Ecclesiastes 1:15

That which is crooked cannot be made straight.

Making the crooked straight

(with Isaiah 40:4):--Both these men gaze upon the affairs of human kind, and are afflicted with the sense of crookedness. It does not require much insight to perceive that much in human nature is marred and crooked, and life is gnarled and twisted. The world is a place of grand plans and poor executions, a realm of broken columns, snapped friendships, strained relationships. It abounds in crooked things. Both men pronounced the things crooked, but one said it in a despondency, the other said it in hope. One man’s heart shrinks up in despair, the other man’s expands in the strength of a great assurance. The two types belong to every age. They rub shoulders in common life. We meet them everywhere, the prophets of melancholy and the cheery bearers of glad tidings of great joy. There are always those who behold the crooked and see no prospect of rectification; and there are always those who see the crooked and also behold its ultimate correction. How do these contradictory conclusions arise? How can we explain the despondent judgment which anticipates no day of renewal? We are always very much inclined to seek our explanation in our natural temperaments. How frequently we hear this word in common life, “I am naturally of a despondent turn of mind.” There is certainly some truth in these explanations, hut when we seek for an excuse in our temperament, we are attended by grave and serious perils. It is possible to regulate our powers, by observing the law of balance. If a man’s constitution has some ingredient in excess, he can restrain and control it by developing another ingredient. It is by the balance and antagonisms of our faculties that we shape our characters. Let us cultivate the opposite to our excesses. Or, let us exercise ourselves in some grace which will act as guardian upon our natural bias. I have said that both men saw the crooked things. Is that quite true? To a certain degree it is true, but the half remains unsaid. To see anything clearly in all its vivid relationships we must believe strongly. The Word of God proclaims that believing is seeing. “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see?.. . Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day.” He saw it through the lens of faith. If we would have clear sight, we must have firm belief. If we desire to see things clearly in their far-reaching relationships, we must come to them with a confident faith. Koheleth had no faith, and therefore his sight was only partial. He beheld the crookedness; he did not see its infinite relationships. Isaiah believed in God, and with his faith-washed eyes he looked at the crookednesses of men with the vision of an optimist. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)

The crooked things straightened

It is easy enough to straighten some crooked things. Here, for instance, is a piece of paper. I can take it in my hand, and squeeze and crumple it all up till there is not one straight piece in it as big as your little-finger nail. And then I can spread it out on the table, and smooth it down, and make it just as straight again as ever it was. And just so, if I take a tender willow twig, I can wind it round my finger like a thread; then I can unwind it again, and it will come out as straight as ever. But let that willow twig remain crooked while it is growing for five or ten years, and then you may write on it the words of our text; for “that which is crooked cannot be made straight.”

I. We are all born with crooked hearts.

II. Like the tree or the clay, our hearts are having something done to them which will make it much harder to straighten what is crooked in them. With the tree, it is its growth that will make its crookedness hard to straighten. With the clay, it is the baking or burning of it. With ourselves, it is the exercising or practising of what is sinful in our hearts that will make it hard to straighten them. This world is God’s school. All the time spent in it is time spent at school. We are getting educated here for eternity. And when we form a wrong habit of thinking, or feeling, or acting, we are hardening a crooked point and fastening it upon our characters. And when we go out of the school of life,--that is, when we come to die and go into eternity,--then it will be true that “that which is crooked cannot he made straight.” And so it is with the gardener and his trees. While they are young and tender it is very easy to straighten them when they get crooked. But let them only grow crooked, and then what can he do with them?

III. The importance of keeping straight while we are getting educated. Did you ever know a person who had charge of a nursery of young trees? If you did, you might learn some very useful lessons from his example. The great object with him is to keep his trees in proper shape while they are growing. He walks about among them very often, and watches them closely. If he sees one getting crooked, he tries to straighten it. If merely bending it with his hands will not keep it straight, then he puts a stake in the ground, and ties the young tree to it, so as to keep it in a right position all the time it is growing. And if the gardener thinks it worth his while to take so much care and pains with the education of a mere tree, which, after all, will only last a few years, how much more careful should we be in educating our souls, which are to live for ever and ever! Did you ever go to a photographer’s to have your likeness taken? If you did, you remember how very careful he was to have you seated properly before he began to take it. Then, when everything was arranged just to suit him, he said, “There now; keep just so for a little while, and we’ll get a nice picture.” Suppose, now, you had shut one eye just at that moment, and kept it shut for two or three minutes: what then? Why, you would have had the likeness of a one-eyed boy or girl. Or suppose you had twisted your face, or screwed up your mouth: why, you would have had a picture of yourself with a screwed-up mouth or” a twisted face. Nothing in the world could prevent it. New, this world is God’s photograph office; and we are all staying here to have our likeness taken. While we are young the likeness is being taken of what we are to be as men and women. And all the time we are living here the likeness is being taken of what we shall be hereafter for ever.

IV. How can we get straight and keep straight till our likeness is finished? This is the most important question. Remember we are not straight, to begin with. Recollect that we are all born with crooked or sinful hearts. They must be made straight before they can be kept straight. How, then, can a crooked, sinful heart be made straight or good? We must take it to Jesus, and pray for Him to take away all that is wicked in it. Jesus is able to do this. But no one else besides Him can do it for us. But when our hearts are made straight, how are we to keep them straight? Two things are necessary for this:--we must get Jesus to help us, and we must help ourselves. We must get Jesus to help us. Without His help we can do nothing at all in this matter. But how will God help us here? By giving us His grace and His Holy Spirit. These are just the kind of help to us, in trying to keep our hearts straight, that the sun and rain are to the farmer in making his crops grow. But how are we to get this help from God? By earnest prayer. (R. Newton, D. D.)