I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)
A highway is a road built up to make travel easier.
That’s what the footnote in my Bible says under Isaiah chapter 35 verse 8.
That verse is talking about a highway, so the footnote tells us what a highway is. It’s a road built up to make travel easier.
You aren’t going through the mud on a highway.
You aren’t going through the briars and the thorns. My grandma called it “the thicket.”
A highway makes travel easy. It’s a piece of cake traveling on a highway, so smooth and level and wide. It’s a pleasure. It’s a joy!
On the other hand, traveling OFF the highway is NOT smooth. It IS muddy. There ARE thorns and thickets. You have to slow down and stop and keep getting your bearings. “Where am I now?” You ask that question a lot when you get off the “hard road” as Grandma called it. “Where am I?”
So a highway is a road built up to make travel easier, and Isaiah 35:8 is talking about a highway. This highway has a name. It’s called The Way of Holiness.
Sometimes we get weird with this word “holy” and “holiness,” but it’s not weird at all. It’s a road built up to make travel easier.
What??? That doesn’t sound very doctrinal and theological.
Well what is holiness? It’s a purity, a moral purity in the presence of God.
We get weird about the word purity, too, but put it in the highway context.
Do you want your highway to be pure, to be as free as possible from bumps and cracks and potholes? We want the highway department to make the highway as smooth as possible.
Well on the highway of life, it is holiness, it is purity that makes the road as smooth as possible. If you want to travel fast and light, the Highway of Holiness is the way to go.
Isaiah 35:8 says that the unclean, the evil-minded will not travel on the way of holiness. Of course they won’t, and they suffer for it.
To the degree that you are not living a holy life, that is the degree to which you are driving off the road. No wonder it’s bumpy and scratchy and leaves you wondering, “Where am I?” You’re off the road.
Traveling on the Highway of Holiness means living within God’s parameters. Highways have boundaries. When you drive within the boundaries, it’s a smooth ride. When you think, “I’ll be free! I’ll drive wherever I please!” you’re asking for a really bad ride.
And if you’re paying attention, you see that it’s true. Sin brings bumps in the road. Big sins bring big bumps in the road. Living a life of sin is just full of obstacles. It’s not a highway at all, or even a road. It’s like driving into a thicket and thinking you’re going somewhere. You aren’t. My grandma is looking at your car in the thicket and asking, “What are you doing?”
The highway is a road built up to make travel easier. Isaiah 35:8 talks about the Highway of Holiness, and when we steer our life within God’s holy boundaries, wonderful things happen.
Isaiah says there are no lions or ravenous beasts on that highway. It’s a smooth and clear path for the redeemed.
On the Highway of Holiness there is singing and everlasting joy! Sorrow and mourning will flee away, and the people will be filled with joy and gladness.
How can that be? Because the Creator, God the Father Himself, is ever present on the Highway of Holiness! He is there, full of life and love and joy and peace. His mercy is forever. He loves us and has created a highway for us to live on, a highway that’s built up to make travel easier.
It’s the Highway of Holiness, and when we live within its boundaries, we will find that traveling through this life has never been better.
Amen.
May God bless you today.
I’m Doug Apple.
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