H. A. Ironside, the great California preacher of the early 1900s, once told this story: “One morning I was startled to see an old ewe loping across the road, followed by the strangest looking lamb I had ever seen. It had six legs, and the last two were hanging useless as though paralyzed.

“The ewe’s own lamb had died, and this sex-legged lamb was an orphan that needed a mother’s care. But at first the bereft ewe refused to have anything to do with the orphan.  So the herders took the fleece from the lamb that had died and placed it over the living lamb. Thus covered, the lamb was brought again to the ewe. This time she seemed thoroughly satisfied and adopted it as her own.”

He concluded, “This is a beautiful picture of the grace of God to sinners. We are all outcasts and have no claim on His love. But God’s own Son, ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29), has died for us, and now we who believe are dressed in the righteousness of the Lamb who died.”

Think about what this means to you today.

Tags: acceptance, lamb, substitute