What Doth the Lord Require of Thee?

One of the messages of the Old Testament is that who we are—our hearts and desires and goodness—are more important to the Lord than any performances of the law that we may participate in.  Despite the fact that the children of Israel were required to make ritualistic sacrifices as part of the law of Moses, still the Lord was more interested in who the people were in their hearts than how many sacrifices they performed.  Micah posed this question to us: “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?”  He then offered a few possible answers to this question about how we should approach the throne of 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?”  These sacrifices of course would be dramatic and enormous, far beyond what is required in the law.  But that’s not what the Lord wants from us.  Rather, Micah taught, “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 6:6-8) 

               Samuel learned was reminded of this general principle when the Lord taught him, “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  The Lord is concerned about how our heart is developed, not on how we individually appear through outward performances of the law.  Samuel also gave a similar message to Saul when Sault performed the sacrifices that he was not supposed to; he had not waited upon the Lord as he should have.  “And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).  Our obedience—our desire to do as the Lord commands us and to be pleasing to Him—is far more important than sacrifices or other performances of the law.  It is our heart that he wants and not just our actions.  Hosea taught a similar principle to the people of Israel: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6).  The Lord wants us to develop mercy more than he wants us to offer physical sacrifices, and he wants us to gain knowledge of Him more than He wants us to give burnt offerings.  This is not to say that those things are not needed—but the Lord’s purpose in them is not for Himself but to change us.  He confirmed the validity of the prophet’s message when He said this during His discussions with those who criticized him: “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13).  Clearly he was referring to this passage from Hosea, and the invitation surely is valid for us today as well: we need to learn what it means that the Lord prefers mercy and justice to sacrifice. 

               It’s easy to look at the Old Testament and think that it is only a record of “outward performances,” but that is far from the truth.  We see in it that the Lord is most interested in the love and mercy and justice and overall goodness that we develop.  During His mortal ministry He summed up the writings of the Old Testament this way: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12).  The love that we develop for those around us—who we really are—is the most important thing the Lord wants us to gain from the writings of the Old Testament.