Considering God's Work

"Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked?"

Ecclesiastes 7:13

It is good for a man to consider God and His works.  God worked in creating the world and established natural laws of matter, motion, gravitation and chemical interactions.  All the sciences, the calculations of mathematicians and physicists, to be proved and functional must align with what is.  Like God does not change, the fact level foundations and plumb walls exist are a testimony to the order of the universe God has created.  When God makes something straight, no man has the power to alter it any more than we can shift the earth off its 23.5 degree axis.

The statement of the preacher is citing the opposite truth:  who can make straight what God has made crooked?  It is possible for us to stretch a coil of wire or string into a straight line by force, but no one can make straight what God has made crooked.  He has made judgments according to righteousness that lying, theft and murder are sins.  Adultery is a perversion of the marriage covenant before the LORD, a crooked thing that cannot be made straight.  Man's way is to debate what is crooked or straight, to say a thing is crooked because of oppressive tradition or a construct of a society rooted in ignorance.  People who do not fear God can protest and complain all they want, but what God has made crooked no one can make straight.

A line can be crooked in countless ways, yet there is only one straight way.  John the Baptist came to prepare the way of the Messiah, to make His paths straight.  Some have said "all paths lead to God," yet God revealed Jesus to be the Way, the Truth and the Life--that faith in Jesus Christ is the narrow, straight way to the living God because there is no other way to heaven and eternal life.  The prophecy fulfilled in Christ was cited from Isaiah in Luke 3:5-6:  "Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth; ⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"  Wonderful, isn't it, that God is able to do what man cannot, to make crooked places straight and rough ways smooth so all can see God's salvation?

Man can use heavy machinery to grade soil in preparation for a level foundation but cannot do what only God can do, for when God makes something crooked no one can make it straight.  All men are revealed to be crooked when compared to God's righteous law and ways.  On our own we cannot straighten ourselves up to merit salvation, amend our ways to earn forgiveness, or make ourselves acceptable to God by efforts of the flesh.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. ¹⁴ Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."  By defining what is straight God has deemed all other ways crooked, and no one can make them straight. 

Man's justifications, protests or disagreements cannot do anything to make what is crooked straight.  That's how it is based upon the unchanging God who was, is and is to come.  Instead of being smug or arrogant about this knowledge, we ought to be humbled and grateful God has made Himself known to us so we could see our crooked ways.  We could not make ourselves straight or upright by working, and by grace He worked to make the way straight for us to enter to abundant, eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ.