The clear path
By Robert Ewing.
The clear path is straight, clean and bright. It must be straight so that no curve hides the goal; clean to avoid a fall from a tree or a landslide on the road. It must be bright if the vision is to last. Is the path where you walk clear? Chaos is becoming common. It is not uncommon in university activities to be threatened, to have clashed schedules and to have frustrated lives. The true Christian knows that these are side effects. For every effect there is a cause.
Modern man considers himself upright, tolerant and fair. He considers himself clean because in the “New Morality” many justify themselves by saying that as long as there is “love”, there is no dirty conscience. And who would dare to say, in the most enlightened era, that each one is not an “enlightened one.” “There are paths that seem straight to man, but that end up being paths of death.” Pr.16:25.
A disabled student wrote from a major state university about racial cruelty: A student was beaten outside his dorm room, with no one helping him. Apparently there was no good Samaritan. However, those who found out about what happened went to his bedroom and sought help, not from the Comforter but rather from spiritualism.
An honest search.
In our visits to various universities, we found that students honestly want to find the clear path. Theology students are no exception. Sometimes, students have the love of Christ and enter cold theological institutes and become useless. Paul points out the main cause of this, when he says: “…the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” I Tim.3:15. When a column collapses, then the roof becomes rubble. The president of one of America's leading seminaries said that the tragedy of Modern Theology is that it has become rubble. There is no need to wonder that God is reviving the vision of the New Testament Church, the true Church of the living God; because in it rests the hope of truth.
God's path is straight. “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Prov. 3:6. God's way is clean. “and it will be called the Way of Holiness; “Unclean shall not pass through it.” Isaiah 35:8.
God's way is bright. “But the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which increases until the day is perfect.” Pr. 4:18. The Church of the living God that Paul mentions is called “the Way.” Saul set out to persecute those who were on the “Way.” Acts. 9:2, 3, 11. However, there he discovered “the way.” To him it was bright, as the light knocked him down. It was clean and straight. Because there “…in the street called the Right…” Ananias was sent to baptize him and lay hands on him so that he would receive the Holy Spirit. His blindness was healed and he became Paul instead of Saul.
The name change indicates that this new path also changed other things: its purposes. What he once loved, he now hates and vice versa. Their direction changed, as Christ drew Paul to Himself. His priorities changed, as he dedicated himself completely to announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His convictions changed, so much so that he cried “I have finished my race” and entered with joy into martyrdom for the faith, which he once tried to destroy.
The rest of God.
A characteristic of the end-time outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon hungry Christendom is divine revelation through anointed visions and dreams. Acts. 2:17. Once God showed me the paths of light, aligned parallel. These extended in the sky from north to south. Some were big; others, small. For each path of light there was a tunnel proportioned to its size that guided it. The interpretation of this is that the paths are God's end-time purposes. The Lord has great and small purposes. The tunnels represent the principle of rest. “Therefore there remains a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into his rest, he also has rested from his works, as God has rested from his.” He.4:9, 10. Some of God's children allow only a fraction of God's rest to work in their lives; while others allow more. To that extent, God will be able to use us to fulfill his end-time purposes.
Nor should its purposes be taken lightly. Because God is sovereign. What happens suddenly to us never catches the Lord off guard. He has had millions of years not only to foresee, but also to make complete provision for any emergency. Sometimes when we have our eyes on the storms of life, we forget that there is someone on the boat who is Lord of the storm and can calm them. “The righteous shall live by faith.” We forget that in the wisdom of God, He has given man free will to choose his path, even a wrong path, before the Lord can rightly evaluate man at the Great White Throne Judgment. So God gives us a special faith so that we can see the end and not only the present.
The prophecies dealing with the first coming of Christ, seen in Daniel, confirm this aspect. The prophet Micah predicted that the Messiah would be born in a small town. My Q. 5:2.
The pilot of an airplane can fly without seeing, only by instruments. He is sure that when on the outside everything may seem like a dark path, in reality for him, it is a clear path. How much more must we children of God submit to the internal radar of his Presence? We must go out with the instructions of His Word, the divine control panel, then we will travel through the darkness around us. It requires faith in the Word of God, where the clear path lies.
