Morning, August 8

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"They weave the spider's web."

  Isaiah 59:5

   See the spider's web, and behold in it a most suggestive picture of the
   hypocrite's religion. It is meant to catch his prey: the spider fattens
   himself on flies, and the Pharisee has his reward. Foolish persons are
   easily entrapped by the loud professions of pretenders, and even the
   more judicious cannot always escape. Philip baptized Simon Magus, whose
   guileful declaration of faith was so soon exploded by the stern rebuke
   of Peter. Custom, reputation, praise, advancement, and other flies, are
   the small game which hypocrites take in their nets. A spider's web is a
   marvel of skill: look at it and admire the cunning hunter's wiles. Is
   not a deceiver's religion equally wonderful? How does he make so
   barefaced a lie appear to be a truth? How can he make his tinsel answer
   so well the purpose of gold? A spider's web comes all from the
   creature's own bowels. The bee gathers her wax from flowers, the spider
   sucks no flowers, and yet she spins out her material to any length.
   Even so hypocrites find their trust and hope within themselves; their
   anchor was forged on their own anvil, and their cable twisted by their
   own hands. They lay their own foundation, and hew out the pillars of
   their own house, disdaining to be debtors to the sovereign grace of
   God. But a spider's web is very frail. It is curiously wrought, but not
   enduringly manufactured. It is no match for the servant's broom, or the
   traveller's staff. The hypocrite needs no battery of Armstrongs to blow
   his hope to pieces, a mere puff of wind will do it. Hypocritical
   cobwebs will soon come down when the besom of destruction begins its
   purifying work. Which reminds us of one more thought, viz., that such
   cobwebs are not to be endured in the Lord's house: he will see to it
   that they and those who spin them shall be destroyed forever. O my
   soul, be thou resting on something better than a spider's web. Be the
   Lord Jesus thine eternal hiding-place.