"The prophets and apostles, too,
Pursued this road while here below;
We therefore will, without dismay
Still walk in Christ, the good old way."
"An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away!"
I. First, this road of the text is the King's highway. In the diligence you dash over the Bernard pass of the Alps, mile after mile, and there is not so much as a pebble to jar the wheels. You go over bridges which cross chasms that make you hold your breath; under projecting rock; along by dangerous precipices; through tunnels adrip with the meltings of the glaciers; and, perhaps for the first time, learn the majesty of a road built and supported by government authority. Well, my Lord the King decided to build a highway from earth to heaven. It should span all the chasms of human wretchedness; it should tunnel all the mountains of earthly difficulty; it should be wide enough and strong enough to hold fifty thousand millions of the human race, if so many of them should ever be born. It should be blasted out of the "Rock of Ages," and cemented with the blood of the Cross, and be lifted amid the shouting of angels and the execration of devils.
The King sent His Son to build that road. He put head and hand and heart to it, and, after the road was completed, waved His blistered hand over the way, crying, "It is finished!" Napoleon paid fifteen million francs for the building of the Simplon Road, that his cannon might go over for the devastation of Italy; but our King, at a greater expense, has built a road for a different purpose, that the banners of heavenly dominion might come down over it, and all the redeemed of earth travel up over it.
Being a King's highway, of course it is well built. Bridges splendidly arched and buttressed have given way and crushed the passengers who attempted to cross them. But Christ, the King, would build no such thing as that. The work done, He mounts the chariot of His love, and multitudes mount with Him, and He drives on and up the steep of heaven amid the plaudits of gazing worlds! The work is done—well done—gloriously done—magnificently done.
II. Still further: this road spoken of is a clean road.
Many a fine road has become miry and foul because it has not been properly cared for; but my text says the unclean shall not walk on this one. Room on either side to throw away your sins. Indeed, if you want to carry them along, you are not on the right road. That bridge will break, those overhanging rocks will fall, the night will come down, leaving you at the mercy of the mountain bandits, and at the very next turn of the road you will perish. But if you are really on this clean road of which I have been speaking, then you will stop ever and anon to wash in the water that stands in the basin of the eternal rock. Ay, at almost every step of the journey you will be crying out: "Create within me a clean heart!" If you have no such aspirations as that, it proves that you have mistaken your way; and if you will only look up and see the finger-board above your head, you may read upon it the words: "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death." Without holiness no man shall see the Lord; and if you have any idea that you can carry along your sins, your lusts, your worldliness, and yet get to the end of the Christian race, you are so awfully mistaken that, in the name of God, this morning I shatter the delusion.
III. Still further, the road spoken of is a plain road. "The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." That is, if a man is three fourths an idiot, he can find this road just as well as if he were a philosopher. The imbecile boy, the laughing-stock of the street, and followed by a mob hooting at him, has only just to knock once at the gate of heaven, and it swings open: while there has been many a man who can lecture about pneumatics, and chemistry, and tell the story of Farraday's theory of electrical polarization, and yet has been shut out of heaven. There has been many a man who stood in an observatory and swept the heavens with his telescope, and yet has not been able to see the Morning Star. Many a man has been familiar with all the higher branches of mathematics, and yet could not do the simple sum, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Many a man has been a fine reader of tragedies and poems, and yet could not "read his title clear to mansions in the skies." Many a man has botanized across the continent, and yet not know the "Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley." But if one shall come in the right spirit, crying the way to heaven, he will find it a plain way. The pardon is plain. The peace is plain. Everything is plain.
He who tries to get on the road to heaven through the New Testament teaching will get on beautifully. He who goes through philosophical discussion will not get on at all. Christ says: "Come to Me, and I will take all your sins away, and I will take all your troubles away." Now what is the use of my discussing it any more? Is not that plain? If you wanted to go to Albany, and I pointed you out a highway thoroughly laid out, would I be wise in detaining you by a geological discussion about the gravel you will pass over, or a physiological discussion about the muscles you will have to bring into play? No. After this Bible has pointed you the way to heaven, is it wise for me to detain you with any discussion about the nature of the human will, or whether the atonement is limited or unlimited? There is the road—go on it. It is a plain way.
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And that is you and that is me. Any little child here can understand this as well as I can. "Unless you become as a little child, you can not see the kingdom of God." If you are saved, it will not be as a philosopher, it will be as a little child. "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Unless you get the spirit of little children, you will never come out at their glorious destiny.