The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

and he is easily able to discover where our vulnerable places are, and he immediately attacks us there. If we are like Achilles, and cannot be wounded anywhere except in our heel, then at the heel he will send his dart, and nowhere else. He will find out our easily besetting sin, and there, if he can, he will attempt to work our ruin and our destruction. Let us bless God that it is written, “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler.”

      6. 3. In the next place, the fowler’s snare is frequently connected with pleasure, profit, and advantage. In the bird’s case it is for the seed scattered on the ground that he flies to the snare. It is some tempting bait which allures him to his death. And usually Satan, the fowler, uses a temptation by which to beguile us. “Oh!” one says, “I cannot give up such-and-such a thing, it is so pleasant. Sir, you never knew the charms of such-and-such a pursuit, otherwise you would never advise me to relinquish it.” Yes, my friend, but it is just the sweetness of it to you that makes it the more dangerous. Satan never sells his poisons naked; he always gilds them before he vends them. He knows very well that men will buy them and swallow them, only if he gilds them beforehand. Take care of pleasures; mind what you are doing when you are doing them. Many of them are innocent and healthful, but many of them are destructive. It is said that where the most beautiful cacti grow, there the most venomous serpents are to be found at the root of every plant. And it is so with sin. Your fairest pleasures will harbour your grossest sins. Take care; take care of your pleasures. Cleopatra’s asp was introduced in a basket of flowers; so are sins often brought to us in the flowers of our pleasures. Satan offers to the drunkard the sweetness of the intoxicating cup, which rejoices him, when his brain is rioting in frolic, and when his soul is lifted up within him. He offers to the lustful man the scenes and pleasures of carnal mirth, and merriment, and delight, and so he leads him astray with the bait, concealing the hook which afterwards shall pain him. He gives to you and to me, each of us, the offer of our peculiar joy; he tickles us with pleasures, that he may lay hold upon us, and so have us in his power. I would have every Christian be especially on his guard against the very thing that is most pleasing to his human nature. I would not have him avoid everything that pleases him, but I would have him be on his guard against it. Just like Job, when his sons had been feasting in their houses, he did not forbid them from doing it, but he said, “I will offer a sacrifice, lest my sons should have sinned in their hearts, and should have cursed God foolishly.” He was more careful over them at the time of their feasting than at any other time. Let us do the same. Let us remember that the snare of the fowler is generally connected with some pretended pleasure or profit, but that Satan’s end is not our pleasing, but our destruction.

      7. 4. In the next place, sometimes the fowler very wisely employs the force of example. We all know the influence of the decoy duck, in endeavouring to bring others into the snare. How very often Satan, the fowler, employs a decoy to lead God’s people into sin! You befriend a man; you think that he is a true Christian; you have some respect for his character; he is a high professor, can talk religion by the yard, and can give you any quantity of theology you like to ask for. You see him commit a sin; ten to one that you will do the same, if you have much respect for him; and so he will lead you on. And notice, Satan is very careful in the men whom he chooses to be decoys. He never employs a wicked man to be a decoy for a good man. It is very seldom, when Satan would decoy a Christian into a snare, that he makes use of an open reprobate. No; he makes use of the man who is pretends to be religious, and who looks to be of the same quality as yourself, and therefore entices you astray. Let a bad man meet me in the street, and ask me to commit sin! The devil knows better than to employ him in any such work as that, because he knows I would pass by directly. If he wants his errand well done, he sends one to me whom I call brother; and so through the brotherhood of profession I am apt to give him credence and pay him respect; and then if he goes astray the force of example is very powerful, and so I may easily be led into the net too. Take care of your best friends; be careful of your companions. Choose the best you can; then follow them no farther than they follow Christ. Let your course be entirely independent of everyone else. Say with Joshua, let others do what they will, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

      8. 5. Note, once more, that sometimes the fowler, when he fails to take his bird by deceit and craft, will go a-hawking after it — will send his hawk into the air, to bring down his prey. It often happens, when the devil cannot ruin a man by getting him to commit a sin, he attempts to slander him; he sends a hawk after him, and tries to bring him down by slandering his good name. I will give you a piece of advice. I know a good minister, now in venerable old age, who was once most villainously lied against and slandered by a man who hated him only for the truth’s sake. The good man was grieved; he threatened the slanderer with a lawsuit, unless he apologized. He did apologize. The slander was printed in the papers in a public apology; and you know what the consequence was. The slander was more believed than if he had said nothing about it. And I have learned this lesson — to do with the slanderous hawk what the little birds do, just fly up. The hawk cannot do them any harm while they keep above him — it is only when they come down that he can injure them. It is only when by mounting he gets above the birds, that the hawk comes sweeping down upon them, and destroys them. If any slander you, do not come down to them; let them slander on. Say, as David said concerning Shimei, “If the Lord has given him commandment to curse, let him curse”; and if the sons of Zeruiah say, “Let us go and take this dead dog’s head,” you say, “No, let him curse”; and in that way you will live down slander. If some of us turned aside to notice every tiny sparrow that began chirping at us, we should have nothing to do but to answer them. If I were to fight people on every doctrine I preach, I would do nothing else but just amuse the devil, and indulge the combative principles of certain religionists who like nothing better than quarrelling. By the grace of God, say what you please against me, I will never answer you, but go straight on. All shall end well, if the character is only kept clean; the more dirt that is thrown on it by slander, the more it shall glisten, and the more brightly it shall shine. Have you never felt your fingers itch sometimes to be at a man who slanders you? I have. I have sometimes thought, “I cannot hold my tongue now; I must answer that fellow”; but I have asked from God grace to imitate Jesus, who, “when he was reviled reviled not again,” and by his strength let them go straight on. The surest way in the world to get rid of a slander is just to let it alone and say nothing about it, for if you prosecute the rascal who utters it, or if you threaten him with an action, and he has to apologize, you will be no better off — some fools will still believe it. Let it alone — let it keep as it is; and so God will help you to fulfil by your wisdom his own promise, “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler.”

      And now, before I close this point, let me observe once more, the fowler when he is determined to take his birds uses all these arts at once perhaps, and besets the bird on every side. So you will remember, beloved, it is with you. Satan will not leave a stone unturned to ruin your soul for ever.

      Amidst a thousand snares I stand

      Upheld and guarded by your hand.

      Old Master Quarles says, —

      The close pursuer’s busy hands do plant

      Snares in your substance; snares attend your want;

      Snares in your credit; snares in your disgrace;

      Snares in your high estate; snares in your base;

      Snares tuck your bed; and snares surround your board;

      Snares watch your thoughts; and snares attach your word;

      Snares in your quiet; snares in your commotion;

      Snares in your diet; snares in your devotion;

      Snares lurk in your resolves, snares in your doubt;

      Snares lie within your heart, and snares without;

      Snares are above your head, and snares beneath;

      Snares in your sickness, snares are in your death.

      There is not a place beneath which a believer walks that is free from snares. Behind every tree there is the Indian with his barbed