Make the Crooked Places Straight

In the book of Isaiah, in chapter 45, there is a verse of scripture that haunts me. Isaiah 45-2 declares, I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight. There have been times in my life where I sinned and I didn't make the crooked places straight.

Sometimes it's too late to do anything about it. Like the time I failed to witness to a young construction worker at my house who always managed to be the first one of that crew there each morning and I'd have to stand there with him and make small talk until the others arrived. I should have told him about Jesus but I failed to do so.

A month later I was reading the obituaries in my local newspaper and his face stared out at me from a photo of him above his death notice. He was a young man who had a sudden death. I believe God had him show up early each morning at my house so I could witness to him but I dropped the ball.

I sinned the big sin of omission and that young man perished into eternity. I couldn't make that crooked place straight. Years ago when I was a Sunday school teacher at a big Baptist church I was playing racquetball with one of the men from my class and we found out we went to the same college and he asked me when I graduated.

At the time I was a college dropout but I was too ashamed to let anyone know it so I gave him a year of graduation and I lied to him. That night I couldn't sleep as I tossed and turned in my bed thinking about how I lied to a member of my Sunday school class and I fell under deep conviction of sin. The next Sunday I found this man in a hallway at church and I saw my opportunity to make the crooked places straight in my relationship with him.

I told him I owed him an apology for lying to him and that I didn't graduate like I said. He looked wounded that his Sunday school teacher would lie to him but I had to make that crooked place straight. Our text says I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight.

You may hide it from others friend but God sees you and he knows what you have done. You're lying and you're fornicating and you're stealing and you're backbiting and you're downright meanness is an indictment against you as your sins rise up to heaven and make a stink like a dirty diaper. You've been robbing God and stealing from him because every time you sin you rob God of his glory.

Your sins crucified the Lord of glory and were the nails that fastened him to that bloody cross. Your unforgiving heart grieves the heart of God. Your filthy mouth hurts the ears of God.

Your lying lips and your filthy pride quench the Holy Spirit of God. How can you call yourself a Christian when you don't live like one? Make things right in your dealings with man. Repent of your sins and turn back to God.

Years ago I was doing business with a man who cussed me out up one side and down the other and when he was through cussing me I told him that he claimed to be a Christian but he wasn't behaving like one. He hung up the phone mad. That was Friday.

He went to church Sunday and he came under the worst conviction for sin while he sat there listening to his pastor and he repented before God before he left church that day. Monday morning I received a phone call from this man and he was as meek as a lamb as he asked me to forgive him for cussing me out like that. This man was willing to make the crooked places straight in his life that day.

Is there a crooked place in your life, friend, that you need to make straight? Are you in harmony with your fellow man? Are you in fellowship with Jesus? Has a crooked place broken that harmony and that fellowship? Does it need to be straightened out? Are you willing to call sin sin and make the crooked places in your life straight again? Maybe you need to pick up the phone and call the person you sinned against. Maybe you need to make restitution with somebody you cheated. Maybe you need to ask your loved ones to forgive you for being such a bad example in the home.

I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight. What are you going to do about it? Let us pray.