Crooked Things Faith Series

In the 1930s, a Presbyterian pastor by the name of Ernest Wadsworth experienced a deep personal revival that eventually became a localized revival that turned his community upside down. He wrote about it in a book called Will Revival Come? and I want to share with you today, friends, an excerpt from his account because we are still in our faith series and we are preaching these messages for the purpose of revival and spiritual growth and today we surely need a holy ghost revival. Listen to this man's story.

You'll be glad you did. It was time to attend an annual state meeting for his denomination, which was to have 500 of his fellow ministers there, but previous to the date of the conference, the 500 pastors were asked to fill out a questionnaire on the chief reason why there was a hindrance for seeing revival in their churches. Now remember, friends, this was back in the 1930s.

Well, this man, Wadsworth, filled out his questionnaire and listed what he felt were the main hindrances to seeing revival at his church. After deep heart searching, he determined that the hindrance was not on God's side, but on his own. While at this pastor's state conference, the chairman of evangelism gave a digest of the opinions of the ministers gathered from their questionnaire.

About 60 percent expressed a belief that the chief hindrance to revival was due to the non-cooperative spirit of the church officers. 20 percent of the ministers believed the chief difficulty in promoting revival was due to the indifference of the members of the churches. Some thought the hindrance to promoting revival was due to the facts of worldly programs or finances.

After the chairman of the evangelistic committee had read the digest of the answers from the assembled questionnaires, he said he had one letter that was different from all the rest, which he now wanted them all to hear. This letter declares that the blame rests on the ministry itself as the greatest hindrance to revival. When those 500 pastors heard that, it produced a long outburst of laughter that shook the building as these pastors grabbed their bellies and rocked back and forth in their seats, howling with laughter.

But this man Wadsworth was broken-hearted. He thought the truth revealed should have produced a solemnity and tears of repentance among his co-laborers, but the opposite occurred. They laughed at such a ridiculous notion.

After deep self-examination and humiliation before God, the writer was led into fresh consecration and devotion to Christ. He found a new power accompanying his ministry, and conversions began to occur in the congregation. God's presence was with Joseph and Moses and with the apostles, and the letter finished with a plea to the ministers there to reconsecrate themselves to the Lord to be channels of blessings that God could flow through.

When the meeting was over, this man Wadsworth introduced himself to the chairman of the committee and said, Dr. So-and-so, I was the man who wrote that letter. Upon hearing this, the chairman glared at him with disgust and turned on his heel without a word and walked briskly away. Well, this man Wadsworth returned home with a burden to see revival, even if he was in a minority.

The next month, he began a new pastorate in a new town, and he prayed and fasted for the right message to preach before his new congregation. He noticed that Charles Spurgeon used to tell his students to pick a text that would make a congregation get up at 5 o'clock in the morning on a frosty day just to hear it read. Well, this man Wadsworth wanted a text like that, and he fasted and prayed, and God finally gave it to him from Isaiah 42, 16 about make the crooked places straight.

He felt compelled to write a couple of letters before he preached that sermon. He felt convicted in his heart to write these letters and drop them in the mailbox to make some crooked things straight in his own life before preaching that message to others. He asked himself what the purpose of this sermon was.

The purpose of the sermon is to get people to make the crooked things in their life straight so God could prosper. Another question was, have you any crooked things to make straight? God said, unless you straighten these crooked things out, I'll not be with you when you preach your famous sermon tomorrow. Well, after I mailed my two letters, I had a good conscience that the crooked things had been made straight.

I rose early that next Sunday morning to have ample time for prayerful preparation. The sermon, Making Crooked Things Straight, was delivered to a large but restless audience. Some seemed angry.

Others seemed almost ready to leave their pews. After the benediction, most of the people hurried out as quickly as possible. Upon returning home, my dear wife said to me with a look of reproof, you will hear from that sermon but not in the way you expect.

I told her that I believed I fatally discharged my rights to my duties and I'll leave the results with the Lord. That evening, the service was poorly attended. In the next morning, I received an early phone call that the mayor wanted me to come to his office first thing.

I went to the office of the mayor and was ushered into a private room. After I was seated, the mayor said, I heard your sermon yesterday morning. Now, man to man, I want to know who's been telling you about me.

Mr. Mayor, I preached that sermon to myself and I got some things straightened out and I can assure you no one has been gossiping about you to me. But the mayor did not believe him. The next phone call he got was from the richest man in his congregation, the owner of a department store.

He was summoned to this man's office and once he got there, the man paced the floor nervously with a cigar butt in his hand and he said, Now, sir, I want to know the names of the people who sent you to preach against me yesterday morning. Well, I tried to satisfy him that I merely preach the truth that I found in the word of God, but he didn't believe me. Last of all, later in the day, the town undertaker sent for me late at night and when I arrived at his door, he said he knew that my conscience would finally get to me and trouble me for telling his faults to the other members of the congregation.

Well, that month, the officials of the church decided to rid themselves of so disturbing a minister and I was fired. Eventually, I was given a new church in the community and from that pulpit, the Lord brought a mighty revival that swept through the entire town to the point that the church could no longer contain the crowds that were coming and we had to rent out the opera house just to hold the crowds of the growing services. Well, that's the end of his story, friends, and it goes to show that when a man gets serious enough with God to the point of straightening out all the crooked places in his life, then he can experience personal revival and the power of God can flow through that man as an unobstructed vessel.

Friend, let me ask you a burning question. Have you any crooked things in your life that need to be made straight? Have you lied to someone about a thing or stretched the truth? Have you cheated someone or broken their trust? Have you stolen something that did not belong to you, whatever it is? Are you prepared to rectify that matter before God and man? Recently, I did this very thing. I went through a time of self-examination and I realized I used to work for a man who was a brute.

Every time he opened his mouth, he damned God and cursed Jesus. It was hard to even be around this man who had such a filthy mouth. Well, I felt I had some unfinished business with him regarding a crooked thing and it needed to be straightened out, so I sat down and I hand wrote him a letter.

I said, I want you to know the very Jesus you curse and damn every time you open your mouth, hung and suffered on a bloody cross so you could have forgiveness of sins. I then went on to tell him that every day I worked for him. I prayed for God to save him.

I told him I loved him and I asked him to repent and turn to God now before it was too late. I included a gospel track in the letter and I sealed it and I went to the post office and mailed it to him. How about your crooked places, friend? What will you do? Will you get the matter settled between you and the Lord until you straighten it out? Until you straighten out those crooked things, friend, I can promise you this.

You can't go one skinny inch further with God.