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[0:00] Welcome to our service this morning, and as we come together around the Word of God, let us seek his blessing to be upon his word. Let us pray.

[0:14] Let us pray.

[0:44] Let us pray.

[1:14] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.

[1:26] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.

[1:38] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.

[1:50] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.

[2:02] Let us pray. that thou art the one who can meet with each one of us today at our point of need. And we pray that as we draw near to thee in this act of worship, that we may know thine own blessing to be upon us, that we may know that peace in our hearts as we come together today to meditate upon thine own word. We acknowledge, O Lord, that our times are in thine own hands, that thou art the one who is sovereign over all things. We give thee thanks, O Lord, for all the tokens of thy goodness and kindness that thou dost so abundantly outpour upon us every day. And we seek, O Lord, that thou would be pleased to bless thy word throughout all nations of the earth, and to bless thy servants who have gone forth to proclaim thy word today. O that thy gospel as it is preached, that it may indeed be a means of blessing, encouragement and spiritual enrichment to all who listen and to all who preach. We pray, O Lord, that thou would bless those who are ill among us, may thy healing hand be upon them. And those who mourn over the passing of loved ones, we pray that thine own comfort would fill their hearts. We pray for our young people and our children. O Lord, that thou would protect them from the many distracting influences that they are exposed to. O we pray that their hearts and minds would be open to the richness of the gospel, and that thou would raise up a generation that would fear thine own name, a generation that would be thine own witnesses in the world. We pray, O Lord, that thou would grant wisdom to those who are leaders over us in Westminster and Holyrood and our own local authorities. O Lord, we pray that they may be given guidance by thee. We pray, O Lord, that thou would bless our islands. We give thanks, O Lord, for the situation in South Wales that appears to be contained at the moment. And we remember those who are currently in self-isolation throughout our communities. We pray that they may soon be able to return to their normal activities. We pray, O Lord, that thy gospel may go forth today in the power and demonstration of thy

[4:56] Spirit. We pray for thy people, that they may continue to be faithful to thee, to be faithful to thy word. O, that they may continue to be faithful witnesses for thee. For thou, O Lord, in calling us and in in the work of thy grace upon our hearts and our souls, have given to us that responsibility to be thy witnesses in thy witnesses in thy witnesses in this world. And we pray, O Lord, that by thy grace, that we would be able to be true and faithful witnesses for thee. We ask, O Lord, that thou would continue with us as we come to read and to meditate on thy word. And all that we ask with the forgiveness of our sins is in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. We shall now read the word of God as we find it in the

[6:04] Old Testament in the Old Testament in the book of Micah and chapter 6. Hear ye now what the Lord is saying. Arise, content thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice.

[6:21] Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth. For the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. O my people, what have I done unto thee?

[6:39] Tolkien, and wherein have I wearied thee, testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants. And I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

[6:54] O my people, remember now what Balaam king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim into Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? 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? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath 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. The Lord's voice crieth into the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name. Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it? Other yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable. Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their turn is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore also will I make thee sick, and smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins. Thou shall eat, but not be satisfied, and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee, and thou shall take coal, but shall not deliver, and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword. Thou shall sow, but thou shalt not reap.

[8:34] Thou shall tread the olives, but thou shall not anoint thee with oil, and sweet wine, but shall not drink wine. For the statutes whom he hath kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their councils, that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof, and hissing. Therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people." May the Lord bless unto us the reading of that portion of his word. And seeking the Lord's help, let us turn to Micah chapter 6 and read from verse 6.

[9:10] Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with bond offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul? He hath 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. Micah belongs to that section of the Old Testament, which we call the minor prophets. Now, they are not called minor because they are unimportant, but because of the size of their books. Prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel have large books, and so these prophets are called the major prophets, only because their books are larger, not because they are more important. The minor prophets are probably not the most popular books, because we very often regard them as books of gloom and doom. The minor prophets consists of 12 books, and we recently studied one of them, the book of the prophet Jonah. We looked at Jonah in some details over several weeks, but it is not my intention to do so with Micah. But I am going to look at certain themes or messages that are found throughout the book. First, we have a message of judgment throughout the book, and then a message of what God requires of us, which is the basis of our text today.

[11:08] To understand this message of judgment, we shall give a brief summary of the situation that confronted Micah. The prophet Micah exercised his ministry during the reigns of three kings of Judah, namely Jothan, Asa and Ezekiel. He lived after the prophets Jonah and Amos, and was a contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah.

[11:42] Now the name Micah, which means who is like Jehovah, is a fairly common name in the Old Testament. Fourteen men are called Micah. This Micah came from Morisheth, which was an agricultural village around 24 miles southwest of the city of Jerusalem.

[12:07] So Micah was a countryman living a simple life out in the fields and among the hills. Now at this time, Assyria, whose capital had been brought to repentance by the preaching of Jonah, had turned back to their former ways, and they were beginning to exert their power.

[12:30] They were proving to be very threatening to Israel and Judah, because they were casting their shadow far and wide. However, there was a deeper problem than the emergence of the superpower of Assyria, and that was the spiritual condition of Israel and Judah, because they had abandoned their spiritual heritage.

[12:58] Certainly there was an outward embrace of religion, but Israel and Judah had turned their heart away from God. In the first chapters of the book of Micah, there the prophet challenges both Israel and Judah.

[13:18] And they are challenged there by their capital cities of Samaria and Jerusalem. And there they are warned of the judgment that is going to come from God, unless they repent and turn back to God.

[13:36] Micah was deeply affected by the sin and injustice that he saw in the nation and among the people. For instance, chapter 1, verse 8, we read, Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked, I will make a wailing like the dragons and moaning as the owls.

[13:57] You know, this really challenges us. How do the sins and apathy shown to the things of God in our nation and communities affect me and you?

[14:12] The psalmist cried out in Psalm 119, verse 136, Jeremiah lamented in chapter 9, Oh, that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

[14:38] The apostle Paul lamented the fact that his brethren and kinsmen, according to the flesh, were hanging on and going on with a lifeless form of religion and rejecting the salvation that was offered in Christ.

[14:54] And so he confessed in Romans chapter 9 that he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart towards them. In both the Old and New Testament, we have this testimony of how the sins of the nation and of the people affected the church of God.

[15:17] Is there any that kind of heartbroken concern through of me and you today? Matthew Henry wrote, The sins of sinners are the sorrows of the saints.

[15:33] We must mourn for the things we cannot mend. We find that Micah is a good example for me and you, for he was a man who began his ministry in a brokenhearted manner over his people, and God blessed him.

[15:53] In Psalm 126, we read, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

[16:09] Oh, do we weep for the sins of our nation? Do we weep for the sins of our communities? Do we weep for the sins of our own families?

[16:21] Do we weep for the sins of our own families? Do we weep for the sins of our own families? Do we weep for the sins of our own families? Do we weep for the sins of our own families? You know that God has blessed many times the tears of a mother or father over their children. Micah not only sorrowed over the state of the nation, but he challenged the nation with its people about the corruption that was so evident around him.

[16:43] Judah was constantly violating her covenant with God while she continued with the rituals of religion.

[16:54] And at the same time, property was taken by violence. Debts were collected by fish. False prophets and false priests emerged, which were corrupt.

[17:08] Justice was perverted by the leaders. Witchcraft and paganism thrived. Traders became corrupt and relationships within families became broken with devastating consequences.

[17:26] Micah records in chapter 3 verse 11. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment and pervert all equity.

[17:43] They build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward and the priests thereof teach for hire and the prophets thereof divide for money.

[17:56] Yet, will they lean upon the Lord and say, It's not the Lord among us. None evil can come upon us.

[18:09] But in the midst of all that, we see here that the word of the Lord came to them through his chosen prophet. One of the dangers when we read the Old Testament is that we tend to overlook things which are vitally important for us to observe.

[18:31] For instance, when we read of ancient judgment, we so often assume that God is talking about something other than ourselves.

[18:41] James Boyce, in his commentary on the minor prophets, so rightly warns us, When we read of judgment on others, we almost sigh in relief, assuming wrongly that if judgment is spoken against them, it is therefore not spoken against us.

[19:01] But that is wrong. God is no respecter of persons. Consequently, if we are going our way and not God's way, as the people of Jerusalem were doing, then we must do as they eventually did, and turn back to God.

[19:22] It is the way we ourselves will escape God's judgment. Another thing that we must note here is that judgment was not the first of God's remedy for the nation.

[19:37] Before, the judgment was the remedy of preaching. We have a nation that has turned its back upon God, and yet the Lord sends a message to the nation through his appointed prophet.

[19:56] This brings before us the grace, the mercy, the long-suffering and faithfulness of God. I am not sure that we value the gospel as we ought to, that we value God's word as we should.

[20:14] Amos the prophet lamented with these words, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

[20:32] What value do you and I put upon the word of God? What value do we put upon the gospel? The great privilege that God has put upon us that he is speaking to us through his word.

[20:45] The Lord in his mercy still presents us with the gospel, but how do we respond to the gospel? Micah warned the people that God would come to Jerusalem to judge their sin.

[21:02] We have this truth brought before us in various places, but let me quote again from chapter 3, verse 12. The reason that I have chosen this verse of chapter 3 is that when we quoted from this verse earlier, we read there of the presumption held and entertained among the people in spite of their behavior.

[21:34] behavior, as Micah records for us, the heads that have judged for reward, and the priests that have judged for hire, and the prophets that have judged for money.

[21:47] That was their behavior. But this was their thoughts. Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say, it's not the Lord among us, none evil can come upon us.

[21:58] You know, Paul's word to Titus sums up for us the mindset of these people when he says in chapter 1 of Titus and verse 16, they profess that they know God, but in works they deny him.

[22:15] Their ethics do not match their religion. The problem with these people were not their doctrine, for it is a good thing to lean upon the Lord, but the inconsistency and inappropriateness between their behavior and their beliefs.

[22:35] That is the reason for me and you to daily examine ourselves, to make sure that our behavior match what we profess to believe. This form of spiritual presumption was always a problem with the nation of Israel and Judah.

[22:54] For instance, in the days of Samuel, the people allowed themselves to live the most sinful behavior. But nonetheless, they expected victory when they went to battle with their enemies as long as they carried with them the Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized God's presence among them.

[23:15] And on one occasion, when they were suffering defeat, they sent for the Ark, as recorded for us in 1 Samuel chapter 4, saying, Let us fetch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh, unto us, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.

[23:34] What has happened to the people is that they are trusting in the Ark farther than the God that the Ark represents? Of course, in this instance, Israel was defeated and the Ark was captured.

[23:49] But the lesson for us is in whom do we put our trust? Do we, for instance, put our trust in the intellectual knowledge that we have of the truth?

[24:02] Do we put our trust in church attendance? Do we put our trust in church membership? In the fact that we were baptized?

[24:14] Or maybe we put our trust in our parents' beliefs? Does our daily behavior attest, prove, and demonstrate our faith?

[24:27] It is clear to us that in the days of Micah, their religion and their behavior did not match. But let us remember, this was not only a problem in Micah's day, but it can be the problem of our own day, and it can even be the problem of our own lives.

[24:46] Oh, let us, each one, examine ourselves in the light of the Word of God, that our behavior is according to our belief, that our behavior is according to our faith.

[25:01] Let us be sure that our trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ, alone for salvation, and that our behavior matches that. It is the responsibility of the Christian church to declare what is clear to us in the Bible, that God will judge sin.

[25:23] It is clear that sin not only brings misery and leads to a final judgment from God, and that will have judgment which is eternal.

[25:33] Surely then, it is a loving thing to warn people against God's coming judgment upon sin. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.

[25:48] When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.

[26:12] It's not only those that know not God, but those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we come to chapter 6 of this prophecy of Micah, we are entering, as it were, a courtroom where God registers his complaint against Israel and Judah.

[26:38] He says, Hear ye now, what the Lord saith, Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord controversies, and ye strong foundations of the earth, for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.

[27:00] God is about to bring charges against Israel, and he calls two witnesses to hear the charges, namely the mountains and the strong foundations of the earth.

[27:13] How does God begin his case? O my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me.

[27:25] For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants. And I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balaam king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, from Shittimmon to Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord.

[27:49] He calls them, O my people. He reaches out to them within a very personal and a passionate way, showing them his tender love.

[28:02] It's the plea of a loving God, whose heart has been broken by their rejection. They were not like the ignorant pagans that surrounded their nation.

[28:13] They were God's covenant people. God's covenant people with special privileges. They had been born into a God-fearing culture.

[28:25] They were a privileged people. They had the oracles of God. But they had fallen far away from the standards of God's word. He says to them, O my people, what have I done unto thee?

[28:40] And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me. The implication is that they had grown tired and bored with having to live in a certain way, and God now demands an answer.

[28:55] Testify, he says, against me. Through the prophet Isaiah, he says, What could have been done more to my vineyard than I have done in it?

[29:08] Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes. We see here how God calls them to consider the evidence of their history.

[29:19] What is God charging Israel with? He is charging them with the fact that they had forgotten his mighty acts in history.

[29:31] His redemptive grace when he took them out of Egypt and entered with them into a covenant. He had freed them to become unto him a holy nation, but they had become the exact opposite.

[29:44] Truly, the Lord can bring such charges against our communities and people today. Have we forgotten God's mighty redemptive work in his Son on the cross of Golgotha?

[29:59] Have we forgotten what God did in his Son to set us free from what our sins deserved? We were slaves and in bondage to sin, held by its power, condemned by its guilt.

[30:13] But God in his worship prepared a way and made provision by which we could be set free by sending his Son and giving him up to receive what our sins deserved.

[30:27] You know, we are so prone to forgetfulness that our Lord on the night that he was betrayed instituted a meal for us to remember his death. This do in remembrance of me.

[30:40] For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. If we truly remember this great salvation, how can we grow bored or weary or resent living in the way that God requires of us?

[31:01] What more could have been done for me and you? Paul says in his letter to the Romans, what shall we then say to these things?

[31:15] If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

[31:28] Yet when the Lord looks for repentance, when the Lord looks for faith, trust and commitment, what does he find?

[31:43] Not only had he set them free from Egypt, but he raised up those who would help them and he had protected them on their way to Canaan. When the king of Moab plotted against them and wanted to curse them, he employed Balaam to do so, but instead of curses, Balaam blessed them and God brought them from Shudan into Gilgal.

[32:07] Shudan been the last stop on the east bank of the River Jordan and Gilgal was the first camp on the west side. In other words, he took them safely over the crossing of the River Jordan into the Promised Land.

[32:22] God had protected them all the way and brought them to the Promised Inheritance. Paul had this assurance when he wrote his letter to the Philippians as we recently saw when he said, He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

[32:42] He will protect us and he will bring his people unto the Promised Inheritance. Yes, he will protect us through the valley and through the mountains, through the rivers, through the fire, even through the valley of the shadow of death.

[33:02] We shall be protected because he will bring his people from Shudan to Gilgal. He will bring us across the Jordan River of death.

[33:14] He will bring us into the Promised Land. He will bring us into the Promised Inheritance. Yes, we shall be forever with the Lord in body and in soul.

[33:26] Their response to the challenge here, to the charge here, demonstrates how far they had fallen spiritually that they were not sure what would please God.

[33:43] Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the High God? 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?

[33:59] Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You see, they were actually trying to bargain with God.

[34:10] They kept raising their bid until they had reached the ultimate, that of sacrificing their firstborn. You see, they were unaware of the enormity of their sin.

[34:22] And there are people still who think that they can bargain their way with God. They believe that God will be pleased with this and that.

[34:33] That God will be pleased with how religiously present themselves. Again, I need not repeat the great example we saw recently of this one, the Apostle Paul, whose confidence was that he pleased God far more than anyone else.

[34:50] Here we find that the people were prepared to offer God their own works, sacrifices and rams and rivers of oil, even the firstborn.

[35:04] And yet, they refused to offer God what he required, and that was their hearts, their undivided heart. John Calvin comments on this passage, and he says, hence they wish to discharge their duty towards God as a matter of necessity, but at the same time seek some fictitious modes of reconciliation, as though it were enough to flatter God, as though he could be pacified by, like a child with some frivolous trifles.

[35:38] That they were a people who were putting their trust in their religious rituals. And there is always a danger that we can get so wrapped up with religious rituals that we can come to conclude that the people, like the people of Micah's days, that they are sufficient to guarantee God's presence and blessing among us.

[36:02] But Micah, he swept aside all these external and outward things upon which the people relied.

[36:13] He says, He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what did the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

[36:26] He says, It is not a mystery what God requires. He has made it known, and he has revealed it. When we consider the words that the Lord spoke to Moses, as recorded for us in Deuteronomy chapter 10, where he says, And now Israel, what did the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good.

[37:00] Again, he points out that they were not ignorant like the pagan nations, for God had told them how to live and how to behave.

[37:12] These were his covenant people. Let us not point all this to unbelievers. Yes, let them take heed. Judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

[37:32] But let us remember what is required of the Christian as well. A.W. Toaster said, No Christian is where he ought to be spiritually until the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ is being reproduced in daily Christian life.

[37:55] In other words, what we already said, our behaviour and our beliefs must be the same. Jesus, in his sermon on the mountain, Matthew chapter 5, said, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

[38:18] ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray from them which despitely use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.

[38:38] For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. To do justly, is to do that which is a fitting behaviour for the Christian.

[38:54] In 1 John chapter 4, we read, If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

[39:09] We must do justly. And we are told to love mercy. We are not merely to show mercy, but we are to love mercy. Christians should love to be merciful because God has been merciful to them.

[39:29] Because this is what belongs to the very character of God as he yields himself to Moses, recorded for us in Exodus chapter 34. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

[39:56] Thomas Brooks wrote, God's mercies are above all his works and above all ours too. Oh, let us remember that were it not for God's extravagant and indescribable mercy, nobody in all the world would ever have so much as a single sin forgiven.

[40:19] God's mercy is demonstrated throughout the Bible, but supremely demonstrated in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ at Golgotha when his son Jesus died on behalf of sinners.

[40:33] This is so eloquently brought to our attention by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter 2, where he says, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace you are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ.

[41:07] For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Paul's own experience of God's mercy is recorded for us in 1 Timothy chapter 1, where he wrote that he was before a blasphemer and a persecuted and injurious, but I obtained mercy.

[41:32] This, he says, is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. How be it for his cause, I obtained mercy.

[41:48] Oh, let us do justly. Let us love mercy. And we are told to walk humbly with thy God.

[42:01] You see, there is a great difference between believing about Christ and believing or trusting on him. Many believe about him, but it is an altogether different thing to trust on him or in him.

[42:18] We can believe the facts about Christ, but what is true of the Christian is that he knows Christ. Our knowledge about God may make a shudder.

[42:30] We are even told by James that the demons believe and tremble, but the Christian with true saving faith has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[42:42] Augustine maintained that for those who would learn God's way, there were three important stages and he said that humility was the first one and humility was the second one and humility was the third one.

[43:03] To walk humbly with thy God. We are told that Enoch and Noah walked with God. to walk with God means to have a lifestyle that is wholly devoted to him seeking his glory in all things.

[43:19] To do so humbly. The word can be also translated to walk circumspectly or to walk carefully.

[43:30] We are to walk with an awareness of the majesty and holiness and grace of God. maybe we can sum it up in the words of Isaac Watts who wrote in his hymn when I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory dies my riches gain I count but loss and poor contempt and all my pride were the whole realm of nature mine that was a present far too small.

[44:01] Love so amazing so divine demands my life my soul my all all to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

[44:17] May the Lord bless our thoughts let us pray. O Lord our God as we come before thee at this hour we acknowledge our sinnership we acknowledge our great need of that provision which thou hast made for us in thy son that fountain that thou hast opened in him for sin and for uncleanness and grant to each one of us today that we would draw near to that fountain and that we would draw from that fountain by faith and that each and every one of us would receive the cleansing that we stand in need of.

[45:01] We give thee thanks O Lord for the provision that thou hast made for us in thy son Jesus Christ and grant to us O Lord that we would indeed be among those whose behaviour would be in accordance with our faith O that we would be as those who walk worthy of our calling as those who walk worthy of the gospel grant to us O Lord that we would do justly that we would love mercy and that we would walk humbly with our God walking with an awareness of the majesty and holiness and grace of our God we pray O Lord that thou would continue with us that thou would forgive us for all our sins and for all our shortcomings may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever more Amen

[46:02]  Amen