Better to Rot in Prison by J. R. Miller 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 to 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.