Page 24 - Overcoming Addiction

Consider for a moment how attached an Israelite family would become to
the year old lamb that they brought into their home at Passover. For several days
they would feed this lamb by hand. The children would play with it. It might even
sleep in their beds. But on the night of the Passover they had to take this little
lamb and kill it. They had to take the blood of the lamb and put it upon their door
so that they would be spared by the death angel.
I recently read a true story about some men who invited a minister to join
them for lunch. They decided to serve lamb from a farm as the meat for lunch.
One of the men came to the minister around two in the afternoon, and apologized
that the lunch was not ready yet. He said that he and two other men had gone out
earlier that morning to kill and butcher the lamb for their lunch. However, when
they saw the lamb standing there, so trusting and innocent, they all began to bawl
at the thought of killing it. It took them three hours before they were able to bring
themselves to slay the lamb. I am sure that they were thinking of the Son of God
who went as a lamb to the slaughter and freely laid down His life for man, and
this was part of the reason for their great emotion.
The penalty of sin is always death. The life of some creature must atone for
sin. The soul of one creature must be surrendered in place of the soul of another.
By the death of one, another receives life.
Throughout the Old Testament Yahweh declared that the blood of animals
could be used to atone for the sin of mankind. Bulls, goats, sheep, and even birds
were killed, and their blood offered up to God in order to make atonement. These
sacrifices were never permanent, and had to be offered again and again, until a
perfect sacrifice should come that could make a perfect atonement for man. Only
another man could make such an atonement, and this man had to be without sin,
even as the Passover lamb had to be without spot or blemish. We understand that
this perfect man was Yahshua, Yah’s Salvation.

Hebrews 10:1
For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not
the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer
continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

Hebrews 9:13-14
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling
those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how
much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works
to serve the living God?

What is declared here is that the Law delivered to the children of Israel by
the hand of Moses contained only a type and shadow of the perfect atonement that
God would one day provide for the sin of man. The blood of bulls and goats would
serve as a substitute for the life of man until the blood of the Son of God was freely
given up as a perfect and eternal sacrifice on our behalf. When the Son of God
gave His life as a ransom for the life of sinful mankind, He put away for all time