God's creation articles
Let's Talk About Spiders

While most of us don't want anything to do with spiders, they are an interesting example of how God "hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise" (1 Corinthians 1:27), because no one fully understands the way they perform.

Did you ever watch one spinning its web? "My," you think, "where does all that silk thread come from?" Actually, it comes from glands near its back. The strong elastic material is forced through nozzle-like tips as the spider moves. Most spiders have several spinnerets, each with a different opening, so they can produce the kind of thread needed. For instance, when it needs one for lifting itself up and down, it uses a spinneret that makes a coarse, strong thread. When making its web, an entirely different type of thread is required, so it uses other spinnerets. It also produces cottony material for holding and hiding its eggs. All spiders can make three or four different kinds of thread, and some can make as many as seven kinds, all finer than a human hair!

How did the spider ever learn to use the right spinneret at the right time? How did it learn to use two of them working at the same time when it wants an extra-strong thread? When did it get enough courage to trust itself to drop into space with just a thread holding it and know it could crawl back up it again? How can it produce a sticky thread that it can travel over, yet that will trap everything else?

Many times the webs are spun in the dark, where the spider cannot see what it is doing, but its beautifully-shaped webs are perfectly formed.

The spider, lurking at one side of its web, waits for vibrations to tell it that something is caught. If the vibrations are very light, it ignores them. But a medium-sized vibration means food, so it quickly travels across the web to kill and eat the victim. However, if the shaking is great, it means something too big to handle is out there, and it will hurry to cut it loose before it ruins the web. How does the spider know how to interpret these signals?

The answer to all these questions is: No spider ever "learned" how to make a web or where to place it. When the Lord created them, He gave them their remarkable skills. These are often referred to as instincts, which enable them to take care of these things without thinking.

If the Lord has such interest and care over these little creatures, which are here today and gone tomorrow, how much more is He concerned about every boy and girl to whom He has given an everlasting soul? He tells us: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." Jeremiah 31:3. This wonderful love caused Him to go to Calvary's cross, to die "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). Have you accepted that work in faith and made Him your Saviour?

Copied with permission from Messages of God's Love. More articles in The Wonders of God's Creation (Volume 1-4) by Sidney R. Gill, also published by Bible Truth Publishers, Addison, IL 60101.

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