Jn 1:29 "Behold - the lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world" has little meaning for people today, but for the Israelites who applied the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts (Ex.12) it was tremendously significant. When the destroyer saw the blood, they were protected, and 430 years of slavery finished. Jesus is God's provision for our sinfulness, and His blood still speaks. Get a fresh revelation of the power of the blood of Jesus for your freedom.
I’m going to start first of all on John 1:29. We’re going to look in about two or three places in the Bible. The Bible is God’s word. It explains to us God’s plan. It’s made up into two parts – what’s called the Old Testament and then the New Testament. So, I’m going to read to you just one verse. Then we’re going to look in the Old Testament.
“The next day, John the Baptist saw Jesus Christ coming towards him and said: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”” John was especially prepared and commissioned by God to prepare the nation for the arrival of Jesus Christ. His message was – repent from sin and people came from all over the nation. He was preparing them to receive the blessings that God had for them.
One day as he’s baptising, he saw Jesus Christ walking towards him. God spoke into his heart and spoke and revealed who Jesus is; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. John, who was a prophet, says this: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Now, to most of us, that has very little meaning whatsoever. But to the people he was speaking to, this had immense significance.
The problem mankind has wrestled with has been the issue of sin. Sin is transgressing or breaking the laws of God. Sin is running our life independent of God. Sin is finding ways to get ourselves ahead without God. Sin is being turned away from God to our own way. Sin brings destruction and death. The Bible says – the wages or consequences of sin is always separation, isolation, death.
God never intended our world to be like it is – with wars and violence and poverty and crime. He created the world a beautiful place. When he created it, he said it was good. But when sin entered the world, when the man God had created turned away from Him, the whole dynamic of this creation changed. Demonic spirits were empowered into the earth. Demonic spirits began to oppress people. When Adam sinned, sickness and death and sorrows entered the world.
But God promised one day, He would send someone who would redeem them. Someone who would deal with the issue of sin. Now in all the religions of the world, the challenge is: how do you deal with sin? In all the religions of the world, are aware of the issue of sin. They all have a similar way of dealing with it – you have to do something. We’ll show you very shortly that Christianity is completely different; that the core foundation for becoming right with God is not what I do, it’s not what you do, it’s what Jesus Christ did for us.
So we’re going to look at the Old Testament – we’ll go into the book of Exodus. So if you’ll just follow me, we won’t look at too many verses. We just want to lay a story for you. So we’ll look in Exodus and we’ll first of all look in Exodus chapter 1, so we get the picture. Exodus 1 –So it’s talking about the people of God and they’re in Egypt.
It says in verse 11: “The Egyptians set taskmasters over them to afflict them with burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was very hard.” They even sent them to kill their firstborn children.
So what is happening is, the people of God are trapped in a foreign nation. They’re living in slavery. None of us is made to be slave to anything. God has made us for freedom. We long for freedom. But these people were in bondage. They were in bondage to the Egyptians and the Egyptians put hard taskmasters over them. They beat them, they abused them, they made them serve. Their life was very bitter, very difficult. They suffered, they were beaten, they were abused, they worked hard, very little return. They had no freedom to run their own life. They were held in slavery. They were trafficked. Their lives were very miserable.