August 10, 2025 • 31 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Term me in your scriptures if you would. My time
is short.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The last time I preached a message and finished in
thirty minutes, I was recording a sixty second radio commercial.
So this is going to take. If you don't believe
in miracles, start this morning. This is gonna Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes,
chapter seven, verse thirteen, from the King James version. Some
(00:26):
of you have never heard a sermon from the book
of Ecclesiastes before. Some people don't really even believe Ecclesiastes
is true. They read it as if it's sort of
a man in a bad mood, and so don't take
into account what he is saying. But this is the
word of God, and we need to listen and learn
from it. And there's something we can learn today that'll
(00:48):
be very valuable to us. Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, verse thirteen.
Consider listen to it, says who to consider here the
work of God. So he's starting off by saying, this
is what I'm about to tell you is the work
of God. It's not the work of Satan. It's not
the work of the flesh, it's not the work of
a fallen world. This what I'm saying to you, is
(01:09):
the work of God. Consider the work of God, For
who can make straight or who can make that straight
which he hath made crooked? Thomas Boston wrote in the
seventeen hundreds a book called The Crook in the Lot.
It's not a phrase that would be used very often
(01:30):
in our society today.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
What he's speaking of.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Is you have a lot in life, a course in
your life, and a desire, an ambition, a hope, a
dream and aspiration. You want your life to go this direction,
and in this direction, you want it to be as
straight as possible. But sometimes in life that which is
(01:57):
meant and desired in our heart to be it's right,
takes a crooked path.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It goes off course.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Is there anybody in this room today where something in
your life has gone off the course you would hoped
to have gone towards. I spoke to a young man.
He was the director of what's called a CrossFit gym,
I Enjoy CrossFit, and he was one of the leading
CrossFit directors, and he spoke out against homosexuality on a
(02:25):
day when they were supposed to have a celebrate LBGQT
whatever all those letters are, and he refused to do
it in his gym, and they fired him. They took
his gym away from him, so he lost his job,
and there was a crook in his road. He had
hoped to have that career for the rest of his life.
Rightnd the same time, his wife began to feel sick
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and they discovered a very rare disease that affects almost
every organ in your body. Every organ in your body
begins to disease away. It begins to diminish, and the
power of the liver, the power of the heart, the
power of the lungs, everything just begins to collapse. And
now she's in a wheelchair. They have five children, and
they just found out not long ago. He sent me
(03:10):
a picture of his beautiful ten year old daughter now
in a wheelchair because she has the same thing her
mother has, discovering it at ten years old.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Who can make that straight? Who can make straight?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
What I heard from a mother in this auditorium, I
believe was yesterday, saying that she has five children and
her husband died last year.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Who can make that straight? Now? You see, there's certain
things that can be made straight.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
If I feel like I have a cold this week,
because we made straight, I can get healed, or I
can just recover from it. But there are certain things
in life who can make that straight. A disappointment in life,
a discouragement, an ability to not function in the gift
that you had hoped for, a position in life that
you had aspired towards, an it just never becomes a
reality in your life. And some of you may be
(04:05):
already theologically disagreeing with me, saying God would never bring
that crook in the lot of the straitness of our life.
God would never do that. It has to be the flesh.
It has to be the world, the fallen world. It
has to be Satan. If it has to be that,
then why did he have The writer of Ecclesiastes say
these words consider the work of God. Or in Ecclesiastes four,
(04:25):
excuse me. In Ezekiel fourteen nineteen, say, if I send
a plague, even Noah, Daniel and Job, even if they
were in this plague, And a new living translation says,
even if I send an epidemic, even if Noah, Daniel
and Job were in it, they could not save their
own sons or daughters. John chapter sixteen, verse thirty three says,
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in this world you will have a crook in your lot.
He calls it tribulation. You're going to have this, And
my question for you this morning is how does that
crook and the lot affect your relationship with God?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Because that's really what God is after.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
The most important thing that you will ever experience in
your life is not your marriage, not your job, not
your career, not your finances, not your joyful opportunities at leisure,
not your children. The greatest thing you could ever experience
is having an intimate, personal, wonderful, loving, glorious relationship with
(05:30):
Jesus Christ. And if that is truly what you are after,
then nothing else really takes precedent over that. And you
would want and allow and welcome God to do anything
in your life to take the course the lot in
your life, and say, God, whatever it takes to direct
that course towards this highest goal of knowing you, loving you,
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serving you, honoring you. Whatever you will for my life,
bring it to me, even it's hard, painful. I would
desire to have your hand in my life. When this
disagreeable nature, that's disagreeable lot in life begins to affect us, we.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
See it throughout scripture, and.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It becomes painful, to us emotionally, mentally, relationally, vitality wise.
All these things are affected when there is a crook
in a lot, when something that was our desire was
to be made straight. Scripture is full of this job.
Chapter twenty three, verse thirteen and fourteen. He is unchangeable,
(06:38):
speaking of God, and who can turn him back what
he desires that he does for he will complete what
he has appointed for you. And then we see in
Scripture from the Old to the New Testament, the thorn
in Paul's flesh. I'm sure if you have a thorn
in your flesh you want to remove it. Have you
ever had just something as simple as a little what
(07:00):
do you call this? A little splinter in your finger?
If you have a little splinter, you can be in
the middle of a great business meeting or a financial transaction,
and you're playing with that little splinter trying to get
it out. It seems to almost supersede all other events
of life. And yet Paul had that thorn in the flesh.
Was it was a messenger of Satan? But it was
(07:21):
an intention of God, Wasn't it? It was a purpose
of God? Otherwise God could easily remove that thorn from him.
In God's sovereign power. And sometimes this question I'm asking
this morning, who can make it straight? You know when
I first read Joe, but I got to the end
of it and he had ten more children and another
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house and more cattle. And I'm still thinking, but he
still lost ten children. He still lost seven boys, boys
that hid dreams of and aspirations for what they could become,
and little girls that he held in his hands. He
was there when his beautiful wife birth these baby girls.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And now they're gone. He will never forget that.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
There will always be that crook in his lot who
can make that straight. And then God, please forgive me
for saying it this way. But then it seems that
God has the audacity to say, consider this the work
of God. That seems to hurt even more. You know
the Ephesians one to eleven. God works all things according
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to the counsel of his will. It doesn't say that
he works all good things to the counsel of his will.
And then Satan comes along and works all the bad
things to the council of his will. And there's this
conflicting will, and hopefully God wins. You know, it says
God works all things to his will. The Bible says
in Romans A twenty eight, all things work together for
good to those who love him and called according to
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His purpose all things. It could have said good things
work together for good and bad, But bad things don't
work together for good. Difficult things, the crook in the
straight path that we want work together for good, or
maybe it'll get good after it's brought straight again. But
it's working together for good even when it's in the crook,
(09:09):
even when it's bent in a direction that seems unpleasant
to us. Daniel, chapter five, verse twenty three says God,
in whose hand is your breath.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And who's and in who's in him is all of
your ways.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
All your ways are wrapped up in God's passion for you,
his love for you, his direction for you. What God
seems fit tomorrow in your lot. This is a quote
from Thomas Boston. What God seems to fit, what God
sees fit tomor in your lot, you will not be
able to mend. You can't do it through your own strength,
(09:43):
your own power, your own will, your own ambition, your
own You can't do it just through positive confessing it away.
It's not there anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It's not there. Anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It's not there anymore, and you're still feeling it in
your heart.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
There's some if.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
God is working something in you, if he is allowing
a crook in your path, your lot in life, he
is working something. And to try to if you could
picture a bow and arrow here, if you will, and
you say, I don't want that crook in this bow.
I don't want this to be a bow anymore. I
want it to be a straight stick. And you take
that bow and you begin to pull it in. Do
(10:17):
you know what that's gonna do to you.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
It's going to to to.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Frustrate you because it's always going to go back out.
It's going to weary you. It's going to frustrate and
exhaust you because you'll always be pulling it in. But
right now, the way it's built is that way. The
way the course is intended for you is this way
and not that way. And so there has to be
is now this is sounding negative right now, but it's
(10:42):
gonna get a little bit better here in just a moment, okay,
because what it's sounding like now is just a it's
just a throw yourself back and just say let the
bad stuff happen, because there's nothing I can do.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
We're going to talk about something that God has for
you in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
But there's a beginning place where you accept and you
say God, not my will, but thine.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You see, the greatest crook in the lot was.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Model to us in Jesus Christ himself, when he was
kneeling at the garden of Gsemone, and he prayed that
precious prayer, not let this cup pass from me. This
cup was not a cup of you know, it's going
to be a rough on the cross. This cup was
the wrath of God. All the sin of the world
was put into that cup. And this most precious, pure,
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undefiled Savior of ours, who lived a perfect sinless life,
looks into this cup and he sees all my anger
and all my pride, and all the world's adultery, and
all the world's murder and all the world's rape, and
all the world's wars and famines, and he sees all
this vileness, and it's in this cup. And he looks
at and he says, Father, please let this cup pass
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from me, but not my will but thine. The crookedness
the path that Jesus was asking for, a straight path
without the cross. And that's what many Christians, particularly in America,
for I don't find it nearly as much in Africa
or in Asia, or in Cambodi or Laos.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I find it more in America.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Is this thing that there should be no cup, There
should be no cup at all, There should be no
crookedness at all. There should be just this straight path
of happy and peppy and bursting with songs of delight
day in and day out. And if they're suffering, maybe
there's something wrong with you, something wrong with your faith,
(12:33):
something wrong with your confession. And yet Jesus had to
drink that cup and then go to the cross, and
he drank it to the full. To the Old Testament
calls it to the dregs. Now was God saying like
Satan put a crook in the lot. No, Isaiah fifty
eight says it pleased God. Didn't mean God was like, ah,
this is really fun. What Isaiah fifty eight means, it
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was the pleasure of God. It was the goodness of God.
It was the heart of God. Even though I'm sure
it had to be painful of Father seeing the son
in that condition, but it was the father's heart to
see for our benefit. So that our so that our
lot could be made clean and holy and free, and
salvation could be a gift and sanctification a gift.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Knowing that God is doing something is is.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Powerful because then it if we rely on him to
be the one who's doing, whether by permissive will or
active will, then we can know that he's in control
of the doing the crook and the lot, that he
can be in control of the straightening of the lot,
that that the same God who would allow a bend,
a twist, a little bit of plot in our life
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could now again have the power to straighten it. Knowing
that God is doing something is also knowing that He
is the one who can undo what is being done.
And I want you to take some joy this morning.
And this is going to sound maybe a little bit
harsh to you, but take some joy and understanding there.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Is a universe verity of the crook.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
No one has ever lived a human life without finding
some crook in their lot. No one has gone straight
all the way through sixty seventy eighty ninety years without
finding some crook in the lot. But sometimes what Satan
tries to do to us, it says you're the only
one with the crook in the lot. You're the only
one who's been doing your husband left you. You're the
only one who lost a child.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
You're the only one.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Who's got that went to the doctor's office and they
pronounced that disease. You're the only one who has financial troubles.
You're the only one who's suffering with depression. You're the
only one who has a family member with a mental disorder.
You're the only one who can't get that job that
you want. And Satan tries to buffet you by taking
this crook in the lot that God has designed to
bring you into the fullness of all that He has
(14:46):
for you and get you to say, God is not
being fair to me.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I don't have time to go into it.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
But I Psalms chapter seventy three, Asaf is speaking of this,
I look at the unrighteous, and I see how they
have no trouble in their life at all. He's deceived
because those unrighteous have more trouble than he had, even
though he was suffering things that were undescribable to him
at that time.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Knowing, on the other hand, that.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
No one's lot, and listen as carefully, no one's lot
in life is completely crooked. So in my past years,
I have four kids, and each of them had certain
problems in life, some with marriage, some with addictions, some
with depression. But you know what, God was gracious that
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when one of them had a problem, the other three
were doing good. But you know what I did. I
always fixated on the one with the problem. Oh, gohad
my sons. I fixed that and help that. And I
didn't rejoice that. God, thank you for what you're doing
in so and so's life and his life and her life.
So there's a universality of the crook. But also we
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need to understand that no one is No one's life
is full of total crookedness, if.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
That could be a word have.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
In other words, no matter what you are suffering, now
you have something good in your life. There's something that God,
God's grace. The Puritan's called a common grace. It's a
grace even if you're not saved. God's been gracious to you.
He's allowed good things.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
You wake up in the morning and there's sunshine. You
get to live in states like Florida or Colorado. That's
a good thing.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You have children, you're sitting many of you are sitting
next to somebody that loves you and you love them. Yes,
maybe there was a crook in a particular part of
your life, but much of your life, I would say,
I would dare to say, most of your life is good.
It's glorious, it's wonderful. There's much to give thanks for.
And we can't give Thanksgiving if we don't give Thanksgiving
and the good things, we'll never learn to give Thanksgiving.
And the things that seem a little bit off what
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we would hope them to be. The cook is painful
in that it's unexpected. The cook is painful when an
unexpected event hits us. I just want to talk real
briefly about some ways these crooks seem to throw us
off a little bit from the we're going down this path.
It seems joyful, and it's delightful. It's all we wanted
out of the life, and then all of a sudden,
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something unexpected.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
The first one is an unexpected crook.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It happened to me when I was driving down Voyager
Boulevard in Colorado, when we were driving there, and all
of a sudden a car ran a red light, and
I knew we were going to hit them head on,
and and you know, I know if I was holy,
I would have cried out Jesus or Holy Spirit or
something like that or quoted you know, all things work
together for good. But I just said, here's what my
mind said, this is going to hurt, because I mean
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we were wont sixty miles an hour and they're coming
head on, and I said, this is going to hurt.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And it did.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I broke my back in two places instantaneously, in pain.
But you know, it was a crook. It was lasted
for about a year. My back feels great now, so
that crook is gone. It doesn't hurt. And so some
of these instantaneous, single shocking events are painful for the
moment when my.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Doctor called me and said, you have thyroid.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Cancer, and I didn't know what thyroid cancer was, and
I looked online and I saw there's two different kinds
of thyroid cancer. One is the best kind you can
possibly get. If you're gonna have cancer, get that kind.
And the other kind will kill you in six months,
and there's no known cure. And I called my doctor
back and she wouldn't answer the phone. In four days,
without knowing am I going to be fine? Or am
I dying in six months if the Lord doesn't heal me,
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and so those are but it went away. I mean,
there was a cure for it. And so there's the
shocking events. But then they go away. So those kind
of crooks are they're hard to face, but they're manageable,
right because they go away. There's a second kind of
crook is when one crook comes after another. So for me,
you have a car wreck, then a year later cancer,
then a year later some troubles at the church I
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was pastoring. That was one of the most painful events
I've ever experienced in my life. And there were just
one after another, but thankfully I didn't face the one
until the other was gone. Have you ever had those
things happen in your life, one after another?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
A worst kind? The third kind is when all of
them come together and they persist. They're persistent.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So if I were to have broken my back, and
my back will still caused me to not walk or
be in pain, and then I had cancer and I
was still into chemotherapy, and there were still if all
of those were combined, you know, and some of you
in this place have that kind of crook happening in
your life, where all these things are happening at the
same time, where they're just pressing in on you and
you just can't bear it.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It happened to Joe.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
A messenger comes in, your children have died, then your
land has been taken by enemies. Then his body began
to get sick. All at one time, all of this
was happening. It's probably, i would say, one of the
worst crooks of all. The worst one, I would say, though,
even more than that, is the irreversible crooks, the unchangeable crooks,
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where you would hope for the marriage to work, but
it didn't, and now the divorce is finalized and there's
no hope of going back. The spouse has died, there's
not going to be a resurrection, the child has died.
These are the kind of crooks that, in some form
or fashion or unchangeable.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
This is the kind of crook. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You read the story of Abraham and he has the
knife over his son Isaac and it kind of coming
down and you go like, ah, this is a scary story.
And then God says, wait a minute, there's a ram there,
and then everybody was heay happy ending. But for some
of you, you didn't have that ending. The knife went
through the sun. The knife went through the daughter. The
knife went through the marriage. The knife went through the body,
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The knife went through the mind. The might went through
the vocation, the calling, the career, the physical nature of
your existence. These are some of the things we're facing.
And the crook that is most painful. The crooks that
are most painful are the ones that are hurting the
most tender spot in your heart. If the crook came, say,
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say a man had no concern about money at all.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
He had he didn't care whether he was rich or poor.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
But he was rich, but something happened to his money
and he lost all of his money. If he didn't
care about it, that would not be much of a cook.
You'd like, Oh, well, that's okay. But what if it
was something dear to me. Maybe it was his spouse,
and he goes that, that's the most dear thing to me.
It's the crooks that we love. It's the straight desires.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
That we love the most. When they become crooked, that
causes us the most pain.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
The most sorrow comes from the things that we're most
passionate about, the things that we most love. Just again,
as Abraham most loved his son, as the father most
loved his son.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
These are the things.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But since the crook in the lot has a special
purpose from God, it must bend us at the place
where our heart is, at the place where our heart
holds most dear. If God is going to move our
heart in the course and the direction of ultimate glory
and honor and exaltation of Him, of putting him high
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above everything else in our life, having no idols, no
other God, the area where he'll put the crook in
the straight desires we have will be the area that
is most precious to us, because it isn't that area
that we can surrender the most of our offering to
the Lord. We find this sometimes in friends. David said,
(21:59):
if this was one of my enemies betraying me, I
could have handled it. But this is my close brother.
That that's what's caused me the most pain. I don't
care if enemies betray me, I expect it, But this,
this hurts more.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
It's these, These are the type of things.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And so I want to say to you, where the
crook in your lot is, It shows there's a love.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
In your heart.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It so as there's something alive in your heart. Don't
see yourself as Oh, I'm a wicked person or I'm evil.
I care so much about this. It hurts so bad.
I'm such in pain over this. Don't condemn yourself or
let the enemy condemn you, because it shows that was an.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Area that was dear to your heart. Let me change
gears in the last few minutes I have with you here.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
The crook itself, though grievously hard, often nearly unbearable, is
in itself a good news because of what it's working
in you. James says it so well, these trials, these
tribulations are working in you, and then it gives a
list of things that he's.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Working in you. But sometimes when we're in the middle.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Of the crook, we say, I'd rather have the straight
path and the patience and the kindness and the goodness and
the love and the grace, And you keep those. God,
just give me my job back, give me my marriage back,
give me my health back.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And listen to this carefully in thinking and feeling that.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
It shows where our heart is. I would rather have
my straightness in life. Who can make that straight? I'd
rather that be made straight than this be made straight.
My heart be made straight, my mind be made straight.
My spiritual life be made straight. My honor of God
be made straight. My trust in Him When things don't
turn out the way I want it, though you slay me,
(23:36):
yet I will trust him. Will I want that more
than my straight arrow life, that I had intended, that
I had had imagined, that I had dreamed, or.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Let me try to get to skip a couple of
notes here.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Because you cannot remove the crook by will does not
mean that God will not remove it by appeal. If
you're taking notes, that's probably one of the most important
things I'll say to you today. Because you cannot remove
the crook by will does not mean that God will
not remove it by appeal. And you say, but there's
some things you already said, pastor Gary that are unchangeable.
(24:14):
Will not necessarily in the sense the event may be unchangeable,
but your heart is always changeable. And so you may
be going through a storm in life and say, God,
end this storm, and it's an unendable storm. It is
it is going to You're going to be in that
storm the.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So He may not always end the storm, Thank God,
many times, most times he does, but sometimes he gives
you peace in the storm.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
He puts a power, a trust in your heart through
the storm.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
The deepest people I know in Christ are those who
honestly said, I've been through a storm. I have been beaten,
I have been broken, I have been shipwrecked, I have
been heard, I've been in tourmoil. I have been things
that challenged all the trust that I have in my
heart for Christ. And those people who come through that
storm saying, yet, who.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Will I praise you? Yet? Will I serve you yet?
My eyes?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I'm not gonna get mad at you. I'm not gonna
get discouraged in you. I'm not gonna accuse you. I'm
not gonna put you down. I'm not gonna grow distant
from you. I'm not gonna walk away from you. I'm
not gonna bad mauth you. I'm not gonna complain about you.
I'm gonna trust you, even though I don't understand. And
God says you can appeal. You can appeal for that
peace in the storm, And certainly He wants us to appeal.
(25:24):
He says, ask, seek, and knock. This is a progression.
You ask, hey, can you help me this? It doesn't
seem to be answering that prayer. Hello, I am knocking,
can you I'm seeking? And then before you know, I
was praying something the other day and I had this
mental picture like God, I've been asking, and then after
that I was seeking, and after seeking, now I'm.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Knocking and and and and I can't knock, so I'm
just I'm kicking. Now. I know it's not it's not scriptural,
but but I am kicking.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I am backward kicking this door or crowdy chat.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I am pounding on this thing. And God delights in that.
You're never meant.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
To be like, oh, I'm holy because I have a
crook in my lot, and I just accept it like
a Buddhist would accept it. Just hmm, just hum about it. No,
you're meant to come against it. You're meant to say, God,
I'm not against the work you're doing. But but we together,
in your time, in your way, in your place, through
trusting you, you're going to either open this door or
(26:25):
give me a comfort of standing on this side of
the door, a peace that you're seeing this door is.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Not meant to be open.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Pray, pray, pray, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God,
see that He works things out for your good, and lastly,
exchange the crook for Christ. The crook is not your mindset.
The crook is not your anxious moment. The crook is
not your wake up at two in the morning and
(26:51):
wonder and worry and think and rehearse time and time
again every time the thought of that crook comes in
and brings pain. Exchange it for Christ. All right, I'm
going to think of Jesus right now. This crook is
reminding me of my need for Jesus, my hope for Jesus,
my trust in Jesus, my eternal destiny with Jesus, my
healing and my body with Jesus, the healing of my
(27:13):
family with Jesus, the resting place in Christ.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Jesus, all of.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
That is found in Him. And so my crook drives
me to the cross. My crook drives me to Christ.
Whenever I get a crook, I just say God, that
thorn in my flesh keeps me humble, and that humility.
We have to have humility in order to have what
Christ wants for us.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
He can heal you. I believe that with all my heart.
I've seen it.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
He can cure things, He can deliver marriages, he can
save your family, he can rescue your children. But if
you're honest with yourself, I mean bluntly honest, you have
to say sometimes we don't understand.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
But sometimes he has not done that.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
And yet we trust him, Yet we believe in him,
Yet we rejoice in him. And yet we delight in him.
Yet we sing songs that worship him. Don't ever lose
your worship. Don't ever lose your worship. Don't ever hear
somebody singing God is so good and you're going I'm
not so sure about that anymore. Put the crook in
the back seat and put Christ in the front seat. Jesus,
(28:14):
we pray now that you would help us who are
who are hurting in this place, who are trouble. Stand
with me, if you would please. Is there anyone in
this place that that you'd say, pastor Gary, I have
seen this. I've desired the straight and I'm in the
I'm in the middle of something that has changed the
trajectory of my life. I'm suffering something and I just need.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You to pray for me.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That I would we pray together that we'd asked seek
and knock, and we would also get to the place
of trust saying, God, not my will, but thine. And
we want to be biblical about that. There are certain
things we know as God will, so we don't have
to ask him.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Is that your will?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
But there's certain things we see see his hand. You
can't straighten it yourself. How many of you are in
that circumstance right now? Would you just raise a hand.
You're you're facing something right now that is just a difficult,
a hardship in your life. Father, I just pray the
Holy Spirit's comfort.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I pray. Lord.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
You say we can ask, seek and knock, and you said, pray, pray, pray.
Just we're praying through these situations right now. We're praying
God that for miracles in this room today. God, a
miracle right now in the body, a miracle in the mind,
a miracle over mental disorders in families, miracles over marriages
right now, miracles in careers, ocasions and finances, miracles God
(29:30):
of healing and deliverance and of setting free, miracles that
we couldn't even imagine. God, And just one more miracle.
It's not the one we really want, but sometimes it's
the one we say we receive graciously from your hand.
It's the comfort when we're still in the storm. When
the mother says to me, yesterday, I prayed for a
year for my husband's healing and he still died, tears
(29:53):
rolling down her face. God, we are not asking now
at this point for her husband to be resurrected a
year later.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
We're asking for you to come her. We're asking you
to comfort us.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Lord, when the crook took our lot in life in
a direction we had not desired it. But God, we
will not reject you. We will not despise you. We
will not get angry at you. We will not get
frustrated with you. We will not diminish our passion for you.
We will chase after you, run after you, because we
know through it all you're still a good, good God.
Nothing you do is evil, nothing you do is wicked.
(30:24):
Nothing you do is ultimately taking us in a direction
that you did not want us to go. We thank
you that you have in your mind the direction that
you want for is God there. Thank you God, Lord,
you just gave me the sentence this morning, and I
close with this, The greatest crook in the lot on
(30:44):
earth is actually straight in heaven, your crook in life.
When if God intended it to be that way. If
we really believe that, we consider this the work of God,
then in heaven he's seeing this. This is the exact
straight path I've had for you, and you may not
understand it have welcomed it, but it is the path
that I've had for you. So we thank you now,
Jesus Name. We just take a moment to thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
We thank you in the storm, we thank you through
the pain, we thank you in the suffering, we thank you.
We thank you through it all, God, through it all,
you you've shown yourself good, glorious, precious, and we give
thanks for that in Jesus Name.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Amen and Amen.
Term me in your scriptures if you would. My time
is short.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The last time I preached a message and finished in
thirty minutes, I was recording a sixty second radio commercial.
So this is going to take. If you don't believe
in miracles, start this morning. This is gonna Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes,
chapter seven, verse thirteen, from the King James version. Some
(00:26):
of you have never heard a sermon from the book
of Ecclesiastes before. Some people don't really even believe Ecclesiastes
is true. They read it as if it's sort of
a man in a bad mood, and so don't take
into account what he is saying. But this is the
word of God, and we need to listen and learn
from it. And there's something we can learn today that'll
(00:48):
be very valuable to us. Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, verse thirteen.
Consider listen to it, says who to consider here the
work of God. So he's starting off by saying, this
is what I'm about to tell you is the work
of God. It's not the work of Satan. It's not
the work of the flesh, it's not the work of
a fallen world. This what I'm saying to you, is
(01:09):
the work of God. Consider the work of God, For
who can make straight or who can make that straight
which he hath made crooked? Thomas Boston wrote in the
seventeen hundreds a book called The Crook in the Lot.
It's not a phrase that would be used very often
(01:30):
in our society today.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
What he's speaking of.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Is you have a lot in life, a course in
your life, and a desire, an ambition, a hope, a
dream and aspiration. You want your life to go this direction,
and in this direction, you want it to be as
straight as possible. But sometimes in life that which is
(01:57):
meant and desired in our heart to be it's right,
takes a crooked path.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It goes off course.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Is there anybody in this room today where something in
your life has gone off the course you would hoped
to have gone towards. I spoke to a young man.
He was the director of what's called a CrossFit gym,
I Enjoy CrossFit, and he was one of the leading
CrossFit directors, and he spoke out against homosexuality on a
(02:25):
day when they were supposed to have a celebrate LBGQT
whatever all those letters are, and he refused to do
it in his gym, and they fired him. They took
his gym away from him, so he lost his job,
and there was a crook in his road. He had
hoped to have that career for the rest of his life.
Rightnd the same time, his wife began to feel sick
(02:49):
and they discovered a very rare disease that affects almost
every organ in your body. Every organ in your body
begins to disease away. It begins to diminish, and the
power of the liver, the power of the heart, the
power of the lungs, everything just begins to collapse. And
now she's in a wheelchair. They have five children, and
they just found out not long ago. He sent me
(03:10):
a picture of his beautiful ten year old daughter now
in a wheelchair because she has the same thing her
mother has, discovering it at ten years old.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Who can make that straight? Who can make straight?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
What I heard from a mother in this auditorium, I
believe was yesterday, saying that she has five children and
her husband died last year.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Who can make that straight? Now? You see, there's certain
things that can be made straight.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
If I feel like I have a cold this week,
because we made straight, I can get healed, or I
can just recover from it. But there are certain things
in life who can make that straight. A disappointment in life,
a discouragement, an ability to not function in the gift
that you had hoped for, a position in life that
you had aspired towards, an it just never becomes a
reality in your life. And some of you may be
(04:05):
already theologically disagreeing with me, saying God would never bring
that crook in the lot of the straitness of our life.
God would never do that. It has to be the flesh.
It has to be the world, the fallen world. It
has to be Satan. If it has to be that,
then why did he have The writer of Ecclesiastes say
these words consider the work of God. Or in Ecclesiastes four,
(04:25):
excuse me. In Ezekiel fourteen nineteen, say, if I send
a plague, even Noah, Daniel and Job, even if they
were in this plague, And a new living translation says,
even if I send an epidemic, even if Noah, Daniel
and Job were in it, they could not save their
own sons or daughters. John chapter sixteen, verse thirty three says,
(04:48):
in this world you will have a crook in your lot.
He calls it tribulation. You're going to have this, And
my question for you this morning is how does that
crook and the lot affect your relationship with God?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Because that's really what God is after.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
The most important thing that you will ever experience in
your life is not your marriage, not your job, not
your career, not your finances, not your joyful opportunities at leisure,
not your children. The greatest thing you could ever experience
is having an intimate, personal, wonderful, loving, glorious relationship with
(05:30):
Jesus Christ. And if that is truly what you are after,
then nothing else really takes precedent over that. And you
would want and allow and welcome God to do anything
in your life to take the course the lot in
your life, and say, God, whatever it takes to direct
that course towards this highest goal of knowing you, loving you,
(05:53):
serving you, honoring you. Whatever you will for my life,
bring it to me, even it's hard, painful. I would
desire to have your hand in my life. When this
disagreeable nature, that's disagreeable lot in life begins to affect us, we.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
See it throughout scripture, and.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It becomes painful, to us emotionally, mentally, relationally, vitality wise.
All these things are affected when there is a crook
in a lot, when something that was our desire was
to be made straight. Scripture is full of this job.
Chapter twenty three, verse thirteen and fourteen. He is unchangeable,
(06:38):
speaking of God, and who can turn him back what
he desires that he does for he will complete what
he has appointed for you. And then we see in
Scripture from the Old to the New Testament, the thorn
in Paul's flesh. I'm sure if you have a thorn
in your flesh you want to remove it. Have you
ever had just something as simple as a little what
(07:00):
do you call this? A little splinter in your finger?
If you have a little splinter, you can be in
the middle of a great business meeting or a financial transaction,
and you're playing with that little splinter trying to get
it out. It seems to almost supersede all other events
of life. And yet Paul had that thorn in the flesh.
Was it was a messenger of Satan? But it was
(07:21):
an intention of God, Wasn't it? It was a purpose
of God? Otherwise God could easily remove that thorn from him.
In God's sovereign power. And sometimes this question I'm asking
this morning, who can make it straight? You know when
I first read Joe, but I got to the end
of it and he had ten more children and another
(07:43):
house and more cattle. And I'm still thinking, but he
still lost ten children. He still lost seven boys, boys
that hid dreams of and aspirations for what they could become,
and little girls that he held in his hands. He
was there when his beautiful wife birth these baby girls.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And now they're gone. He will never forget that.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
There will always be that crook in his lot who
can make that straight. And then God, please forgive me
for saying it this way. But then it seems that
God has the audacity to say, consider this the work
of God. That seems to hurt even more. You know
the Ephesians one to eleven. God works all things according
(08:25):
to the counsel of his will. It doesn't say that
he works all good things to the counsel of his will.
And then Satan comes along and works all the bad
things to the council of his will. And there's this
conflicting will, and hopefully God wins. You know, it says
God works all things to his will. The Bible says
in Romans A twenty eight, all things work together for
good to those who love him and called according to
(08:46):
His purpose all things. It could have said good things
work together for good and bad, But bad things don't
work together for good. Difficult things, the crook in the
straight path that we want work together for good, or
maybe it'll get good after it's brought straight again. But
it's working together for good even when it's in the crook,
(09:09):
even when it's bent in a direction that seems unpleasant
to us. Daniel, chapter five, verse twenty three says God,
in whose hand is your breath.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And who's and in who's in him is all of
your ways.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
All your ways are wrapped up in God's passion for you,
his love for you, his direction for you. What God
seems fit tomorrow in your lot. This is a quote
from Thomas Boston. What God seems to fit, what God
sees fit tomor in your lot, you will not be
able to mend. You can't do it through your own strength,
(09:43):
your own power, your own will, your own ambition, your
own You can't do it just through positive confessing it away.
It's not there anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It's not there. Anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
It's not there anymore, and you're still feeling it in
your heart.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
There's some if.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
God is working something in you, if he is allowing
a crook in your path, your lot in life, he
is working something. And to try to if you could
picture a bow and arrow here, if you will, and
you say, I don't want that crook in this bow.
I don't want this to be a bow anymore. I
want it to be a straight stick. And you take
that bow and you begin to pull it in. Do
(10:17):
you know what that's gonna do to you.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
It's going to to to.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Frustrate you because it's always going to go back out.
It's going to weary you. It's going to frustrate and
exhaust you because you'll always be pulling it in. But
right now, the way it's built is that way. The
way the course is intended for you is this way
and not that way. And so there has to be
is now this is sounding negative right now, but it's
(10:42):
gonna get a little bit better here in just a moment, okay,
because what it's sounding like now is just a it's
just a throw yourself back and just say let the
bad stuff happen, because there's nothing I can do.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
We're going to talk about something that God has for
you in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
But there's a beginning place where you accept and you
say God, not my will, but thine.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You see, the greatest crook in the lot was.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Model to us in Jesus Christ himself, when he was
kneeling at the garden of Gsemone, and he prayed that
precious prayer, not let this cup pass from me. This
cup was not a cup of you know, it's going
to be a rough on the cross. This cup was
the wrath of God. All the sin of the world
was put into that cup. And this most precious, pure,
(11:31):
undefiled Savior of ours, who lived a perfect sinless life,
looks into this cup and he sees all my anger
and all my pride, and all the world's adultery, and
all the world's murder and all the world's rape, and
all the world's wars and famines, and he sees all
this vileness, and it's in this cup. And he looks
at and he says, Father, please let this cup pass
(11:51):
from me, but not my will but thine. The crookedness
the path that Jesus was asking for, a straight path
without the cross. And that's what many Christians, particularly in America,
for I don't find it nearly as much in Africa
or in Asia, or in Cambodi or Laos.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I find it more in America.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Is this thing that there should be no cup, There
should be no cup at all, There should be no
crookedness at all. There should be just this straight path
of happy and peppy and bursting with songs of delight
day in and day out. And if they're suffering, maybe
there's something wrong with you, something wrong with your faith,
(12:33):
something wrong with your confession. And yet Jesus had to
drink that cup and then go to the cross, and
he drank it to the full. To the Old Testament
calls it to the dregs. Now was God saying like
Satan put a crook in the lot. No, Isaiah fifty
eight says it pleased God. Didn't mean God was like, ah,
this is really fun. What Isaiah fifty eight means, it
(12:55):
was the pleasure of God. It was the goodness of God.
It was the heart of God. Even though I'm sure
it had to be painful of Father seeing the son
in that condition, but it was the father's heart to
see for our benefit. So that our so that our
lot could be made clean and holy and free, and
salvation could be a gift and sanctification a gift.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Knowing that God is doing something is is.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Powerful because then it if we rely on him to
be the one who's doing, whether by permissive will or
active will, then we can know that he's in control
of the doing the crook and the lot, that he
can be in control of the straightening of the lot,
that that the same God who would allow a bend,
a twist, a little bit of plot in our life
(13:43):
could now again have the power to straighten it. Knowing
that God is doing something is also knowing that He
is the one who can undo what is being done.
And I want you to take some joy this morning.
And this is going to sound maybe a little bit
harsh to you, but take some joy and understanding there.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Is a universe verity of the crook.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
No one has ever lived a human life without finding
some crook in their lot. No one has gone straight
all the way through sixty seventy eighty ninety years without
finding some crook in the lot. But sometimes what Satan
tries to do to us, it says you're the only
one with the crook in the lot. You're the only
one who's been doing your husband left you. You're the
only one who lost a child.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
You're the only one.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Who's got that went to the doctor's office and they
pronounced that disease. You're the only one who has financial troubles.
You're the only one who's suffering with depression. You're the
only one who has a family member with a mental disorder.
You're the only one who can't get that job that
you want. And Satan tries to buffet you by taking
this crook in the lot that God has designed to
bring you into the fullness of all that He has
(14:46):
for you and get you to say, God is not
being fair to me.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I don't have time to go into it.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
But I Psalms chapter seventy three, Asaf is speaking of this,
I look at the unrighteous, and I see how they
have no trouble in their life at all. He's deceived
because those unrighteous have more trouble than he had, even
though he was suffering things that were undescribable to him
at that time.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Knowing, on the other hand, that.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
No one's lot, and listen as carefully, no one's lot
in life is completely crooked. So in my past years,
I have four kids, and each of them had certain
problems in life, some with marriage, some with addictions, some
with depression. But you know what, God was gracious that
(15:34):
when one of them had a problem, the other three
were doing good. But you know what I did. I
always fixated on the one with the problem. Oh, gohad
my sons. I fixed that and help that. And I
didn't rejoice that. God, thank you for what you're doing
in so and so's life and his life and her life.
So there's a universality of the crook. But also we
(15:54):
need to understand that no one is No one's life
is full of total crookedness, if.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
That could be a word have.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
In other words, no matter what you are suffering, now
you have something good in your life. There's something that God,
God's grace. The Puritan's called a common grace. It's a
grace even if you're not saved. God's been gracious to you.
He's allowed good things.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
You wake up in the morning and there's sunshine. You
get to live in states like Florida or Colorado. That's
a good thing.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You have children, you're sitting many of you are sitting
next to somebody that loves you and you love them. Yes,
maybe there was a crook in a particular part of
your life, but much of your life, I would say,
I would dare to say, most of your life is good.
It's glorious, it's wonderful. There's much to give thanks for.
And we can't give Thanksgiving if we don't give Thanksgiving
and the good things, we'll never learn to give Thanksgiving.
And the things that seem a little bit off what
(16:42):
we would hope them to be. The cook is painful
in that it's unexpected. The cook is painful when an
unexpected event hits us. I just want to talk real
briefly about some ways these crooks seem to throw us
off a little bit from the we're going down this path.
It seems joyful, and it's delightful. It's all we wanted
out of the life, and then all of a sudden,
(17:03):
something unexpected.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
The first one is an unexpected crook.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It happened to me when I was driving down Voyager
Boulevard in Colorado, when we were driving there, and all
of a sudden a car ran a red light, and
I knew we were going to hit them head on,
and and you know, I know if I was holy,
I would have cried out Jesus or Holy Spirit or
something like that or quoted you know, all things work
together for good. But I just said, here's what my
mind said, this is going to hurt, because I mean
(17:29):
we were wont sixty miles an hour and they're coming
head on, and I said, this is going to hurt.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And it did.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I broke my back in two places instantaneously, in pain.
But you know, it was a crook. It was lasted
for about a year. My back feels great now, so
that crook is gone. It doesn't hurt. And so some
of these instantaneous, single shocking events are painful for the
moment when my.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Doctor called me and said, you have thyroid.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Cancer, and I didn't know what thyroid cancer was, and
I looked online and I saw there's two different kinds
of thyroid cancer. One is the best kind you can
possibly get. If you're gonna have cancer, get that kind.
And the other kind will kill you in six months,
and there's no known cure. And I called my doctor
back and she wouldn't answer the phone. In four days,
without knowing am I going to be fine? Or am
I dying in six months if the Lord doesn't heal me,
(18:14):
and so those are but it went away. I mean,
there was a cure for it. And so there's the
shocking events. But then they go away. So those kind
of crooks are they're hard to face, but they're manageable,
right because they go away. There's a second kind of
crook is when one crook comes after another. So for me,
you have a car wreck, then a year later cancer,
then a year later some troubles at the church I
(18:35):
was pastoring. That was one of the most painful events
I've ever experienced in my life. And there were just
one after another, but thankfully I didn't face the one
until the other was gone. Have you ever had those
things happen in your life, one after another?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
A worst kind? The third kind is when all of
them come together and they persist. They're persistent.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So if I were to have broken my back, and
my back will still caused me to not walk or
be in pain, and then I had cancer and I
was still into chemotherapy, and there were still if all
of those were combined, you know, and some of you
in this place have that kind of crook happening in
your life, where all these things are happening at the
same time, where they're just pressing in on you and
you just can't bear it.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It happened to Joe.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
A messenger comes in, your children have died, then your
land has been taken by enemies. Then his body began
to get sick. All at one time, all of this
was happening. It's probably, i would say, one of the
worst crooks of all. The worst one, I would say, though,
even more than that, is the irreversible crooks, the unchangeable crooks,
(19:38):
where you would hope for the marriage to work, but
it didn't, and now the divorce is finalized and there's
no hope of going back. The spouse has died, there's
not going to be a resurrection, the child has died.
These are the kind of crooks that, in some form
or fashion or unchangeable.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
This is the kind of crook. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You read the story of Abraham and he has the
knife over his son Isaac and it kind of coming
down and you go like, ah, this is a scary story.
And then God says, wait a minute, there's a ram there,
and then everybody was heay happy ending. But for some
of you, you didn't have that ending. The knife went
through the sun. The knife went through the daughter. The
knife went through the marriage. The knife went through the body,
(20:19):
The knife went through the mind. The might went through
the vocation, the calling, the career, the physical nature of
your existence. These are some of the things we're facing.
And the crook that is most painful. The crooks that
are most painful are the ones that are hurting the
most tender spot in your heart. If the crook came, say,
(20:42):
say a man had no concern about money at all.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
He had he didn't care whether he was rich or poor.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
But he was rich, but something happened to his money
and he lost all of his money. If he didn't
care about it, that would not be much of a cook.
You'd like, Oh, well, that's okay. But what if it
was something dear to me. Maybe it was his spouse,
and he goes that, that's the most dear thing to me.
It's the crooks that we love. It's the straight desires.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
That we love the most. When they become crooked, that
causes us the most pain.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
The most sorrow comes from the things that we're most
passionate about, the things that we most love. Just again,
as Abraham most loved his son, as the father most
loved his son.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
These are the things.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But since the crook in the lot has a special
purpose from God, it must bend us at the place
where our heart is, at the place where our heart
holds most dear. If God is going to move our
heart in the course and the direction of ultimate glory
and honor and exaltation of Him, of putting him high
(21:38):
above everything else in our life, having no idols, no
other God, the area where he'll put the crook in
the straight desires we have will be the area that
is most precious to us, because it isn't that area
that we can surrender the most of our offering to
the Lord. We find this sometimes in friends. David said,
(21:59):
if this was one of my enemies betraying me, I
could have handled it. But this is my close brother.
That that's what's caused me the most pain. I don't
care if enemies betray me, I expect it, But this,
this hurts more.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
It's these, These are the type of things.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And so I want to say to you, where the
crook in your lot is, It shows there's a love.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
In your heart.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It so as there's something alive in your heart. Don't
see yourself as Oh, I'm a wicked person or I'm evil.
I care so much about this. It hurts so bad.
I'm such in pain over this. Don't condemn yourself or
let the enemy condemn you, because it shows that was an.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Area that was dear to your heart. Let me change
gears in the last few minutes I have with you here.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
The crook itself, though grievously hard, often nearly unbearable, is
in itself a good news because of what it's working
in you. James says it so well, these trials, these
tribulations are working in you, and then it gives a
list of things that he's.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Working in you. But sometimes when we're in the middle.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Of the crook, we say, I'd rather have the straight
path and the patience and the kindness and the goodness and
the love and the grace, And you keep those. God,
just give me my job back, give me my marriage back,
give me my health back.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And listen to this carefully in thinking and feeling that.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
It shows where our heart is. I would rather have
my straightness in life. Who can make that straight? I'd
rather that be made straight than this be made straight.
My heart be made straight, my mind be made straight.
My spiritual life be made straight. My honor of God
be made straight. My trust in Him When things don't
turn out the way I want it, though you slay me,
(23:36):
yet I will trust him. Will I want that more
than my straight arrow life, that I had intended, that
I had had imagined, that I had dreamed, or.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Let me try to get to skip a couple of
notes here.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Because you cannot remove the crook by will does not
mean that God will not remove it by appeal. If
you're taking notes, that's probably one of the most important
things I'll say to you today. Because you cannot remove
the crook by will does not mean that God will
not remove it by appeal. And you say, but there's
some things you already said, pastor Gary that are unchangeable.
(24:14):
Will not necessarily in the sense the event may be unchangeable,
but your heart is always changeable. And so you may
be going through a storm in life and say, God,
end this storm, and it's an unendable storm. It is
it is going to You're going to be in that
storm the.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
So He may not always end the storm, Thank God,
many times, most times he does, but sometimes he gives
you peace in the storm.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
He puts a power, a trust in your heart through
the storm.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
The deepest people I know in Christ are those who
honestly said, I've been through a storm. I have been beaten,
I have been broken, I have been shipwrecked, I have
been heard, I've been in tourmoil. I have been things
that challenged all the trust that I have in my
heart for Christ. And those people who come through that
storm saying, yet, who.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Will I praise you? Yet? Will I serve you yet?
My eyes?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I'm not gonna get mad at you. I'm not gonna
get discouraged in you. I'm not gonna accuse you. I'm
not gonna put you down. I'm not gonna grow distant
from you. I'm not gonna walk away from you. I'm
not gonna bad mauth you. I'm not gonna complain about you.
I'm gonna trust you, even though I don't understand. And
God says you can appeal. You can appeal for that
peace in the storm, And certainly He wants us to appeal.
(25:24):
He says, ask, seek, and knock. This is a progression.
You ask, hey, can you help me this? It doesn't
seem to be answering that prayer. Hello, I am knocking,
can you I'm seeking? And then before you know, I
was praying something the other day and I had this
mental picture like God, I've been asking, and then after
that I was seeking, and after seeking, now I'm.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Knocking and and and and I can't knock, so I'm
just I'm kicking. Now. I know it's not it's not scriptural,
but but I am kicking.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I am backward kicking this door or crowdy chat.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I am pounding on this thing. And God delights in that.
You're never meant.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
To be like, oh, I'm holy because I have a
crook in my lot, and I just accept it like
a Buddhist would accept it. Just hmm, just hum about it. No,
you're meant to come against it. You're meant to say, God,
I'm not against the work you're doing. But but we together,
in your time, in your way, in your place, through
trusting you, you're going to either open this door or
(26:25):
give me a comfort of standing on this side of
the door, a peace that you're seeing this door is.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Not meant to be open.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Pray, pray, pray, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God,
see that He works things out for your good, and lastly,
exchange the crook for Christ. The crook is not your mindset.
The crook is not your anxious moment. The crook is
not your wake up at two in the morning and
(26:51):
wonder and worry and think and rehearse time and time
again every time the thought of that crook comes in
and brings pain. Exchange it for Christ. All right, I'm
going to think of Jesus right now. This crook is
reminding me of my need for Jesus, my hope for Jesus,
my trust in Jesus, my eternal destiny with Jesus, my
healing and my body with Jesus, the healing of my
(27:13):
family with Jesus, the resting place in Christ.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Jesus, all of.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
That is found in Him. And so my crook drives
me to the cross. My crook drives me to Christ.
Whenever I get a crook, I just say God, that
thorn in my flesh keeps me humble, and that humility.
We have to have humility in order to have what
Christ wants for us.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
He can heal you. I believe that with all my heart.
I've seen it.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
He can cure things, He can deliver marriages, he can
save your family, he can rescue your children. But if
you're honest with yourself, I mean bluntly honest, you have
to say sometimes we don't understand.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
But sometimes he has not done that.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
And yet we trust him, Yet we believe in him,
Yet we rejoice in him. And yet we delight in him.
Yet we sing songs that worship him. Don't ever lose
your worship. Don't ever lose your worship. Don't ever hear
somebody singing God is so good and you're going I'm
not so sure about that anymore. Put the crook in
the back seat and put Christ in the front seat. Jesus,
(28:14):
we pray now that you would help us who are
who are hurting in this place, who are trouble. Stand
with me, if you would please. Is there anyone in
this place that that you'd say, pastor Gary, I have
seen this. I've desired the straight and I'm in the
I'm in the middle of something that has changed the
trajectory of my life. I'm suffering something and I just need.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You to pray for me.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
That I would we pray together that we'd asked seek
and knock, and we would also get to the place
of trust saying, God, not my will, but thine. And
we want to be biblical about that. There are certain
things we know as God will, so we don't have
to ask him.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Is that your will?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
But there's certain things we see see his hand. You
can't straighten it yourself. How many of you are in
that circumstance right now? Would you just raise a hand.
You're you're facing something right now that is just a difficult,
a hardship in your life. Father, I just pray the
Holy Spirit's comfort.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I pray. Lord.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
You say we can ask, seek and knock, and you said, pray, pray, pray.
Just we're praying through these situations right now. We're praying
God that for miracles in this room today. God, a
miracle right now in the body, a miracle in the mind,
a miracle over mental disorders in families, miracles over marriages
right now, miracles in careers, ocasions and finances, miracles God
(29:30):
of healing and deliverance and of setting free, miracles that
we couldn't even imagine. God, And just one more miracle.
It's not the one we really want, but sometimes it's
the one we say we receive graciously from your hand.
It's the comfort when we're still in the storm. When
the mother says to me, yesterday, I prayed for a
year for my husband's healing and he still died, tears
(29:53):
rolling down her face. God, we are not asking now
at this point for her husband to be resurrected a
year later.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
We're asking for you to come her. We're asking you
to comfort us.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Lord, when the crook took our lot in life in
a direction we had not desired it. But God, we
will not reject you. We will not despise you. We
will not get angry at you. We will not get
frustrated with you. We will not diminish our passion for you.
We will chase after you, run after you, because we
know through it all you're still a good, good God.
Nothing you do is evil, nothing you do is wicked.
(30:24):
Nothing you do is ultimately taking us in a direction
that you did not want us to go. We thank
you that you have in your mind the direction that
you want for is God there. Thank you God, Lord,
you just gave me the sentence this morning, and I
close with this, The greatest crook in the lot on
(30:44):
earth is actually straight in heaven, your crook in life.
When if God intended it to be that way. If
we really believe that, we consider this the work of God,
then in heaven he's seeing this. This is the exact
straight path I've had for you, and you may not
understand it have welcomed it, but it is the path
that I've had for you. So we thank you now,
Jesus Name. We just take a moment to thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
We thank you in the storm, we thank you through
the pain, we thank you in the suffering, we thank you.
We thank you through it all, God, through it all,
you you've shown yourself good, glorious, precious, and we give
thanks for that in Jesus Name.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Amen and Amen.
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