The High Road and the Low: A Sermon on Proverbs 15:24
Introduction: Two Ways, Two Destinies
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is not a book of secular life-hacks. It is not a collection of sanctified Dale Carnegie principles for getting ahead in the world. The entire book is predicated on a fundamental, unshakeable theological reality: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). This means that all the wisdom contained in this book flows from a right relationship with the covenant God of Israel. To read Proverbs as a series of disconnected platitudes is to gut the book of its power. It is to turn the living Word into a collection of fortune cookie inserts.
And at the heart of this wisdom is a great antithesis, a fundamental choice that every man must make. There are two ways, and only two. There is the way of wisdom and the way of folly. There is the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. There is the way of life and the way of death. This is not a new theme in Scripture. Moses set it before Israel plainly: "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil... therefore choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:15, 19). Jeremiah echoed it: "Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death" (Jeremiah 21:8). And our Lord Jesus Christ brought this choice to its ultimate focal point: the narrow way that leads to life, and the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14).
Our text today is a concise, potent summary of this great choice. It presents us with the geography of our spiritual lives. Every man is on a path. Every man is headed somewhere. The only question is which direction you are going. Are you on the high road, or the low road? Are you ascending, or are you descending? This proverb forces us to consider our trajectory. It is a spiritual gut-check. It is a call to lift our eyes from the mud and the mire of our immediate circumstances and to consider our ultimate destination.
The Text
The path of life leads upward for the one who has insight
That he may turn away from Sheol below.
(Proverbs 15:24 LSB)
The Upward Path of Life
Let's look at the first clause:
"The path of life leads upward for the one who has insight..."
The first thing to notice is that life is a "path." It is not a static condition. It is a journey, a pilgrimage. You are always in motion. There is no neutral gear in the spiritual life. You are either moving toward God or away from Him. You are either growing in grace or you are backsliding. The Christian life is a walk, a race, a fight. It is dynamic, not stationary. The one who thinks he can just park himself in a state of spiritual complacency is already on the downgrade.
And this path of life leads "upward." This is a profoundly counter-cultural statement. Our fallen nature, and the world system built upon it, is governed by a spiritual gravity that pulls everything downward. It pulls toward ease, toward self-indulgence, toward moral compromise, toward the path of least resistance. The broad road is broad because it is downhill. You can just coast. But the path of life is an ascent. It requires effort, discipline, and energy. It is a climb.
This upward orientation is a consistent theme in the New Testament. Paul tells us, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:1-2). Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we await a Savior (Philippians 3:20). The Christian's gaze is directed upward, toward our resurrected and ascended Lord. We are pilgrims heading for the celestial city, Mount Zion. The trajectory of our entire life is to be heavenly.
But who walks this path? It is "for the one who has insight," or as other translations render it, "the wise" or "the prudent." This is not talking about a high IQ. This is not about being clever or shrewd in the world's eyes. Biblical insight, biblical wisdom, begins with the fear of the Lord. The one with insight is the one who sees the world as it truly is, under the authority of a holy and sovereign God. He understands cause and effect. He knows that sin leads to death and righteousness leads to life. He is not fooled by the short-term profits of wickedness. He has the long game in view. He is the man who builds his house on the rock, not the sand.
So the wise man understands that life is a journey, and he deliberately chooses the upward path. He embraces the climb because he knows where it leads. He sets his face like flint toward the heavenly city and does not allow himself to be distracted by the roadside attractions on the way to hell.
The Downward Evasion
The second clause gives us the reason, the motivation, for choosing this upward path.
"That he may turn away from Sheol below."
The upward path is not just a matter of spiritual ambition; it is a matter of spiritual survival. The reason you must go up is to avoid going down. The alternative to the ascent is a catastrophic descent. The wise man chooses the difficult climb because he has seen the chasm at the bottom of the easy slide.
What is "Sheol below"? In the Old Testament, Sheol is the realm of the dead. It is a place of darkness, silence, and separation from the land of the living. It is the destination of all who die apart from God's grace. While the Old Testament understanding was not as fully developed as the New Testament revelation of heaven and hell, the concept is clear. Sheol is the pit. It is the abyss. It is everything that is "below." It is the ultimate dead end.
The paths of the adulteress, the fool, and the wicked all lead down to Sheol (Proverbs 5:5, 7:27). It is the logical and inevitable consequence of a life lived "under the sun," a life lived without an upward, heavenly orientation. If you are not actively seeking the things that are above, you will, by default, be dragged down to the things that are below.
Notice the agency here. The wise man "may turn away" from Sheol. This is not passive. Wisdom is active. It makes choices. It discerns the two paths and deliberately turns from the one that leads to destruction. This is repentance. Repentance is not simply feeling bad about your sin. It is a turning. It is seeing the path you are on, recognizing that it leads to Sheol, and by the grace of God, doing a 180-degree turn to get on the upward path.
This is why the gospel is such good news. It is not just a command to "turn." It is the power to turn. We were all on that downward path, dead in our trespasses and sins, coasting our way to Sheol. But God, in His mercy, intervened. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). He is the path of life personified.
Christ, Our Path
When we look at this proverb through the lens of the whole counsel of God, we see that it points us directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate "one who has insight." He is the wisdom of God made flesh (1 Corinthians 1:24). And His life was the ultimate upward path.
Think of His trajectory. He descended from heaven to earth, coming "below" to rescue us from Sheol. He went down into the grave, into the heart of Sheol itself, on our behalf. But Sheol could not hold Him. He burst the bonds of death and began the great ascent. He was resurrected from the grave, and then He ascended into heaven, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion" (Ephesians 1:21).
His ascent is our ascent. When we are united to Him by faith, we are united to His story. We have been "raised with Christ" (Colossians 3:1). Our destiny is now tied to His. Because He went up, we are now on the upward path. The Christian life is simply the process of living out the reality of that union. We set our minds on things above because that is where our life is now hidden with Christ in God.
The insight that sets us on this path is the knowledge of Him. To know Christ is to have true wisdom. And to know Him is to be rescued from Sheol below. He took our descent so that we could share in His ascent. He is the path, and He is the destination. He is the way of life that leads upward, away from death and into the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).
Therefore, Christian, take heart. The path may be steep. The climb may be arduous. You will have to fight against the gravitational pull of your flesh and the world. But you are not climbing alone. You are in Christ, who has already completed the ascent. The path of life leads upward, because that is where He is. And because He is there, that is where you are going. So lift up your eyes, set your mind on Him, and keep climbing.