Bible Commentaries

Proverbs 26:13

I. There is a lion in the way? In what way? I answer, In the way of life, of every life. Life, if it is to be a true life, is not an easy thing. The men who live for nobler objects than those of shameful selfishness, like St. Paul, will have to fight with wild beasts at Ephesus or elsewhere. Every step of the road requires effort, courage, resolution, watchfulness; it needs the girded loins and the burning lamp; it needs the swift foot, and the sharp sword, and the stout heart, and the strong arm; it needs faith, and prayer, and the battle, and the cross; it needs the will to toil on though the feet bleed, and to fight on though the heart faint, to do all this unto death. That is the way, dim, thorny, and lion-haunted; and all the best and noblest of the earth have trodden it.

II. "There is a lion in the way." Yes, and not one, but many lions: (1) the lion of the world's opposition and hatred; (2) the lion of our own fleshly nature, of our own physical and mental passions; (3) our "adversary the devil."

III. These lions—the world, the flesh, and the devil—for all their seeming strength and ferocity and the passion in their throats, prove but cowardly beasts after all; and though Timorous and Mistrust may not find it out, they are but chained lions, and we stand beyond their spring But the slothful man not only says, "There is a lion in the way," but adds, "I shall be slain in the streets," and then in a reproachful and injured tone, "You well know that many have been so slain." Yes, it is quite true; they have been so slain: but to them, as to their Lord, through death and after death, if not in life, have come the glory and the victory.

F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 17.

References: Proverbs 26:20.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ii., p. 41. Proverbs 27:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 94; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 333; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses, p. 8; F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii., p. 231. Proverbs 27:4.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 468; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 289; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses, p. 37. Proverbs 27:7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1227. Proverbs 27:10.—Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 192. Proverbs 27:15.—S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 250.