The Search for the Lamb By Rev. M.D. Rogers

Revelation 5:1-14 

Almost all world religions, past and present, have or have had some type of blood-sacrifice ritual, in hopes that atonement might be made on their behalf to their god...a "search for the lamb." Those who believe in a god or gods have always searched for the right sacrifice, whether first born males, virgins, babies, animals or even themselves so they might appease the gods in this life or the next.

There was even a "search for the lamb" in the Old Testament, when bulls and goats and lambs were offered by commandment of the true and the living God, as a picture of the Perfect Lamb to come. In Gen.22:7-8 Isaac said, "Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together."

God initiated the Passover in Exodus 12 and said in verses 2-7, "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house...Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats...and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it." This was a precise "search for the lamb." 

But true worshipers of God in the Old Testament knew that the offering of animals could never substitute for the real thing. They continued to "search for the lamb" and longed for and prophesied the coming of the Lamb of God. Isaiah said in chapter 53, verse 7, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth."

We know this search for the lamb refers to Jesus for in Acts 8, when the Ethiopian eunuch was reading this passage and asked Philip who the prophet was talking about, verse 35 says, "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus."

But even a God-instituted religion becomes perverted and empty when it turns inward and worships the symbols instead of the Savior. That's what happened to Israel. Even though they talked about a Messiah and a search for the Lamb of Go, they were too self-centered to recognize Him when He came.

John the Baptist had to introduce their Messiah to them and they still would not believe it was Him. In John 1:29 John said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The "search for the lamb" must be for the true Lamb of God.

Yet, even today, people cling to the shadow of man-made religion, feeling empty, still searching, when they could have the real thing. The author of Hebrews in chapter 9, verse 12 said, "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.