Treasures Of Darkness part 2

God's preliminary work in "going before His
people, making for them crooked places
straight,
breaking in pieces gates of brass, and
cutting in sunder bars of iron." Before,
however, I enter into God's preliminary work,
and show how it all stands on the firm footing

of promise, I must drop a remark or two on the
characters to whom these promises are made.

To make this more clear as well as more
personal, we will look at it in the singular
number, as God has worded it – "I will go
before you ." It is evident from the very language
of the text, that the promises contained in it
are given to the exercised child of God, and to
him alone. No one else, therefore, has any
business with or any spiritual interest in it.
Consider this point a moment for yourselves
before I proceed further.
 Let this point be firmly
impressed upon your mind, that if you have no
spiritual exercises, trials, or temptations, you
have, at present, no manifested interest in the
promises made in the text; nor can you enter
spiritually into their suitability and beauty, or
know for yourself the divine and heavenly
blessedness which is lodged in them. But if, on
the other hand, you are a tried, exercised child
of God, one who knows the plague of your
heart, and the many difficulties and perplexities
which beset the road to heaven, you have so
far reason to believe that you are one of the
characters to whom these promises are
addressed.

1. The first promise, as it is the sweetest, so it
lays a foundation for all the rest – "I will go
before you." But look at the words. Have you
ever considered what they imply? How great
must those difficulties are which need the God
of heaven and earth Himself to go before us in
order to overcome them! Surely they must be
insuperable by any human strength, if they need
nothing less than the immediate presence and
power of the Almighty Himself. Go out some
fine evening and look at the sky, spangled with
thousands of stars, and then say to yourself,
"What, do I need the same Almighty hand
which created all these glittering orbs to go
before me?" Now, suppose that at present, as
regards religious matters, you have never
encountered a single trial, temptation, or
difficulty; but have found everything easy,
smooth, and a matter of course, and have
never met with one obstruction which you
could not by some exertion of your own
remove. If matters be so with you, how in the
world can you need the Lord to go before you?
You could not, I would think, except by way of
compliment, presume even to ask for such a
favor.
But if, on the other hand, you are contending
with great inward perplexities of mind, feel to
be in much soul peril and sorrow, and are
surrounded by difficulties which you cannot
surmount by any strength or wisdom of your
own, and yet surmounted they must be, then
you will feel a need for the Lord "to go before
you." There is nothing that we are more averse
to than trials and afflictions in providence or
grace, and yet, if truth be spoken, we never
come to know anything aright or receive any
real blessing without them. Usually speaking,
the Lord does not appear in providence or
grace, or make Himself known in love and
mercy to the soul, except in the path of trial.
We must, therefore, go into trials and afflictions
to learn not only the end, but the very beginning
of religion--I may add, even to know that there
is a God, so as to experience the power of His
arm, the greatness of His salvation and the
light of his countenance.
If we, then, are rightly taught, we shall feel a
need for the Lord to go before us, not only now
and then, but every step of the way, for unless
led and guided by Him, we are sure to go
astray. How strikingly was this the case with
the children of Israel. How the Lord went
before them every step from Egypt to the
promised land, marshaling their way night and
day in the cloudy pillar! How, also, He went
before them after they reached Canaan, and
made the hearts and hands of their enemies as
weak as water so that they could offer no
resistance to their victorious arms. How the
very walls of Jericho fell, as it were, of their
own accord, and how the promised land was
almost conquered before the children of Israel
set foot upon it! So must the Lord go before us
step by step.
A. But you may apply this promise to a variety
of things. It is applicable not only to spiritual
but to temporal trials and perplexities – to His
going before us both in providence and grace.
If the Lord goes before, preparing the way and
opening a path for us to walk in, all is well;
every difficulty at once disappears, every
mountain sinks into a plain. But if we cannot
see nor feel Him going before us, then no ray of
light streams upon the path, no friendly hand
removes the barriers. Beset behind and before,
we know not what to do. It seems as if we were
thrown back upon ourselves--miserable refuge
enough, and we know not what step to take.
B. But the words apply not merely to the Lord's
going before us in afflictions and trials and
removing them out of the way, or giving us
strength to bear them, but also to the
manifestation of His holy and sacred will. There
are few things more trying or perplexing to a
child of God than to desire to do what is right,
yet not to know, in particular circumstances,
what is right, or if known how to do it; to long
to learn the will of God in some important
matter, and yet be unable to discover plainly
and clearly what that will is. In this case, when
brought into some extremity, the Lord
sometimes goes before in His kind providence
by unexpectedly opening a door in one
particular direction and shutting up all others,
intimating thereby that this is the way in which
He would have us walk; and sometimes in His
grace by whispering a soft word of instruction
to the soul which at once decides the matter.
C. But it is especially in the removal of
obstructions that the Lord fulfils this part of the
promise. This was especially the case with
Cyrus, in whose path such formidable
obstacles lay. What these are we shall more
clearly see by passing on to the next portion of
the promise.

2. "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 if there be in our
path no crooked places; what if the road we are
treading be like an arrow for straightness, and
a turfy lawn for smoothness? Why, then we
have certainly no present interest in the
promise. It wears to us no smiling face; it
stretches to us no friendly hand. But on the
other hand, if we find such crooked places in
our path, that we cannot possibly straighten
them, and such rough and rugged spots that
we cannot smooth them, this so far affords
ground for hope that we have an interest in the
promise given that the Lord will go before us
and straighten them for us.
But what is meant by crooked places, and
whence come they? Viewing them generally, we
may say that these crooked places are so in
two ways. Some are inherently crooked, that is,
it is in their very nature to be so – and others
are so not from any inherent necessity, but
from the Lord's appointment that they should
be so.

A. The things which are crooked in themselves ,
that is, inherently and necessarily bent and
curved, are so through sin; for sin has bent
crooked that which was originally straight. Thus
crooked tempers, crooked dispositions,
crooked desires, crooked wills, crooked 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; and these are felt to be crooked by a
living soul through the implantation and
possession of a holy principle which detects
and groans under their crookedness and
contrariety.

B. 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 whatever 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 He straightens them by removing
them out of the way, and sometimes not by
removing them, but by reconciling our minds
to them. We have perhaps a crooked path in
Providence. It may be poverty, persecution,
oppression; it may be family trials or temporal
difficulties; and these spring out of, or are
connected with, circumstances over which we
have no control. These crooked things we may
frequently have tried to remove or straighten;
but all our attempts to do so leave them as bad
or even worse than before. Rebellion,
peevishness, or self-pity may have worked
besides in our minds, all which may have made
them more crooked than ever, until at last we
are obliged to have recourse to the Lord. Now
then is the time for Him to appear and fulfill His
own promise, which He does sometimes by
removing them altogether, taking us out of
those circumstances which make them
crooked to us, or putting an end to the
circumstances themselves .

In this way the Lord
sometimes makes crooked places straight. This
He did to Jacob, when He delivered him from
Laban's tyranny and Esau's threatened violence,
and to David when He took Saul out of the way.
So health given for sickness, a deliverance in
providence, a removing of an enemy out of the
way, a bringing us from under the power of the
oppressor, are all means whereby these
crooked things are straightened.
But there is another way, and that is not by
removing the trial, but by bending our will to
submit to it. We must not think that the Lord
will, in answer to prayer, remove all our
temporal afflictions. So far from that, we may
have more and more of them to our dying day.

How then, it may be asked, can He fulfill His
promise that He will make crooked places
straight, if He leaves some of our worst crooks
as crooked as before? He does it by bending
our will to submit to them; and this He
accomplishes sometimes by favoring the soul
with a sweet sense of His blessed presence;
and sometimes by throwing a secret and
sacred light upon the path that we are treading,
convincing us thereby that it is the right road,
though a rugged one, to a city of habitation.

When the Lord thus appears, it brings
submission – and as soon as we can submit to
God's will, and the rebellion, peevishness, and
unbelief of our carnal mind are subdued, a
sweet and blessed calmness is felt in the soul.
The crooked place now at once vanishes as
being melted into the will of God. It is in this
way, for the most part, that those places which
are inherently crooked are made straight. There
is no change in the things themselves, but in
our views of and feelings towards them. The
carnal mind which was crooked is crooked still;
our crooked tempers and dispositions, our
crooked lusts and desires, are in themselves as
much curved as ever, but they are so far
straightened as not to irritate and vex as
before.

In a similar manner, the trial in providence
which was crooked is crooked still; the people
we have to deal with; the circumstances we
have to encounter; the cross we have to carry;
the burdens we have to bear, all remain
unchanged and unaltered; but the Lord gives
strength to endure the pain and trouble caused
by them – and while they are borne in
submission to His holy will, their weight is
taken off the shoulders, and their crookedness
is not so keenly felt. See how this was the case
with those three eminent saints, Job, David,
Paul. Job's trials, David's bereavement, and
Paul's thorn were all as before; but when the
Lord appeared, Job repented in dust and
ashes, David arose from the earth and anointed
himself, and Paul gloried in his infirmities.