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Walking Humbly with God
Charles Haddon Spurgeon September 12, 1880 Scripture: Micah 6:8 From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 26
Walking Humbly with God
“He hath shewed 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?— Micah vi. 8.
WE shall chiefly dwell upon the last line:— “To walk humbly with thy God.”
Man asks, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?” and, as if he must set himself to answer his own question, he further enquires, “Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?” Sacrifice of some sort is his idea, but he supposes that he must supply the sacrifice himself, and would fain know what it shall be. The answer which is given him chides him for the supposition that he is to answer his own question, for it begins thus:— “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee.” If we had been attentive to God’s voice we should not now be asking, “Wherewith shall I come?” for he has already showed us the way. The worship of God is the subject of revelation, not of invention. True religion is not a new design displaying each man’s taste, but a copy from a plan, framed and fixed by the Lord himself. We are to follow a path well defined, and not to map out a course for ourselves. We are not like children crying in the dark after an unknown Father, whom we seek by ways of our own, but we are as babes who follow whither the warm hand of love gently draws them. To us it is not night, for the true light has risen, and is shining round about us; the Father has revealed himself, and we have an unction from the Holy One, so that all things needful for this life and godliness are lifted out of the region of the unknown, and placed among the matters concerning which the prophet saith, “He hath shewed thee, O man.”
The true worship of God is not left to be a matter of conjecture, to be worked out by a man’s thought from within; but it is a matter of distinct revelation to be received by faith from above. Do we all know this? Are there not some among us, or at least around us, who desire a religion of their own? Is not this one of the special follies of the period? Let us escape from this snare. “He hath shewed thee, Oman, what is good.” Abstain, therefore, from further invention. When once we know from God himself what his requirements are it becomes treason to debate the question any further. The statement inspired by infinite wisdom satisfies every loyal heart. What God says is to be accepted as final fact: to raise further question is a shuffling method of giving God the lie. He who still asks the road, virtually denies that God has showed it to him. It is not altogether their humility which keeps certain minds in what they call a receptive condition, never dogmatic, never confident—or, as Paul more plainly puts it, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. To me it would be high presumption not to be sure and confident when God is the teacher. To push further enquires where revelation speaks is either to deny the revelation or to question its sufficiency. It cannot be that the declarations of God need to be supplemented by opinions, and views, and excogitations of our own. “He hath shewed thee, Oman, what is good”; let this suffice us, and, ceasing to theorize, let us practically obey. Let us become disciples, and in this frame of mind we shall gain one of the first essentials of true worship.
True worship cannot, therefore, be will worship, and will worship cannot be true worship. We are to bring to God that which God requires of us, we are to act towards God as he commands us, and to accept from God that which he presents to us. Our approaches to the Most High are no longer to be a matter of our own taste and cleverness, but to be obedient movements of reverent faith, bowing before the solemn word of the great King. “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good.”
It is clear from the text before us that God has once for ever settled the way by which he is to be honoured among men; and he has declared that it is not by outward rites and ceremonies. Upon these in many Scriptures he poureth contempt when he regards them by themselves. In our text he says not a single word as to burnt offerings and calves of a year old. The question has been asked, but in his answer he makes no allusion to the rams and to the rivers of oil of which the questioner thought so much, but he says “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” It seems, then, that it is far more important to do right than to perform the most imposing religious rites; better to act mercifully than to offer the most costly sacrifices. Much more value is attached to a man’s moral character than to all his outward religiousness, however far he may carry it. The upright and generous actions of daily life are better signs of a gracious heart than lavish gifts to the temple and its priests. God judges a man rather by what he doth ordinarily among his fellows than by what he doeth sumptuously when he is gorgeously arrayed in his profession, and stands in a chief place of the synagogue, and is admired as a chief speaker, or a generous giver to the holy cause. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” Those who are acceptable with God are those who do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him. Every man who is a true Christian does justly. If faith does not make a man honest, it is not an honest faith; if our conversion has not made us upright, may the Lord convert us again. When a man’s heart is right with God he longs to deal rightly with his fellow-men, and shrinks from the idea of taking undue advantage. He who has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ will not knowingly and wilfully defile himself with unjust gain. To his servants, his customers, his employers, he aims to do justly. Nor is this all, for he loves mercy. He tries to love his neighbour as himself. If there be an act of kindness to be done, he delights to do it; if there be misery to be helped, need to be succoured, good to be bestowed, he says, “Let me have a hand in it: for it is good to me to do good.” The man who is loved by the All-merciful is one who loves mercy. The God of mercy cannot take pleasure in the churlish and brutal. The hard, the cruel, the grasping, the oppressing, the sternly unforgiving, are not such as the Lord delights in.
Another point remains, it is the third thing, and it is put third because it is of the highest importance— “to walk humbly with thy God” This is an inward thing, but little observed; observable enough in its consequences, but not in itself, and hence very apt to be overlooked. “To walk humbly with thy God” is as needful as to do justly and to love mercy, but few there be that find it; and hence at this time I would earnestly insist upon this vital, this essential point. I pray God the Holy Spirit to make humble walking with God to seem as important to you as it does to me, and to me as important as it does to himself, for he puts it here in the very forefront of spiritual necessities.
