A Devotion from Charles Spurgeon

“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 for ever. O my soul, be thou resting on something better than a spider’s web. Be the

Lord Jesus thine eternal hiding-place.