As Mrs. Van Arnem got ready for bed, she removed her watch, her brooch and her three rings. Then she carefully laid them all on the dresser.
During the night the house was quiet and no one entered or left Mrs. Van Arnem’s bedroom. Still, when she got up the next morning and went to put on her jewelry, one of the rings had disappeared. The watch, the brooch and two of the rings were exactly where she had left them, but her valuable diamond ring was gone!
Mrs. Van Arnem called her children and her servants together and told them about the missing ring. They searched all over the house. Every possible hiding place was examined carefully, but no one found the ring.
Three years later Mrs. Van Arnem had workmen come to do some repair work on her house. Part of the floor was taken up, and there under the floorboards lay the skeleton of a mouse with the beautiful diamond ring around its neck. The poor little mouse must have been nosing around on top of her dresser looking for something to eat and must have accidently stuck its head through her ring.
Since the ring was so smooth and round, it probably didn’t hurt the mouse very much at first. But as the mouse grew and its neck got larger, the ring probably began to pinch and to hurt. The workmen who examined the mouse’s bones said its neck bones had been bent by the pressure of the ring which had finally strangled it.
That poor little mouse didn’t intend to get trapped. He was just curious about something pretty and got caught in it.
The same type of thing can easily happen to any of us too. Every time you sin it is as though a little wire is slipped around you. At first it doesn’t seem too bad, but those wires get tighter and tighter and stronger and stronger all the time. The Bible says that the sinner “shall be holden [held] with the cords of his sins” (Proverbs 5:2222His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. (Proverbs 5:22)).
How could the mouse have gotten free of the ring? No other mouse could have helped him, but some person could have slipped the ring off his head or could have cut through the ring to set him free.
No boy or girl can get free from his or her own sins either. Only the Lord Jesus, through His death on the cross and His blood shed, can remove the sins that have trapped each one of us. “The blood of Jesus Christ His [God’s] Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)).
The little mouse couldn’t ask for help, but you can. Won’t you call to the Lord Jesus today? He loves you and says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:1313For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)).
ML-05/12/1996