'Their webs shall not become garments.'--ISAIAH lix. 6.
'I counsel thee to buy of me ... white raiment, that thou mayest be
clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.'--REV. iii.
18.
The force of these words of the prophet is very obvious. He has been
pouring out swift, indignant denunciation on the evil-doers in Israel;
and, says he, 'they hatch cockatrice's eggs and spin spiders' webs,'
pointing, as I suppose, to the patient perseverance, worthy of a better
cause, which bad men will exercise in working out their plans. Then
with a flash of bitter irony, led on by his imagination to say more
than he had meant, he adds this scathing parenthesis, as if he said,
'Yes, they spin spiders' webs, elaborate toil and creeping contrivance,
and what comes of it all! The flimsy foul thing is swept away by God's
besom sooner or later. A web indeed! but they will never make a garment
out of it. It looks like cloth, but it is useless.' That is the old
lesson that all sin is profitless and comes to nothing.
I venture to connect with that strongly figurative declaration of the
essential futility of godless living, our second text, in which Jesus
uses a similar figure to express one aspect of His gifts to the
believing soul. He is ready to clothe it, so that 'being clothed, it
will not be found naked.'