Tarantulas spin silk. God has equipped them with a special body part called spinnerets. The tarantula secretes a liquid silk that hardens into a silk thread. The tarantula does amazing things with the soft silk it makes.  It uses the silk as a safety line when it falls, or to make a soft nest on the underside of a leaf or to make a sac for its eggs. It even uses its silk like a napkin to wrap his lunch in until it’s ready to eat later.

But a tarantula is most famous for using its silk to make webs. Webs come in different shapes and sizes, but the purpose is always the same…to catch its prey. The tarantula will wait patiently nearby holding to a thin thread that is joined to the web. Some of the threads in the web are really sticky. If you’ve ever tried to knock a spider web down, you might remember the web stuck to the broom or your fingers. It’s hard to get the sticky threads off. The threads are thin, they almost seem to disappear in the light.

 Think about it, an insect is just flying around. He’s minding his own business when all of a sudden, wham, he stops mid air. He struggles to get free, but the sticky threads hold it in the web. The insects frantic struggle is the tarantula's signal to move onto the web. The tarantula bites into the insect with his fangs. The intent is not to eat the insect but to secrete poison into it. The poison paralyzes the insect. It can’t move a muscle. The tarantula quickly wraps the insect in its special silk napkin to eat later or if it prefers it can eat the insect immediately.

When the tarantula eats the insect, it doesn’t eat the crunchy outside. It sucks out the juices and leaves an empty shell behind.

Tarantulas remind me of sin. Contrary to popular opinion, sin is a trap. Sin sucks the very moral character out of people and leaves them an empty shell. It doesn’t happen in one action. It happens when we ignore the warnings of God’s Word and we lose our sensitivity to please God in the way we live. When you base your life on the principals of God’s Word, then you will have a divine and moral compass that will help you avoid the webs of sin.