They do not need to be agreed about everything.  They must, however, wish to keep each others company, and they must be going by the same road to the same place.  The application of the parable is very plain, though there are differences of opinion as to the bearing of the whole context which need not concern us now.  The ‘two,’ whom the Prophet would fain see walking together, are God and Israel, and his question suggests not only the companionship and communion with God which are the highest form of religion and the aim of all forms and ceremonies of worship, but also the inexorable condition on which alone that height of communion can be secured and sustained.  Two may walk together, though the one be God in heaven and the other be I on earth.  But they have to be agreed thus far, at any rate, that both shall wish to be together, and both be going the same road.

I. So I ask you to look, first, at that possible blessed companionship which may cheer a life.

There are three phrases in the Old Testament, very like each other, and yet presenting different facets or aspects of the same great truth.  Sometimes we read about ‘walking before God’ as Abraham was bid to do.  That means ordering the daily life under the continual sense that we are ‘ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye’ Then there is ‘walking after God,’ and that means conforming the will and active efforts to the rule that He has laid down, setting our steps firm on the paths that He has prepared that we should walk in them, and accepting His providences.  But also, high above both these conceptions of a devout life is the one which is suggested by my text, and which, as you remember, was realised in the case of the patriarch Enoch—­’walking with God.’  For to walk before Him may have with it some tremor, and may be undertaken in the spirit of the slave who would be glad to get away from the jealous eye that rebukes his slothfulness; and ‘walking after Him’ may be a painful and partial effort to keep His distant figure in sight; but to ’walk with Him’ implies a constant, quiet sense of His Divine Presence which forbids that I should ever be lonely, which guides and defends, which floods my soul and fills my life, and in which, as the companions pace along side by side, words may be spoken by either, or blessed silence may be eloquent of perfect trust and rest.

But, dear brother, far above us as such experience seems to sound, such a life is a possibility for every one of us.  We may be able to say, as truly as our Lord said it, ‘I am not alone, for the Father is with me.’  It is possible that the dreariest solitude of a soul, such as is not realised when the body is removed from men, but is felt most in the crowded city where there is none that loves or fathoms and sympathises, may be turned into blessed fellowship with Him.  Yes, but that solitude will not be so turned unless it is first painfully felt.  As Daniel said, ‘I was left alone, and I saw the great vision.’  We need to feel in our deepest hearts that loneliness on earth before we walk with God.