1. Abraham offered a lamb as a sacrifice in the place of his son, Isaac, Genesis 22:1-14. That was a foreshadow (a prophecy by example) that God’s innocent Lamb would someday be slaughtered in the place of the guilty.

2. When Israel started to leave Egyptian bondage, Exodus 12, every man took a lamb, verse 3, and slaughtered it as a deliverance sacrifice to God, verses 5-7. That, too, was a foreshadow of the future slaughter of God’s Lamb.

3. Jeremiah the prophet had specifically predicted of God’s Lamb, "But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered," Jeremiah 11:19.

4. Listen to the prophet Isaiah as he spoke of God’s Lamb. "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 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 opened not his mouth," Isaiah 53:3-7.

B. Now, folks, all these prophecies of God’s Lamb being slaughtered were speaking of Jesus.

1. In Acts 8:27-28, the man from Ethiopia was reading from Isaiah 53. Acts 8:32-33 says, "The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearers, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation: For his life is taken from the earth." When in verse 34 he wondered of whom this was speaking, "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus," verse 35. Yes, sir, folks! God’s Lamb was Jesus; the Bible is as clear as crystal about that.

2. One day John the Baptist was baptizing converts in the Jordan River and Jesus came to Him. When he (a special messenger from God with a specific purpose of identifying God’s Lamb, John 1:6-8) saw that it was Jesus, he said to the crowd, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," John 1:29. He repeated his affirmation in John 1:36.

C. Jesus was God’s Lamb, and He came to die: to be slaughtered.

1. That’s the reason He could say; "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour," John 12:27.

2. That’s why He could also say, "Even as the son of man came; not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many," Matthew 20:28.

3. Folks, when Jesus wound His way through the dusty streets of old Jerusalem, He was God’s Lamb, heading to the slaughter. He was going to the place where they would kill Him, in the place of the guilty sinners. He was knowingly going to His execution block; to be sacrificed; to give His life. Hebrews 9:28 thus states, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of the many."

D. And, in view of the sacrificial slaughter of Jesus, all who believed in Him are saved from the power of sin, which is death.

1. Peter said it this way, "For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot," I Peter 1:18-19.

2. Oh, dear souls, in view of the slaughter of Jesus, God’s Lamb, Philip could preach to the Ethiopian man; and he was saved. He could show him that Jesus, God’s Lamb, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Jesus is God’s Lamb who took our guilt and bore our penalty. Jesus is God’s Lamb whose sacrifice pleased the Father.

3. And, it is Jesus whom John viewed in Revelation 5:6 as "a lamb as it had been slain." And, it is Jesus, God’s Lamb before whom the four and twenty elders of Revelation 5:8 fell down in adoration and praise. And, it is of Jesus, the slaughtered Lamb of God, of whom the saints sing in Revelation 5:9-10, "Thou are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof. For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." Folks, we are made white, and our robes are washed, only because of the slain Lamb, Revelation 7:14. And, ultimately, "Every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father," Philippians 2:11.

4. Folks, Jesus left Bethany, and He went to Jerusalem. And, He went there to be slaughtered for your sins. Have you trusted Him? Have you realized that when God spoke of the lamb slain to take away sins, He was speaking of Jesus? He was, and this slain Jesus, God’s Lamb stands ready today to be your Savior. Won’t you, like the man from Ethiopia, trust Him as your very own!