EXTRACT
"The spider taketh hold with her hand, and is in kings' palaces" (Proverbs 30:28).
What God does, He does well. What you do, do well, be it a great work or a small work. If ten talents, employ all the ten. If five talents, employ all the five, if one talent, employ the one. If only the thousandth part of a talent, employ that. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life." I tell you if you are not faithful to God in a small sphere, you would be indolent and insignificant in a large sphere.
Again, my text teaches me that repulsiveness and loathsomeness will sometimes climb up into very elevated places. You would have tried to have killed the spider that Solomon saw. You would have said: "This is no place for it. If that spider is determined to weave a web, let it do so down in the cellar of this palace, or in some dark dungeon." Ah! the spider of the text could not be discouraged. It clambered on, and climbed up, higher, and higher, and higher, until after awhile it reached the king's vision, and he said: "The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." And so it often is now that things that are loathsome and repulsive get up into very elevated places.
The Church of Christ, for instance, is a palace. The King of Heaven and earth lives in it. According to the Bible, her beams are of cedar, and her rafters of fir, and her windows of agate, and the fountains of salvation dash a rain of light. It is a glorious palace - the Church of God is; and yet, sometimes unseemly and loathsome things creep up into it - evil speaking, and rancor, and slander, and backbiting, and abuse, crawling up on the walls of the Church, spinning a web from arch to arch, and from the top of one communion tankard to the top of another communion tankard. Glorious palace in which there ought only to be light, and love, and pardon, and Grace; yet a spider in the palace!
Home ought to be a castle. It ought to be the residence of everything royal, kindness, love, peace, patience, and forbearance ought to be the princes residing there; and yet sometimes dissipation crawls up into that home, and the jealous eye comes up, and the scene of peace and plenty becomes the scene of domestic jargon and dissonance. You say: "What is the matter with the home?" I will tell you what is the matter with it. A spider in the palace.
A well developed Christian character is a grand thing to look at. You see some man with great intellectual and spiritual proportions. You say: "How useful that man must be!" But you find, amid all his splendor of faculties, there is some prejudice, some whim, some evil habit, that a great many people do not notice, but that you have happened to notice, and it is gradually spoiling that man's character - it is gradually going to injure his entire influence. Others may not see it, but you are anxious in regard to his welfare, and now you discover it. A dead fly in the ointment. A spider in the palace.
Again, my text teaches me that perseverance will mount into the king's palace. It must have seemed a long distance for that spider to climb in Solomon's splendid residence, but it started at the very foot of the wall and went up over the panels of Lebanon cedar, higher and higher, until it stood higher than the highest throne in all the nations - the throne of Solomon. And so God has decreed it that many of those who are down in the dust of sin and dishonor shall gradually attain to the King's palace.
We see it in worldly things. Who is that banker in Philadelphia? Why, he used to be the boy that held the horses of Stephen Girard while the millionaire went in to collect his dividends. Arkwright toils on up from a barber's shop until he gets into the palace of invention. Sextus V toils on up from the office of a swineherd until he gets into the palace of Rome. Fletcher toils on up from the most insignificant family position until he gets into the palace of Christian eloquence. Hogarth, engraving pewter pots for a living, toils on up until he reaches the palace of world renowned art.
And God hath decided that, though you may be weak of arm, and slow of tongue, and be struck through with a great many mental and moral deficits, by His almighty Grace you shall yet arrive in the King's palace - not such an one as is spoken of in the text - not one of marble - not one adorned with pillars of alabaster and thrones of ivory, and flagons of burnished gold - but a palace in which God is the King and the angels of Heaven are the cup bearers.
The spider crawling up the wall of Solomon's palace was not worth looking after or considering, as compared with the fact that we, who are worms of the dust, may at last ascend into the palace of the King Immortal.
By the Grace of God may we all reach it. Oh, Heaven is not a dull place. It is not a worn out mansion with faded curtains, and outlandish chairs, and cracked ware. No; it is as fresh, and fair, and beautiful as though it were completed but yesterday. The kings of the earth shall bring their honor and glory into it.
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