Proverbs 14:12
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): We have here an account of the way, and end, of a great many self-deluded souls.
JOHN MASON (1600-1672): Vain confidence is this very way.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Thus confident are they that their way is right.
MATTHEW HENRY: Their way is seemingly fair: It seems right to themselves; they please themselves with a fancy that they are as they should be, that their opinions and practices are good, and such as will bear them out. The way of ignorance and carelessness, the way of worldliness and earthly-mindedness, the way of sensuality and flesh-pleasing, seem right to those that walk in them; much more the way of hypocrisy in religion―external performances, partial reformations, and blind zeal; this they imagine will bring them to heaven; they flatter themselves in their own eyes that all will be well at last.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The sinner has his own idea of how salvation is to be obtained―all over the world fallen man has his own opinion of what is suitable and needful. One man thinks he must perform some meritorious deeds in order to obtain forgiveness. Another thinks the past can be atoned for by turning over a new leaf and living right for the future. Yet another, who has obtained a smattering of the gospel, thinks that by believing in Christ he secures a passport to heaven, even though he continues to indulge the flesh and retain his beloved idols. However much they may differ in their self-concocted schemes, this one thing is common to them all: “I thought.” And that “I thought” is put over against the Word and way of God. They prefer the way that “seemeth right” to them; they insist on following out their own theorizings; they pit their prejudices and presuppositions against a “thus saith the Lord.”
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): This is man’s way of salvation, as opposed to God’s way.
A. W. PINK: This “way” that ends in “death” is the Devil’s Delusion—the gospel of Satan—a way of salvation by human attainment. It is a way which “seemeth right,” that is to say, it is presented in such a plausible way that it appeals to the natural man…But such a verse has a far wider application than merely to those who are resting on something of, or from themselves, to secure a title to everlasting bliss. Equally wrong is it to imagine that the only deceived souls are they who have no faith in Christ.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): The ways of death are many.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): It may be his own false views of religion: he may have an imperfect repentance, a false faith, a very false creed; and he may persuade himself that he is in the direct way to heaven.
WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): I once spoke with an Englishman who was sincerely religious in his own way: and a part of his confession was that every man’s religion would carry him to heaven whatever it might be in itself, provided he sincerely believed it. He accounted it rank bigotry to doubt the safety of any fellow mortal on the ground of erroneous belief. His creed, although he probably would have refused to sign it if he had seen it written out, was: “Safety lies in the sincerity of the believer, without respect to the truth of what he believes.’
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The Hindu meets the Muslim and he says, “No doubt you are sincere as well as we are, and you and we shall at last meet in the right place.” They would salute the Christian, too, and say the same to him, but it is a necessity, if our religion is true, that it should denounce every other and that it should say unto those who know not Christ, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): I have had people say to me so many times, “We are traveling different roads, but we will all get to heaven at last.” No, no, I don’t find that in my Bible…Oh, do not talk about many ways―there is only one way to the Father’s house. And what is that way? There is only one―Jesus is the only way. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” but the name of Jesus, Acts 4:12.
C. H. SPURGEON: Christ declares that He, and only He, is the way to peace with God, to pardon, to righteousness and to Heaven! It is a remarkable fact that none of us ever met with a man who thought he had his sins forgiven unless it was through the blood of Christ. Meet a Muslim. He never had his sins forgiven. He does not say so. Meet an Infidel. He never knows that his sins are forgiven. Meet a Legalist. He says, “I hope they will be forgiven.” But he does not pretend they are. No one ever gets even a fancied hope apart from this—that Christ and Christ, alone, must save by the shedding of His blood.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It was, and is, the only way, there is no other. Let the world in its supposed wisdom call it “narrow-minded.” As long as it does so it will continue to degenerate morally and ethically, and fester in its own iniquity. The Christian way is the only way.
CHARLES SIMEON: But let the Scriptures speak for themselves: “He that believeth on Christ is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God,” John 3:18; and again, “He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life: but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36.
C. H. SPURGEON: Yes, it goes still further and pronounces its anathema upon those who pretend to any other way! “Though we or an angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than that which you have received, let him be accursed,” Galatians 1:8. I assure you, in God’s name, that there are roads which lead to Hell and that none of them can bring you to Heaven. There is only one way by which the soul can come to God and find eternal life—and that way is Christ!
A. W. PINK: How terribly deceptive is the human heart! “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
JOHN MASON: See the end of it, and tremble; for it leads to darkness, and ends in death.
WILLIAM ARNOT: Your opinion that the path is right does not make it right: your sincerity in that erroneous opinion does not exempt you from its consequences.
A. W. PINK: O reader! Make certain that you believe―really, savingly, on the Son of God.
