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(with Isaiah 40:4): — These two passages contain a question and the answer to it. We are taught therefrom that God, and God alone, can make that straight which He has permitted to be made crooked — that He alone can make that plain which He has allowed to become rough.

I. THE INEQUALITIES, OR CROOKEDNESS, OF TEMPORAL THINGS.

1. We must first of all grant that crooked things are not necessarily evil things. Many of them are very beautiful — many very useful. If all the limbs of a tree were straight, how curious would be our surroundings! If all the fields were flat, how monotonous the landscape, and how unhealthy the situation! It is when crookedness takes the place of that which ought to be straight that the crookedness becomes an evil.

2. We must, secondly, bear in mind that these crooked things are made so by God — "that which God hath made crooked." There are many reasons why He has done so, but He has not revealed all those reasons to us. Some, however, are so evident that we cannot but see them.

(1) He would not make this world too comfortable for us, or else we should never desire a better one.

(2) He could not leave us without temptations, or else we should never be proved.

(3) He could not obliterate the consequences of sin until sin is done away. Man brought these consequences on himself at the fall, and they must remain as long as sin remains.

3. Let us now glance at some of these crooked things.

(1) See them in nature. There are extremes of heat and cold. No part of the world is without its drawbacks. In no country are all advantages combined. A warm land has venomous serpents, and insect-plagues infest the inhabitants. In northern countries the cold absorbs half the pleasure of human life. Tornadoes, tempests, storms destroy the verdure of spring, and spread terror and dismay. Mountains and oceans and language separate nations. The very change of seasons introduces an element of uncertainty and crookedness.

(2) See it in life. Pain racks the limbs, fear, anxiety, dread, sorrow, bereavement, trial, the bitter struggle of existence, the cry of cruel want, poverty, and improvidence; the strange distribution of wealth and power, the inequalities of ability. All these things stand out prominently and in lurid brightness, among the crooked things.

(3) See it in social relationships. We meet with crooked characters, and crooked dispositions in others, and are not without crooked tempers in our own breasts. There are contrary people around us, conceited people, thoughtless people, with whom we come in contact. There are changeable people, irritating people, cross-grained people, vexatious acts and foolish repartees, until, disheartened and crushed, we feel as if it were a very crooked world indeed.

(4) See it in spiritual things. No sooner do we begin to try to serve and love God than these roughnesses crop up. Watch the door of your lips and see how much irreverence, how many vain and foolish words come forth. Watch your tempers, and something surely comes to put them out of gear.

II. NO HUMAN POWER CAN PUT THESE THINGS STRAIGHT. How could we expect anything different? How can man contravene the purposes of an almighty God? No more can we expect to rectify things in this world than we could expect to create the world itself.

III. THE GRAND CONSUMMATION REFERRED TO IN OUR SECOND TEXT — "The crooked shall be made straight." Yes; but this is by God Himself, and not by man. God shall put things straight by going down to the cause of their disorder. He will not attack the details like man would when he finds a medicine to cure a pain; but He will set the springs right, and then all the wheels will run with smoothness and regularity.

(Homilist.)

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KJV: Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?

WEB: Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked?