Better to rot in prison!

(J.R. Miller, "Practical Lessons from the Story of Joseph")  LISTEN to audio! Download audio

(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)

"How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God!" Genesis 39:9

"After hearing his wife's story, Potiphar was furious! He took Joseph and threw him into the prison!" Genesis 39:19-20

Sometimes it costs very dearly to be true to God. Joseph lay now in a dungeon. But his loss through doing right, was nothing in comparison with what he would have lost-had he done the wickedness to which he was tempted. His prison gloom, deep as it was-was as noonday, compared with what would have been the darkness of his soul under the blight of evil, and the bitterness of remorse. The chains that hung upon him in his dungeon, were but like feathers-in comparison with the heavy chains which would have bound his soul, had he yielded to the temptation. Though in a prison, his feet hurt by the fetters-he was a free man because his conscience was free and his heart was pure!

No fear of consequences should ever drive us to do a wrong thing.

It is better to suffer any loss, any cost, any sacrifice-than be eaten up by remorse!

Better be hurled down from a high place for doing right, than win worldly honor by doing wrong.

Better lose our right hand, than lose our purity of soul.

Better to rot in prison, than to sin against God!

It was the prayer of a young queen, which she wrote with a diamond point on her castle window, "Keep me pure-make others great." That is the lesson of Joseph's victory over temptation: dishonor, loss, dungeon, death-anything before sin!

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Something to ponder:
J.R. Miller: "Every Christian can preach sermons every day, at home and among neighbors and friends-by the beauty of holiness in his own common life. Wherever a true Christian goes, his life ought to be an inspiration. Our silent influence ought to touch other lives with blessing-shining like holy lamps into sad and weary hearts. Our lives ought to be blessings to human sorrow and need all about us."