God has a path for Heaven-bound pilgrims. It is beyond the ken of nature’s sight. The fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts of the forests know not of it. The vulture’s eye discerning from the mountain peak the fallen carcass on the plains below, has not espied the path. The prowling lion in quest of prey has not crossed it, though all the tracks of the desert are known to him (read Job 28:7-28).
Where then is the path, seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living? The “men of renown” are seldom found among the travellers by this way; for “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1 Cor. 1:26).
There is, however, a path through the waste. Many, to their joy and everlasting reward, have found it, and by faith trodden it. In Hebrews, chapter 11, called by somebody “The Divine Westminster Abbey, where Old Testament saints have a memorial before God,” their immortal names are enshrined. They would tell us that the path of walking with God, the topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it; for the treasure they have found in His companionship cannot be valued—no, not with the fine gold of Ophir. They weighed well the path in the balances of the sanctuary of God, putting the world with “the pleasures of sin” in the one scale, and “the reproach of Christ” in the other (Heb. 11:25-26). They estimated that Christ and His reproach far outweighed the world at its best. What was all earthly status to them? Their far-seeing eyes had espied the “city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).
This, then, is our path in the land wherein we are strangers, and it leadeth to the Land that is fairer than day. The way is no less sure than the love we adore, and we have nothing to fear nor to dread. We shall find to our joy that, “The path of the just is as the light of dawn, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18, R.V. mar.).