Worthy Is The Lamb: Part Two

Well, here we are, two days away from the holiday known as Christmas.

Did you know that the word that we use, called “holiday” comes from the old English word, “haligdæg”?

And of course throughout time and ages, this word evolved and became the word that we now recognize to be “holiday”

This word, from its original root, means, “holy day” and it referred to, “a holy day, consecrated day, religious anniversary”.

Then in and around the 1400-1500’s the word morphed in its meaning to a more secular understanding of, “a day on which ordinary occupations (of an individual or a community) are suspended; a day of exemption or cessation from work; a day of festivity, recreation, or amusement.”

The phrase, “Happy Holidays” became popularized and can be seen in usage, as early as 1863, in such publications, as the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Then, in the early 20th century, companies like the R.J. Reynold’s Tobacco company, began using the phrase, “Happy Holidays”, to promote the buying and use of their tobacco products for the holiday season!

Slide 1: Camel Happy Holiday

I found a couple of ads similar to this, extremely humorous. Like this one:

Slide 2: Thanksgiving Camels.

I have tried cigarettes and other types of tobacco in my past and I can honestly say that I never found my digestion improved from any of them!

But supposedly, smoking a Camel after each portion of the meal, is going to improve my digestion and thus increase the benefit and enjoyment of the meal!

Slide 3:

And as is common for the world of marketing, the concept of doing whatever it takes to make the product more appealing and thus sell more, produced the blending of the jolly ol’ elf himself, Santa and cigarettes, as well as other products for the HOLIDAY season!

And as is common for the world of marketing, the concept of doing whatever it takes to make the product more appealing and thus sell more, produced the blending of the jolly ol’ elf himself, Santa and cigarettes, as well as other products for the HOLIDAY season!

Here are but a few examples of ads that came out from years past with such marketing for the “holiday season”.

Slide 3: Pall Mall Santa

Slide 4: Lucky Strike Santa

Slide 5:Chesterfield Santa

Slide 6: Whitman’s Santa

Slide 7: Coca Cola Santa

I mean, I think that I had it all wrong as a kid. I used to think that the big guy in the red suit was up on the roof getting the toys ready to bring in.

It turns out, he was puffing on cigarettes, eating chocolates and drinking Cokes!

You would almost expect to see a news report of where his sleigh took out someone’s house, because he went into a diabetic coma and stroked out from hypertension, due to all of the nicotine caffeine, sugar and carbs that he was ingesting!

Anyway, getting back to the word “holiday” and of its original meaning of being a “holy day”.

As I sat Thursday, reading and writing some, at home, and pondering over the “holiday” of Christmas, I glanced over at the Nativity scene in our dining room ( SHOW PICTURE OF NATIVITY SCENE) and I began to stair at it and think about that special moment in time; the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

There would have been no thought on that night given to festivities and parties and gift buying and decorating and all of the things that we associate with the “holiday/holy day” known as Christmas.

I know personally, from the birth of our own children, that our minds were not on organizing dinners and parties for guests to come and behold the newborn babe. No, rather, you simply find yourself just staring, lost and completely enamored by the beauty of those little faces.

Their innocence and need for physical touch and comfort makes the moment so special when you first hold them!

Every little sound and every little movement that they do and make, you take it in and cherish it.

It’s like something changes in your heart and you begin to act all together different around that newborn babe!

Grown men make funny sounds and faces when they hold their little ones and we don’t even realize that we are doing it!

It’s like the world around you stops and the only thing that you can see and hear and focus upon, are those tiny little people that you have been a part of creating!

The moment that their God given primitive reflex of palmar grasp kicks in and that newborn babe grabs your finger with one of their tiny little hands, your heart melts completely!

So, on the night of the birth of the Christ child, how much more pronounced would this all have been?!

Think about it for a second. Mary and Joseph had just witnessed the birth of a child that came through immaculate conception! That is, they both knew that this baby was not from them and their own doing. (THIS WAS A MIRACLE UNLIKE ANY EVER SEEN BEFORE, OR THAT WOULD EVER OCCUR AGAIN!)

We, as a people, are engrossed by and will flock, to behold anomalies that are rare and “once in a lifetime” events, right.

For instance, thousands of people came to the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens in June of 2014, to witness a cactus that had bloomed!

In optimal growing conditions, this rare plant’s stalks can grow up to 26 feet high and produce some 8,000 flowers.

This cactus, known as the “Queen of the Andes”, only blooms once every 80-150 years.

BUT, this cactus only blooms and produces these flowers, once every 80 to 150 years !

A cultivated “Queen of the Andes” bloomed at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens in June of 2014 and THOUSANDS of people flocked to witness this rarity!

Or one of the more well known “once in a life-time” events, is the passing of Haley’s Comet, which passes by the earth, once every 75 years.

This very familiar comet

So, technically, this could be a twice in a life-time event for some people.

Or maybe the comet known as Hale-Bopp, which last passed by the earth in the 1990’s, which is truly a “once in a life-time” event.

This comet will not pass by the earth again, for another 2,392 years!

My point is, people go to great lengths to witness and be a part of these, “once in a life-time” happenings.

We marvel at them and count ourselves “fortunate” to have been a part of them!

What about a “once in all eternity” event?

I mean, have you ever stopped and thought about what might have been going through the minds of Mary and Joseph on that night, as they held the one, true literal Son of God in their arms?!

And they knew that this was the

What would you say, what would you do, at that moment, when it finally happens?

The immaculate conception has been fulfilled and the birth of the Son of God unfolds before your very eyes! WHAT DO YOU AT THAT MOMENT, as you behold the Christ child?

Probably the Christmas song title “Silent Night” describes it best, because I really don’t think that there was a lot of talking taking place, from either parent, or the onlookers who arrived.

I think just witnessing His birth and seeing the newly born messiah would have come with a presence unlike anything that man had ever experienced before and too great for words.

I have an image in my head of the angelic hosts of heaven looking down upon their Lord, in this tiny human form, while this young husband and wife held Him.

The whole scene would have been permeated with perfect peace!

HE IS THE PRINCE OF PEACE you know, it resides with Him at all times, wherever He is at!

And when you are in His presence, you can either allow that peace to permeate your heart and mind, or you can resist it and cling to the hate and bitterness of this world!

That is exactly what happened whenever the religious zealots who hated Jesus, were around Him. They refused to allow His peace and love to enter and change their hearts. They were, as Jesus said, like white-washed tombs, appearing clean on the outside, but putrid and filthy on the inside!

As tells us, “ To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.”

To anyone who’s heart is repentant and tender and is seeking true and lasting PEACE, they find it completely in Jesus, because their hearts and minds are pure and are thus met with the PEACE that surpasses all understanding.

To the unrepentant and hardened hearts of others, nothing is pure. Even when Holy Spirit is speaking to them and beckoning them to come and let Him in, they only sense hostility and bitterness and reject Him!

But, on that night ,some 2,000 years ago, the Prince of Peace had arrived on this earth and it would change everything, for all time!

And as much as His birth would forever change the course of humanity, as man would now have access to come boldly before God, free and clear of their sinful past and never again having to make a sacrifice for their sins, their still remained one very important step in the process of our salvation that had to take place.

This newborn babe that lay in a feeding trough on the first Christmas night, this prophesied Messiah that had come, the baby Jesus, would have to grow up, become man, live a perfect and sinless life, only to be sacrificed for the sins of all mankind!

As I mentioned last week, the irony of His life was that He came and lived a perfect, sinless life, only to have to become the sin of all mankind!

, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

I received a phone call late Friday afternoon, from someone very near and dear to my heart. She is going through a divorce right now, because her husband up and walked out on her.

She had received some papers Friday from her attorney that she had to look over. As she began to read over the papers, it unfolded as to what her husband was doing. He was making horrible accusations about her throughout their marriage, as to why he had to leave. Unwarranted and untrue accusations, so as to deface her and make her look guilty before the judge and thus justify his leaving.

She wept as she told me this and said that she couldn’t believe that someone that she had poured herself into and had never cheated on, would lie and say such horrible things about her.

I thought about it and wondered after we hung up, if knowing what she knows now, about how he would end up treating her and what all he would lie about and put her through, would she still have entered into their marriage anyway?

I feel fairly certain, having talked with her about all of this, that she would give a resounding “NO”, for an answer!

Yet Jesus, in full knowledge of who we were and what we would end doing to Him, came anyway and dwelt among us.

From the fall of man in the garden and throughout the Old Testament prophets, God made it clear that there would be one who would come to pay a price and ransom back God’s people.

Jesus was that one and He had full knowledge of it before ever coming to this earth as a man.

The Bible says that

, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

I am continuing this morning, with what I started talking about last week, and that is Jesus Christ coming to this earth as the “Lamb of God”.

You know, in thinking about the night when Jesus was born and of what all Mary and Joseph might have had going through their minds, all of the events that had to take place to lead to that one moment in time! I mean, WOW, it must have been sensory overload for this young Hebrew mother! The Bible tells us that “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”

Did she have a clue about what this child really meant for her and for the world?

All she really knew, as was foretold by the angel Gabriel, was that this baby, this Jesus, was to be the Son of God and that He would come to save His people from their sins.

But what did that mean for Him, or for her, or for their family?

Gabriel had told her that, “The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

That sounded great, right? I mean, her son was the Son of God and He would reign upon the throne of David forever!

Who wouldn’t want to have the foreknowledge that their child was of royalty and that they would reign in power forever?!

What could possibly go wrong with that, right?!

And what about that part of saving the people from their sins? What could that entail?

I mean, let’s face it, Jesus was the Son of Jehovah, what could happen to the Son of God, right?

We have glimpses of the fact that Mary did not fully understand the role of her Son and what His coming to this earth truly entailed for Him.

When Jesus was 12 years old, He and His family went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.

When they were leaving, they lost Jesus and in searching for Him, found Him three days later in the temple listening to and talking with the religious leaders, who marvelled at this child’s knowledge!

Mary questioned His leaving them and Jesus said to her, “Why did you need to search?Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

And the very next verse says, “But they didn’t understand what he meant.”

Mary and Joseph didn’t totally and fully understand what all Jesus’ coming meant.

At the wedding in Cana of Galilee, Mary came and asked Jesus to help out with the wine shortage for the celebration.

Mary knew that Jesus could do miracles, but for what purpose?

And Jesus told her, “My time has not yet come”, to which Mary just turn to the servants and tell them to do whatever Jesus commanded them to do.

In other words, Jesus’ statement to her went right over her head.

In , we find Jesus’ own “family” saying that He was insane and then a few verses later Mary and his brothers find Him and try to speak with Him about what He is doing.

Again, they could see things happening, but they really didn’t have a clue as to the overall purpose or the finality of His coming.

My point is this. Mary, like other people, knew that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God and that He could do many great things. BUT, they failed to make the connection between the Old Testament prophecies about Him and what would eventually happen to Him.

and , both mention that He would be “like a LAMB that is led to the slaughter”.

And thus I return to my question from last week, “Why was Jesus titled a “lamb”?

I told you last week that in order for this to make better sense, you would need to understand a few things.

First, you need to clear your minds and your thought patterns about the natural/physical warring that Jesus came to do.

Jesus did not come to this earth to fight a physical war. Jesus came to this physical world, to pay a spiritual price!

The next thing that I mentioned that we needed a more clear understanding of, was what exactly was that spiritual price that Jesus came to pay? What was the ransom payment to free you and I from our bondage to sin and death?

answers this for us, “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless LAMB of God.”

And this verse pulls two things together. First, it answers what the ransom price for our very souls was and second, it ties that ransom price to the very image that God had put into place thousands of years before Jesus ever came.

The ransom price was to be “blood” and the blood was to come from a “SPOTLESS LAMB”.

And this is why God instituted a LAMB as the sacrificial animal for the Passover in Egypt and also to be offered up daily by the priests in the temple as a covering for the sins of the people.

Because, in due time, God was sending the perfect LAMB of GOD to pay an eternal price for all men!

goes on to say, “God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.”

God chose Jesus, through His sovereignty, to become the ransom payment for you and I, as the sacrificial LAMB, before the world was ever created!

If the fact that His coming to ransom us was decided before the world was ever even created doesn’t boggle your minds, then the fact that Jesus came to this sinful earth knowing that He was going to suffer immeasurably and die for a people who would reject Him and hate Him and yet He did it anyway........that one should blow your minds completely!

, “Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

We never deserved the ransom price that He paid. It was far too costly and even today, He and His gospel message are still being ridiculed and mocked and rejected by many!

And yet, Jesus, at just right time, died for us. The LAMB OF GOD paid the ransom price in full by the shedding of His innocent blood and forever washing away our sins!

Were you worth it? Was I worth it? Did we deserve it? Did we earn that ransom?

NO.............our works of righteousness are as filthy rags. Our lives were sinful and thus our wages for that sin should have been eternal death!

“But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The third thing that I mentioned last week that would somewhat help us to better understand why Jesus is compared to a LAMB, is a better understanding about the attributes and the nature of a lamb and a sheep.

This understanding about sheep and lambs, also pertain to us, as we follow our Good Shepherd.

I read from some different websites about the characteristics of sheep and how to raise them and what a person needed to know and understand about them. These were websites that were created by people who actually raise sheep for a living, so I would consider them pretty credible, right?

First, sheep are best known for their strong flocking and following instinct. They band together in large groups for protection. This is the only protection they have from predators. There is safety in numbers.

tells us to not forsake the assembling together!

Hebrews 10:25 NKJV

25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

As a corporate body, A FLOCK, we are stronger than if we go rogue and solo!

Interestingly enough, in regions where sheep have no natural predators, none of the native breeds of sheep exhibit a strong flocking behavior. (When they feel secure, they become independent and go rogue!)

Next point, when one sheep moves, the rest will follow, even if it is not a good idea.

Mention the death of 400 sheep in 2006 in eastern Turkey.

Sheep need a good leader, that is, they need a shepherd to lead and guide them.

The Bible says that we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; that without a shepherd, we become like food for the wild beasts (the enemy).

Whoever a sheep sees as the leader, they will follow. Who is our Good Shepherd?.

From birth, lambs are taught to follow the older members of the flock.

The dominant members of the flock usually lead.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, followed the dominant One in His life; His Father!

It wasn’t the Roman soldiers that lead the Lamb of God up the hill to Golgotha and to the Cross of Calvary.

The Lamb of God was following the One whose voice He knew and trusted.

ELABORATE ON THE PAIN OF THE FATHER TAKING HIS SON’S HAND AND LEADING HIM.

Sheep are very domestic and social animals. They like company. It is a fact that sheep, especially lambs, become very agitated and unsettled when they are separated from the other sheep, or their shepherd, their leader.

And yet, I am reminded of the promise of the one whom we follow, who has guaranteed us His favor and protection, Yahweh, Himself. The Bible says, “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Sheep are highly dependent upon their senses for survival and thriving.

Sheep have a very interesting sense of vision. By the position of their eyes to the sides of their head and the fact that their pupils are large and rectangular, they can have a field of vision of up to 306 degrees!

And yet, sheep have poor depth perception (three dimensional vision), especially if they are moving with their heads up and cannot make out a lot of details. (Remember walking off of the cliff?!)

When it comes to hearing, they have amazing hearing. Each ear can pinpoint sounds from different locations at once. And yet, their hearing is so sensitive, that loud or unsettling sounds, can override what they need to hear, as in the shepherd’s voice.

So, although they have amazing eyes for visual field and amazing hearing for danger alerts, technically, depending upon where they are and who they are with, they are like Jesus said of many of us in the Bible, “ Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?”

And with their hearing and sound processing, sheep, very quickly, come to know the sound of their leader and their shepherd and they WILL NOT follow any other voice.

For this reason, Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

And as to the Lamb of God, Himself, following His leader, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.”

And these last two points are very relevant as to Jesus being titled, the Lamb of God.

When in imminent danger sheep rarely vocalize. They will stay quiet when in danger many times.

The Bible says this of Jesus, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent!”

says, “When he was verbally abused, he did not return with an insult; when he suffered, he would not threaten retaliation. Jesus faithfully entrusted himself into the hands of God, who judges righteously.”

Sheep have an amazing tolerance to pain. Because they do not show pain they are less vulnerable to predators that look for those who are weak or injured.

In , we read,

Matthew 27:33–34 NLT

33 And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”). 34 The soldiers gave Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it.

Wine mixed with gall was offered to Jesus to help reduce his pain, but Jesus refused to drink it. Gall is generally understood to be a narcotic that was used to deaden pain. Jesus would suffer fully conscious and with a clear mind, so as to be able to carry out everything that was required of Him!

A lamb, in all respects, is very trusting and innocent. In fact they are the very picture of innocence.

C.H. Spurgeon said this of lambs, “A lamb is so guileless and unsuspicious that it licks the butcher’s hand, and those who seek to destroy it, find it easy work. So have the saints been killed all the day long: they are accounted as sheep for the slaughter; and the accusation of James is true, “You have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you.”

Jesus, the Lamb of God, freely went to the cross and never resisted those who sought to kill Him.

“Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”

A lambs wool is a pure and brilliant white. White is the sign of purity and as the Bible tells us, “Come now, let us reason," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.”

The perfect crimson blood of the Lamb of God, purifies us and washes our filthy, staining sins away, so that we will become white as snow, white as wool!

In Paul said,

1 Corinthians 5:7 NLT

7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.

Paul was saying that our sin was like the old yeast and that now, we are like a new batch of dough, without the yeast, because, “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.”

As Spurgeon said, “A lamb is so guileless and unsuspicious that it licks the butcher’s hand, and those who seek to destroy it, find it easy work”, there is a story that matches up with this.

I heard the story of a man who worked at a slaughter house. It was his job to cut the throat of the animals. The company had not slaughtered sheep. Then one day they began to work, also, with sheep. This slaughter house man put his knife to the first lamb that came through the line. The man slit the throat of that lamb. The animal saw the blood on the mans hand looked up at him and then licked the blood off his hand. I'm told the man quit his job. The humble lamb touched his heart.

I heard the story of a man who worked at a slaughter house. It was his job to cut the throat of the animals. The company had not slaughtered sheep. Then one day they began to work, also, with sheep. This slaughter house man put his knife to the first lamb that came through the line. The man slit the throat of that lamb. The animal saw the blood on the mans hand looked up at him and then licked the blood off his hand. I'm told the man quit his job. The humble lamb touched his heart.

This is exactly what Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, did for us.

He saw the stain of sin upon us and even at the cost of His own life, made sure that we were washed clean and spotless!

It was John the Baptist who had the revelation of who Jesus the Christ was, as he said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jesus, born in this world innocent and pure, some 2,000 years ago, as the spotless Lamb of God, has washed away the sins of the world, by the shedding of His blood!

This is why we read what John saw in heaven in ,

Revelation 5:11–14 NLT

11 Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. 12 And they sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered— to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang: “Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.” 14 And the four living beings said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb.