True piety: its exalted character.
"And what doth the Lord require of thee," etc.? The standard God has set up for human conduct is very high. His law covers the whole range of man's relationships, and demands lofty attainments. Note—
I. PIETY AS DEFINED IN THE TEXT IS VERY EXALTED IN ITS NATURE. See this:
1. In its eminently practical character. It is to enter into all the concerns of our daily life. It does not ignore the emotional in man, but it insists upon holy feeling being transmuted into holy service to God and to man.
2. In its being synonymous with morality. The distinction often drawn between "a religious man" and "a moral man" has no recognition here. God's Law has two tables—the one having reference to our obligations to God, and the other to our duties to man; and, correctly speaking, the term "morality" can only be applied to those who are endeavouriug to heed both these requirements, and he has no claim to it who regards only one of these tables, and that the lesser, and who virtually excludes God from his own Law. And the converse is also true. As there can be no true morality apart from piety, so also there can be no true piety apart from morality; in other words, that these cannot practically be separated. Profession and life must go together, and be in harmony; it is the union of religion and morality that constitutes the life of true and vital godliness.
II. THE CONTEMPLATION OF THIS EXALTED NATURE OF TRUE PIETY IS CALCULATED TO EXERT A DEPRESSING INFLUENCE UPON OUR HEARTS. When we reflect upon the Divine requirement in the light of our own actions and conduct, we feel how infinitely and painfully short we have fallen below what we ought to have been. The standard set up is so lofty that we fear we shall never reach it. "It is high, we cannot attain unto it," we cry, and almost feel despairing and hopeless.
III. BUT WITHAL THERE ARE GLORIOUS ENCOURAGEMENTS.
1. The Divine purpose. What encouragement lies in the thought that he who has revealed this perfect Law for human conduct, and who has the hearts of all men at his own disposal, will not rest until by the power of his grace and Spirit he has so touched and elevated the life of man as that the ideal shall become actual, and the race be delivered, fully and forever, from guilt and sin.
2. The obedience of Christ. In accordance with this Divine purpose, God gave his own Son, and the Christ appeared amongst men. Think of the life he lived, and how complete a transcript of the Divine Law it was And whilst he exemplified that Law in his life, in his voluntary surrender to the stroke of death as a sacrifice for human guilt he put lasting honour upon it. By that memorable death he declared silently the purity of the Divine Law, and attested the righteousness of the penalty attached to its violation. It has been truly said that "man convinced of sin is ready to sacrifice what is dearest to him rather than give up his own will and give himself to God" (W. Robertson Smith). It is easier to offer "to come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old," than to lay our proud wills at his feet and to yield to him our hearts. But as we contemplate the obedience of Christ and his yielding himself up for us, and see in him expressed the great Father's love, that which was difficult becomes light—we own ourselves subdued, we view sin now in the light of the cross, and see its loathsomeness, and desire to be more entirely delivered from its practice, whilst as we contemplate God's Law, under the influence of the feelings and emotions thus excited within us, we are impelled to cry in all the fulness of a consecrated heart, "I delight in the Law of God after the inward man!" (Romans 7:22); "O how I love thy Law!" (Psalms 119:97).
Divine chastisement.
I. A SOLEMN DECLARATION OF COMING CHASTISEMENT. (Micah 6:13-15.) The form this chastisement would assume is suggestive of the thought of utter disappointment. Their gain should be turned into loss; their expectations should be completely frustrated; all that they hoped to realize as the result of their deceptions and extortions should fail them, even as the brook fails the parched traveller when coming to it to slake his burning thirst, lo! he finds it dried up. They should be made desolate because of their sins (Micah 6:13). Surrounded for a time, and through their ill-gotten gains, with all material comforts, they should no more be satisfied by these than he can be upon whom disease has fastened its deadly grasp (Micah 6:13). Nor should these material comforts abide. Internal conflicts and foreign invasion should result in their impoverishment. The toil of the sowing had been theirs, but they should not experience "the joy of harvest;" they had trodden the olives and had pressed the grapes, but they should not rejoice in the oil that makes the face to shine, or the wine that makes glad the heart of man (Micah 6:14, Micah 6:15). They had broken God's Law, and the judgment threatened in that Law they must now inevitably experience (Le 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:30, Deuteronomy 28:38).
II. THIS CHASTISEMENT APPOINTED BY GOD. (Micah 6:9.) "The Lord's voice crieth unto the city," bidding men hear him who had "appointed" the judgment (Micah 6:9). "I will make thee sick," etc. (Micah 6:13). Their sin was allowed to work out its evil consequences upon them, that they might be led to see how evil a thing it was. God turns events into teachers, and sorrows into discipline. He allows the reeds upon which men were leaning to break, and the earthly pleasures upon which their hearts were set to yield only the bitterness of gall and wormwood, that thus they may be led to look to him, the unfailing Spring. It is not by chance that trials meet the children of men in the pathway of life. It is the Divine arrangement that men should be thus met, if perchance they may be impelled to turn away from an unsatisfying world, and be led to seek in him their chief good. Sometimes we are so wayward that we will not pause in our wandering until God reveals the peril that is in our path. The prodigal had to feel shame and hunger before "he came to himself." So we need at times to be startled and chastened into obedience. Even God's chastisements are love. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," etc. (Hebrews 12:6-8); "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten" (Revelation 3:19).
III. THE WISDOM OF RECOGNIZING GOD IN THESE ADVERSE EXPERIENCES OF LIFE. "And the men of wisdom," etc. (Micah 6:9). We show the possession by us of this wisdom when we