If Ye Be True Men

NTRO: Let me read our key verse for this New Year’s message from the KJV. It is Genesis 42:19, “If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison…” There comes in life a horrible moment. It is for me, the worst of moments. And then begins a battle, the battle of the mind. I find I am in a jail with bars that will not bend nor can they be cut. There is no way out. All is concrete and steel bars around me. And yet, amazingly, there is one door, and the door has a lock on the inside, not on the outside. And nobody can get in. Not only is the lock on the inside, but hanging on the wall is a key to the door, and I can unlock the door myself and walk right out into freedom. But even more amazing, I refuse to use the key. I will sooner stay in the jail and hope and pray and do anything; anything, but use that key.
Oh, how I dislike that jail cell. I can almost panic when I get put in that cell. That cell is the cell of guilt. It is when my conscience takes me by the scruff of the neck, pushes me through that door, and it clangs shut. And what is worse, my conscience hangs the key on the wall and keeps directing my attention to the key. I know I am guilty of a sin that needs to be taken care of. There is the door, and I have the key, but I will not use it. Many will sooner die than use that key, and many, many do.