Is "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" a true statement?

But all are not infidels. There is another class. Brown represents them. I hasten to his house. Time is precious, and he may soon be gone. I say to him, "Brown, rejoice! You need not die. I was once as low as you. I have a remedy. It cured me. Here it is. Take it immediately, as you value your life." He politely thanks me, and tells me I may leave a bottle on the stand. I do not wait to see him take the medicine. I have one bottle left, and hurry off to a Mr. White, whom I know to be perishing. Brown intends to take the remedy, but it is nearly teatime, so he puts it off till after tea. After tea he takes a quiet smoke. Then he glances over the evening paper, dozes, falls asleep, and never awakes. He has died with a remedy within easy reach, but neglects it. Scripture says, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Some one has said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Men and women intend to have the question of their souls' salvation settled some day. And it will be, but with most, alas, too late. It will be settled contrary to their expectations, with heaven closed against them, and hell, with all its horrors, open to them as neglecters of God's great salvation. "The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing" (Prov. 13:4). Desiring the salvation of your soul is not enough; you must lay hold of it at once. "Behold now is the accepted time." Do you think lost souls in hell expected ever to be there? Few of them. Could we descend to those woeful regions of remorse, and question those who heard the Gospel as you hear it now, the most of them would say they never thought they would be lost. Nearly all expected to be saved before they died. But death suddenly overtook them, or their hearts grew hard and callous as the years slipped by, and ere they knew it, almost, they were past all hope. "I am lost, lost, lost; yet I always meant to be saved!" a young girl cried, as she lay in the agonies of death. O man, woman, child, delay not! Now is the golden moment.

Here it is for the salvation of Israel that the apostle longs and prays. He testifies that they have a zeal for God, a thing which reminds us of the terrible fact that there is a way which seemeth right to a man, where yet the end may be the ways of death. This is a thing which men would gladly forget. The open ways of death are many enough, and every one recognizes that men do not get to heaven by drunkenness or violence; but that there should be a way seeming right to a man and in following which, therefore, he may be perfectly sincere, yet proving in result to be the way of death, this is indeed a startling matter to face. Let all consider, therefore, that the "broad way which leadeth to destruction, and many they are which go in at it," is not of necessity a way of open wickedness; on the contrary, while sinful self is indeed and necessarily against God, yet righteous self is a more universal and a worse antagonist. The publicans and sinners followed Christ. The Pharisees and religious people could not believe in Him. The apostle reminds us here that the whole effort of the heart characteristically in Israel was to establish their own righteousness, and thus the righteousness of God was ignored. The effort proves that men have not measured themselves in the presence of God. Christ is now proclaimed for righteousness "to every one that believeth," and that is the opposite of law. The law says: "He that doeth"; the gospel says: "He that heareth." "Christ is the end of the law," replacing and setting it aside, and bringing in a totally contrastive principle.

This makes the picture of that broad way exceedingly solemn. Many have, no doubt, the thought of its representing the way of vice and open irreligion as opposed to the way of holiness; but closer consideration will convince us that it is not so. For no one expects, however careless he may be about it, the way of sin to lead heavenward. Whereas the Lord plainly intimates this to be what the writer of Proverbs speaks of ― "a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12). The question is of finding the way of life. Hence the solemn warning to beware of false prophets which follows thereupon, men who would lead those listening to them upon the broad way of death.

Observe, I do not charge you with being hypocrites, for I do not say that Cain was not sincere. There is no doubt indeed of his sincerity; but then his sincerity only evidenced the blind-hardness of his heart. Human sincerity means nothing, it is often but the greatest proof of the desperate darkness in which a man is. Those were sincere of whom Christ said, "He that killeth you will think he doeth God service." Saul of Tarsus was thoroughly sincere when he "thought" he "ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." He consulted moreover the chief priests and elders, the religious authorities of the day. He was zealous for his religion, and thoroughly sincere as a man, but totally blind as to God and the things of Christ, thinking to do God service by fighting against and slaying His saints. Cain, in his sincerity, brought to the Lord that which cost him something, that which was the fruit of his toil. He came to God as a worshipper, and in so doing offered to God that which he had brought honestly as a man, but which proved him to be ignorant of his state as a sinner.

Next we come to man's "ways," and the danger of trusting his own estimate of it. If it seems right to him, men say, Why blame him? He is sincere; and none is entitled to judge him wrong. Is there then no divine standard by which we may try our thoughts, no means of forming a sound and sure judgment? Why did God then reveal His Word, and early enough in an experimental shape? And why did His Son as man tabernacle long enough among men to reveal his nature and relationship in living perfection to such as have eyes to see and ears to hear? No; man is accountable for his thoughts and his feelings no less than his words and his ways; "and the end thereof is the ways of death." Man departed far from God and disliked Him, as Christ fully proved. Though He never was far from each one of us, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, for which the world gave Christ the cross. Man is accountable, whatever he thinks.

"The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul": converting," in the broader sense of the word, would not be wrong, — that is, turning it from any wrong path. Torah, "the law," means literally that which points out the way; and as "perfect" it is an infallible guide. Its certainty for guidance is therefore what is here declared. The soul as the impulsive part of man's nature is that which needs to be turned or restrained from following its own inclinations, and so is named here. How blessed to have the certainty which is found in listening to God's voice. It is the first point of all, clearly, for blessing. Apart from this, wisdom and folly, holiness and unholiness, are names, and nothing else. We seek to please God, and know not but we offend Him. The road we take to heaven may, after all, be the road to hell: for "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death." (Prov. 14:12.) When God has spoken, and we have heard His voice, our path then becomes that of simple obedience; we are not left to prove it by results, which come all too late for help as to what is before us. Results, so far as these can be depended on even, testify but of what, being past, is already beyond recall.

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). The searchings of God showed him the evil course he was pursuing, a path of his own inclining, but contrary to the guidance of God; it is the way of a fool which is right in his own eyes. But now he desires to be led in the way everlasting. The path that has no death in it is the path for which he cries out. Is there then a way that has no end, no death in it? Yes there is indeed “In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” And what is that pathway? It is the pathway of the will of God to which no end can be put. We shall have our delight in that path for ever. So it is a prayer very needful for us, and it is acceptable to God. A prayer that is never without an answer. With us may it be often in use.

Twice in the Book of Proverbs it is said, "There is a way that seemsh right to a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12, Prov. 16:25). Following his own judgment, Elimelech chose the way which led to Moab to find the food which perishes, but there he also found his grave. "And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left and her two sons" (Ruth 1:3). The house of the Bethlehemites in Moab became the house of mourning. There Naomi lamented the loss of the husband she loved and reverenced. There Mahlon and Chilion lost for ever the wisdom and strength a father's guardianship had hitherto afforded them.

Men naturally cling to the belief that there is some good in man, a vital spark in every breast that may be fanned into a flame. Such beliefs naturally lead to cultivating, with the best of intentions, the wrong nature, with deplorable results.

These things would of themselves be sufficient to cause me to repent of the publication of that letter, and to request that it might be destroyed. But this is not all. I have also to confess, that I wrote with very defective apprehensions of the mind of God on the solemn subject of which it treats; and that one most important principle maintained in it is erroneous. I have also the bitter sorrow of knowing that some have either been misled by it in their judgments, or strengthened to persevere in a wrong course. I am learning in some measure the truth of what a brother wrote to me soon after its publication — "That letter will be made a use of by the adversary you little think, I am persuaded; a use which none would deprecate more than yourself … It shows a most entire unacquaintance on your part with the questions at issue." This is what I have been proving. I have not stood in God's counsel; and therefore, though I was unconscious to myself of evil motives in writing that letter, and really thought that I was opposing a course that was grievous in the Lord's sight, He is teaching me that even good motives and desires, and upright intentions, are poor guides in a scene where God is dealing in righteous discipline with His people, and Satan is active with his deceits and wiles.