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All men are either saints or sinners; and they are all walking in paths as different as the characters they sustain. The text indicates that sinners are in such darkness that they are insensible of the objects which are leading them to ruin.

I. THE DARKNESS WHICH SINNERS ARE INVOLVED. It cannot be owing to any deficiency in their natural powers, nor to any want of intellectual information. The darkness is moral darkness; it lies not in their understandings, but in their hearts. Moral depravity always produces moral blindness. While sinners remain under the entire dominion of a wicked heart, they are altogether blind to the moral beauty of the character, of the works, of the providence of God.

II. SINNERS ABE INSENSIBLE OF THE OBJECTS OVER WHICH THEY ARE STUMBLING AND FALLING. Spiritual blindness is the same in all sinners, at all times; and has the same dangerous and destructive tendency.

1. They are insensible that they stumble at the great deceiver.

2. They are not sensible that they are stumbling at one another.

3. That they stumble at Divine providence.

4. That their common employments are dangerous objects, over which they are stumbling and falling.

5. They are no less blind to the nature and tendency of their religious performances.

6. The moral blindness of sinners insensibly leads them to stumble at the preaching they hear.

7. They are blind to the blindness of their own hearts, which are insensibly leading them to blackness and darkness for ever.Improvement —

1. If sinners are so blind and insensible to the dangerous objects with which they are surrounded, and over which they are stumbling, it is not strange, that they generally live so securely and joyfully.

2. If all sinners are involved in such moral darkness as makes them insensible of their dangerous and perishing condition, then it is not strange that they are so displeased at having their danger clearly pointed out.

3. If sinners are blind to the objects which are insensibly leading them to destruction, then they are in extreme danger of being finally lost. All things conspire to destroy them, because they abuse all things with which they are connected and concerned.

4. If sinners are constantly growing blinder and blinder, and more insensible of the things which are leading them to ruin, then they are entirely in the sovereign hand of God, who may save or destroy them, according to His holy and righteous pleasure.

5. It is owing to the distinguishing and astonishing grace of God that any are saved.

6. Inquire whether sinners have ever been made the subjects of God's special grace.

(N. Emmons, D.D.)

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KJV: The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

WEB: The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don't know what they stumble over.