CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 14:2. He that walketh, etc., or, “He walketh in his uprightness who feareth Jehovah, and perverse in his ways is he that despiseth Him” (Delitzsch).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 14:2
FEARING AND DESPISING THE LORD
I. A wholesome fear. “The fear of the Lord.” When we fear to grieve or offend a person because of his or her goodness the fear does not spring from dread of their power, but from our high estimate of their character. It may exist where there is no power to injure. Strong men have sometimes had this fear for little children. There is also a fear which may spring from a conception of both goodness and power. It is the feeling which a child has for a good parent. There is a consciousness of the parent’s goodness, and also a consciousness of his power to enforce his authority. In proportion as these elements are combined in relation to human creatures the fear which men have for them is wholesome—is salutary. Benevolence alone tends to weaken the fear—to lessen the reverence. Power alone is likely to produce hatred as well as fear. But when benevolence is linked with power it looks doubly attractive. The fear which a good man has for God arises from a conception of both the Infinite power and the Infinite love of the Divine Father. If the first were wanting it would lack reverence; if the latter it would be a fear that “hath torment.”
II. The proof that a man possesses this wholesome fear. “He walks uprightly.” Fear is a feeling of the mind. It can only be proved to exist when it brings forth action. Uprightness of life is an unanswerable proof that a man speaks truly when he says that he fears the Lord. God asks for no greater (Genesis 17:1-2). This demonstration does not consist in a single act of integrity, but in a constant succession of acts, in a habit of life. It is a walk. (On “walking uprightly,” see on chap. Proverbs 10:9-10, page 153).
III. The character of a perverse man—of a man whose walk is not upright. He is “a despiser of God.” His life proves it, even if his words deny it. We despise that to which we do not attach a due value. All men who perversely refuse to accept God’s plan of salvation despise both the “riches of His goodness and forbearance, and long-suffering,” which are intended to “lead them to repentance” (Romans 2:4), and also that “power of His anger,” of which no man can form an estimate (Psalms 90:11).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
I. Grace and sin in their true colours. Grace reigning is a reverence of God. Sin reigning is no less a contempt of God; in this, more than in anything, sin appears exceeding sinful, that it despises God, whom angels adore.
II. Grace and sin in their true light. By this we know a man that has grace, and the fear of God, reigning in him, he makes conscience of his actions, is faithful to God and man. But on the contrary, he that wilfully follows his own way, is a wicked man, however he pretend to devotion.—Henry.
A man walking over a field has a certain level course (if there be such) that he naturally follows. If he walk not level, or if he turn constantly out of his way, men think him either drunk or mad. It is this reasonable instinct of our nature that our text embodies. We do not say uprightness, but “levelness,” for it agrees with the idea of walking. Such meaning is, that folly is self-condemned; that if a man would put one foot before another, or mentally move as he himself thinks level and right, he would practically “fear” God; but that he drops out of his own “way,” and walks brokenly, and with change of gait. It is careless to define fear as anything beside fear itself. A holy fear, however, is not terror; and yet a being afraid more really and more tremblingly often than the sinner, It is remarkable that when men have escaped wrath they begin most healthily to fear it, and when men are faithless even to their own ways, they despise the most the law of the Almighty. This text, like many another, is pregnant. Pregnant texts are ambidextrous, and the alternative meanings, though distinct, are mutually embracing. Another sense is grammatical and equivalent in thought. It would read “His” levelness, and His ways, referring to Jehovah. It is only substituting capitals. It would mean, “He that walks in God’s level track fears Him; but he that is turned out of God’s way, that is, he that has got out of the line for which he was made, instead of fearing, as he might, chooses that horrid moment for despising God. We would rank this higher than an ambiguity; for God’s ways and man’s ways, when they are levelnesses and suited to our step, are the same blessed track, for we are created in the image of God.—Miller.
He that walketh so that the sincerity of his heart maketh the uprightness to be his, for a feigned uprightness is of the devil, not a man’s own. God is feared where goodness is embraced. And, as St. Basil speaketh, the despising of the laws is the reproach of the lawmaker.—Jermin.
Here is consolation to faithful men, though not void of infirmities, against the temptations of Satan, the calumniations of wicked men, and the fears of their own hearts. None are so much accused of contempt against God as those which are most religious. The devil seeketh to persuade them there is nothing in them but fraud. Sinful men, when they can charge against them no misdemeanours or lewdness of life, exclaim that they are hypocrites, and many doubts arise in their own souls by reason of the manifold imperfections of their lives. But are they desirous impartially to keep every commandment, if their power were answerable to their will? Do they endeavour to please God, though they cannot do it perfectly? Then they are upright in their ways, and walk in the law of the Lord; then God testifieth of them here, that they are of the number of them that fear Him, and elsewhere He testifieth that all those who fear Him they are blessed.—Dod.