October 7

Read: Isaiah 35:8-10

And a highway will be there; its name will be, The Holy Way; the unclean and the sinner may not go over it” (Isaiah 35:8, The Basic Bible).

Way Of Cleanness

God’s way is always different from the ways of the sinful world. The highway of holiness runs above the surrounding plains of evil. It leads by a straight course toward heaven instead of wandering in aimless circles. The way of holiness therefore separates those who travel on it from men who travel the ways of the world. The American Revised Version translates our text, “The unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for the redeemed.”

The term unclean refers to people. Bishop Lowth translates, “No unclean person shall pass through it” God’s way is the holy way, not only because holiness is the goal to which it leads, but still more because only holy feet may tread it. The Bible declares that the unclean and the sinner are excluded.

Holiness is Godlikeness. To be unclean is to be unlike God and therefore to be shut out from the way that leads to God. A holy life is a way of separation from this world and a way of nonconformity to its evils.

This highway of holiness is a toll road. There is a price to be paid if we are to travel on it, and that price is to be cleansed from sin. But the price is fair and the journey is rewarding. At the

end we shall come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon our heads; we shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Since Thou would’st have us free from sin, And pure as those above, Make haste to bring Thy nature in, And perfect us in love.

— Wesley’s Hymns