Yesterday on the radio we interviewed Ron Carlson who does lots
of work in the area of apologetics. He mentioned that during a
visit to New Zealand, he met some sheep ranchers who told him a
most unusual story. In large herds of sheep, a mother ewe
sometimes dies while giving birth to a lamb. And it's not
unusual for a mother to give birth to a stillborn lamb. The
ranchers then try to match the orphan sheep with the ewes whose
babies had been stillborn. But it would not work because the
mothers identified their children by their smell, and when the
orphan sheep were brought around, the mothers would not allow
them to come near.  In those cases the ranchers would take the
blood of the lamb that had died at birth and smear it on the
fleece of the orphan sheep. When the lamb was brought to the
mother, she would receive it as her own because she would smell
the blood, sense it as her own lamb, and allow it to nurse and
feed.  That is what the death of Christ accomplishes for us. If
we in our own merits come to Go