"After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand." Exodus 2:12 NLT
As a baby, Moses had been brought up by Pharaoh's daughter. She had found him floating in a basket on the water. His mother had placed him there because, as a Hebrew baby, his life was at risk. As years went on, Moses became quite a prominent figure in Pharaoh's kingdom. That is until, he murdered someone. He had been walking along when he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew brother and he intervened and killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. Eventually, news of this came to Pharaoh and Moses had to run to save his own life.
Now there are two ways of looking at this (1) Was this murder? The Law hadn't been put into place yet, not until the the Commandments were made, so Moses was not under God's Law. However, he may well have been guilty under Egyptian law. Whatever, Moses considered it dangerous to remain there. (2) Even though the Law hadn't been put into place, God no doubt would have frowned on murder. But was this part of God's great plan to bring the Israelites out to Freedom? It's open to debate and, I favour this because of the terrible abuse that the Israelites were suffering. Was this the beginning of God's judgement on Egypt?
Some years ago capitol punishment was the price for murder in the UK. This was usually hanging by the neck. Today, offenders are given life and if they are released after a certain time, they are on licence for the rest of their life, as are all Schedule One Offenders. Forty years ago, I watched a documentary about a British man who had committed murder, been released after 15 years or so and after a short time, became a vicar. I was amazed at first and being a younger Christian I found this hard to understand. He had taken someone's life but was now a man of the cloth. How could this be? As I watched the program, I saw that he had become a Christian in prison and studied theology and became ordained. I suddenly realised that, God is a forgiving God and this man had dedicated his life to working with ex-prisoners helping them rehabilitate - this was his church. I thought that if God could forgive and use Moses in His work, then He could use this guy, who had repented and asked the family of the deceased for forgiveness too.
God works in ways that we can't understand at times. People must have felt this about Moses - a murderer and now a great leader in God's army as we will see. But, as I leave you today, whatever your past has been like, God has swept the sin away. There may be certain rules of law still to adhere to if you're on licence from prison, but in God's eyes, you are now forgiven, no matter what people may think. Yes, it sounds controversial to some people but, not to God.
Copyright 2023 Grahame Howard.
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