Numbers 20:17

We will go by the king’s highway.

The king’s highway

They meant that, however tempting was the fruit of the fields, however fascinating the byways, however inviting the sparkling water in the wells might seem, they would keep to the bard-beaten thoroughfares that ran north and south of the country, by which travellers had passed in ages now gone by. Now, without doubt, such words have a spiritual and typical meaning.

I. Of the nation at large. Israel pronounced them unanimously as a nation, and we, as the English nation, may well re-echo them after all these hundreds of years. And it is well for us to bear in mind that “whole nations” must stand up for God as well as individuals. Numbers can never make a sin less grievous.

II. They are words, too, that may be hoped for from the mouth of the church. God is essentially a God of :law and order. The Church must go by the King’s highway.

III. But as with the nation and with the Church, so with the individual, they are words that are appropriate in the mouth--

1. Of the young Christian, starting off on life’s journey, just going into the world. Happy, aye thrice happy, he who, with dogged determination, says, “We will go by the King’s highway.”

2. So, too, they are suited especially to the penitent. He, too, must look into the future and resolve “to go by the King’s highway.” And here we must pause to notice that the individual highway consists--

(1) Of morals. We must take the code of God’s commandments, showing our duty to God and man, and walk in the way of God’s commandments.

(2) Of faith. Ethics alone are not sufficient; there must be a firm basis of Church doctrine, something on which the soul of man may lean for comfort in distress.

IV. Lastly, we are not alone in our efforts to go by the King’s highway; we are cheered by the examples of all the saints whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. In conclusion, I would add that the King’s highway leads to the city of the Great King. (W. O. Parish.)