I WILL STRAIGHTEN EVERY CROOKED PATH -GOD

IN THE DAYS OF HIS POWER SERIES.

TOPIC: I WILL STRAIGHTEN EVERY CROOKED PATH – GOD

COMPILED EDITED BY:-
Rev. Innocent Chukwudi Peace-Udochukwu
President Living Fountain Ministries Int’l LIFOM

“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
Luke 3:5

“I will straighten every crooked path” I heard that very word clearly from the Lord the other morning when I was meditating on some of the things that are not going as smooth as I had wanted and this morning I want to tell you that the good Lord JEHOVAH is still in the business of straightening up every crooked path and just as he promised me he will also do it for you. HALLELUJAH!

Is your life out of control? Today we are going to see that God has a wonderful plan to Make Straight The Paths Of Your Life.

The bible tells us that in order to make the paths of our life straight we first must trust in God with all our hearts.

THE BIBLE SAYS: “I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.”
THE BIBLE SAYS :“For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40:3-5)

There’d be no reason for the prophet to talk about the crooked being made straight unless we start with a crooked post-fall world. Ecclesiastes 7:29 tells us that “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” When we translate that into the imagery of paths, roads, and highways, we arrive at Isaiah’s indictment of man: “The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace” (Isa. 59:8).

“I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:” Isaiah 45:2.

God says, I WILL GO AHEAD OF YOU. Concerning every plan and journey you want to undertake, God says, I will go ahead of you; concerning the difficulties and obstacles on your way, God says, I will go ahead of you; concerning the enemies of your destiny, God says, I will go ahead of you.

When God goes ahead of you, He will make the crooked paths straight, He will make the rough places smooth, He will level every mountain and fill every valley, and He will speak to men who have what you need, and they will have no option but to release it to you. When God goes ahead of you, your impossibilities shall become possible, and every enemy that wants to fight you will have to fight with God first.

Your journey in destiny will yield more results, and your progress in life will be easier when God goes ahead of you; when God goes ahead of you, your obstacles will be put to flight, and everything that has ever contended with you or is contending with you will give way.

Isaiah 45 vs. 2 puts it this way: “I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:”

Pray With Me: Lord, go ahead of me and make my crooked paths straight, in Jesus’ name!

“I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.” — Isaiah 42:16

The subject of this morning is the great promise of God that, although his people shall sometimes be enveloped in gloom, their darkness shall be turned to light.

Remember, too, that in many cases, troubles disappear at the very moment when we expect them to be overwhelming. While we are anticipating them, they seem to block up the pathway completely, and leave no door of escape, but on our venturesome advance to them, they are not there at all, they have fled before us. See the host of Israel— they have escaped out of Egypt, but they are pursued by their taskmasters. They come to a spot where they are enclosed on either hand by mountains, while the chariots of Egypt are in the rear. How is it possible for them to escape? They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. “Forward,” cries the prophet, “forward, hosts of God!” But how can they advance? The Red Sea rolls right in their path; but no sooner do the feet of the priests touch the waters of the sea than the depths are divided, the waters stand upright as a heap, for God has made a pathway for his people through the heart of the sea. No better road could be desired than that which they found in the sandy bed of the sea. The trouble, which certainly did appear insurmountable, became the subject of unwonted triumph; Miriam’s song and the voices of the daughters of Israel had in them a higher exultation than they could ever have known if they had not been able to cry aloud, “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” Brethren, your trials may, in a like case, vanish so soon as you arrive at them; you do not know what plan God has in store. He has an unused shaft which shall be the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance for you. The Lord has a counterplot for the plots of your enemies. You see but a part of his scheme, you have not as yet discovered the whole of his resources; and when he brings out his wonderful plan more fully, you will stand in amazement and even bless his name for the trial, because it furnished so noble an opportunity for revealing to you the faithfulness and the power of your God. The same thing which occurred at the Red Sea happened also to the hosts of God when they came to the Jordan, for Jordan was driven back, and fled at the presence of the God of Israel. If you should suffer trouble upon trouble, you too, shall experience deliverance upon deliverance. Think of that mighty instance in which it was proved that God can clear the darkest skies, and give us day for night! I refer to the case of Hezekiah. What a blasphemous and insulting letter was that which came from Rabshakeh! what reviling language was that which the foul-mouthed lieutenant of Sennacherib hurled at Judah’s king! Poor Hezekiah was a man of a holy and tender spirit, and was sore dismayed; but when he spread that wretched letter before the Lord, and bowed himself in sackcloth, little did he know how graciously God would prevent the sorrow from ever coming to him in any other shape but in that of talk and boasting. “Thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.” And so it was; and so, O child of God, may it be with the troubles which now block up your pathway— they shall vanish as you advance.

When the trial has been submitted to in your own heart, and you have laid aside your self-will and obstinacy, and are no longer murmuring and repining and rebelling, then shall God take away the coals of the furnace, because the gold is purified. That is a grand story of Alexander’s confidence in his friend and physician. When the physician had mixed him a potion for his sickness, a letter was put into Alexander’s hand, warning him not to drink the medicine, for it was poisoned. He held the letter in one hand and the cup in the other, and in the presence of his friend and physician, he drank up the draught, and after he had drained the cup, he bade his friend look at that letter, and judge of his confidence in him. Alexander had unstaggering faith in his friend, which did not admit of doubt. “See now,” said he, “how I have trusted you.” This is the assurance which the believer should exercise towards his God. The cup is very bitter, and some tell us it will prove to be deadly; that it is so nauseous that we shall never survive the draught. Unbelief whispers in our ear, “Your coming tribulation will utterly crush you.” Drink it, my brother, and say, “If he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” It cannot be that God should be unfaithful to his promise, or unmindful of his covenant. Your trial, then, will cease when it culminates: he will make darkness light before you when the darkest hour of the night has struck.

WAYS ALWAYS OPEN BEFORE THE OBEDIENT, RESOLUTE. TRUSTFUL MAN. Firmness, moral courage, persistency, and, above all, real faith in God, compel difficulties to yield. They are always according to the size of the man himself. If he is big with faith, they grow small; if he is little with fears, they grow big. Obstacles are searching tests of character. Men of faith are like the mountain streams that make their way down amid the rocks; if they cannot get over the rocks, they go round them, but they will not be stopped.

Man must go. Each man is accomplishing a journey, going through a process. The only question is, How? Man may go, either with God or without Him. Whether we go with God or without Him, we shall find crooked places.

“I will go before thee.” God does not say where He will straighten our path; He does not say how; the great thing for us to believe is that there is a special promise for us, and to wait in devout hope for its fulfilment. He who waits for God is not misspending his time. Such waiting is true living — such tarrying is the truest speed.

“And make crooked things straight.” This promise springs out of the former, and is closely connected with it; for it is only by the Lord s going before that things really crooked can be straightened. But what is meant by crooked places, and whence come they?(1) Some are inherently crooked, that is, it is in their very nature to be so. Thus crooked tempers, dispositions, desires, wills, lusts are in themselves inherently crooked, because being bent out of their original state by sin, they do not now lie level with God’s holy will and Word.(2) But there are crooked places in the path of God’s family, which are not inherently crooked as being sinful in themselves, but are crooked as made so by the hand of God to us. Of this kind are afflictions in body and mind, poverty in circumstances, trials in the family, persecution from superiors or ungodly relatives, heavy losses in business, bereavement of children, and, in short, a vast variety of circumstances curved into their shape by the hand of God, and so made. “crooked things” to us. Now, the Lord has promised, to make “crooked things straight.” Taken in its fullest extent, the promise positively declares that from whatever source they come, or of whatsoever nature they be, the Lord will surely straighten them. By this He manifests His power, wisdom, and faithfulness. But how does He straighten them? In two ways, and this according to their nature. Sometimes by removing them out of the way; and sometimes by reconciling our minds to them.

The Lord also can bend the crooked straight, and what will not bend he can break. How often in a family the ungodly Saul has been made into a holy Paul! the crooked character has been bent straight; and where the man would not bend straight, the terrible judgment of God has taken away the crook out of the household, so that the righteous might have peace and comfort! Do not be afraid, believer, the Lord’s great axe can clear a way through the thick forests of your greatest trials. Do you not see the great Pioneer going before you; his goings forth were of old, and by the name of “The Breaker” is he known, since he breaks down all that can hinder the march of his people. Like the engineers in the advance of an army, those grand old sappers and miners who clear the way for the host, even so will the Lord cast up a highway for all his saints, until he shall bring them to the city that hath foundations whose builder and maker he is.

I pray God bless the word to you who are tried believers, to give you peace and confidence; and to you who are seeking sinners, that you may trust in Christ and find salvation. The Lord bless you richly, for his name’s sake. Amen.

SHALOM!

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