"Caught" "Red-Handed"

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 7
 
The bank teller lifted shocked, unbelieving eyes to the man in front of her window. This couldn't be happening to her! It was mid-morning in a new and beautiful suburban shopping center bank; this was no place to be face-to-face with terror.
But the stubble-faced man before her assured her it was so, that it was indeed a robbery, that he had a weapon and that she had better hand over the cash then and there.
Hastily complying, she handed him a package of money already prepared by the bank officials, and the robber ran from the bank and jumped into his car. He may have been thinking, "That was an easy way to make money! Hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars, for just a few minutes' risk."
If that was his thought, it didn't last long! There was an explosion, red smoke poured from the package, and the money was "flying all over the place" as an eye-witness said.
Not only was the money scattered, but it was marked, indelibly marked, with the hot red dye that sprayed from the package. And the hand that held the package was dyed too!
There was no way now to say, "I didn't do it—it wasn't me, officer!" And no way to profit from the marked money either.
"Be sure your sin will find you out" was immediately fulfilled in this case. It is not always so. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccl. 8:11. They think that they are "getting away with it," and forget that "God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal. 6:7.
The stain of sin is just as visible to God's eyes as the bank robber's red hands were to the guards, and there is only one way to wash it out: "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John 1:7.
Believing that, believing in the value of the blood of Christ to wash away all sin from those who receive Him, one can rejoice in God's promise: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isa. 1:18.