For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, “They are entangled in the land…” – Exodus 14:3

The workshop has its trials as well as the drawing-room. “Ah!” says Satan, “the man came out, and confessed himself a Christian the other night, but I know where he works, and there is not a man in the place who will sympathize with him. He will be entangled in the land.” It happens that one begins in the morning with a joke, a second comes on with an oath, a third follows suit with a sharp and bitter observation. All day long they give the new convert such handfuls of mud as they can find, and the hope of the evil one is that thus he will be forced back on his old ways. The same thing happens on the farm, or on-board ship, or in the barrack-room: old companions want to have our society and are not pleased with the silent rebuke which is implied in our separating from them. You know more about this than I do; but I wonder not at Satan saying, “They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.”…Alas for the many who are speedily entangled in the nets of human associates, and never gain the liberty of Christ! The demands of business, of position, of self-interest, of custom-these all hold men as birds are caught with bird-lime, or as the needle is held by a powerful magnet, and so they are prepared to hearken to evil entreaties and return to the country from which they came out.

It is no small thing for the convert to set himself right with the world in his changed mode of dealing; yet this has got to be done, and done with decision, too, or there is no escaping from evil. At such a time the struggler feels-“I am entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut me in,” and the enemy of souls is of the same opinion. Now is his opportunity; but if you escape him now, he will never again have such an advantage over you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2188.cfm