“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.