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I. THE BELIEVER'S DARKNESS IS TURNED INTO LIGHT, AND THE CROOKS OF HIS LOT ARE STRAIGHTENED.

1. The frequent grim darkness.

(1) Much of it is of his own imagining. Many of our sorrows are purely homespun, and some minds are specially fertile in self-torture.

(2) Much existing darkness is exaggerated.

(3) Troubles disappear just when we expect them to become overwhelming.

(4) When the trial comes, God has a way of making His people's trials cease Just as they reach their culminating point.

(5) Every trial was foreseen, and has been forestalled.

(6) However severe the trial, God has promised that as our days our strength shall be.

(7) Especially dwell upon the promise that the Lord will make your darkness light. How is it done T Sometimes by the sun of His providence. Often by the moon of Christian experience, which shines with borrowed light, but yet with sweet and tranquil brightness. Frequently by a sight of Jesus going before, and by hearing Him say, "Follow Me; fear not; for in all your afflictions I am afflicted."

2. The crooks of the believer's lot.

(1) One may lie in your poverty.

(2) Another in some very crooked calamity.

(3) If free from these, he has at least a crooked self. The others would matter little but for this. It may be you have crooked temptations-temptations to profanity, etc.

3. God will make all the crooked things straight.

(1) It may be that some are straight now; the making straight is only to make them seem so to us. Our crosses are our best estates.

(2) God can bend the crooked straight, and what will not bend He can break. The crooked character has been bent straight; the judgment of God has taken away the crook out of the household, so that the righteous might have peace. If He do not this, He will give power to overleap the difficulty (2 Samuel 22:30).

II. SOME WORDS TO THE SEEKER.

1. Some doctrines are dark to you. God makes all light to faith.

2. Perhaps your darkness rises from deep depression of mind. Faith must precede its dispersion.

3. Your crooked natural disposition God can make straight. Note —

(1)  That which saves is not what is, but what will be.

(2)  It is not what you can do, but what God can do.

(3)  This work may not be yours at once, but it shall be soon.

III. TWO LESSONS TO BELIEVERS.

1. If God will thus make all your darkness light and all your crooked things straight, do not forestall your troubles.

2. Always believe in the power of prayer.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

WEB: I will bring the blind by a way that they don't know. I will lead them in paths that they don't know. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. I will do these things, and I will not forsake them.