God is so concerned that divine truth should penetrate the hearts of people that He has devised a great variety of methods: He has given divine laws, histories, songs, prophecies and proverbs! It is to the Book of Proverbs that we turn for the theme of this series.
Proverbs 4:26: “Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.”
Our key verses speak of the “path” of the righteous and the “way” of the wicked. Is there any difference between a little winding path and a broad highway along which masses of modern traffic speeds? All the difference in the world! The Lord Jesus spoke of the “broad way” and the “narrow way” (Matthew 7:13-14), and He said there would be many on the broad way and few on the narrow way. So, we see that the righteous are in the minority, and this has always been so. In Noah’s day, after his 120 years of warning the wicked, only eight souls were saved (1 Peter 3:20); in the case of wicked Sodom, only a small minority escaped God’s judgment (Genesis 19:23-25); and this was so in the days of the psalmist and the prophets (Matthew 20:16; Luke 13:23-24). Christians are in the minority today, and the tragedy is that the crowd on the broad way think that to be among the majority must be the right way. It is easy to be beguiled by numbers, and it is dangerous to go with the crowd (Proverbs 14:12).
“The path of the righteous is as the shining light” is the experience of every born-again Christian, but how solemn is the condition of those who do not know the Lord! “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan is keeping multitudes in spiritual darkness, and the first thing that happens when we pass from “the way of the wicked” to “the path of the righteous” is that the light of the gospel of Christ shines into our hearts (1 Peter 2:9).
The path of the righteous is “like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter…”; and in contrast, “the way of the wicked is like deep darkness: they do not know what makes them stumble.” The non-Christian stumbles through life hoping for the best, but he has no real anchorage and no everlasting hope. Does God want us to stumble through life? No! He wants us to know the experience of “shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” He waits to lead every stumbling soul, and if they will put their hands into His He will guide them, as He does every one of His children (Psalm 37:23). This wonderful Guide waits to lead you through all the intricate pathways of life until at last you enter into His presence.
The righteous are travelling on to the full light of day (John 14:2-3). One translation of our key verse reads: “The wicked shall be silent in darkness”, and that surely speaks of judgment (Matthew 8:12).
Contrary to the claims of atheists and agnostics through the centuries, man cannot live without God. Man can have a mortal existence without acknowledging God, but not without the fact of God.
Psalm 1 is a striking commentary upon Proverbs 4:18-19 which emphasizes the same truth. Particularly notice the closing verse of the psalm: “the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”