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God would lead Israel by a way that had not yet been trodden; He would redeem her from Babylon, not as He delivered her from Egypt in the distant past, but by inclining towards her the heart of her captor.

I. THE UNKNOWN, UNTRODDEN PATH BEFORE US.

1. It is an unknown path which we are about to tread. Let the child or even the young man draw an outline of his anticipated career, and let that line he compared with the one which really marks his course; what a divergence will there be l

2. It is an untrodden path. As the second great Divine deliverance of Israel differed materially from the first, so God's dealings with individual men differ with the several periods of their life.

II. THE GUIDANCE OF OUR GOD. "I will bring." "I will lead." There are two ways by which God leads His people.

1. By controlling their circumstances. God may preserve us from taking the wrong path by providentially blocking the way in which we might otherwise have walked; or, He may keep us from a false movement, or induce us to make the true one by bringing us unto the fellowship of some wise friend whose timely counsel either dissuades or determines us.

2. By influencing their minds. He is nearer to us than our nearest friends; and He can influence us more powerfully than the wisest and strongest of our teachers or guardians.

III. HIS DISPOSITION AND FREEDOM TO HELP US.

1. That God is disposed to help us, we need not doubt.

(1) His sovereignty over Israel would account for all His watchfulness over that people; and His Fatherhood of every human spirit will certainly ensure His Divine interest in each one of His children. And if this were an insufficient bond to constrain such condescending notice, we have but to remember that Jesus Christ is the Divine Saviour and Friend of every one of His people, most tenderly united to each of them by the strongest ties. The Good Shepherd cares, and cares much, for every sheep of His flock.

(2) Our Lord's intimation of the Father's care for all His creatures, and His own a fortiori argument therefrom ("Ye are of more value than many sparrows") is convincing proof to all Christian minds that our God is "thinking upon" us, that He is mindful of our necessities, and is shaping our course from day to day.

2. That God is free to help us, we may also be assured. Nothing is more incredible than that the Father of spirits, the Saviour of souls, should, by the established order of nature which He has constructed, have to cut Himself off from His human family that, however earnestly they cried to Him, He would not be at liberty to respond to them. That He should not weaken our sense of the imperative claims of duty and diligence by too obviously and constantly interposing on our behalf, we can readily understand. It is but necessary that He should touch some link in the chain of causes which is out of our sight; thus, with unseen but unfettered hand, He works on our behalf.

IV. OUR DUTY AND OUR COMFORT.

1. Our duty is threefold.

(1) To become His children indeed, in the very fullest sense, by living faith in Jesus Christ.

(2) To live before God as His obedient children, that our service and submission may win His Fatherly delight and His parental longing to bless us.

(3) To ask for His constant guidance in daily prayer.

2. Our comfort is great indeed. God will be our guide. He will be our vanguard, and be our rereward (Isaiah 52:12).

(The Thinker.)

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KJV: And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

WEB: I will bring the blind by a way that they don't know. I will lead them in paths that they don't know. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. I will do these things, and I will not forsake them.