The Crook Itself
[Proposition 1:] Whatever crook exists in a person’s lot is of God’s making.
Two things must be considered here: the crook itself and God’s making of it.
I. The Nature of the Crook
As for the crook itself, or the crook in one’s lot, the following points will help us understand it.
1. By God’s providence, a particular sequence or course of events comes to each of us during our life in this world. This is our lot because it is allotted to us by the sovereign God, our Creator and Governor, “in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways.” This course of events differs widely from person to person, according to the will and pleasure of the sovereign ruler. He orders people’s conditions in the world with great variety, placing some in a higher sphere and others in a lower one.
2. Within that course of events, some things happen contrary to us and against our inclinations. These make the crook in our lot. While we are here, our lot and condition will contain adverse events as well as agreeable ones. Sometimes things glide along smoothly and pleasantly. Before long, however, some incident changes the course, grates upon us, and causes pain. It is like taking a wrong step and beginning to limp.
3. Everyone’s lot in this world has some crook in it. Complainers are prone to make hateful comparisons. They look around and, viewing other people’s circumstances from a distance, see nothing but what is straight and exactly as one might wish. They therefore pronounce their neighbor’s lot entirely straight.
But that verdict is false. There is no perfection here and no lot outside heaven without a crook. Concerning “all the works that are done under the sun,” Scripture says, “behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight” (Eccl 1:14-15).
Who would not have thought Haman’s lot very straight while his family flourished, he prospered in riches and honor, he served as chief minister in the Persian court, and he stood high in the king’s favor? Yet even then there was a crook in his lot that galled him so badly that “all this availed him nothing” (Esth 5:13). Everyone personally feels where the pressure pinches, even when others do not perceive it.
No one’s lot in this world is entirely crooked. It always contains some straight and even parts. When people’s passions rise and cast a mist over their minds, they are ready to say that everything is wrong with them and nothing is right. That account is true in hell and always will be, for there not one drop of comfort is allowed (Luke 16:24-25). But it is never true in this world, where it always remains true that “it is of the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed” (Lam 3:22).
4. The crook in our lot entered the world through sin. It is due to the fall (Rom 5:12). “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” The crook in our lot is included under that death, just as a state of comfort or prosperity is expressed in the language of Scripture as living (1 Sam 25:6; John 4:50-51). Sin so bent human hearts and minds that they became crooked in relation to the holy law. God justly bent their lot so that it became crooked too. This crook in our lot inseparably follows our sinful condition until we lay down this body of sin and death and enter heaven’s gates.
With these points established, a crook in the lot generally implies two things: 1. adversity; and 2. continuance. Accordingly, it creates a day of adversity, contrasted with the day of prosperity in the verse immediately following the text.
First, the crook in the lot is some kind of adversity. The prosperous part of a person’s lot, which proceeds according to one’s wishes, is its straight and even part. The adverse part, which goes in the opposite direction, is its crooked part. God has mingled these two in people’s condition in this world. Just as there is some prosperity in it, forming the straight line, there is also some adversity, forming the crooked one. This mixture occurs not only in the lot of the saints, who are told that “in the world they shall have tribulation,” but in everyone’s lot, as already observed.
Second, it is adversity that continues for some time. We do not call something crooked if, though forcibly bent and bowed, it immediately recovers its former straightness. There are momentary twinges from the rod of adversity that pass like a stitch in one’s side, after which everything is immediately set right again. A person’s lot may suddenly become overcast, and the cloud may vanish before it is fully noticed. Under a crook, however, a person has time to feel the pain and becomes concerned to have the crook made even. Thus the crook in the lot is adversity continuing for a shorter or longer time.
Three kinds of crook may occur in the lot of human beings.
1. One is made by an adverse act of providence which, though the event itself passes, has lasting effects. Herod’s cruelty made such a crook in the lot of the mothers in Bethlehem. The murderers left them “weeping for their slain children, and would not be comforted, because they were not” (Matt 2:18). A foot may slip in a moment and cause a person to limp for a long time afterward. “As the fishes are taken in an evil net; so are the sons of men ensnared in an evil time” (Eccl 9:12). The event may occur in a moment, though the sufferer goes limping under its effects all the way to the grave.
2. Another crook is made by a succession of adverse acts of providence, whether of the same or different kinds, following closely upon one another and leaving lasting effects behind. This happened to Job, when another bearer of evil news arrived while the previous messenger was still speaking (Job 1:16-18). Adverse events coming one upon the heels of another, with deep calling to deep, make a painful crook.
In such a case, the sufferer is like someone who recovers his slipping foot from one unstable patch of ground, only to place it on another equally unstable patch that immediately gives way beneath him. Or he is like a traveler on an unknown mountain path who, after making his way with difficulty over one mountain, expects to see open country but instead repeatedly sees another mountain that must be crossed.
This crook in Asaph’s lot nearly caused him to give up all his religion, until he entered the sanctuary and the mystery of providence was explained to him (Ps 73:13-17). Solomon observes “that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked” (Eccl 8:14). Providence seems to run against them as though they were to be ruined completely. Whoever may escape such an experience throughout life, Joseph certainly did not escape it in his youth, Jacob in middle age, Peter in old age, or our Savior during all his days.
3. A third crook is made when one adverse act of providence, with its lasting effects, takes the place of another that has been removed. One crook is straightened, but another is made in its place, so that a crook still remains. Lack of children had long been the crook in Rachel’s lot (Gen 30:1). At last that was made even according to her desire, but another took its place: severe labor in childbirth (Gen 35:16). This world is a wilderness. Our station in it may indeed change, but the move will be from one wilderness station to another. When one part of our lot is made even, some other part will soon become crooked.
More particularly, the crook in our lot has four qualities belonging to something crooked.
1. Disagreeableness. A crooked thing is irregular. When placed against a rule, it does not match but turns aside from it. Yet there is nothing crooked in anyone’s lot in relation to God’s will and purposes. Take the harshest and most dreadful act of providence in a person’s lot and compare it with the eternal decree, formed in the depths of infinite wisdom before the world began. It will match exactly, without the least deviation, “all things being wrought after the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11).
Compare it also with God’s providential will in governing the world, and you will find perfect harmony. If Paul is to be bound at Jerusalem and “delivered into the hands of the Gentiles,” it is “the will of the Lord it should be so” (Acts 21:11, 14). Therefore, the greatest crook in a person’s earthly lot is straight in heaven. There is no disagreement in it there.
But there is a crook in everyone’s lot in relation to the person’s own mind and natural inclination. The adverse providence runs contrary to that rule and will neither conform nor harmonize with it. When divine providence places the two beside each other, their disagreement is obvious. The person’s will goes one way and providence another. The will bends upward, while adverse events press downward. They are opposed, and there alone lies the crook.
This disagreement makes the crook in our lot suitable material for our testing and exercise during this state of trial. If you would prove yourself faithful to God by walking by faith and not by sight, you must quiet yourself in God’s will and purpose instead of insisting that events conform to your own mind (Job 34:33).
2. Unsightliness. Crooked things are unpleasant to the eye. No crook in our lot seems joyful but grievous, and it presents an unattractive appearance (Heb 12:11). People must therefore beware of allowing their thoughts to dwell upon the crook in their lot and of keeping it too constantly in view. David describes his own harmful experience of this: “While I was musing the fire burned” (Ps 39:3).
Jacob acted more wisely. He called his youngest son Benjamin, the son of the right hand, though the boy’s dying mother had named him Benoni, the son of my sorrow. In this way Jacob kept the crook in his lot from being set freshly before his eyes every time his son’s name was mentioned.
A Christian may safely take a steady, unhurried view of the crook in his lot by the light of the holy Word, which presents it as the discipline of the covenant. Faith will then discover a hidden beauty beneath its very unattractive outward appearance. It will perceive how that crook agrees with God’s infinite goodness, love, and wisdom, as well as with the person’s real and most valuable interests. By this means one comes to take pleasure, indeed a most refined pleasure, in distresses (2 Cor 12:10). But whatever beauty faith may see in the crook, it is not at all pleasant to the eye of sense.
3. Unfitness for movement. Solomon identifies the cause of the lame person’s uneasy and awkward walk: “The legs of the lame are not equal” (Prov 26:7). Those who are struggling with the crook in their lot experience this uneasiness. A proud spirit joined to a low and adverse lot creates great difficulty in the Christian walk. Nothing gives temptation easier access than the crook in our lot, and nothing is more likely to cause steps out of the proper path.
Therefore the apostle says, “Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out the way” (Heb 12:13). Those laboring under such a burden should be pitied rather than harshly judged, though few people learn this lesson before their own experience teaches it. Job made an observation long ago that remains true today: “He that is ready to slip with his feet, is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease” (Job 12:5).
4. A tendency to catch and entangle, like hooks or fishhooks (Amos 4:2). The crook in our lot readily makes a deep impression. It ruffles and irritates our spirit and provokes our corruption, so Satan never fails to use it diligently for these dangerous purposes. Once the tempter has gained that point, the person being tempted soon finds himself entangled as in a thicket, without knowing how to escape.
In temptation the crook often acts like a crooked stick stirring a still pool. It not only raises mud throughout the water but also brings some very ugly thing up from the bottom. In Asaph’s case, it brought up a trace of blasphemy and atheism: “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence” (Ps 73:13). It was as if he had said, “There is nothing at all in religion. It is a vain and empty thing that brings no profit. I was a fool to concern myself with purity and holiness of either heart or life.”
Can this be godly Asaph? How completely unlike himself he has become! Yet the crook in our lot provides a handle by which the tempter makes surprising discoveries of hidden corruption, even in the best people.
Where the Crook May Fall
This is the nature of the crook in our lot. We will now consider what part of the lot it may affect. Three conclusions may be established on this point.
1. It may fall in any part of the lot. No part is exempt, because sin is found in every part and the crook may therefore appear anywhere. Being “all as an unclean thing, we may all fade as a leaf” (Isa 64:6). The main stream of sin, which the crook readily follows, runs through very different channels in different people. Because people’s dispositions also differ, what proves a crushing weight to one person may be carried very lightly by another.
2. It may fall upon many parts of the lot at once, when the Lord calls a person’s terrors around him as on a solemn day (Lam 2:22). Sometimes God makes one notable crook in a person’s lot, but its name may be Gad, since it is only the forerunner of a troop that is coming. The crooks are then multiplied until the person is made to limp on both sides. While one stream pours fully against him from one direction, another is released upon him from another, until the waters finally break in on every side.
3. It often falls upon the tender part. I mean the part of the lot in which a person is least able to bear it, or at least thinks himself least able. “It was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. But it was thou, a man, mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance” (Ps 55:12-13).
If there is one part of the lot in which a person is more inclined to settle comfortably than in all the others, the thorn will readily be placed there, especially if he belongs to God. He will certainly be pressed in the very thing in which he can least bear to be touched. His trial will be made there, because there lies the great rivalry with Christ. “I take from them the desires of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds” (Ezek 24:25). Since the crook in our lot is the special trial appointed for each person, it is entirely reasonable and fitting to God’s wisdom that it should fall upon the thing that most rivals him.
More particularly, the crook may be seen to fall in four parts of our lot.
The Natural Part
First, it may fall in the natural part, affecting people in the physical or mental constitution allotted to them by the great God who formed all things. Humanity’s first parents, Adam and Eve, were formed entirely sound and whole, without the least defect in soul or body. But in the formation of their descendants, a notable departure from that original condition often appears.
Bodily defects, excesses, deformities, and infirmities, whether natural or accidental, make the crook in some people’s lot. They have something about them that is unpleasant or painful. Crooks of this kind, more or less noticeable, are very common. The best people are not exempt from them, and it is due entirely to God’s sovereign pleasure that they are not more numerous.
Weak eyes made the crook in Leah’s lot (Gen 29:17). Rachel’s beauty was balanced by barrenness, the crook in her lot (Gen 30:1). Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, apparently was not an impressive-looking man but had an ordinary outward appearance, for which fools were inclined to despise him (2 Cor 10:10). Timothy had a weak and sickly constitution (1 Tim 5:23). A still more substantial crook appears in the lot of those who are lame, blind, deaf, or unable to speak.
Some people have markedly weak intellects. It is also the crook in the lot of several gifted minds to be overcast with clouds, greatly obscured and darkened because of the frail bodies in which they live. We have an eminent example in the grave, wise, and patient Job, “going mourning without the sun; yea, standing up and crying in the congregation” (Job 30:28).
The Part Concerning Honor
Second, the crook may fall in the part of one’s lot concerning honor. Honor is due to everyone, small as well as great (1 Pet 2:17), because human nature was originally constituted in God’s image. But in the sovereign ordering of holy providence, the crook in some people’s lot falls here. They are neglected and slighted, and their standing is continually kept low. They pass through the world under a cloud, are given a bad name, and see their reputation sink.
Sometimes this is the natural consequence of their own foolish and sinful conduct. Dinah, for example, wandered abroad to satisfy her youthful curiosity. Because she disregarded and did not wait for a providential call, she brought a lasting stain upon her honor (Gen 34).
But when the Lord intends a crook of this kind in a person’s lot, innocence will not be able to ward it off in an ill-natured world. Nor will true merit be able to withstand it and keep that part of the person’s lot straight. David describes his case in this way: “They that did see me without, fled from me: I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel. For I have heard the slander of many” (Ps 31:11-13).
The Vocational Part
Third, the crook may fall in the vocational part. Whatever a person’s calling or station in the world, whether sacred or civil, the crook in his lot may take its place there. Isaiah was an eminent prophet but was largely unsuccessful (Isa 53:1). Jeremiah encountered such a succession of discouragements and mistreatment while carrying out his sacred office that he came very near to abandoning it, saying, “I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name” (Jer 20:9).
The psalmist often observes this crook in the lot of people who work very diligently in their ordinary occupations. They sow the fields, and at times “God blesseth them … and suffereth not their cattle to decrease; but again, they are minished, and brought low, through oppression, affliction, and sorrow” (Ps 107:37-39). Such a crook was made in Job’s lot after it had long remained even.
Some people manage their work with every care and diligence. The farmer carefully cultivates his ground. The keeper of sheep is “diligent to know the state of his flocks, and looking well to his herds.” The tradesman attends to his business from early until late. The merchant diligently pursues his trade, watching for and seizing the fairest and most promising opportunities. Yet there is such a crook in this part of their lot that nothing they can do will make it even.
Why is this so? The most suitable means used to accomplish an end are powerless unless God appoints them to succeed. “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?” (Lam 3:37).
People pursue their business with skill and industry, but the wind turns against them. Providence crosses their enterprises, disrupts their plans, frustrates their hopes and expectations, makes their efforts unsuccessful, and keeps them in restricted circumstances. “So the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise” (Eccl 9:11).
By intervening, providence bends the plans that human prudence and industry had laid out straight toward their respective ends. The swift therefore lose the race, the strong lose the battle, and the wise fail to obtain bread. Meanwhile, some providential event supplies what is lacking in human wisdom, judgment, or ability. The slow win the race and carry off the prize, the weak win the battle and enrich themselves with the plunder, and bread falls into the fool’s lap.
The Relational Part
Finally, the crook may fall in the relational part. Relationships are the joints of society, and the crook in our lot may take its place there. A person’s sharpest pain is often felt in these joints. Relationships are by nature springs of human comfort, yet they often become the source of our greatest bitterness.
Sometimes this crook is caused by the loss of loved ones. A crook was made in Jacob’s lot through the death of Rachel, his beloved wife, and the loss of Joseph, his cherished son. These losses nearly caused him to go limping to the grave. Job laments this crook in his lot: “Thou hast made desolate all my company” (Job 16:7). He means his dear children, every one of whom he had buried, without a single son or daughter remaining.
At other times, the crook is made through God’s afflicting hand lying heavily upon those close to us. Because of the relationship, the affliction recoils upon the person himself. This is movingly expressed by the believing woman who said, “Have mercy on me, O Lord; my daughter is grievously vexed” (Matt 15:22). Ephraim felt the pain of family afflictions “when he called his son’s name Beriah, because it went evil with his house” (1 Chron 7:23).
Since everything is not only vanity but also vexation of spirit, it can hardly be otherwise than that the more springs of comfort are opened to a person, the more sources of sorrow he will eventually find gushing out and pouring in upon him. The sorrow is always proportionate to the comfort found in those relationships, or expected from them.
Finally, the crook is sometimes made here when relatives prove distressing because of their disagreeable temper and disposition. Job had a crook in his lot through an undutiful, ill-natured wife (Job 19:17). Abigail had one through a harsh, ill-tempered husband (1 Sam 25:25). Eli had one through the perversity and stubbornness of his children (1 Sam 2:25). Jonathan had one through his father’s furious temper (1 Sam 20:30-33). Thus people often find their greatest cross where they expected their greatest comfort.
Sin has thrown the whole creation out of joint and made every relationship susceptible to the crook. In the family there are masters who are harsh and unjust, and servants who are contrary and unfaithful. In a neighborhood there are selfish and difficult people. In the church there are ministers who do not edify and whose conduct gives offense, as well as contemptuous and disorderly people who burden their ministers’ spirits. In the state there are oppressive magistrates who discourage what is good, and turbulent and rebellious subjects. All these cause crooks in the lot of those connected with them.
This concludes our consideration of the crook itself.
