Sermon Bible Commentary
2 Samuel 22:31
No. 1
The way of God may mean: (1) the way which He prescribes, the simple, absolute way of holy duty into which He seeks to guide the soul; or (2) the way which He Himself pursues, the method of His dealings with His children, humanity, and the world.
I. Consider first our knowledge of the way of God. (1) There is a light in man call it the practical reason, the conscience, the moral sense, or what you will which, even in a fallen state, is capable of furnishing to man certain broad lines of duty which will be coincident mainly with the ways of God. (2) God sent His word to reinforce conscience and to inspire it to be a guide. (3) God is a Person; and in Christ, the express image of His person, we may talk to Him as a friend to a friend.
II. Notice the ways of man with which David had had opportunity to compare the perfect way of God. (1) The way of passion; (2) the way of pride; (3) the way of the world.
III. Notice the reason of the perfectness of God's way as the way of a soul. (1) It stands square with the possibilities, constitution, convictions, and needs of our being; (2) with the laws and orders of the great universe; (3) with the fact of eternity.
No. 2
I. The way of God is perfect in that grand order of the universe which He has established and maintains.
II. In the order and progress which, as Lord of men, He secures in the human world; in the discipline and education of individual souls. The leading principles of His way are: (1) To establish a strong attraction; (2) to leave that principle to develop itself and have control of the whole nature and of the world by struggle; (3) to make it learn, by extreme severities of discipline if need be, patience, power, and knowledge of a fitness for Himself.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Perfect Way of God: Two Discourses.