The Straight Path and the Sure Exposure Text: Proverbs 10:9
Introduction: Two Ways to Walk
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It does not float in the misty highlands of abstract thought; it gets right down on the pavement where we live. And at the heart of this wisdom is the recognition that God has built the world a certain way. There is a grain to the universe, a moral fabric, and we have one of two choices: we can walk with the grain or we can try to walk against it. We can walk in the light on the path God has made, or we can stumble in the dark on a path of our own making. There is no third way.
This proverb sets before us this fundamental choice in the plainest of terms. It is a contrast between two kinds of people, defined by two kinds of walks, resulting in two very different destinations. You have the man of integrity, and you have the man of crooked ways. One walks in the sunshine, with his head held high, fearing nothing because he has nothing to hide. The other walks in the shadows, constantly looking over his shoulder, burdened by the weight of his own duplicity. One lives in reality, the other in a web of lies. And the point of the proverb is to tell us that this is not a sustainable arrangement. Reality always wins. The universe has a fixed judicial nature. What is done in the dark will, eventually and certainly, be brought into the light.
We live in an age that despises this truth. Our culture celebrates the crooked path as "authentic." It tells you to create your own truth, to live your own story, to be the captain of your own soul. It treats integrity not as wholeness and consistency with an objective standard, but as loyalty to your own fluctuating desires. But this is a recipe for disintegration, both for the individual and for the society. God's Word here reminds us that some ways are straight and some are crooked, and it is not up to us to decide which is which. Our job is to see the path, and to walk on it.
The Text
He who walks in integrity walks securely,
But he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
(Proverbs 10:9 LSB)
The Security of a Straight Line (v. 9a)
The first half of the proverb lays out the blessing that comes from walking in God's reality.
"He who walks in integrity walks securely..." (Proverbs 10:9a)
The word for integrity here has the sense of wholeness, completeness, or soundness. It describes a life that is all of one piece. The man of integrity is not a different person on Sunday morning than he is on Monday afternoon in the office or on Friday night with his friends. His private life and his public life are integrated. What he says and what he does are consistent. His beliefs and his behavior are cut from the same cloth. He is, in a word, whole.
This is not, we should hasten to add, a claim to sinless perfection. David was a man of integrity, and he sinned grievously. The difference is that a man of integrity, when he sins, deals with it honestly. He does not hide it, excuse it, rename it, or blame it on his upbringing. He confesses it, calls it what God calls it, and repents. His integrity is seen in how he handles his lack of perfection. The hypocrite, by contrast, builds a facade to hide his sin. The man of integrity brings his sin into the light to be forgiven.
And the result of this integrated life is security. "He who walks in integrity walks securely." Why? For a number of reasons. First, he has nothing to hide. A lie requires a thousand other lies to prop it up. A hidden sin requires constant vigilance, a complex web of cover stories, and a gnawing fear of exposure. The man of integrity is free from this exhausting burden. His life is an open book. This produces a profound psychological peace. The psalmist says, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You" (Psalm 25:21).
Second, he walks securely because he is walking on the path that God designed for human feet. He is walking with the grain of the universe. When you live according to the Maker's instructions, things tend to work better. This is not a promise of a life free from all trouble. The righteous do suffer. But it is a promise of a fundamental stability that cannot be shaken by outward circumstances. His feet are on a firm foundation. He is not building his house on the sand of deceit and compromise, but on the rock of God's revealed will.
The Inevitability of Exposure (v. 9b)
The second half of the proverb presents the stark and sobering alternative.
"But he who makes his ways crooked will be found out." (Proverbs 10:9b)
The contrast is sharp. The word for "crooked" here is the opposite of straight or upright. It means twisted, perverse, distorted. The man who makes his ways crooked is one who deliberately deviates from the straight path of God's commands. He cuts corners, tells "white" lies, engages in shady business dealings, nurtures secret lusts, and presents a carefully curated public image that does not match the private reality. He is, in short, a man of duplicity. He has a divided heart, and therefore he lives a divided life.
And the promise to this man is not one of security, but of exposure. "He will be found out." This is not a threat of what might happen; it is a statement of what will happen. It is as certain as the law of gravity. Why? Because God is a God of light, and He has built the universe in such a way that darkness cannot ultimately win. Sin has a way of revealing itself. The lies begin to contradict each other. The pressure of maintaining the facade becomes too great. A stray email, a forgotten receipt, a slip of the tongue, and the whole rotten structure comes crashing down.
This is a law of the universe. As Moses warned the tribes of Reuben and Gad, "But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23). Notice the language. It is not just that you will be found out, but that your sin itself will find you out. Sin is an active agent. It hunts the sinner down. You cannot outrun the consequences that God has hardwired into His world.
Ultimately, this finding out will be perfected on the day of judgment. Paul tells us that God "will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart" (1 Corinthians 4:5). Nothing will remain concealed. Every crooked path will be straightened out for all to see. The fear of this final exposure should drive us to live in the light now.
The Gospel of the Straight Path
This proverb, like all of Proverbs, finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only man who ever walked in perfect integrity. His life was perfectly whole, seamless, and consistent. He was the same in private as He was in public. He never once set a foot on a crooked path. He is the ultimate embodiment of the secure man.
And we, by contrast, are all of us men and women of crooked ways. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). Our hearts are naturally deceptive, our paths naturally bent away from God. We have all tried to hide, to cover up, to manage our images. We are all, apart from grace, destined to be "found out" and condemned.
But this is the glory of the gospel. The one truly straight man went to the cross to bear the penalty for all our crookedness. "And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." On the cross, Jesus was "found out," not for His own sin, but for ours. He was exposed, judged, and condemned in our place, so that we, in turn, could be clothed in His perfect integrity.
When we, by faith, are united to Christ, His integrity is counted as ours. This is the great exchange. God looks at us and sees the perfect, straight-walked life of His Son. This is the only basis for true security before a holy God.
And this imputed integrity then becomes an imparted integrity. The Holy Spirit begins the lifelong work of straightening out our crooked paths. He convicts us of our duplicity, He leads us into the light of confession, and He empowers us to walk in a manner that is whole and consistent. The Christian life is a journey from the crooked to the straight. It is a process of learning to live securely because we have nothing to hide, not because we are perfect, but because our sins are confessed and covered by the blood of Christ. Therefore, let us not be fools. Let us abandon the exhausting, insecure, and doomed project of the crooked path. Let us confess our sins, embrace the integrity of Christ, and learn to walk securely in His light.