I. There are ways that lead to death. Each of us has come into contact with beings whom excesses have led to a premature end; others still occupy a place in the world, but their ruined health, their weakened faculties, show that, to use the words of St. Paul, "they are dead while living." The death in question here is the state of a soul condemned by Him who sees the most hidden recesses of our being, and whose judgment none can alter; it is the condition of a creature who has willingly separated itself from God.
II. Many a way that leads to perdition may seem to us to be right. Nothing is better calculated to disturb the superficial optimism in which so many of our fellow-men find a delusive security than the firm conviction of this fact. In their opinion, that a man may be saved, he must be sincere; in other words, the way he follows must seem to him to be right. (1) In the order of things temporal it is evident that sincerity in ignorance or error has never saved anyone from the often terrible consequences which such ignorance or error may entail. Societies are based upon this maxim: "No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law." Moreover, this axiom is graven in nature itself. Nature strikes those who violate its laws, and never takes into consideration their state of ignorance or good faith. (2) God is not an inexorable fatum.God takes into account the inward condition of each being, his ignorance, his involuntary errors. Therefore, if any should ask whether a man who is mistaken shall be saved or not if he is absolutely sincere, we shall answer that we are inclined to believe it; and that a way cannot lead to eternal death the man who has entered upon it believing it to be right and true. But this conclusion should reassure no one, for the point in question is precisely to discover if we are indeed absolutely sincere in the choice we make; now, the more I study men, the more I study myself, the more clearly do I perceive that nothing is more uncommon than this sincerity of which we speak so much, and of which so many people make a merit. None are entitled to say, "This way seems right to me, therefore I can enter upon it without fear." We must first of all examine whether we do not call right that which is simply pleasing to us, that which attracts us and flatters our secret instincts.
III. In every human life there are solemn hours when divergent paths open before us. On the choice we then make depends our entire future. When we find ourselves before an opening path, we must stop, measure it at a glance, and never enter it unless we may do so with the peace of a conscience that feels it is accomplishing the will of God.
E. Bersier, Sermons,2nd series, p. 399.
Among the indications that we are not what we once were, there is, perhaps, none more decisive in its testimony than the depravation of the natural conscience. It is in consequence of this paralysis of the conscience that such an assertion as that in the text points to a phenomenon of constant occurrence among men.
I. The text does not say these apparently right ways are themselves the ways of death, but that they end in the ways of death.
II. The "ways" are mainly of two kinds errors in practice and errors in doctrine; the former by far the most abundant, but the latter by no means so rare as to bear passing over in considering the subject. (1) The first practical error is that of a life not led under the direct influence of religion. I speak of the man who, however many virtues he may possess, however upright he may be in the duties of life, however carefully he may attend to the outward duties of religion, does not receive it into his heart nor act on its considerations as a motive. This is a way of life which usually seems right unto a man. He wins esteem from without, and has no accusing conscience within. But he is not a religious man. He has not the fear of God before his eyes. This approved way must end in the way of death. Improbable as it may seem that the correct liver, the blameless and upright man, should perish at last, it is but a necessary consequence from his having put by and rejected the only remedy which God has provided for the universal taint of our nature, by which taint, if not purged out, he must, as well as the rest of the unrenewed and ungodly, be ruined in the end. (2) Take the case of those who, believing from the heart and living in the main as in God's sight, are yet notoriously and confessedly wanting in some important requisite of the Gospel. These ways seem right unto those who are following them. (3) Errors of doctrine. There is nothing in life for which we are so deeply and solemnly accountable, as the formation of our belief. It is the compass which guides our way, which if it vary ever so little from truth, is sure to cause a fatal divergence in the end. Whether we consider practice or belief, each man's deeming is not each man's law; every man's deeming may be wrong, and we can only find that which is right by each one of us believing and serving God, as He has revealed Himself to us in Christ.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. vii., p. 50.
I. There is a theory very much in fashion, that if a man acts according to his convictions, he cannot be brought into condemnation. The principle here involved is simply this, that a man's own ideas are his own standard, that he is a law unto himself, that if he does violence to his own views of truth and error, good and evil, he is reprehensible, but that if he be fully convinced in his own mind that is at once a bar to his condemnation. The text offers a strong protest against this theory, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man;" but, notwithstanding his sincerity, notwithstanding his convictions, the end thereof are the ways of death.
II. If we shall be judged not only as to whether we have acted by the guidance of conscience, but also whether our conscience was a right conscience; there flows from this the doctrine that conscience itself is a thing we are bound to train, and cherish, and educate, in order that it may never mislead us; a man is, in short, responsible for his conscience. It is a mysterious law of our spiritual nature that we have to mould and train our own proper guide. God has given conscience for our direction, but it remains with ourselves to secure that we be directed by it aright.
Bishop Woodford, Sermons in Various Churches,p. 83.
References: Proverbs 14:12. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,1st series, p. 378; J. Thain Davidson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 369. Proverbs 14:13-24. R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs,vol. i., p. 387.