Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: There's a question that echoes across the centuries, first asked by a puzzled young man climbing a mountain with his father carrying firewood. Remember the scene? Isaac asked his dad, "Where's the lamb?" It is in many ways the question the entire Old Testament is asking. And the answer, when it finally comes, is staggering.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues to trace this thread from the altars of ancient Israel all the way to a moment beside the Jordan River when a voice cut through the crowd and said, "Behold, the lamb of God."

Chuck Swindoll: Thank you, our Father, that your Son is our Savior and that he, like a shepherd, leads us. And because we are only sheep, we tend to go our own way. We've read of that, but we knew before we read it that this is true. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned each one of us to his own way.

Thank you for laying all of our iniquity on another, for we could never have paid our own way into heaven. Thank you that Jesus paid it all. And we rest in his finished work this day. We worship our Savior, Jesus Christ. We magnify his name. We meet around his word. We sing his songs. We would glorify his name whether by life or by death.

Today, there are many who hurt. They grieve. They live with sorrows that have been brought on by this earth's catastrophes and heartaches and brokenness. I pray, Lord, that you will bring comfort and hope and reassurance from what is declared this day. Comfort and guide them into decisions that need to be made. And if it's to wait, may they make that decision as well.

Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not be weary. They will not faint as they walk on. There are those who have lost their way, and attempting to find their way back to you, they have come to this house of worship. I pray that you will guide very clearly as they discover the path that leads to peace through faith in your Son.

Some come this day rejoicing. Your hand has been good to them, and you've provided abundantly. And we with them rejoice and are grateful for your provision. Thank you for those whom you have healed. Thank you for those whom you have given new hope. Thank you for those who celebrate births of new babies.

We pray that you would meet the deepest needs of our lives. And those who grieve the loss of loved ones and family, reduce us all in our awareness to that of a lamb, a needy, dependent lamb, that we might see ourselves as we really are: wholly in need of what you provide. In the name of the Savior, Jesus, we pray. And everyone said, amen.

Bill Meyer: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into today's topic on your own, be sure to purchase our searching the scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message, "The Lamb That Was Slaughtered."

Chuck Swindoll: Surely the thought of a lamb did not impress the shakers and movers of the first century in the Middle East. I mean, there certainly were some Type A individuals who got word of this man who was taking Galilee by storm. I mean, people were being swept into his teaching, and they were following him by the thousands.

And then word gets back to someone's headquarters and they hear, "Did you hear that he's known as the lamb?" The lamb? You sang the words to the song, and it's my favorite part of the song we sang: Who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men? Now, why would the songwriter put that in there? Because you don't think of lambs as rescuing anyone.

You rescue lambs. Lambs don't rescue you, unless, of course, the lamb is the lamb of God. 1 Corinthians 5, beginning at verse 6, Paul is writing the people of Corinth, and he's urging them to clean up their lives. They were a people who danced near the edge of disobedience. They were what we might call a fast culture.

And because of that, Paul had to rein them in. And one of the ways of doing it was to remind them of the importance of getting rid of the leaven. In the scriptural days, leaven was a symbol. It was a word representing sin. Look at how Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 5:6. "Your boasting is not good." They'd been boasting about how full of grace they were when, in fact, it was license.

He said, "That's not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Do you not realize that when you put just a little leaven, the dough will all rise? It's not just a little part of it." And it's a picture of sin. A little bit of sin and the life is contaminated.

The presence of sin and the life is on its way to becoming shattered. So he says, "Clean up your life." A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap your character. Sow your character, reap your destiny. That's Paul's concern here.

And so he now turns to the picture of Christ the lamb, Christ the Passover, verse 7. "Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are, in fact, unleavened," meaning in your position, you are as righteous as the Son of God is righteous, so in your life, you must be as well. For Christ, here it is, Christ our Passover has also been sacrificed.

Isn't that a marvelous statement? We no longer come to an altar and slice the throat of an animal and the blood pours out, as happened day after day after day on Jewish altars. We come to our Savior who is our Passover, and in him, in him forgiveness is found. In him alone there is purpose and reason to go on with our lives.

The Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Let me add this: he never needs to be sacrificed again. It is called a finished work. Christ said while hanging on the cross, "Tetelestai," the very word he used. It has been finished. It has been completed. It is done. Paid for, paid in full. At that moment, the lamb of God took care of that which had forever plagued humanity.

Past, present, and future, the sins of humanity taken care of. Now, this isn't an afterthought with God. This is part of the plan since the foundations of the world. In fact, Isaiah 53 prophesied of it way back 700 BC. This is one of the clearest and longest of all the predictions, or if you will, prophecies in the scriptures.

What is interesting about prophecy is that frequently you will find prophecies not only declared in scripture, but fulfilled in scriptural times. Here's a case in point. Isaiah writes of the lamb who was to be slaughtered, picturing the coming Messiah. So Isaiah is looking ahead 700 years or so for the coming of Messiah.

And please observe how he describes the scene. You would think he was an eyewitness, though he wrote seven centuries before the fact. Verse 3 of Isaiah 53, "He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him."

It's a picture of shunning. Have nothing to do with him. Discount his importance. They hide their face from him. You do that when you are shunning another individual. You turn away from them. You discount their presence, their lives. You shun them. You do not esteem them.

And that's the picture here. And then with that in mind, Isaiah goes further to describe the price that was paid. "Surely our griefs he himself bore. Our sorrows he carried. And yet even in that day yet to come, we esteemed him stricken and smitten of God and afflicted." He got what he had coming.

How many of those standing around the cross saw that as simply a man getting his just desserts? Any man who claims that he's God blasphemes, and a blasphemer needs to be put to death. That's first century thinking. And they did not realize, that's why Jesus said while on the cross, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing."

But look at verse 5. "He was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell on him, and by his scourging, we are healed." This is one of the classic verses on the substitutionary death of Christ. Look at it closely. Our iniquities, our sin, our transgressions fell on him.

He took our place. He entered into it as if it were his own. Paul wrote later, "He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, and in him alone." That's why Jesus could say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me."

No other death would pay our debt to God. No other lamb would be qualified, for all the others are spotted and blemished. He is the spotless lamb. Scripture makes that clear. Three statements: he knew no sin, had no sin, did no sin. The spotless lamb of God took our place. And why did we need that?

Verse 6, probably the best statement of depravity in all the Old Testament. Look at the whole picture. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. And now he individualizes it. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

J. Alec Motyer writes this: "The picture of straying sheep summarizes all our inadequacy and all our errancy of nature. We all and each express both common culpability and individual responsibility. We cannot blame the herd instinct, even though we all alike are implicated. Each sin of every sinner would be like a separate wound in the heart of this man of sorrows."

Interesting, isn't it, that we live in a time in which we must convince people that really the problem is sin? The problem is a sinful condition. And it required the death of the Savior in order for that sin to be cleansed. And God, in his righteousness, demanded the sacrifice of blood.

And it was the blood of the Savior that brought that kind of healing and cleansing. Hanging on the cross, he bore all our sin. Get this: past, present, future. The complete payment for sin was made for those of us who have gone astray, who have turned to our own way.

And then as if to drive the point finally home yet again, verse 7, "He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to slaughter." Lambs when going to slaughter go with blind compliance regardless of the destination. They go where they're led.

The servant Savior, however, goes with knowing submission. He knew when he came that he came to this earth to die. Maligned, mistreated, misunderstood. We read here, "Like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, he did not open his mouth." I don't know if you remember seeing the Passion of the Christ.

If you did, you will never forget the scene. I know I won't. In fact, there were times in that film sitting right beside Cynthia, and I noticed she too, both of us had to just look down. You could hardly bear what you were witnessing in the scourging.

But what stood out to me is the silence of this lamb of God. Doesn't burst forth with cursing. Doesn't scream out words of retaliation. He took it. They punched him with their fists. They put the crown of thorns on him. They nailed his hands and feet with Roman spikes.

And his words come full of forgiveness. And finally, it is finished. 700 years before Christ, Isaiah writes of it. We move ahead to John chapter 1. And in doing so, we move from 700 BC to AD 25, 26, somewhere around there as Jesus begins his ministry.

John chapter 1 includes the announcement of the baptizer, his forerunner, the one who leads the way before the Savior becomes that well known. John is preparing the way for the one who is yet to come. And I love his humility. Verse 26, "John answered them saying, 'I baptize in water, but among you stands one whom you do not know. It is he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.'"

These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. Now look closely. The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." What makes this so amazing is that 700 years before John made this announcement, Isaiah had written of him as the lamb who would be led to slaughter.

John says, "There he is. There he is." It's a good time for me to add that when you are speaking to another person about the subject of faith, focus your conversation on the person of Christ. Not on the generalities of religion, not on the subject of church and church attendance. Focus it on Christ.

Remember the words of John. Behold the lamb of God. Stay with the person of Christ. Remind the individual of the work that Christ has done on the cross in bearing our sins and taking away our iniquities. That's John's announcement to his followers on that day. Behold the lamb of God.

Magnificent statement. Now, let's move ahead to right around AD 65. John was looking at, Isaiah was looking ahead, Peter now looks back on the finished fact, the accomplished work of Christ. 1 Peter chapter 1. Last stop off, I promise.

I know some of you are thinking, my finger's getting tired going from one thing to another. Well, if it was all in one section, I'd leave us there, but it's not. I didn't write it. I just read it and teach from it. 1 Peter chapter 1. Love this verse of scripture. "Knowing that you were not," verse 18, "that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold from your futile way of life."

Constantly in this culture, constantly there's the emphasis on money. I guarantee you, you tune into the news anytime through this day, and it won't be two hours, it'll probably be less, before you'll hear something mentioned about money. Money, investment, money, money. It's been constant theme in these recent weeks.

We're not redeemed with filthy lucre. We're not redeemed with dollars and cents. If you had multiple billions of dollars, by the way, you used to have it, you don't have it now. But regardless of the amount, you could not pay your way into heaven. That's the whole point. You're not redeemed that way.

Verse 19, "Then how are we redeemed? From the precious blood as of a lamb," there it is again, "unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." During his lifetime, W.A. Criswell would often include in his way of life the writing of a number of books.

And my library is filled with most of what Dr. Criswell wrote. I pulled the book he wrote on 1 Peter off my shelf just this past week. And when I got to verses 18 and 19, I found myself in a wonderful place to read. Listen to Criswell's words.

"It is easy to fall into the habit of preaching about the gospel but not the gospel itself. However, when we speak on and expound a text like ours," meaning the verses I just read, "we are brought back to the heart of the gospel message of Christ. This is one way of discovering whether the message is of God or of men. In so many areas of the modern liberal Christian world, the preaching of the blood is offensive. I have been in churches where hymns on the blood have been purged from all the hymnbooks. And the liberal theologian looks upon a text such as ours as a religion of the butcher shop. But the presentation of the whole revelation of God in the scriptures is ever the same. There is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood from the beginning of Genesis to the book of the Revelation. The gospel story is that Christ has come into the world to die for our sins according to the scriptures."

And then, I love it that Criswell often would do this, he quotes from the great gospel song. "What can wash away my sin?" Answer that. "Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes us white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus."

That comes from the very heart of the gospel. That comes from the Lord himself. My Son, you are to go. And just as Isaac was to be offered up by Abraham, so the Son was offered up for our sins in the exact plan and unfolding of the plan of salvation for us.

That's not the theology of the butcher shop. That's the theology of the biblical record. It takes the blood to wash away the sins of the world. It, as one man put it so well, it is the greatest detergent ever known to humanity. It continues to wash away sin.

The reason you have forgiveness is because of the blood of Christ that was poured out on that cross to redeem you from a slave market from which you could never redeem yourself. Isaiah looked ahead, John looked at, Peter looks back, and his concern is that we live lives in light of that.

Lives of purity. See verse 17? Look here. "If you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth." His emphasis is that we be holy as our God is holy. And that's up in verses 15 and 16.

You maybe have been reared in a culture where the blood was not mentioned. Certainly, in this day in which we live, it is becoming less and less a thing of importance. But if you have been in that culture, you have missed the point of the Savior's death. Without the giving, the shedding, the pouring out of the blood, there is no forgiveness of our sins.

Bill Meyer: From Genesis to the New Testament, the message never wavers: without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. The lamb was not incidental to God's plan. He was the plan. And because Christ has been sacrificed once and for all, we're called to live differently, purely, with reverence before a holy God.

You're listening to Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll titled today's message, "The Lamb That Was Slaughtered." It's message number seven in a 12-part series called "How Great Is Our God." To learn more about God and his amazing character traits, be sure to access the helpful resources from Insight for Living.

We have the interactive Bible study and the audio files that accompany this series. You'll find them all and a special bundle of related resources online at insight.org/offer. Chuck has spent a lifetime pointing people toward the God who is greater than any fear, crisis, or question.

And one of the most persistent questions people ask is: what comes next? What is heaven really like? Who will be there? And what does heaven have to do with how I live my life right now? That's exactly why the team at Insight for Living has created a resource for you called "The Understanding Heaven Passport."

This short guide answers the questions you've actually been asking: what heaven is really like and what it means for your life today. The best part is, it's completely free. You can download "The Understanding Heaven Passport" right now at insight.org/heaven.

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I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll describes the heart of the gospel, the spotless lamb of God, Thursday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "The Lamb That Was Slaughtered," was copyrighted in 2008, 2009, 2016, 2019, and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll, Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.