Page 23 - Overcoming Addiction

Yahweh spoke to Moses and told him to inform the people to prepare to
leave in haste. What was about to take place would foreshadow a day when
Yahweh would suddenly free mankind from slavery to sin. He instructed all Israel
to take a lamb into their households on the tenth day of the first month. It had to
be a male lamb, one year old, and it had to be without spot or blemish. After the
lamb lived with them in their home for several days, they were to slay the lamb on
the fourteenth day of the month, and they were to place the blood of the lamb on
the doorposts and lintel at the entryway of their home.
Yahweh said that on that night He would send forth the death angel, and the
firstborn male of every family in Egypt, and the firstborn male of all cattle, would
die. Only if the death angel saw the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and lintel
of the home, he would pass over that home and none would die.
Although the Israelites did not understand it at the time, what they were
signifying by the blood of the lamb applied to their doorways, is that this lamb
was serving as a substitutionary sacrifice for them. This lamb was giving up its
life that they might live. Prophetically this looked forward to the day when
Yahweh would send His Son as a Passover lamb to shed His blood and surrender
His life that mankind might live.
Sin must always be atoned for by blood. As the apostle Paul declared in the
book of Hebrews:

Hebrews 9:22
And with blood almost all things are purified according to the law, and
apart from blood-shedding forgiveness doth not come.
[Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible]

Apart from blood-shedding forgiveness does not come! What is significant
about the shedding of blood? The Scriptures declare the following:

Genesis 9:4
“You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

Leviticus 17:11
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the
altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the
life that makes atonement.”

The life of a creature is in the blood. As we study the Hebrew word used in
these verses that is translated into English as life, we find that it is the word
nephesh. This word is also translated as the English word soul. What God is
revealing to mankind is that the blood of an animal contains its soul, and the soul
of the animal is given to make atonement for the soul of man. “For it is the blood
by reason of the (nephesh - soul) that makes atonement.”
It is important that all mankind understand that sin is never simply forgiven
and forgotten. It must always be atoned for. “Apart from blood-shedding
forgiveness does not come.” This makes the consequences of our sin very serious.