“When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.
Moses thought they would understand! That is the key in that above passage. This text is taken from Stephen’s sermon, where afterward he was beaten and killed. Just as the men of Israel did not understand that Moses was sent to deliver them from the bondage of Egypt, so, too, the Pharisees and religious leaders of the day did not understand that God sent His Son to deliver them from the bondage of sin. This is the story of the Bible. God sends mercy and grace to mankind and they do not “understand” what God is doing in their lives. They reject God’s messengers and God’s interventions to deliver them from sin. Stephen was rejected as a messenger and killed. He will later say, in this one message he preached:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
Lack of clearly seeing your current need will cause you to not see God’s intervention in your life. God sends messengers to tell us about His marvelous deliverance. When we understand that can rejoice in God’s plan. When we do not understand we lose out on God’s deliverance.
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