Sometimes it seems as if the cause of righteousness must be overthrown, as if the cause of evil must triumph in the end. Sometimes we look at the darkness of the world and wonder if and when the light will really break through. This was on the mind of De Witt Talmage in a sermon he preached many years ago and with a powerful image he shows how we need not fear.
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Oh, how many good people are affrighted by unbelieving iniquity in our day, and think the Church of Jesus Christ and the cause of righteousness are going to be overthrown.
Do not worry, do not fret, as though iniquity were going to triumph over righteousness.
A lion goes into a cavern to sleep. He lies down, with his shaggy mane covering the paws. Meanwhile the spiders spin a web across the mouth of the cavern, and say, “We have captured him.” Gossamer thread after gossamer thread is spun until the whole front of the cavern is covered with the spiders’ web, and the spiders say, “The lion is done; the lion is fast.”
After a while the lion has got through sleeping; he rouses himself, he shakes his mane, he walks out into the sunlight; he does not even know the spiders’ web is spun, and with his voice he shakes the mountain.
So men come, spinning their sophistries and skepticism about Jesus Christ; he seems to be sleeping. They say, “We have shut up the Lord; he will never come forth again before the nations; Christ is captured, and captured forever.”
But after a while the Lion of the tribe of Judah will rouse himself and come forth to shake mightily the nations. What is a spider’s web to the aroused lion? Give truth and error a fair grapple, and truth will come off victor.