justly? What is it to do justly? It is to agree with God on his verdict of justice. What does God say is just concerning us? What is just concerning us?

The wages of sin is death. Lord, I'm a sinner. And because of my sinfulness, I deserve eternal damnation. You would be just if you sent me to hell. I agree with God on his verdict as to what divine justice is. Natural man doesn't think that. I mean, a natural man thinks, you know, I'm doing justly and I'm loving mercy and I'm walking humbly and I'm not hell bound. And I'm certainly not hell deserving. Other people may go there, but not me.

To do justly is to agree with what God says about his justice. As a sinner, I am justly worthy of eternal damnation. I've broken all of God's righteous laws. I deserve the wrath of God. I deserve the indignation of his divine holiness. I see him, in part at least, and have concluded that I am vile.

Isn't that what Job said? Behold. Job went through a long time justifying himself. Elihu says that Job's justifying himself. And God, when God began to speak to Job, God said, brace yourself, you know, gird up yourself like a man. I'm gonna ask you a few questions. And what did God do? He just revealed himself to Job. Job, where were you when I did this and I did that? God just reveals his glory to Job. And Job says, oh, I spoke without knowledge of things that I didn't understand.

I had heard of thee with the hearing of mine ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee, and I repent in dust and ashes. Behold, I see something I never saw before. I see that I am vile and that all of my attempts to justify myself before God only added to my wickedness.

I agree. I agree with God. I quoted first John one nine last night. If we confess that word confess just simply means to say the same thing about your sin that God says about it. What does God say? Every thought and imagination of the heart is only evil, and that continually. When we look at ourselves, we say, well, I don't feel that way. God says it, so that's the way it is. God, I agree with you. You are just. In the estimation of me that you have declared, doing justly is nothing more than agreeing that God's justice is the only justice. There's no justice in this world. We call our court system the justice system. And we say of men who get out of prison, well, they paid their debt to society. Well, did they really? Did they pay their debt to the victim of their crime? Was it even possible to pay their debt? No, you can't satisfy, you can't balance that scale. There's no justice in this world. But when God speaks his justice by faith, even if we can't see it, I know that these things are true about me because God says so. Turn with me to Leviticus chapter 26. Leviticus 26. Look with me at verse 40.

If they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers and their trespass, which they have trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me, and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies, If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity. We accept. That's what doing justly is. We accept the punishment of our iniquity. Lord, if you send me to hell, you'd be just in doing that. And if you judged me worthy of heaven based on the very best thing I ever did, I'd go to hell for it. You know, when we, you said, look, I've quoted Genesis six a couple of times, every thought and imagination of the heart.

But what about when we pray? What about when we worship? What about when we when we seek God's mercy? Is that an evil thought? God says so. Our prayers have to be washed in the blood of Christ in order to be acceptable to God. Our worship has to be we have to have an intercessor to present all that we do before God Almighty, because everything that we lay our hands to, we defile. We defile. God, you are just. I know it's true. I believe it. You've said it.

And I know that your justice requires a perfect sacrifice and that the only way that my sin can be atoned for is by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that's able to put away my sin. He's the only one that's able to offer to God a sacrifice that will meet the standards of God's holy justice and satisfy that justice and put away our sin. That's what it is to do justly. It is to simply agree with God about what he says is just.

We accept the punishment of our iniquity. That's what David said. Psalm 51, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou might be just. Or that thou might be justified when thy speaketh and clear when thou judgest. It's bearing the full responsibility.

It's, you know, we're real good at the blame game, aren't we? We started with Adam, blaming God and blaming Eve, and we justify ourselves before one another, but not before God. Lord, I'm fully responsible for all my sin. I can't point my finger to anybody else. It's all my fault.

That's doing justly. And that's what God requires. And here's the glorious truth, brethren. What God requires, God must provide. This is a work of grace in the heart. This is not something that we can see, that we've performed, that we've done. This is not a step that we go through.

This is a truth that the Lord settles in the heart when we're able to agree with him in all that he says about his justice. The Lord said make righteous judgments. Judge righteous judgments. And only if the Lord gives us the mind of Christ, only if he gives us a new heart, only if we have the Holy Spirit can we come to that place were able to say with the prophet Isaiah, woe is me, I'm undone.

I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips. There's nobody to help me. My eyes have seen the king, I'm dead. And the Lord took a coal from off the altar and touched his lips and gave him a message of salvation. Go and proclaim this to the people. They're not going to hear. They'll have ears, but they will not hear. They're still going to want precepts upon precepts. They're still going to want steps. They're still going to want something that they can do.

But you preach the truth of what I did to forgive you of your sin. And Isaiah said, Lord, how long? How long do I have to do this? If I'm going to preach them, they're not going to listen until the cities be wasted without inhabitants on the land be utterly desolate. Isaiah, you just preach the truth. Leave the results up to me. Justice. Doing justly. Doing justly. It is agreeing with God that justice must be satisfied for mercy to be given.

God did not sacrifice his justice on the altar of mercy. The natural man thinks, well, God's a loving God. They've got an image of him as if he's some sort of doting grandfather in heaven that's just going to pat him on the head and forgive their sin. But God's justice had to be satisfied in order for his mercy to be known. And those two things met together at Calvary's cross. When the justice of God was satisfied, the wrath of God, the fire of God's wrath was put out by the sacrifice that Christ made of himself and the mercy and love of God through the work that Christ did. No man, no greater love had no man than this and he laid down his life. for his friend.

We see the mercy of God. We see the love of God. Hearing his love. We don't measure love by our, our love is so fickle, isn't it? Hearing his love. Not that we love God. Well, I'm just going to love God. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to do this. Hearing his love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The law demands satisfaction. The Lord Jesus is the only one who satisfied the law. He was offered up for our offenses. He was raised again because of our justification, because of our justification. When the Lord bowed his head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished, God was satisfied. Divine justice was met. You see, doing justly, He's believing in what God says about justice, concerning ourselves, concerning the gospel, concerning God.

So what is it to love mercy? Well, the Pharisees asked the Lord in Matthew chapter nine, why does your master eat Republicans and sinners? And the Lord responded like this. He said, those who are whole need not a physician. but they which are sick. Go and learn what this means.

I will have mercy and not sacrifice for I'm not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Loving mercy is to love what God has done in satisfying his justice and withholding from me what I deserve. That's what mercy is. Mercy is God withholding from me and putting on another what I deserved. This doing justly and loving mercy cannot be separated.

It's the same thing. It's one leads to the other. We love like the publican, you know, that, that Pharisee who prayed, I've already mentioned, I think that I'm not like other men. What about the publican that was over there would not so much as even lift up his eyes, but smote himself on the breast and said, have mercy upon me.

Oh God have mercy upon me. I'm a sinner. I've got to have mercy. How we love mercy. Oh, we want to be kind and considerate. We want to be forgiving. Toward others. But. Loving mercy. Will be the will be the only real cause of that. Forgiving others, even as God for Christ's sake, have forgiven you. We show mercy because we've received mercy. David said in Psalm 62, Psalm 6, verse 2, have mercy upon me, O God, for I am weak. I am weak. I've got to have mercy. Have mercy upon me, O Lord.

Consider my trouble, which I suffer from those that hate me. It's like Todd said last night, our greatest enemy is within. Lord, I'm in trouble. I've got an old man that hates my new man. And I need help. Have mercy upon me, O God, Psalm 26, verse 16, for I am desolate and I am afflicted. Lord, I've got to have mercy. Have mercy upon me, O God. Be thou my helper. Psalm 51 verse 1, have mercy upon me. O God, according to thy tender mercies, according to thy loving kindness, Lord, I've got to have mercy.

And when Nathan came to David and said, thou art the man, David, you don't you know that David had spent the last nine months making sacrifices and doing everything he could to try to go through the necessary steps in order to atone for what he was feeling guilty for? He'd have been a miserable man to be around. You know, most miserable person to be around is a person who's trying to work their way to heaven and they just, you know, they just, David was, If sacrifices is what they want, David goes on to say in Psalm 51, I would make them, I've been making them. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, broken and contrite heart. That he will not despise and he doesn't despise it because he's the one that gives it. Lord, I've got to have mercy. All that I've been doing hasn't helped.

And it wasn't until Nathan said, thou art the man and David said, oh, I have sinned. And Nathan said, yes, you have. And God has forgiven you. And David's cry for mercy was the result of his forgiveness. It was the result of his forgiveness. Nathan already said, you've already been forgiven. And then David writes on 51, have mercy upon me, oh Lord. Our cry for help, our cry for salvation, is the result of what the Lord has done for us.

Blind Bartimaeus, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me. What would you have me to do for you, O Lord, that I might see? I just want to see. That's how we come. That's how we love mercy. Lord, I'm afflicted. I'm sinful. I can't see. I can't walk straight. I can't do it. I need mercy.

Doing justly is agreeing with God about his declaration of what's just. It is loving the hope of mercy. that he gives to his people as a result of their Savior satisfying justice for them. And walking humbly before our God is the result of all that. It's just the result of that. As you see, what we're describing right now is how we come to Christ the first time, the second time, the third time, the millionth time, It doesn't change. We don't preach one message to believers and another message to unbelievers, giving believers steps to follow and giving unbelievers a basic gospel message so that they can be saved and then join us in following the steps. That's how religion works.

I've been there. No, it's the same message. As you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. How did you receive him? You received him as a mercy beggar. You received him as a sinner. You received him as one who had nothing, deserved nothing, could do nothing, were completely dependent upon him for everything.

You humbly came before the throne of grace to find help in your time of need. And that's how we keep coming. Faith. Faith walks humbly before God. Doesn't try to feign humility with men, try to convince others that I'm spiritual and I'm religious. No, it just walks behind Christ, Humbly dependent upon him for everything. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. The whole gospel just gives to him all the glory, doesn't it? All right, okay.

What Doth the Lord Require?

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What Doth the Lord Require?

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