22. Let their table become a snare before them. There they laid snares, and there they will find them. From their
feasts they would afford nothing but wormwood for their innocent victim, and
now their banquets will be their ruin. It is very easy for the daily provisions
of mercy to become temptations to sin. As birds and beasts are taken in a trap
by means of baits for the appetite, so are people snared often by their meats
and drinks. Those who despise the upper springs of grace will find the springs
of worldly comfort to be their poison. The table is used, however, not alone
for feeding, but for conversation, transacting business, counsel, amusement,
and religious observance; to those who are the enemies of the Lord Jesus the
table may, in all these respects, become a snare. This first plague is terrible,
and the second is like it. And that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. This, if we follow the original closely, and
the version of Paul in Romans, is a repetition of the former phrase; but we
shall not err if we say that, to the rejecters of Christ, even those things
which are calculated to work their spiritual and eternal good become occasions
for yet greater sin. They reject Christ, and are condemned for not believing on
him; they stumble on this stone and are broken by it. Wretched are those who
not only have a curse upon their common blessings, but also on the spiritual
opportunities of salvation.
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