I hate spiders!

Hypocrites & Spiders....

....both give me the creeps, but I had never really compared the two until the other day reading in Job. "So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish: Whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a spider's web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand. He shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure." Job 8:13-15

Spiders seem to think they are pretty cool don't they? They love to flaunt their 'stuff' in the face of my broom--being so bold and brazen as to build their creepy webs right in my front doorway. Have you ever seen a 'saint' like that? They seem to love flaunting their spirituality in your face and should anyone happen to question or threaten them, they dart out of sight. Maybe like the hypocrite, they are fearful and defensive because they know they have no safety in that slight little web of theirs. The Bible speaks of the spider taking hold in King's palaces even. May we compare that to the church-going hypocrite? So close and yet so far away from God.

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"Sin is not so sinful as hypocricy" Francoise d'Aubigne de Maintenon

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How little the light and slender thread which a spider spins would avail a man in time of danger! So frail and unsubstantial is the hope of the hypocrite! The spider takes great pride in his web--he thinks it is the most beautiful thing. He relies on his own strength completely spinning his web from out of his own bowels. Like the hypocrite, the creation is his own, formed merely from his own conceit and self-suffiency. "I this", and "I that" building quite a reputation for themselves, at least in some circles. Desiring to be known as a saint, a real Mother in Isreal. With their super-spiritual thread, they can also cut certain people out--deeming them to be worldly, shaking their head and muttering a "tsk, tsk".

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"Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocricy." Edwin Hubbel Chapin

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The spider (and the hypocrite) build not only for themselves, but for the enslavement of others. They are dangerous, and their bite/tongue is often deadly. A hypocrite builds his cobweb testimony in the alleys of this life hoping to 'win the world'. Many seem to think that the most important thing a new christian can do is something outward. In reality, the most important changes may never been seen by the human eye--for they are the 'hidden man' things. I'm not at all saying that I do not believe in holy standards of modesty, but a spiritual life built only on your clothes, will soon be swept away. The hypocrite/spider also builds his web in the church, hoping by it's lying tongue and obsession with rules, to cause divisions and dispair rendering the church helpless to a lost and dying world.

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"Great hypocrites are the real athiests." Francis Bacon

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To be a hypocrite is to lie and to lie is to be a hypocrite. They are one in the same. The idea here in Job, is that when the tempest --or brooms of life--come, the spider works even harder to strengthen his web --in his own strength. How many times have you swept down a cobweb only to find back the next day in all it's glory. Flaunting. They say that each time, the spider will heap on more cording in an effort to fortify it's house. Each time the hypocrite lies, he is heaping on more flimsy webbing and the lie becomes easier and easier to tell...easier and easier for him to believe...until even he himself is deceived.

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"The hypocrites crime is that he bears false witness against himself. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is rotten to the core." Hannah Arendt.

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At times it may seem as if the 'spider' is winning, but this verse in Job reminds us how flimsy that web truly is. God's truth shall one day prevail, the spider will be squashed and the web --his refuge of lies-- swept away with God's judgment day broom!

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"Live truth instead of professing it." Elbert Hubbard

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Let me not like the spider, spin my own home,

Trying by works, to do it all on my own.

Help me to see that you've given to me,

All that I need to be joyful and free.

The cross that was built,

A handful of nails,

The blood that you spilt,

Is what truly avails!