points we have been unwilling to take the position of the
lamb for Him.

Look at Him for a moment as the Lamb. He was the simple Lamb. A lamb
is the simplest of God's creatures. It has no schemes or plans for
helping itself--it exists in helplessness and simplicity. Jesus made
Himself as nothing for us, and became the simple Lamb. He had no
strength of His own or wisdom of His own, no schemes to get Himself
out of difficulties, just simple dependence on the Father all the
time. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the
Father do." But we--how complicated we are! What schemes we have had
of helping ourselves and of getting ourselves out of difficulties.
What efforts of our own we have resorted to, to live the Christian
life and to do God's works, as if we were something and could do
something. The Dove had to take His flight (at least as far as the
conscious blessing of His Presence was concerned) because we were not
willing to be simple lambs.

Willing to be Shorn.

Then He was the shorn Lamb, willing to be shorn of His rights, His
reputation, and every human liberty that was due to Him, just as a
lamb is shorn of its wool. He never resisted: A lamb never does. When
He was reviled for our sakes, He reviled not again. When He suffered,
He threatened not. He never said, "You cannot treat me like that.
Don't you know that I am the Son of God?" But we--ah we, on how many
occasions have we been unwilling to be shorn of that which was our
right. We were not willing for His sake to lose what was our own. We
insisted, too, that we should be treated with the respect due to our
position. We resisted, and we fought. The Dove had to take His flight
from us for we were not willing to be shorn lambs, and we were left
without peace, hard and unloving.

He Answered Nothing.

Then further, He was the silent Lamb. "As a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." Facing the calumnies of men,
we read, "He answered nothing." He never defended Himself, nor
explained Himself. But we have been anything but silent when others
have said unkind or untrue things about us. Our voices have been loud
in self-defence and self-vindication, and there has been anger in our
voices. We have excused ourselves, when we should have admitted
frankly our wrong. On every such occasion the Dove had to take His
flight, and withdraw His peace and blessing from our hearts, because
we were not willing to be the silent