When Robin turned eight years old, he was given a live birthday present. His father owned a sheep farm and he had promised Robin, ever since he was very small, that someday he would have a lamb of his very own. Robin’s birthday came in the middle of lambing season and the day he turned eight, twin lambs were born. One of them was given to him for his birthday present.
How happy he was! Probably no lamb had ever been loved so much Robin thought and thought about what name he would give it. Several were suggested, but none seemed to be just what Robin wanted. Finally his mother said, “Why not call the lamb ‘Treasure’ since you like him so much?” When Robin found out that treasure meant something very precious, he decided that that was a good name, and when he told the Iamb what his name was to be, he added, “And don’t forget to come running when I call, ‘Treasure.”
But, alas, Treasure was not able to do much running. The mother sheep was unable to care for two lambs, and Treasure was the one who went short. His little wobbly legs did not grow stronger, and his bleat was weak and pitiful.
Treasure was some days old when another lamb was found dead beside its mother.
“Well,” said Robin’s father, “here’s a mother that has no lamb, and a lamb whose mother can’t feed it. What do you think we should do, Robin?”
Even an eight-year old could figure out the answer to that question.
“Why not put my lamb with the sheep whose lamb died?” said Robin. So they tried doing this.
But Treasure wasn’t welcome. The mother of the dead lamb refused to take any notice of him. So Robin’s dad tried putting the foster mother and Treasure in a small pen. “We’ll see what a night together will do,” he told Robin.
For hours Robin lay awake listening to the bleating of his hungry lamb. It made him sad to hear his pet calling for its supper. In the morning they found that the mother sheep had jumped out of the pen and deserted the lamb. Robin was angry with her, but his father explained, “It is the law of nature, Son. She knows this lamb doesn’t belong to her. But there’s another way, and we’ll try that.”
Robin’s Dad took the dead lamb, took the skin off it and put it over Treasure like a jacket. The lamb looked very odd in it. The skin didn’t fit very well, so they tied it on with some twine. Robin only knew his Treasure by its wobbly legs and the weak bleating that went on continuously. He was most excited as his father carried the lamb over to the mother of the dead lamb and put it down beside her.
At first, she turned away as before; then she sniffed cautiously at him, and as she caught the scent of her own lamb, all was changed. She welcomed Treasure and poured out her love on him like any other mother sheep would do. From that day on Treasure was looked after very well, and every time Robin went to play with him, he seemed to have grown even bigger.
That’s the story about Treasure, but Robin thought a lot about the whole thing and asked his father more about it.
“It’s just like a parable from the Bible”, his father said, “ Remember how I told you that it was a law of nature that kept the mother sheep from wanting Treasure for her lamb?”
Robin DID remember and said that every mother sheep only loved its own lamb.
“Well, it’s like that for us”, his father went on, “Just as it was nature that kept the mother sheep from taking Treasure for her own, so it is sin that keeps us from becoming one of God’s children. We have to be covered in what the Lord Jesus has done for us before we can be accepted by Him”.
Robin had just seen this happening with Treasure so he knew exactly what his father was talking about.
“Yes, I guess so”, he said slowly, “That means that until Treasure was covered with the dead lamb’s skin, it would have had no mother sheep to look after it”.
“That’s right”, said his father, “And each of us has to take the gift , the “covering” that God has given us for ourselves before we can become one of His little lambs too”.
“Oh, now I understand”, said Robin, “I do want to become one of God’s lambs!”