No, the spiders don't go to school to study—it isn't necessary to teach a spider anything at all! Little spiders seem to know by instinct all they will ever need to know as soon as they are hatched.
A student found a shiny black spider and took that little spider—just that one little spider—to school for his teacher to identify.
The teacher easily identified it as a highly poisonous black widow, and put it in a closed jar in the classroom where the students could safely watch the spider taking care of her eggs.
Over the weekend the closed jar was left in the classroom. In due time the little eggs opened and out tumbled the tiny baby spiders. Out they came—out of the eggs, out of the jar, out of the classroom and all over the school.
School opened Monday morning as usual and the students clattered into a school building infested by about 400 baby black widow spiders—spiders so small they had slipped right through the tiny air holes in the metal lid of the glass jar.
Such pretty little babies they were, too. Not black like their mother, but striped brown and white and black. Small, and pretty, but just as dangerous as their mother. Soon ten students were on their way to the hospital to be treated for spider bites.
The exterminator was called in, with orders to "spare nothing toward getting rid of the things." Black widow spiders definitely don't belong in school!
It was easy to identify the adult black widow with the ominous red mark, like a little red stop sign, saying, "Don't touch!" And it is easy to identify what we think of as SIN—murder, robbery and such—but it isn't so easy to recognize that the so-called "little" sins—little white lies, half-truths, unkind thoughts, jealousies-as being just as deadly. Sin is SIN, in whatever form it shows itself.
The spiders could not be allowed to remain in the school, and sin will not be permitted to enter heaven. "Big" sins—"little" sins—no sin can enter there.
Then how can anyone be good enough for God's presence? The Bible tells us that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23). All, not just murderers and thieves, prostitutes and drug dealers, but also "the fearful, and unbelieving... and all liars." That covers everybody, doesn't it? "All have sinned."
And such small sins, as we would think them. "Unbelief," for instance, doesn't look very bad, but it is the key to all the rest. The Lord Jesus put it this way: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36).
There is the other side of the story, too, the answer to the old question: "How should a man be just with God?" Job 9:22I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God? (Job 9:2).