THE classes were in their places and the ordinary afternoon's work was going on when the head master entered, bringing visitors with him who had asked if they might see the school.
They stood by one class, a class of quite big children, for a long time, listening to the lesson that was being given. The young people themselves were not listening, but their eyes were fixed either on the teacher's lips as he spoke, or on the blackboard on which he wrote, for though these children could see, they could not hear; they were all deaf.
Miss X, one of the visitors, had come a long way on purpose to visit this Home where deaf children were cared for and trained, and she wanted to find out whether the things that matter most, things about God, were taught there, as well as those that have to do only with this life. So when the Head told her she might choose the subject for a lesson, she asked that the teacher might give one on Holiness.
I am sorry that I cannot tell you what the teacher said to his class that afternoon, for even though he had no warning as to what he would have to speak about and no time to prepare a lesson beforehand, he was able to give it. He was a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, and knew something in his own heart and soul of the holiness of God. No doubt the Holy Spirit helped him as he gave that sweet little lesson....
"There is none holy as the LORD," 1 Sam. 2:2.
He is "glorious in holiness," Ex. 15:11. Holiness is bright and pure and clean; but sin is dark and unclean and defiling, nothing that is sin-stained can remain in the presence of God's holiness.
Because God loves us with a holy love He gave His own beloved Son Jesus to die for us on the cross, in order that sinful men and women and children might be washed from their sins and live before Him forever.
Jesus was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners," He knew no sin, He did no sin, and in Him was no sin. And yet, when in obedience to the will of God His Father, and in love to us, He allowed wicked men to nail Him to a cross, as He hung suffering there, He cried:
"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " Matt. 27:46. Children, that was the biggest WHY that was ever uttered. Why did God forsake Jesus in His awful grief and pain?
It was because God is holy, Psa. 22:3. When Jesus was on the cross He was "made sin for us," sin itself, that thing that is so hateful to the holiness of God, and because of this God turned away His face.
We sometimes sing—
"But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night that the
Lord passed through
Ere He found His sheep that was
lost."
But it was more than even the waters of death that Jesus passed through when He was made sin for us, for the fire of God's judgment fell upon Him when His soul was made an offering for sin, Isa. 53:10.
When we think of Jesus suffering as the great Sin-bearer, we have to remember what God said to Moses when be turned aside to see the bush that burned with fire and yet was not consumed: "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground," Ex. 3:5.
Where is Jesus to-day?
He is in heaven, "and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him," 1 Peter 3:22. And those whose sins He once bore in His body on the tree, love to sing:
"In the glory's highest height"—
—there, where the holiness of God shines
clearest and brightest—
"See Him, God's supreme delight."
God has raised Him from the dead and given Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God. And if our faith and hope are in God, on whom will our love be set?
E. E. S.