In the sermon 'Little, Weak, Feeble, and Leaderless' by Peter Allison, the speaker explores Proverbs 30:24-28, which highlights four small creatures—ants, rock hyraxes, locusts, and spiders—that demonstrate wisdom despite their physical limitations. The ants are noted for their ability to prepare for the future, despite their weakness. The rock hyrax, a seemingly defenseless creature, survives by staying vigilant and close to protective rocks. Locusts, although leaderless, move with unity and purpose, likened to the church's collective strength. The spider, with its intricate skill in web-making, teaches the value of focusing on one's calling. The sermon draws parallels between these animals and the spiritual life of believers, emphasizing the importance of preparation, vigilance, unity, and skill in overcoming human weaknesses through the wisdom found in Christ.

Proverbs chapter 30. Beginning at verse 24. Beginning at verse 24. There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise. The ants are a strong are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer.

The rock badgers are a feeble folk, yet they make their homes in the crags. The locusts have no king, yet they all advance in rank. The spider skilfully graphs with its hands, and it is in king's palaces. His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path gracious father in heaven sanctify us this Lord by your word your word is truth Open our hearts and our eyes and our ears to hear and to see and to understand the truth of your Word. Lord, send your Holy Spirit, we pray, for in our natural ability we cannot understand spiritual matters and sanctify my lips to proclaim the riches of your grace in Jesus Christ.

Amen. Well, this passage on seemingly related to natural history is an object lesson. It's a simple object lesson, much like the churches that have sermons specifically for the little ones often take object lessons Because they're simple and easy to follow. And object lessons such as Jesus frequently gave in His sermons. Remember, He talked about the lilies.

And he related it to our clothing. How the lilies are beautiful and yet they don't work. They don't labor and travail. And so we shouldn't be anxious about our clothing. He talked about very costly pearls and related it to the kingdom of heaven.

That pearl, you remember, of great price, that when somebody found it, he went and sold all that he had and bought that field in order to have that pearl of great price. He talked about sheep getting lost, and He related it to us as sinners. He talked about farmers planting fields, putting seed in the ground, And he related it to the proclamation of the gospel. This little section here that we read, these verses, five verses, talk about four little animals that are weak, that are feeble, and leaderless. And yet they have wisdom.

And through that wisdom they overcome their weakness and their inabilities and their feebleness and they thrive. They live. They do something. They are wise because God gave them wisdom. Each of these, and So this passage looks at these four animals and their weaknesses and shows and demonstrates to us that despite those weaknesses, they overcome them through the wisdom that God has given them.

The ants are little, they're not strong, but they have a wisdom to prepare for the future. The rock badger is weak and defenseless, and yet it has a wisdom to protect itself. The locusts are leaderless and yet they go forward and united as armies and accomplish things. The spider, another very little and weak animal. There's a little song my wife used to teach her classroom about, or else it was my mother, I forget now, about itsy bitsy spider, right?

It's a little thing. It's a itsy bitsy thing, and yet it has great skill. And through its skill, it is in kings' houses. So the ants. The ants.

Four things which are little on earth, but they are exceedingly wise. The ants are a people not strong. The Ants are tiny. And while they are incredibly strong for their size, right, I think I read that an ant's neck can support 5, 000 times its weight. So that's incredible.

That's way, way, way more than we could ever do. Our neck cannot support 5, 000 times our weight. But in an absolute sense, they are very weak. They're easily killed. You can crush them under your thumb.

You can crush many ants under one thumb, and they're gone. They're very weak. Easily, easily killed by the hundreds. Of course there's maybe thousands and millions of them, but individually they are very weak and easily killed. Yet, Agartha says they have a wisdom that enables them to prepare for winter and they can spend every waking moment in the summer laying up food for the winter.

And while the queen can live many years, I was surprised that apparently some queens can live as long as 20 and 30 years. The workers only live a few months and the males only a few days after they mate with the queen. So these the vast majority of ants are the female workers and they are preparing for a day that is beyond their lifetime for most of them. The ants that are living now and working now live a couple months they're not going to see the winter but they are working for this winter anyways. A day that's long past their own lifetime.

They have a very complex life cycle, actually. The eggs hatch a few weeks after being laid, So there's an egg phase. Lasts a couple of weeks. The eggs hatch and form larvae. They have no eyes and no legs.

And they depend entirely on other ants to feed them. Other ants in this colony. And this lasts for six to twelve days. This is the stage where, depending on what they are fed, determines whether they become a queen ant or not. And then they go into a pupae stage, which is like a resting stage that can last anywhere from a week to three or four weeks.

And it's just a resting, they're just growing. I guess living off of the food that they were fed in the larvae stage. And they start to look like an ant in this phase, but their antennae are bent back and they're kind of folded up. And then they hatch into an adult and begin this this couple month life of working. Preparing for the winter.

Now think of all the work that went on. If you added up a couple eggs a couple weeks as eggs a week to two as larvae three to four weeks as as a pupae you know you've already taken up a couple months that has been invested by other people in the colony taking care of these ants, preparing them for the future. Because they know that their continued existence depends on having these ants coming along in the future, because they're not going to live very long. So even in their life cycle, we see the ants are preparing for the future. You know, some animals, they hatch their eggs hatch and the animals thrive on their own.

But with ants, it takes a period of a couple months of intensive care and protection by the ants to prepare them for the future. And if you've ever disturbed an ant colony, you know the ants are very industrious about trying to move these eggs and larvae and pupae out of danger, out of the way. They have this ability to prepare for the future. They not only have a very complex life cycle, but their colony is very complex. It turns out they have nests that go very far deep into the ground.

And there are some ingenious people, and you can look at these on the internet, on YouTube, or wherever, where they will pour molten aluminum down into the nest of an ant colony. And that molten aluminum can flow down into all these little chambers, because all the way down, these ant colonies can go down six, seven feet below the ground. And they have all these little chambers all over, connected by little pathways, little tunnels. And they have warm chambers with high humidity, and warm chambers with low humidity, and cool chambers with high humidity, and cool chambers with low humidity. And they store food down there, and some ants grow mushrooms down there that they harvest for food.

And other ants can take grain and grind it into flour, Miller ants. And other ants can gather food, they gather things and they store these in all these little places. They have they have all these little chambers and so these people that pour the pour the molten metal down into the hole, then they can let it harden. And when it hardens, they can actually dig the earth out around this casting and lift it out. And it's incredible.

It looks like an upside down Christmas tree. It just has all these little chambers, and then sometimes you'll see tunnels that run for a foot or two, and then there'll be a little chamber down there at the end that they've made for some purpose. They only know. But an incredibly complex colony. And what's the purpose of all this?

It's simply to be able to prepare, to have a place to store food and lay it up for the winter. And to be able to produce more ants to continue this process of preparing for the winter. Some ants even farm other animals like aphids. We saw this in California. The ants would milk the aphids for something the aphids secreted.

It was something that they used. So they protected the aphids and they colonized them. They're like little farmers with their herd of sheep or something. Used to see this on trees. They would have these colonies of aphids and they'd be continually visited and cared for by their ant farmers, ant shepherds.

But all of this about the ant is a wisdom that God has given them to prepare. See, preparation is something that's very important for us. Preparing for the future is something that God calls us to do throughout our life. But there are times when we have the time, times in our life when we have the time to prepare. So you people that aren't married yet, You have a unique time in your life to prepare for what God is calling you to do and Maybe you don't know exactly what God's calling you to do yet But you you you have opportunities in front of you to prepare you may have libraries You may have other opportunities in your family to learn skills, to learn the skills of keeping a home.

That's a huge area. It takes a lot of skill. It takes a lot of ability and training to be able to efficiently run a home. In fact, it's worthy of every gift and ability that God has given. And we'll see that in the very next chapter.

All that goes into, and all that's a part of, keeping a home. It's an amazing calling. And yet it takes preparation. And the time to prepare is now, before you're married. Because once you're married and have children, you're not going to have the time to prepare that you do now, the time to study.

Or if you're preparing for another occupation, another calling, now's the time to get that skill, whether it's an academic skill, a book skill, a knowledge skill. The opportunity to study is now is unique. You're not going to have the same opportunity later on for the in-depth study. Yes, you certainly will. We certainly grow and learn and continue to study.

But that foundation that you lay now, while you have time, is without equal, in terms of what you can do now. And so it's a lesson in preparation. It's also, We also need to prepare, like the ants, prepare for the rainy day. There's a lot of concern maybe that these days you hear a lot of talk about prepping. Well it's not right to be anxious, but this idea of preparing for the future is a very biblical one.

And we see our Guru says the answer why is because they do this, even though they're weak. We might think, well, we're just weak. What could we do if the electric grid goes down? What could we do if there, you know, no fertilizer gets to us from Russia and the fields can't get fertilized and the big production farms can't make food? Well, Edgar says, go to the ant.

They're weak people, like us in that sense. And yet they prepare. They prepare. We know this. We know that God will provide for us.

And we know that He can enable us to prepare. He took Joseph out of prison as a slave and overnight made him ruler second only to Pharaoh throughout the land of Egypt in order to prepare, so that Joseph could prepare Egypt for a famine that was coming. And it was through that famine, through that preparation that God saved Jacob and all of Joseph's brothers. And God saved the line through which Christ came, wasn't killed. Through preparation for a famine.

Well, we can prepare. We can, with the wisdom that God has given us and the wisdom of His word and the guidance of His Holy Spirit, we can prepare for the things that we see coming. And I think the scriptures teach us that it is wise to do that preparation The second Animal object lesson this in this passage is the rock badger or the hyrax. It's a particular kind of hyrax that lives in Syria. That lives in Syria.

There's an interesting side note about this little animal. Moses called this animal, this hyrax, a chewer of the cud in the vidicus. But many people, including Christian authors, seem to think that Moses got it wrong. I think they must be forgetting that Moses is writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And the God who created everything surely knows which animals he created chew the cud and which ones don't chew the cud.

So I think it's really incredibly stupid to think that God doesn't know what he's talking about. And that Moses got it wrong. But apparently many Christian authors think this. The Hastings Bible Dictionary says of them that they, quote, do not actually chew the cud from 1909. The concise Bible dictionary says they are, quote, erroneously described as a ruminant.

Well, unquote. Well, actually, Moses doesn't describe them as ruminants. He described them as those who chew the cud. And there are ruminants that don't chew the cud. And it turns out the rock hyrax is one of these animals that's not a ruminant like a cow with four stomachs, but it does have another stomach for fermentation.

The interpreter's Bible says that, quote, the statement that it is a ruminant is unfounded and the Unger Bible dictionary says the rock hyrax quote it does not really chew the cud but has a motion of the jaws which resembles that function." Even Wikipedia, as late as last night when I looked on it, thinks that the Bible is wrong. It says, the rock hyrax also makes a loud grunting sound while moving its jaws as if chewing. And Some authors have proposed that observation of this behavior by ancient Israelites gave rise to the misconception given in Leviticus that the hyrax choose the cud, but the hyrax is not a ruminant, " unquote. That's Wikipedia's lack of wisdom. Because in 1964, a German zoologist Hubert Hendricks observed the rock hyrax at the Munich Zoo in Germany, and he noticed these swallowing movements, and he studied it further, and he he noticed them making these chewing movements with their jaw when they weren't eating.

And he investigated more closely, he found that they chew the cud mainly at night for about 30 minutes or an hour. He made that observation that they were actually chewing a cut, something that they regurgitated. Now they're not a ruminant in the normal sense, but there is a very real sense that they chewed a cut. In the biological abstracts from 1967, it says, quote, the operation is described for the first time for the order hyrocoidea. That's in that unquote, And that's the order of animal that includes the rock hyrax.

It says it's described for the first time. Well, no, it wasn't actually. Moses figured it out 3, 000 years earlier by the inspiration of God. But this animal is a rather weak animal. It's like a rabbit in that it has two big front teeth.

It's kind of a furry plump thing. There were some places that said it was closest relative was an elephant which I don't understand but I'm not a zoologist so I'll leave it at that. You can look at these little pictures they sort of do look and size wise maybe eight pounds for a full-grown male animal. Other than those two front teeth, which are for eating grasses and things, they're a defenseless animal. They're very weak.

They spend about 95% of their time resting on the rocks. These Syrian rock hyraxes live in rocky crag, it says in the King James. But they live in the mountains, in rocks, in crevices, in caverns that they can take protection in. It's hard to walk for a lot of animals, especially two-legged ones, It's hard to walk over very rocky ground. You're not very fast at it.

You easily twist your ankle and so on. So they live up in here. And these rocks provide a protection for them. They spend about 95% of their time resting on the rocks, sort of sunning themselves because of something related to their physiology. And they feed on a wide variety of plants, like lobelia and broadleaf plants.

They have been also reported to eat insects and other little grubs. But they only forage for food for about 50 yards, 150 feet, away from their protection of their home, their rock, these little rocks and crags where they live. And when they eat, they are very wary. They have, they all apparently they kind of eat facing, they eat in groups and they eat facing out and they post sentries, these male sentries. And so they, who are keeping an eye out for predators.

And if these predators, or these sensors, sentries see a predator, they sound an alarm and they have apparently some 21 different vocalizations that they use to sound the alarm. And if they sound the alarm, they can all scurry back into the crags where they are protecting. And when they eat, they take a bite and then They look around. They eat very vigilantly. They don't relax and kind of ignore their surroundings.

But they always have to be vigilant because they're weak people. They're a weak animal. They don't have a lot of the defense mechanisms that other animals have to defend themselves. You know, even porcupines, you know, or skunks. They have mechanisms that make them very unattractive and difficult for predators.

This, rabbits can run at least, and sometimes they can outrun other predators. At least give them a run for their money. The rock hyrax doesn't have those long legs of a rabbit. They can't run. They're, They're sitting ducks as they say, for any predator, for any eagle or other kind of bird or other predator like lynx and bobcats or leopards or dogs or foxes or anything that can come and grab them.

And so, what one author noted though is that in Israel, the rock hyrax is rarely preyed upon by terrestrial predators because their system of sentries and reliable refugees, refugees in these rocks and crags, provide considerable protection. But see, they know that they are weak. And so they have the wisdom to take precautions to protect themselves. And one of them is they are ever vigilant. God has given them this wisdom to be ever vigilant.

And in that sense, they are in this sense of being weak, they are like us. They are very much like us. We also are weak. David says in Psalm 2, Have mercy on me, for I am weak. Now David was a mighty warrior.

His vocation was war. He said the Lord had taught his fingers to make war and he killed Goliath. He was a skilled warrior. And yet, David says of himself, I'm weak. Because see, our foes are the world, our own flesh, and Satan, the evil one.

And compared to these foes, we are weak. We are weak. And when we don't recognize that weakness, we are like a rock hyrax that's just running around without vigilance, far away from their nest, far away from their home, their protection. We're a sitting duck. Our sin makes us weak and vulnerable.

Paul describes the battle with our flesh in Romans 7. He says, verse 18, For I know that in me that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good, I don't find that. For the good that I will to do, I do not. But the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

Now if I do what I will not to do, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? That's Paul's describing our weakness in our flesh.

We are weak and we do the things that we don't want to do. We, the we being the one who is renewed according to inward man. Our flesh is weak. If we don't recognize that, we're a sitting duck for our enemies. We have to recognize, but when we recognize our weakness, the weakness of our flesh, then we can take precautions against the weakness of our flesh.

Whatever those precautions might be, whatever the sins that are besetting us might be. The lust, They usually come in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Jesus said, watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. The lesson that Agur is teaching us through the rock, hyrax, is to recognize our weaknesses and to stay close to the rock, our rock that is Christ.

To stay in the means of grace and to flee fornication and to flee these other sins that beset us. The world is the other thing that we battle. The world brings to us immediate pleasure. It brings to us a false sense of wisdom. Finances is one example of the false wisdom of the world of this age.

Let me just illustrate an illustration that I've given to you many times before, but they're so ever-present, I think it's good to be reminded of some of these illustrations of the false wisdom of the world that is so easily absorbed. People say today that you should invest your money and take a mortgage out and invest your money because you can get more money investing it than you can, higher interest rate than you can on your mortgage. And that sounds like good advice. Until we take a bigger look, take a look at the bigger picture and realize where did this idea come from that we should go into debt to buy a house and and live most of our working life in debt paying for it. Probably came from life insurance companies a hundred years ago, 150 years ago, that needed an investment mechanism that would last for people's working life.

With the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Government, I'll give you an example here, with the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Government no longer needs our taxes for revenue. The governor of the Federal Reserve told the American Bar Association that back in the 1920s that the federal government no longer needed our taxes for revenue. He then asked, well, why do they tax? And he said the answer is, he gave four reasons, but basically they amounted to implementing public policy. In other words taxes are a way to get people to do what you want them to do.

They're a way to get people to change their habits. They're a way to get people that are that grew up with wisdom to become stupid. So if you make interest on your house mortgage tax deductible, people think, well, I don't have to pay tax on the money, I pay an interest on my mortgage. So what do you suppose that's going to do? It's going to tend to make people get mortgages because they don't have to pay tax on the money.

It's an obvious, you would say, no-brainer, right? But is it? Is it really? You see, by this means, by this little means, we went from a nation where people pretty much owned things to a nation where in the 20th century, nobody owned things. In fact, there was a video on the World Economic Forum website.

I don't know if it's still there, but I looked it up a year or two ago. And it was about the world of the future. And One of the things that it said about the world of the future is that you will own nothing and be happy. How did we go from a nation that owned everything to a nation that owns nothing and is happy? We did it because of the foolishness of this world that masqueraded as wisdom.

Through public policy implementation and tax policy that moved people into getting mortgages because it was tax deductible money. It's an example. The wisdom of the world. The Bible says, the wisdom of the Bible says that People that are in debt are slaves of those to whom they are in debt. And that is, and everybody would acknowledge it's better to be free than a slave.

Or college, you know. Most of the world didn't go to college before the 20th century. And yet they were very wise. Many great things were invented. Just think about where most of the great invention, where did airplanes come from?

A couple of kids working in their father's garage. Where did the computers come from? A couple of people working in their father's garage who dropped out of college. Now I'm not saying college is wrong at all. It's just not the thing that it's cracked up to be.

There is a certainly a place for interning and studying under people that know different areas but It's not something that everybody has to do. And the history of the world says that, proves that. In fact, if you look at many of the great billionaires in the late 20th century, most of them had dropped out of college. And if they have college degrees now, it's only because they went back after they made all their wealth and got a college degree because it was important to have a college education. Now if that is in a contradiction, I don't know what is.

Satan is the other mighty foe that we fight. Satan is the most powerful created being. Such that not even Michael the archangel dared to bring a reviling accusation against him, but said, the Lord rebuke you. We are no match for a Satan on our own. We need the full armor of God.

We need to be standing in Christ like the rock hyrax. We need to stay near our rock. See, God told Paul, when Paul was praying about this weakness in his flesh, He said, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness, our weakness. Therefore, Paul said, I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong." Isaiah says that he gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might he increases strength.

He resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. See it's when we acknowledge that we're weak and when we recognize that we have died and it's no longer that we who live, but this life that we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us. That's when we are strong. It's only in Christ that we are strong. He is our rock.

And this is the lesson of the rock hyrax, this weak animal that is preserved and is rarely preyed upon because it stays near its rock where it hides. The third animal is the locust. They have no king, but they go forward in ranks. They advance in ranks. In other words, They're an army.

God calls this locusts His army, an army, His great army in Joel, an army that He sends in punishment on different lands. Now they have no king, Nobody to tell them to line up. But they line up. They advance in ranks. That's what a Guru says.

And there is power. There is strength in numbers. There is also strength in unity. And there is strength in standing together. You know, it's the shield of faith that is mentioned in Ephesians as part of the armor of God.

We kind of think of that sometimes as like the, when we were little kids, we took the metal garbage cans that had the handle on the front and you could hold that handle. And that was your shield, this little round thing, right? But that's not the shield that's being described there. That shield that's being described is a Thurian shield. That's the shield if you've watched movies about the Roman phalanx.

That's the shield that is more like the shield that riot police have today. It's maybe this tall, down to the ground, and it's square, and it's curved surface, but it's square. And so when you have a phalanx of troops, they can stand shoulder to shoulder with these shields and it forms an impenetrable front. And then the row behind them can take that shield and turn it up over top of them. And the row behind at an angle, The third rank can turn the shield straight up on top.

And the whole entire squadron, platoon of soldiers, could be entirely encased with this three-in-shield. And so they're protected. When they went up against a city to besiege it or to attack it, they were protected from above, from arrows above, as well as from spears and things being thrown from the front. And they were very strong that way. Where any one of them or two or three of them would not have had any strength.

And so that armor of God that's described there is speaking of an armor that is collectively worn by the church, by God's people, standing shoulder to shoulder. And in order to, of course, stand shoulder to shoulder and walk together that way, there has to be agreement. Can two walk together unless they are agreed? And so there is these locusts then, they advance in rank, they have a wisdom to do that without a king, without somebody to tell them to line up. And they are able to go en masse.

And if you've read about these locust plagues, you can read about it in Joel. We don't have time this morning to do it. But you can read about how they just wipe everything out. Or if you read about the locust plagues that came on this country, I know they came in the 19th century. I don't know.

I'm assuming there's been some in the 20th century. But they would descend as an army. And even though they're little and didn't have a king, they could come as an army and in a short matter of time, wipe everything out. Eat everything. In some cases, they reported they even ate the wool off the sheep's backs.

They ate everything. The trees entirely stripped bare of leaves, and then another army of locusts would come and strip all the bark off the tree. Utterly devastating. But no king to tell them to be organized and to go in numbers, yet they do. They have this initiative then.

Because that's typical or representative of the church because as Christians we are led by the Holy Spirit and as the Holy Spirit leads us we all work toward those same goals. Why is it that in our church and in all lots of other churches across the country and in every state you have these organizations that are rising up to fight abortion? To introduce laws that make it murder? That recognize unborn are people. Who's organizing all this?

There's no one master king over all of these people telling them to do all these things. It's the Holy Spirit as he works in each individual, moves them to do this. The left thinks, I have this book in my library, written, it's called Conspiracy on the Right. It's written by what we would call liberal. And they think there's this vast right-wing conspiracy.

And why? Because they look at the unity of action across not only the country, but around the world and they see all these people are doing the same thing. They must have a vast conspiracy that's organizing them. But it's not so. It's the Holy Spirit that is leading His people.

Jonathan takes the initiative at one point in attacking the Philistine fortress. It wasn't planned. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him. And they left a fleece out, and God answered that, and they went up. He said, Go up, for the Lord has delivered them into our hand.

There was no planning on it. Saul didn't know what he was doing. That's initiative. That's initiative. As Christians, we have no visible king that organizes.

We are simply leading, following the Holy Spirit. Pastors and teachers are called to encourage and to equip the saints for the work of ministry, but each person who is in Christ is being led by the Spirit. And so the church advances and will continue to advance. And not even the gates of hell will prevail against the advance of the church. But the lesson of the locusts is the need for unity, the need for initiative, the need for walking in agreement and walking together.

Because it is together and united that the church is, united in Christ that the church is strong. Our strength, of course, is only in Christ. The last animal, this little animal, is the spider. And the emphasis here is on the skill. The spider has a skill.

He grasps with his hands, skillfully grasps with his hands, and is in kings' houses. Matthew Henry says, Spiders are very ingenious in weaving their webs with a fineness and an exactness such as no art can pretend to come near. They take hold with their hands and spin a fine thread out of their own bowels with a great deal of art, and they are not only in poor men's cottages but in king's palaces, not withstanding all the care that is taken to destroy them. And It takes constant vigilance to keep the spider webs out of your house. I have a tractor that I don't use all the time and I went out yesterday to use it and I noticed that there were spider webs in every little angle.

Spiders had built webs across it. They're everywhere. But they do one thing with skill. And they do that thing very well. And that web is an amazing thing.

It's stronger pound for pound than steel. In fact, some webs are stronger than Kevlar pound for pound. They have the skill to do that. They aren't strong, but they have that skill, and it's very hard to remove those webs. It's just difficult.

It's hard to blow them. If you ever see a spider sack hanging by that, by these fibers, you can't blow it off. You almost have to scrape it off. And so there is a focus here. There's a focus on doing what they are called to do.

They do it well and they don't worry about doing everything. They focus on what God has called them to do. As humans, as people, we are called to do many different things. And we can do many different things as the Lord enables us and we set our mind to it. But we can't do everything.

And sometimes the more we try to do everything, the less we actually get done. And it's only when we are able to focus and develop skill in one or two things, that we can accomplish the most. There's a very common expression, a jack of all trades and a master of none is always going to be second to somebody who is just a master in the one thing, but he's very good at it, or she is very good at it. The spiders are skillful in what they do, and they are in kings' palaces. So, if Jesus Christ, if God, can give weak, feeble, and leaderless animals wisdom that enables them to overcome those weaknesses and to flourish in those areas where he has called them.

How much more, how much more will the Lord not give us wisdom in our weaknesses so that we flourish and that we thrive in His courts? But of Him we are in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom of God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Brothers and sisters, our wisdom is only in Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have become the wisdom of God and you've become our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption.

Or as the poet and hymn writer said, keep us near, near to you, near to your cross, near to your means of grace, near to your people, and near to your ordinances, near to your church, and nearer still to your throne of grace and to your word. For therein and there alone is wisdom. Wisdom to refute the lies, the ignorance, and the superstition of this age. Power to resist the evil one himself, grace to overcome the weaknesses of our own flesh. For you Lord are our sanctification And it is in you that we rest and trust this morning.

And it is by your power that we go forth this week. We ask, Lord, for your blessing. We ask for your wisdom in Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.