Proverbs 15:19. The Hedge of Thorns and the Plain Way

A sermon (Number 1948) delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon.

*"The way of the slothful *man is* as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous *is* made plain."*—Proverbs 15:19.

You must have noticed how frequently godly people almost wear out their Bibles in certain places. The Psalms, the Gospel of John, and parts of the Epistles are favorite portions, and are thumbed in many an old believer's Bible till the fact is very noticeable. There are certain sheep-tracks up the slopes of Scripture which are much more trodden than the rest of the holy fields. I suppose it has always been so, and I will not quarrel with the instincts of the saints.

I do however regret that any portion of Holy Writ should be neglected. There are Bible-readers who keep clear of the historical parts of Scripture, and also greatly avoid the Book of Proverbs: indeed, they almost wonder how Proverbs and Ecclesiastes come to be a part of the Word of God. Very singular it must seem to them that this Book of Proverbs should be placed so very near to Solomon's Song—that sacred canticle which is the center and climax of inspired Scripture: a book which I do not hesitate to call "the holy of holies"—the innermost sanctuary of divine love. Concerning that deeply mystical, mysterious, and rapturous canticle, it would be impossible to speak too highly: it is indeed the Song of Songs—a song however which none can sing but such as are made songsters by God himself by partaking of the inspiration, not of the fount which gushed from Mount Parnassus, but of that fount of every blessing which flows from the mount of everlasting love. It is certainly remarkable that hard by such a deeply-spiritual Book there should be placed the Book of Proverbs, which mainly consists of instructions for this life. Doubtless there is a meaning in that arrangement. The Lord would not have the highest spirituality divorced from common-sense. God has made us body and soul, and he would have us serve him with both. There is a part of us that is material and there is a part that is spiritual; and both need guidance such as the Holy Spirit affords us in the inspired Book. The Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us, not as to our soul alone, nor our spirit alone, but as to our body also; and he would have us recognize this fact.

While we are in the world we are not to regard ourselves as if we were pure spirits, having nothing to do with earth; but we are to look to our lower nature and our earthly surroundings, and order all these in accordance with the will of the Lord. It is not enough that our hearts are cleansed; our bodies are to be washed with pure water. We are in the world, and we must eat and drink and work and trade even as other men do; and all this must be as much brought under the rule of wisdom as our higher nature and its actions. The Christian's faith does not come to him merely to create holy raptures and heavenly emotions, but it comes to help him in the business of every day.

Grace is intended to sanctify all the relations of life. There is no necessity that a man who is wise unto salvation should in other respects be a fool; but the reverse should be constantly seen: sanctity should beget sagacity, and purity should be the mother of prudence. We are to make the common things of this world sacred to God, so that the bells of the horses may be as truly "Holiness unto the Lord" as was the miter of the consecrated priest who served at the altar.

I pray my friends not to be so spiritual that they cannot do a good day's work, or give full measure, or sell honest wares. To my disgust I have known persons professing to have reached perfect purity who have done very dirty things. I have been suspicious of superfine spirituality since I knew one who took no interest in the affairs of this world, and yet speculated till he lost thousands of other people's money. Do not get to be so heavenly-minded that you cannot put up with the little vexations of the family; for we have heard of people of whom it was said that the sooner they went to heaven the better, for they were too disagreeable to live with below.

As the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant for this world as well as for worlds to come, so the volume of Holy Scripture is fitly made to contain Proverbs as well as Psalms. I have been told, but I do not know how true it is, that Scotland owes very much of its practical shrewdness to the fact that the Book of Proverbs used to be printed in a small form, and was one of the first books read by all the children at the public schools. I can only say that if it was so, it showed much wisdom on the part of those who made the arrangement; and I have no doubt that if it were so still, it would be a clear gain to the rising generation. It is a right thing to have practical teaching in connection with sound doctrine, and common-sense in conjunction with deep spirituality. Let the Gospels, and Psalms, and Prophets, and Epistles be your bread, and let the Book of Proverbs be your salt. Neglect neither the one nor the other.

I preach at this time from the word of Solomon which is now before us, and I shall not withhold from you its everyday meaning; but I shall also exhibit its higher lights, for I believe that there is not a moral truth in the Book of Proverbs which does not also wear a spiritual aspect. I shall try to show you that our text, while it has its temporal bearings, which we will not conceal, has beyond these its higher and spiritual teachings, with which we will conclude.

1. First then, take *the text in its temporal bearings*. It runs thus—"The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain."

Note then first of all that *a slothful man is the opposite of a righteous man*. In the text they are set in opposition. "The way of the slothful man" is placed in contrast, not with the way of the diligent man, but with "the way of the righteous," as if to show that the slothful man is the very opposite of being a righteous man. A sluggard is not a righteous man, and he cannot be, he misses a main part of rightness. It is very seldom that a sluggard is honest: he owes at least more labor to the world than he pays. He is guilty of sins of omission, for he fails in obedience to one of the laws laid upon manhood since the fall: "In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread." He aspires to eat his bread without earning it: he would if he could eat bread for nothing, or eat the bread for which others toil, and this verges upon coveting and stealing and generally leads up to one or both of these sins. The sluggard evades the common law of society; and equally does he offend against the rule which our apostle promulgated in the church: "If any would not work, neither should he eat." The sluggard is not righteous for he does not render to God according to the strength lent to him, nor to man according to the work assigned him. A slothful man is a soldier who would let others fight the battle of life while he lies under the baggage-wagon asleep, until rations are served out. He is a husbandman who only husbands his own strength, and would eat the grapes while others trim the vines. He would, if possible, be carried on his bed into the kingdom of heaven; he is much too great a lover of ease to go on pilgrimage over rough and weary ways. If the kingdom of heaven suffers violence from others it will never suffer violence from him. He is too idle to be importunate, too slothful to be earnest.

He cannot be a righteous man for slothfulness leads to the neglect of duty in many ways, and very soon it leads to lying about those neglects of duty, and no liar can have a portion in heaven. Idleness is selfishness, and this is not consistent with the love of our neighbor, nor with any high degree of virtue. Every good thing withers in the drought of idleness. In fact, all kinds of vices are comprehended in the one vice of sloth, and if you tell me that a man is a sluggard I have his whole character before me in the blackest of letters. His fallow fields are well adapted for evil seed, and no doubt Satan will raise a fine crop of weeds in every corner of his life. What this world would have been if we had all been gentlemen with nothing to do, I cannot tell. The millions that have to work are largely kept out of mischief by their toil, and although crimes are abundant enough in our great city as it is, what would they have been if there had not been daily tasks to keep men from excessive indulgence in drink and other forms of evil? Without labor, the ale-houses would have been crammed every one of the twenty-four hours; folly would have held unbroken carnival, and licentiousness would have burst all bounds. Amongst the sanitary and salutary regulations of the moral universe there is none much better than this—that men must work. He who does not work is not a righteous man for he is out of accord with that which makes for righteousness. In some form or other, with either brain or hand, either by working or enduring, we share the common labors of the race appointed them of heaven; and if we are not doing so, we are not righteous. I call to your remembrance the remarkable words of the Savior, "You wicked and slothful servant." Those two adjectives are nearly related—"wicked and slothful." Might not our Lord have said "slothful" alone? He might, but he knew how much of wickedness goes with sloth and is inherent in it, and therefore he branded it with the condemning word.

Our second observation is this: *if we avoid sloth we have not done enough, we must also be righteous*. If it had been sufficient to shake off idleness and become industrious the text would have run thus: "The way of the slothful is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of *the diligent is made plain*." Ah, dear friends! a man may be very industrious, and energetic, and earnest, but if it is in a wrong cause he might have been less mischievous had he been slothful. To be exhibiting industry by doing a great deal of mischief is not commendable. To be actively disseminating your opinions if those opinions are false is to be doing grievous harm. To rise up early, and to sit up late, and to eat the bread of carefulness merely for selfish ends is not to secure a blessing. There is a diligence which is produced by greed or ambition; and this is no better than the selfishness which is the cause of it. Many wear themselves to skin and bone to gather that which is not bread, to hoard up that which can never satisfy them. We are to become the servants of righteousness when we escape from the servitude of sloth. "Not slothful in business" is very well; but to complete the change we must be gracious in our diligence, being "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." We must do that which is right, and kind, and holy; and so we must live to the honor and glory of him to whom we owe all things.

Young men who are beginning life, it is well that you should be urged to be diligent, but it is better that you should be led to be righteous! Worldlings would have you industrious, but saints would have you righteous. You can be made righteous in state through faith in Jesus Christ, and righteous in character through the renewal of your heart by the Holy Ghost. Mind this.

The text leads us to make a third observation which repeats its very words: namely, that *a slothful man's way is like a hedge of thorns*. Here we enlarge. The idler's way is *not a desirable way*. Unthinking persons suppose that the sluggard lives a happy life and travels an easy road. It is not so. Many believe in “the sweet doing of nothing,” but it is a sheer fiction. Surface appearances are not the truth: though it may seem that idleness is rest, it is not so: though sloth promises ease, it cheats its votaries. Of all unrest there is none more wearisome than that of having nothing whatever to do. The severest toil is far more endurable than utter sloth. I have heard of retired businessmen going back to the counter from absolute weariness of idleness. It is far more desirable to be righteous than it is to be at ease. Labor of a holy sort has ten thousand times more joy in it than purposeless leisure.

The way of the sluggard is also *difficult*. The idle man walks a hard road in his own apprehension: he has to break through thorns. Every molehill is a mountain to him; every straw is a stumbling block. There is a lion in the way, he will be slain in the streets. You look out and can only see the smallest possible dog, but he is sure that it is a roaring lion and he must stay at home and go to bed. He cannot plow by reason of the cold. The clods are frozen he is sure; they are hard as iron and will break the plowshare. If you look out of doors you will see the neighbors' teams going, but he has another excuse if you beat him out of the one he has given you. The difficulties that he sees are created in his own mind by his natural sluggishness; but he has such a creative faculty that he has always twenty arguments against exerting himself once. The first thing such persons do in the morning when they open their window is to look out and see a difficulty. Whenever they are sent about a task or on an errand they immediately begin to consider the great labor that will be involved in it, the imminent risk that will surely come of it, and the great advantages of leaving it undone. To the slothful man, his way, when he gets so far as having a way at all, always appears to be as hard to pursue as a hedge of thorns; and mark you! if he continues slothful it will actually become a hedge of thorns. Difficulties imagined are apt to arrive. Duty neglected today will have to be done some time or other; and the arrears of neglected service are grim debts. The slothful is like the spendthrift who does not reckon what he spends, but contents himself with crying, “Put it down.” The score increases and again he cries, “Put it down.” He resolves to do better and then gives a bill, or renews a former bill and dreams that the debt is paid. But the debt remains, accumulates, and follows the man's track. Old debts pursue a man. Like wolves which hunt the flying traveler across the snowy plains of Russia, neglects and obligations follow a man with swift and sure pursuit, and there is no way of escape. It is the past which makes the present and the future so difficult. The sluggard's way appears to lie not only over a thorny thicket, but over a compacted mass of thorns of set purpose planted for a hedge. Dear friends, do not put off till tomorrow that which can be done today. Keep the road clear of arrears. Do the day's work in the day. I am persuaded that in your ordinary business work some of you Christian people need to be warned against shiftless delay. Believe me, there is a piety in keeping your work well in hand, in having the house right, the business in order, the daily task well done. True religion seeks to honor God in all the transactions of life and this cannot be done by idling, by postponement, and by allowing work to run behind. No sloven can be a saint; no sluggard can glorify God. Life grows hard and unenviable to men who try to make it easy. A man who neglects his duty, whether he be a carpenter, a bricklayer, a clerk, a minister, or an archbishop, will find his way increase in difficulty until it becomes almost impassable.

Before long the sluggard's course becomes *a very painful way*, for a way of thorns tears a man's garments and wounds his flesh; and you cannot be neglectful of the ordinary duties of life without by-and-by suffering for it. Loss of character, loss of position, and actual want all come from idleness.

Continue in that course and you will find your way become a hedge of thorns in a further sense, for *it will be blocked up altogether*. You will be unable to go on at all. You took it easy once, but what will you do now? You neglected duty, you forbore to do the service of the day, and at last your sins have found you out; nobody will have you and you are a burden to yourself. Now have you found a hedge of thorns in your way. This is clear enough, and it has been seen by most of us in actual life in several cases.

The other truth of the text is equally clear—*a righteous man's way becomes plain*: “The way of the righteous is made plain.” When a man by the Holy Spirit's gracious influence upon him is made thoroughly truthful, thoroughly honest so that he walks in his integrity, it is most pleasant to note how soon by some means or other his way opens up before him. We have seen good men in great straits and adversities: their own conscientiousness may appear to narrow their course, and of course the depressions of business fall upon righteous men as much as upon the unrighteous; but in the long run you will see that if a man keeps straight, and walks in strict integrity and faith, the Lord will make darkness light before him and crooked things straight. Ask the aged man of God whose life has been full of grace and truth, and he will tell you that though he was brought low the Lord has helped him. He will interest you with his account of the struggles of his younger days, and how when he had his large family of little children about him he was tempted to do a questionable act, but was enabled to hold fast his integrity and found in his steadfastness the way to success. Those stories which some of us heard as boys at our father's fireside, or which our grandfathers told us before they were taken up to heaven, are to some of us heirlooms treasured as tokens for good, and proofs of the faithfulness of God. We know that integrity and uprightness are the best preservatives. If we will not put forth our hand unto iniquity even during the worst pinch, we shall come forth as the light. But if in trouble you try to get out of it by indirect means, you will involve yourself in tenfold difficulty. It is far better to be poor than dishonest; indeed, it is better to die than to dishonor our profession. It is God's business to provide for us, and he will do it. We are not to be too fast in providing for ourselves. We must not command the stones to be made bread by forestalling the Lord in that which is his own peculiar province. Remember our Lord's answer to the tempter, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” We shall dwell in the land, and verily we shall be fed; but how this is to be accomplished is the Lord's business rather than ours. “The way of the righteous is made plain.” Only wait and watch and you shall see the salvation of God.

Thus I have set before you the moral or temporal meaning of the text, commending it earnestly to the consideration of all, especially of men of business, begging them to see to it that there be no neglect about any part of their calling, for a Christian's business ought to be the best done of any man's in the world.

Look to it also that there be no swerving from righteousness in anything that you do, for the safest and surest road is the way of truth, the path of righteousness. If you keep close to God and make him your guide even unto death, you will have no need to trouble yourself about your way—the Lord will make it plain.

2. Now I come to *the spiritual teaching of the text*; and may the Lord anoint our eyes by his Holy Spirit that we may see!

Take the first side of the text, *the spiritual sluggard, what is said of him*? His way is “exclude a hedge of thorns.” I gather from the opposition of the text that the spiritual sluggard's way is the way of unbelief, because the opposite of his way is the way of the righteous. Now, the way of the righteous is the way of faith—“We walk by faith.” Therefore the spiritual sluggard's way is the way of unbelief.

I will describe him. He has a way, for he is not altogether dead to religious matters. He hears sermons, and attends the house of God. He sometimes reads his Bible, and he often has a correct notion of what the gospel is. But he fails in faith: he has not faith enough in the truth of the things which he professes to believe ever to be affected by them in his daily life, or in his truest feelings. If he did really believe these things to be true, his life would not be slothful. When a man believes that there is a hell, he labors to escape from it. When a man verily believes that there is a heaven, unless he is demented he has an ambition to partake in its glories. When a man really and truly accepts the fact of his having sinned against a righteous God, and believes in the evil of sin, he pines to be cleansed from sin. When he heartily believes in the power of the precious blood of Christ to make him clean, he seeks to be washed therein that he may be pure before the sight of God. The spiritual sluggard does not believe after that practical fashion. He says “It is true,” but he acts as if it were false. He is too much a sluggard to become an infidel; he is too lethargic to argue against the truth which condemns him; he nods assent, it is the nod of sleep. We might have more hope of him if he would begin to contradict. If he would think enough of the truth to endeavor to justify his unbelief of it, we might hope that he had opened one of his eyes; but while he continues to cry “Yes; oh, yes;” and to do all that is proper, but nothing that is decided and earnest, we have small hope of him. He prays at times, but it is a dreamy devotion. He has not faith enough in prayer to continue in it till he is heard in heaven. He listens to the preaching of the gospel, but as a sluggard he lets what is said go in at one ear and out at the other: he grasps nothing, feels nothing, retains nothing. He is often on the verge of some good and great thing, but it ends in smoke. He has resolved in real earnest to look to his eternal state and seek the Lord with all his might, but his resolves are frail as bubbles. If you were to tell him that in seven years' time he would be just as dull, stupid, and sinful as he now is, he would angrily deny it; but such will be the case. He intends only to delay a very little longer, and then he is going to entertain the great question in the most serious manner. If I recollect rightly he was in the same mind twenty years ago, and I fear he will continue in the same mind when death comes upon the scene and ends all his dreaming. I fear that of him it will be true, “In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.” He will not open his eyes till then.

I must not forget that this sluggard did once make an effort. He gave up one of his vices: that is to say he almost did so, but he soon returned to it. He was a drunkard, and he went the length of not drinking quite so much. Perhaps he even went so far as not drinking at all, which was a good thing for him, but then he made up for his self-denial in that direction by indulgence in another way. If you cannot sink a ship by a hole in one place you can do so by boring a hole in another: while some go down to perdition by one sin, others destroy themselves by another. The sluggard spent all his strength in tinkering one breakage, and he had no energy left to mend a second flaw. He was so much asleep that he murmured in his dream, "Well done! I am a splendid fellow." Even when a friend shook him, he yawned, and turned over, and went to sleep again. He was almost awakened but he preferred to doze till a more convenient season. He heard a sermon the other day upon "One thing you lack," and he cried, "That's me!" and slumbered again. He heard a discourse upon judgment to come and he at once admitted the absolute need of being prepared for death and judgment; but he did not prepare, and in all probability he will die in his sins. The man has no resolution, no soul for action, no spirit for anything good. He is given up to slumber; he pleads always for a little more folding of the arms to sleep. He will, he will; he assures you that he will wake up; but he never does. Oh that by the grace of God this dreamer could be aroused! His way is the way of unbelief, and he keeps to it with a deadly persistence which must end in destruction.

Now, that way is full of thorns. *It is a very hard way*. I will show you in a minute that it is so. People who are in this state cannot quite give up religion, and yet they have never really taken to it. Do you notice how hard everything is to them? To begin with, ministers always preach such dreadfully long sermons. The sermon is not long to you who feed upon the word; but to those who sleep at the table it is intolerably tedious. The whole service is dreary to them, though to believers it is bright and happy. And Sundays! To me the Sabbath is the pearl of the week, but to these sluggards in religion it is a day of gloom. We hear them speak of "dreary English Sundays." They piteously describe the closed shops and theaters and museums; and inquire what a man is to do in so sad a case. To go to church? To hear of the best things? This is much too hard a task for sluggish minds. Poor dear souls! As for a prayer-meeting, they never condescend to consider such a gathering; it is too dreary. Or if perchance they go nobody ever prays to please them; their ideal of devotion is not reached. Ask them whether they read the Bible at home. They might do so if they were flogged to it, but the Bible does not interest them, and it requires so much thought: they cannot muster mind enough for it. To us it is a Book which sparkles with the divinest truth: it is the Book of God: the Lord of books: there is no volume like it. But to these people Bible-reading is hard labor, and worse. Prayer also is slavery; repentance is impossible. The revival plan of "Believe, and live," without any repentance—they rather take to for a time till they begin to understand more of what the evangelist means.

They go into the inquiry-room and get "converted" in five minutes, and have done with godliness for the rest of their lives. Possibly some time after they hear of a sanctification to be had in the same manner: they believe themselves to be perfect and feel that there is no more need for watchfulness or striving; for sin is dead and they are perfect. When they are told what repentance and faith really are, and that these are for daily, life-long use, and that we must every day watch and strive against temptation without and within, they disappear from among our hearers for they do not wish to trouble themselves with so great an enterprise. If they could be carried to heaven in a sedan chair or trip there in their slippers they would be glad of it; but to go on pilgrimage up hill and down dale is another matter. Their way is as full of difficulties as a thorn-hedge is full of prickles.

Moreover, it is *full of perplexities*. Do you ever meet with these sluggards? I do. They sometimes come to see me, and when they come this is their style of talk. They say, "Well sir, I have heard about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you tell me what it means?" I explain that it is a simple acceptance of God's testimony and trust in the Lord Jesus. Do you understand *that*? They say "Yes." Then they raise a difficulty, which I explain. Do you quite comprehend that? "Yes sir, I see that, but"—and then follows a further doubt. This also is cleared up in time to make room for another. Again and again it is—"Yes, but then—." Thus I continue grinding wind by the hour together. Their minds are bottomless buckets and their memories are bags full of holes: it is very unprofitable work to endeavor to fill them. I seem to be trying to catch a fox. I stop up its hole but it is out at another opening. This also I stop and fifty more, and to my surprise I hear the shout, "Hark, away!" My fox has gone across country. He is further off than ever: it was great folly on my part to imagine that I could bring him to earth, or dig him out of his burrow. These people are great at questions, the whole difficulty really lying in their unbelief—they are unwilling to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. When a man does not wish to believe, reasons for doubting gather about him in swarms like flies. Besides, it is such a fashionable thing, you know, to doubt. You are aware that all the cultured folk display great facility in fashioning doubts, while those who believe God to be true and do not mistrust his word are commonplace persons of a very low order of mind. You smile; but this is a very convincing argument to our sleepy friend. No great logic is needed to lull a sluggard to repose. It is the fashion to doubt, and you may as well be dead and buried as out of the fashion! These sluggish people will not take the trouble to sift evidence; they have no wish to be driven to turn from their sins and seek a Savior, and be reconciled to God: this would be too much exertion and involve too many self-denials and heart-searchings. They prefer a way full of perplexities to the new and living way: they choose a thorn-hedge rather than the King's highway of righteousness.

Nor is this all. In addition to perplexities their way becomes *full of miseries*. The sermon which pleases the believer and cheers his heart, saddens the sluggard. The prayer which is to us a delight is to them a cause of anxiety, if they enter into it at all. The sight of bread is a great joy to a hungry man; but suppose he does not eat it, and there it stands—well then it becomes an instrument of torture fit for Tantalus to use. I should suppose that nothing could aggravate thirst much more than the mirage of the desert when the traveler sees a stream of bright sparkling water rippling at his feet, and yet not a drop is there. His fancy torments his thirst. So for some of you to hear of the feast of love and to see the joy of the children of God must be horrible if you yourselves have neither part nor lot therein. That promise quoted by the preacher, how it must have grated on your ear if you knew its value and yet did not embrace it by faith! Painful is this predicament. You are sadly placed, for you enjoy neither good nor evil. If you were to go straight out into the world and plunge into the pleasures of it you would at least know one side of life; but you dare not do that, you have too much conscience, too much training in religious ways to run with the worldling in his wantonness; so that you neither know the pleasures of the world nor the pleasures of grace. You feel restraints from both sides but you know not the liberties of either side. Between two stools you come to the ground. Neither heaven nor hell is on your side; both saints and sinners are shy of you, and so your way is as a thorn-hedge. It is dreadful for a man to have enough conscience to know that he is lost, but not enough grace to find salvation; to have enough religion to make him uncomfortable in sin but not enough to make him happy in Christ. I know some who continue in sin and yet at night have terrible dreams, and wake up in a cold sweat of fear. They dare not think of the course of conduct which they nevertheless persevere in: they go onward to destruction, and by and by they will take a leap in the dark because they are too idle to wake up. Oh mighty grace, wake these sluggards or else they will sleep themselves into eternal misery!

"The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns." One of these days he will come to the end of his way, and he will see that hedge of thorns *blocking him out of heaven*—blocking him out from God. His sins like a thick hedge will stand in front of him as he is about to die, and will shut him out from hope while his despairing soul will cry, "Oh, that I could find mercy! Oh, that I could find deliverance!" Recollection of wasted opportunities and of a rejected gospel and of despised Sabbaths will come up before him, and through that thorn-hedge his naked soul will be unable to force its way into hope and peace. God grant that we may not be among the sluggards at the end of the way!

We will now consider the other side of the text very briefly and notice that the *righteous man's way shall be made plain*. This is a cheering promise, especially to any of you who are walking in the dark at this time. "The way of the righteous is made plain." The Lord will see to this. The way of the righteous is the way of faith. They see him who is invisible, and they trust in God. They look for their pardon to the precious blood of Jesus Christ; in fact they look to God in Christ Jesus for everything. Their way has impediments in it: crooked things are in it, mountains are in it, and deep gulfs; but see the beauty of the promise, "The way of the righteous is made plain." Difficulties shall be removed, the valleys shall be exalted, and the mountains and hills shall be laid low, the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. Child-like confidence in God shall march on as upon a raised causeway and always find for itself a road. Faith travels by an unseen track to honor and glory, neither shall anything turn her aside. Her way may not be plain at this moment, but it shall be made so. God is with those who trust in him, and what or whom shall we fear when God is with us? In due time the hand of the Lord shall be seen. To the moment the divine power will time its interposition. The Red Sea was not divided a single second before Israel passed through it. The Jordan only flowed apart when the feet of the Lord's priests actually came to the water's brim. Tomorrow's difficulties are real, and tomorrow's grace will be real. When tomorrow comes, sufficient unto the day shall be the divine help thereof. When you come to the sepulcher you shall find that the stone is rolled away from its mouth. In due time the way of the righteous shall be made plain, and that is all the righteous should desire or expect.

Sometimes the way of the righteous is mysterious and perplexing. I have known the best of men say, “I long to do the right and by God's grace I will not stoop to anything which is evil; but which out of the two ways now before me is the right way? Each of them seems to be both hopeful and doubtful; which way shall I turn?” This is a condition which causes great anxiety to one who is deeply earnest to be right. Oh for an oracle which could plainly indicate the path! Superstition and fanaticism shall not be gratified by either voice or dream, but yet the way of the righteous shall be made plain. Brother, when you do not know your way ask your guide. Stand still and pray. If you cannot find the way upon the chart, commit yourself to the divine guidance by prayer. Down on your knees and cry to the Lord! Few go wrong when they pray over their movements and use the judgment which God has given them. The last is not to be omitted, for I have known persons pray about a matter which was perfectly clear to anyone with half a grain of sense. In order to escape from an evident but unpleasant duty they have talked about praying over it. Where a plain command is given an unmistakable finger points the way, and hesitation is rebellion. Sluggards make prayer an excuse for doing nothing: on the other hand willful people make up their mind and then pray, and this is sheer hypocrisy.

God is insulted by prayers which only mean that the petitioner would be glad of divine allowance to do wrong—glad of an event which might be twisted into guidance in a doubtful direction. Such prayers God will never hear, but the way of the righteous shall be made plain. The path of faith shall end in peace, the way of holiness shall conduct to happiness. Your way may be so dark that you cannot see your hand before you, but God will before long make it bright as noonday. At this moment all the wise men in the world might not be able to predict your path; but the Lord will direct you. Only trust in the Lord and do good, and he will light your candle, indeed, he will cause his sun to shine upon you. There is a blessing in the very act of waiting upon God, and out of it comes this joy, that your way shall be made plain.

I find one excellent translation runs thus—“The way of the righteous is a highway.” The righteous do not follow the blind alleys and back streets of craft and policy: “The way of the righteous is a highway;” it is the open road where none may challenge the traveler. It is the King's highway where the passenger has a right to be. It is a grand thing to feel that in your position in life you are where you have a right to be, and that you came there by no trespass or breaking of hedges; that you are doing what you have a right to do before the living God and none may oppose you. He who is in the King's highway is under the King's protection, and he who stops him by daylight shall come under the strong hand of the law. Our King has said, “No lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up on it.”

He who is on the King's highway will come to a good end, for the King has completed that way so that it does not fall short, but leads to a city of habitations whose Builder and Maker is God. Oh, to be right with God; indeed, to be right with him in our daily life and private walk! Let that be the case, and our way shall be judged by the Lord as his own royal highway, and upon it the light of his love shall shine so that it shall become brighter and brighter to the perfect day.

O God of great mercy, keep us in thy fear, and through thy grace lead us in imitation of thy dear Son to abide in holiness! And to thy name be praise forever and ever! Amen.

*Portion of Scripture read before sermon*—Isaiah 35 and Hebrews 12:1-13.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”—241, 210, 126.

A sermon (Number 1948) delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon.

"The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain." — Proverbs 15:19.

You must have noticed how frequently godly people nearly wear out their Bibles in certain places. The Psalms, the Gospel of John, and parts of the Epistles are favorite portions, and are heavily thumbed in many an old believer's Bible. There are certain well-worn paths through Scripture that are traveled far more often than others. I suppose it has always been so, and I will not argue with the instincts of the saints.

I do, however, regret that any portion of Holy Scripture should be neglected. Some Bible readers avoid the historical books entirely and stay largely clear of the Book of Proverbs — they almost wonder how Proverbs and Ecclesiastes came to be part of God's Word. It must seem strange to them that the Book of Proverbs sits so close to Solomon's Song — that sacred poem which is the center and climax of inspired Scripture, a book I do not hesitate to call the holy of holies, the innermost sanctuary of divine love. That deeply mystical, mysterious, and rapturous poem cannot be spoken of too highly: it is indeed the Song of Songs, yet a song that only those made songsters by God Himself can truly sing — not by any human inspiration, but by the Spirit who flows from the mount of everlasting love. It is certainly striking that right next to such a deeply spiritual book there sits the Book of Proverbs, which is mainly concerned with instructions for everyday life. Doubtless there is meaning in that arrangement. The Lord does not want the highest spirituality divorced from common sense. God made us body and soul, and He would have us serve Him with both. Part of us is material and part is spiritual, and both need the guidance the Holy Spirit provides in the inspired Book. The Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us — not the soul alone or the spirit alone, but the body as well — and He would have us acknowledge this fact.

While we are in the world, we are not to act as though we were pure spirits with no connection to earth. We must attend to our physical nature and earthly circumstances and order them in accordance with the will of the Lord. It is not enough that our hearts are cleansed — our bodies are to be washed with pure water. We are in the world, and we must eat and drink and work and trade just as other people do, and all of this must be brought under the rule of wisdom just as much as our higher nature and its actions. The Christian's faith does not come merely to produce holy raptures and heavenly emotions — it comes to help him in the business of every day.

Grace is meant to sanctify every area of life. There is no reason why a man who is wise unto salvation should be a fool in other respects — the opposite should be consistently true: godliness should produce good judgment, and purity should be the mother of prudence. We are to make the ordinary things of this world sacred to God, so that even the bells on horses may be as truly "Holiness to the Lord" as the crown of the consecrated priest who served at the altar.

I urge my friends not to be so spiritual that they cannot put in a good day's work, give full measure, or sell honest goods. To my disgust, I have known people who claimed to have reached perfect purity yet did very dirty things. I have been suspicious of superfine spirituality ever since I knew a man who claimed no interest in worldly affairs, yet speculated recklessly and lost thousands of other people's money. Do not become so heavenly-minded that you cannot tolerate the small frustrations of family life — we have all heard of people of whom it was said that the sooner they went to heaven the better, for they were too disagreeable to live with here below.

Since the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant for this world as well as for the world to come, the volume of Holy Scripture rightly contains Proverbs as well as Psalms. I have been told — though I cannot verify it — that Scotland owes much of its practical wisdom to the fact that the Book of Proverbs was once printed in a small format and was among the first books read by all children in public schools. If that is true, it showed great wisdom on the part of those who arranged it, and I have no doubt that if it were still the case it would be a clear benefit to the rising generation. Practical teaching alongside sound doctrine, and common sense alongside deep spirituality, is exactly right. Let the Gospels, Psalms, Prophets, and Epistles be your bread, and let the Book of Proverbs be your salt. Neglect neither.

I am preaching from the words of Solomon before us, and I will not withhold their everyday meaning — but I will also bring out their higher significance, for I believe every moral truth in the Book of Proverbs also carries a spiritual dimension. I will show you that our text, while it has a practical application I will not hide, also carries a higher spiritual teaching with which we will conclude.

First, then, consider the text in its practical meaning. It runs thus: "The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain."

Note first that a slothful man is the opposite of a righteous man. The text sets them in opposition. "The way of the slothful man" is contrasted not with the way of the diligent man, but with "the way of the righteous" — as if to show that the slothful man is the very opposite of being righteous. A sluggard is not a righteous man and cannot be; he misses a core part of what it means to live rightly. It is very rare for a sluggard to be honest — he owes the world more labor than he pays. He is guilty of sins of omission, for he fails to obey one of the laws laid upon humanity since the fall: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread." He aims to eat bread without earning it — he would, if he could, eat for nothing, or eat the bread for which others have toiled, and this borders on coveting and stealing and generally leads to one or both of those sins. The sluggard evades the common obligation of society, and he equally offends against the rule the apostle established in the church: "If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either." The sluggard is not righteous because he does not give to God according to the strength given to him, nor to others according to the work assigned to him. A slothful man is like a soldier who lets others fight the battle of life while he sleeps under the baggage wagon, waiting for rations to be handed out. He is a farmer who only conserves his own strength, eager to eat the grapes while others trim the vines. If he could, he would be carried to heaven on his bed — he loves ease far too much to go on pilgrimage over rough and weary roads. If the kingdom of heaven suffers violence from others, it will never suffer violence from him. He is too idle to be persistent, too slothful to be earnest.

He cannot be a righteous man because slothfulness leads to the neglect of duty in many ways, and very soon it leads to lying to cover those neglects — and no liar can have a portion in heaven. Idleness is selfishness, and that is not consistent with love of neighbor or with any meaningful degree of virtue. Every good thing withers in the drought of idleness. In fact, all kinds of vices are wrapped up in the single vice of sloth, and if you tell me a man is a sluggard, I can picture his whole character written in the darkest letters. His unplowed fields are well suited for evil seed, and no doubt Satan will raise a fine crop of weeds in every corner of his life. What this world would have been if everyone had been idle gentlemen with nothing to do, I cannot say. The millions who must work are kept largely out of mischief by their labor — and although crime is common enough in our great city as it is, what would it have been if there were no daily tasks to keep people from excessive drink and other evils? Without labor, the taverns would have been packed around the clock, foolishness would have run unchecked, and immorality would have burst all bounds. Among the healthy and wholesome arrangements of the moral universe, few are better than this: that people must work. He who does not work is not righteous, for he is out of step with what makes for righteousness. In some form or other — whether by hand or mind, by working or by enduring — we share in the common labors of the human race appointed by heaven, and if we are not doing so, we are not righteous. I call to your attention the striking words of the Savior: "You wicked and slothful servant." Those two words belong together — "wicked and slothful." Could our Lord not have simply said "slothful"? He could have, but He knew how much wickedness is bound up with sloth and inherent in it, and so He branded it with that condemning word.

Our second observation is this: avoiding sloth is not enough — we must also be righteous. If it were sufficient simply to shake off idleness and become industrious, the text would read: "The way of the slothful is as a hedge of thorns: but the way of the diligent is made plain." Dear friends, a man may be very industrious, energetic, and earnest, but if he applies that energy to the wrong cause, he might have done less harm by being idle. To display great industry in doing a great deal of mischief is not admirable. To actively spread ideas that are false is to do serious harm. To rise early, stay up late, and work anxiously for purely selfish ends does not earn a blessing. There is a kind of diligence driven by greed or ambition, and it is no better than the selfishness that produces it. Many wear themselves to the bone gathering what is not truly bread and hoarding what can never satisfy them. We are to become servants of righteousness when we escape the slavery of sloth. "Not slothful in business" is well and good, but to complete the transformation we must be gracious in our diligence — "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." We must do what is right, kind, and holy, and so live for the honor and glory of Him to whom we owe everything.

Young men just beginning in life, it is good that you should be urged to be diligent — but it is better still that you should be led to be righteous! The world would have you industrious, but those who belong to God would have you righteous. You can be made righteous in your standing through faith in Jesus Christ, and righteous in your character through the renewal of your heart by the Holy Spirit. Take this to heart.

The text leads us to a third observation, one that repeats its very words: a slothful man's way is like a hedge of thorns. Let us expand on this. The idler's way is not a desirable way. People who do not think carefully suppose that the sluggard lives a happy life and travels an easy road. That is not so. Many believe in "the sweet pleasure of doing nothing," but it is pure fiction. Appearances deceive: though idleness may seem like rest, it is not; though sloth promises ease, it cheats those who pursue it. Of all forms of restlessness, none is more exhausting than having absolutely nothing to do. The hardest toil is far more bearable than complete idleness. I have heard of retired businessmen returning to their shops out of sheer weariness from doing nothing. It is far better to be righteous than to be at ease. Holy labor holds ten thousand times more joy than purposeless leisure.

The sluggard's way is also difficult. In his own mind, the idle man walks a hard road — he has to push through thorns. Every molehill becomes a mountain to him; every straw becomes a stumbling block. There is a lion in the street, he says — he will be killed if he goes out. You look out the window and see only the smallest possible dog, but he is certain it is a roaring lion and he must stay home in bed. He cannot plow because of the cold. The ground is frozen solid, he insists — hard as iron and ready to break the plow. If you look outside you will see the neighbors' teams at work, but he has another excuse ready when you disprove the first. The difficulties he sees are created in his own mind by his natural laziness, yet his imagination is so productive that he always has twenty arguments against exerting himself. The first thing such people do in the morning when they open a window is to look for a difficulty. Whenever they are given a task or an errand, they immediately begin to think of the great labor it will require, the inevitable risk that will come of it, and the many advantages of simply leaving it undone. To the slothful man, his way — whenever he gets so far as having a way at all — always seems as hard to follow as a hedge of thorns; and mark this: if he remains slothful, it actually will become a hedge of thorns. Imagined difficulties tend to arrive in reality. Duty neglected today will have to be done sometime; and the backlog of neglected service is a grim debt. The sluggard is like the spendthrift who never tracks what he spends but simply cries, "Put it on my tab." The balance grows and again he cries, "Put it on my tab." He resolves to do better, then writes a new note or renews an old one and imagines the debt is settled. But the debt remains, grows, and follows him. Old debts pursue a man. Like wolves that hunt a fleeing traveler across the snowy plains of Russia, neglected duties and obligations follow a man with swift and certain pursuit, and there is no escape. It is the past that makes the present and the future so difficult. The sluggard's way lies not only over a thorny thicket but over a dense mass of thorns planted deliberately to form a hedge. Friends, do not put off until tomorrow what can be done today. Keep the road clear of backlogs. Do the day's work in the day. I am convinced that in your ordinary business, some of you Christians need to be warned against careless delay. Believe me, there is a kind of godliness in keeping your work well in hand — in having the home in order, the business organized, the daily task completed. True religion seeks to honor God in all the transactions of life, and this cannot be done through idling, postponement, and letting work fall behind. No sloven can be a saint; no sluggard can glorify God. Life becomes hard and miserable for those who try to make it easy. A man who neglects his duty — whether he is a carpenter, a bricklayer, a clerk, a minister, or an archbishop — will find his path growing harder until it becomes nearly impassable.

Before long the sluggard's course becomes a very painful way, for a path through thorns tears a man's clothes and wounds his flesh. You cannot neglect the ordinary duties of life without eventually suffering for it. Loss of reputation, loss of position, and real poverty all come from idleness.

Continue in that course and you will find your way blocked altogether — your way becomes a hedge of thorns in the fullest sense. You will be unable to go on at all. You took it easy once, but what will you do now? You neglected your duty, you skipped the service of the day, and at last your sins have caught up with you — nobody will have you and you are a burden to yourself. Now you have found a hedge of thorns in your way. This is plain enough, and most of us have seen it play out in real life.

The other truth of the text is equally clear — a righteous man's way shall be made plain: "The way of the righteous is made plain." When a man is made thoroughly truthful and thoroughly honest by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, so that he walks in integrity, it is wonderful to watch how soon his way opens up before him. We have seen good men in great difficulty and hardship: their own conscientiousness may seem to narrow their options, and of course the pressures of business fall on righteous men as much as on the unrighteous. But in the long run, if a man keeps straight and walks in strict integrity and faith, the Lord will turn darkness into light before him and make the crooked places straight. Ask the aged man of God whose life has been full of grace and truth, and he will tell you that though he was brought low, the Lord has helped him. He will captivate you with his account of the struggles of his younger years — how when he had a large family of young children he was tempted to do something questionable, but was enabled to hold fast to his integrity and found in that steadfastness the path to success. Those stories some of us heard as boys at our father's fireside, or that our grandfathers told us before they were taken to heaven, are treasured by us as family heirlooms — tokens of God's goodness and proof of His faithfulness. We know that integrity and uprightness are the best protections. If we refuse to reach out our hand toward wrongdoing even under the worst pressure, we will emerge like light breaking through darkness. But if in trouble you try to escape by indirect means, you will entangle yourself in ten times as much difficulty. It is far better to be poor than dishonest; indeed, it is better to die than to dishonor our profession. It is God's business to provide for us, and He will do it. We must not be too hasty in providing for ourselves. We must not demand that stones be made bread by rushing ahead of the Lord in what is His own unique province. Remember our Lord's answer to the tempter: "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." We will live in the land and truly be fed, but how that will happen is the Lord's business more than ours. "The way of the righteous is made plain." Only wait and watch, and you will see the salvation of God.

I have now set before you the practical meaning of the text, and I commend it earnestly to everyone — especially to those in business — urging them to see that no part of their calling is neglected, for a Christian's work ought to be the best done of any person's in the world.

See also that there is no turning from righteousness in anything you do, for the safest and surest road is the way of truth, the path of righteousness. If you keep close to God and make Him your guide even to death, you need not trouble yourself about the road — the Lord will make it plain.

Now I come to the spiritual teaching of the text — and may the Lord open our eyes by His Holy Spirit so that we may truly see!

Consider the first side of the text: what does it say about the spiritual sluggard? His way is as a hedge of thorns. I gather from the contrast in the text that the spiritual sluggard's way is the way of unbelief, because the opposite of his way is the way of the righteous. Now, the way of the righteous is the way of faith — "We walk by faith." Therefore the spiritual sluggard's way is the way of unbelief.

Let me describe him. He has a way, for he is not entirely dead to religious matters. He hears sermons and attends church. He sometimes reads his Bible and often has a correct understanding of what the gospel is. But he fails in faith — he never believes the things he claims to believe deeply enough to let them affect his daily life or his truest feelings. If he truly believed these things, his life would not be slothful. When a man believes there is a hell, he works to escape it. When a man genuinely believes there is a heaven, unless he has lost his mind he desires to share in its glories. When a man truly accepts that he has sinned against a righteous God and believes in the evil of sin, he longs to be cleansed from it. When he wholeheartedly believes in the power of the precious blood of Christ to make him clean, he seeks to be washed in it so that he may stand pure before God. The spiritual sluggard does not believe in that practical, life-changing way. He says, "It is true," but acts as if it were false. He is too much of a sluggard to become an unbeliever — he is too lethargic to argue against the truth that condemns him. He nods in agreement, but it is the nod of someone falling asleep. We might have more hope for him if he would at least begin to argue back. If he thought enough of the truth to try to justify his rejection of it, we might hope he had opened one eye. But while he keeps saying, "Yes, oh yes," and does everything that seems proper but nothing decisive or earnest, we have little hope for him. He prays at times, but it is a dreamy devotion. He has not enough faith in prayer to keep at it until he is heard in heaven. He listens to the gospel being preached, but as a sluggard he lets what is said go in one ear and out the other — he grasps nothing, feels nothing, retains nothing. He is often on the verge of some good and great thing, but it comes to nothing. He has resolved in all seriousness to take stock of his eternal condition and seek the Lord with all his might, but his resolutions are as fragile as soap bubbles. If you told him that in seven years he would be just as dull, lifeless, and sinful as he is now, he would hotly deny it — but that is exactly what will happen. He intends only to delay a little longer, and then he is going to face the great question with complete seriousness. If I remember correctly, he was in the same frame of mind twenty years ago, and I fear he will still be there when death arrives and ends all his dreaming. I fear that of him it will be true: "In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment." He will not open his eyes until then.

I should not forget that this sluggard once made an effort. He gave up one of his vices — or nearly did, before soon returning to it. He was a drunkard, and he managed to drink a little less. Perhaps he even went so far as giving it up entirely, which was good for him — but then he made up for his restraint in one area by indulging in another. You can sink a ship just as well by boring a hole in one place as another: while some go down to destruction by one sin, others destroy themselves by a different one. The sluggard spent all his energy patching one leak and had nothing left to fix a second. He was so nearly asleep that he murmured in his drowsiness, "Well done — what a fine fellow I am." Even when a friend shook him, he yawned, turned over, and went back to sleep. He was almost awakened but preferred to doze until a more convenient time. He heard a sermon the other day on "One thing you lack," and cried, "That's me!" — then fell back asleep. He heard a message on judgment to come and immediately agreed on the absolute need to be prepared for death and judgment — but he did not prepare, and in all likelihood he will die in his sins. The man has no resolve, no drive for action, no spirit for anything good. He is given over to slumber — always pleading for just a little more rest with his arms folded. He will, he will — he assures you he will wake up. But he never does. If only by the grace of God this dreamer could be roused! His way is the way of unbelief, and he clings to it with a deadly persistence that can only end in destruction.

Now, that way is full of thorns. It is a very hard way. Let me show you why. People in this condition cannot quite give up religion, yet they have never truly taken it up. Notice how hard everything is for them. To begin with, ministers always preach such unbearably long sermons. The sermon is not long to those who feed on the Word, but to those who sleep at the table it is intolerably tedious. The whole service is dreary to them, though to believers it is bright and joyful. And Sundays! To me the Sabbath is the jewel of the week, but to these religious sluggards it is a day of gloom. We hear them speak of "dreary English Sundays." They complain pitifully about closed shops and theaters and museums, and ask what a person is supposed to do on such a sad day. Go to church? Hear about the best things in life? That is far too demanding a task for sluggish minds. Poor souls! As for a prayer meeting, they would never lower themselves to attend one — it is too dreary. Or if they happen to go, nobody ever prays in a way that satisfies them; their idea of devotion is never quite reached. Ask them whether they read the Bible at home. They might do so if they were forced, but the Bible does not interest them and requires too much thought — they cannot muster the mental energy for it. To us, it is a book that sparkles with divine truth — the Book of God, the Lord of all books, unmatched by any other. But to these people, Bible reading is hard labor, and worse. Prayer too feels like slavery, and repentance seems impossible. The evangelistic approach of "Believe and live" without repentance appeals to them for a time, until they begin to understand more of what the evangelist actually means.

They go into the inquiry room and get "converted" in five minutes, and consider themselves done with godliness for the rest of their lives. Some time later they may hear of a further experience of sanctification to be had in the same effortless way — they declare themselves perfect and feel there is no longer any need for watchfulness or striving, for sin is dead and they are perfected. When they are told what repentance and faith truly are — that these are for daily, lifelong practice, and that we must every day watch and fight against temptation both from without and within — they disappear from among our hearers, unwilling to take on so demanding an enterprise. If they could be carried to heaven in a sedan chair or slip there in their slippers, they would gladly go; but to go on pilgrimage over hill and valley is another matter entirely. Their way is as full of difficulties as a thorn hedge is full of prickles.

Beyond that, their way is full of perplexities. Do you ever encounter these sluggards? I do. They sometimes come to see me, and when they come, the conversation goes something like this. They say, "Well, sir, I have heard about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you tell me what it means?" I explain that it is a simple acceptance of God's testimony and trust in the Lord Jesus. Do you understand that? They say, "Yes." Then they raise a difficulty, which I explain. Do you understand that now? "Yes, sir, I see that, but" — and then comes another doubt. That too is cleared up, only to make room for the next. Again and again it goes: "Yes, but then —" I continue like this for an hour, grinding through thin air. Their minds are bottomless buckets and their memories are bags full of holes — it is very unprofitable work trying to fill them. It feels like trying to catch a fox. I block one hole and it escapes through another opening. I block that one, and fifty more, and then to my surprise I hear the shout, "Gone away!" My fox has run off across country. He is further off than ever — it was foolish of me to imagine I could run him to ground or dig him out of his burrow. These people are expert at raising questions, and the real difficulty always lies in their unbelief — they simply do not wish to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. When a man does not want to believe, reasons for doubting swarm around him like flies. Besides, doubt is fashionable, you know. All the sophisticated people display a great facility for manufacturing doubts, while those who believe God and do not mistrust His Word are considered commonplace people of a very low order of mind. You may smile, but this is a very convincing argument to our drowsy friend. No great logic is needed to lull a sluggard back to sleep. Doubt is in fashion, and you might as well be dead and buried as out of fashion! These sluggish people will not take the trouble to examine the evidence — they have no desire to be brought to turn from their sins and seek a Savior and be reconciled to God, for that would require too much effort and involve too many self-denials and heart-searchings. They prefer a way full of perplexities to the new and living way; they choose a thorn hedge over the King's highway of righteousness.

Nor is this all. Beyond the perplexities, their way becomes full of misery. The sermon that delights the believer and lifts his heart only saddens the sluggard. The prayer that is a joy to us is a source of anxiety to them, if they engage with it at all. The sight of bread is a great joy to a hungry man, but suppose he does not eat it and it simply sits before him — then it becomes an instrument of torment worthy of Tantalus. I imagine nothing aggravates thirst more than a desert mirage when the traveler sees what looks like a sparkling stream rippling at his feet, yet there is not a drop of water. His imagination torments his thirst. In the same way, for some of you to hear about the feast of love and witness the joy of the children of God must be agonizing if you yourselves have neither part nor share in it. That promise quoted by the preacher — how it must have grated on your ear if you knew its value and yet did not embrace it by faith! What a painful position to be in. You are badly placed, for you enjoy neither the good nor the evil. If you were to go straight out into the world and plunge into its pleasures, you would at least know one side of life — but you dare not do that; you have too much conscience, too much religious upbringing to run with the worldly crowd in its recklessness. So you know neither the pleasures of the world nor the pleasures of grace. You feel the restraints from both sides but enjoy the freedoms of neither. Falling between two stools, you end up on the ground. Neither heaven nor hell is on your side; both saints and sinners are wary of you, and so your way is as a thorn hedge. It is dreadful for a man to have enough conscience to know he is lost but not enough grace to find salvation — enough religion to make him uncomfortable in sin but not enough to make him happy in Christ. I know some who continue in sin yet have terrible dreams at night and wake in a cold sweat of fear. They dare not think about the course of life they are nonetheless persisting in — they press on toward destruction, and eventually they will make a leap into the dark because they are too idle to wake up. O mighty grace, wake these sluggards — or they will sleep themselves into eternal misery!

"The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns." One day he will reach the end of his road, and he will see that hedge of thorns blocking him out of heaven — blocking him from God. His sins, like a thick hedge, will stand in front of him as he is about to die, shutting him out from hope, while his despairing soul cries out, "Oh, that I could find mercy! Oh, that I could find deliverance!" The memory of wasted opportunities, a rejected gospel, and despised Sabbaths will rise before him, and through that thorn hedge his naked soul will be unable to force its way into hope and peace. God grant that we may not be among the sluggards at the end of the road!

We will now briefly consider the other side of the text and notice that the righteous man's way shall be made plain. This is a cheering promise, especially for any of you walking in darkness right now. "The way of the righteous is made plain." The Lord will see to this. The way of the righteous is the way of faith. They see Him who is invisible, and they trust in God. They look to the precious blood of Jesus Christ for their pardon; in fact they look to God in Christ Jesus for everything. Their way has obstacles in it — crooked places, mountains, deep chasms — but notice the beauty of the promise: "The way of the righteous is made plain." Difficulties will be removed, the valleys will be raised up, and the mountains and hills brought low; the crooked will be made straight and the rough places smooth. Childlike confidence in God will walk forward as on a raised road and always find a way. Faith travels by an unseen path toward honor and glory, and nothing shall turn her aside. Her way may not be plain at this moment, but it shall be made so. God is with those who trust in Him — what or who should we fear when God is with us? In due time the hand of the Lord will be seen. His power will act at exactly the right moment. The Red Sea did not part a single moment before Israel passed through it. The Jordan only divided when the feet of the Lord's priests actually touched the water's edge. Tomorrow's difficulties are real, and tomorrow's grace will be real. When tomorrow comes, the divine help of that day will be sufficient for it. When you come to the tomb, you will find the stone has already been rolled away from the entrance. In due time the way of the righteous shall be made plain, and that is all the righteous need to ask or expect.

Sometimes the way of the righteous is mysterious and confusing. I have known the best of men say, "I long to do right, and by God's grace I will not stoop to anything evil — but which of these two roads before me is the right one? Each of them seems both promising and uncertain. Which way should I turn?" This uncertainty causes great anxiety for someone who is deeply earnest about doing right. How we long for a clear word to point the way! God will not satisfy superstition or fanaticism with voices or visions, yet the way of the righteous shall be made plain. Brother, when you do not know the way, ask your Guide. Stand still and pray. If you cannot find the way on the map, commit yourself to divine guidance through prayer. Get down on your knees and cry out to the Lord! Few go wrong when they pray over their decisions and use the good judgment God has given them. That last part must not be skipped, for I have known people pray about matters that were perfectly clear to anyone with half a grain of sense. To escape an obvious but uncomfortable duty, they have spoken of "praying it over." Where a clear command is given, an unmistakable finger already points the way, and hesitation is rebellion. Sluggards use prayer as an excuse for doing nothing; willful people, on the other hand, make up their minds and then pray — and that is sheer hypocrisy.

God is insulted by prayers that really mean the person would welcome divine permission to do wrong — or hopes that some event might be twisted into guidance toward a questionable direction. Such prayers God will never answer, but the way of the righteous shall be made plain. The path of faith shall end in peace, and the way of holiness shall lead to happiness. Your way may be so dark right now that you cannot see your hand in front of your face, but God will before long make it bright as noon. At this moment all the wise people in the world might not be able to predict your path, but the Lord will direct you. Only trust in the Lord and do good, and He will light your candle — indeed, He will cause His sun to shine on you. There is a blessing in the very act of waiting on God, and out of it comes this joy: your way shall be made plain.

One excellent translation reads: "The way of the righteous is a highway." The righteous do not follow the blind alleys and back streets of cunning and scheming — "The way of the righteous is a highway;" it is the open road where no one may challenge the traveler. It is the King's highway where the traveler has every right to be. It is a wonderful thing to feel that in your place in life you are where you belong, and that you arrived there by no trespass or breaking through hedges — that you are doing what you have a right to do before the living God and none may oppose you. He who is on the King's highway is under the King's protection, and whoever blocks his path in broad daylight will answer to the strong arm of the law. Our King has said, "No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it."

He who is on the King's highway will come to a good end, for the King has completed that road so that it does not fall short but leads to a city of habitations whose Builder and Maker is God. What a thing it is to be right with God — truly right with Him in daily life and private conduct! Let that be the case, and the Lord Himself will judge our way as His own royal highway, and on it the light of His love will shine until it becomes brighter and brighter to the perfect day.

O God of great mercy, keep us in Your fear, and through Your grace lead us to walk in holiness after Your dear Son! And to Your name be praise forever and ever! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before sermon — Isaiah 35 and Hebrews 12:1-13.

Hymns from "Our Own Hymn Book" — 241, 210, 126.