Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

[dddoo7]

The story is told of Dr. Jekyll. He was a doctor who lived in the 1800’s and was fascinated with experimenting with the human mind. Dr. Jekyll, through much experimentation with chemicals found a way to divide the human mind between the good and the evil contained therein. Dr. Jekyll, through the formula that he developed could change himself into a completely different person allowing the evil that he held inside him to come out and express itself. When Dr. Jekyll took the formula he would become Mr. Hyde, the version of himself that contained all of the evil desires, bad thoughts, and troubling sides of who he was as a person. When Dr. Jekyll transformed himself into Mr. Hyde he would allow himself to indulge in whatever whim crossed his mind. He would drink, get into fights and hit people, and even murder and then quickly revert back into Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll even soothed his own conscience by separating himself from Mr. Hyde and by assisting in cleaning up the mess that Mr. Hyde would create.

As time went on, Dr. Jekyll found it easier and easier to transform himself into the wicked Mr. Hyde and more and more difficult to transform back into the good, Dr. Jekyll. Before long he would make the transformation into the wicked Mr. Hyde without any of his serum at all. The reverse serum was always required to change him back to Dr. Jekyll and as time went on, the serum kept him on the good side for a shorter and shorter amount of time.
Dr. Jekyll wanted a way in which he could be a good person but still indulge in evil. He didn’t want to be an evil person, but what he found is that the more he gave into evil the more evil he became until that evil consumed him.

As Christians we are constantly temped with evil. We don’t have an “evil side” as Dr. Jekyll did, but there is a physical side of us that will always in some ways struggle with the temptations that Satan places before us. We sometimes want to dabble in these evil desires but still keep separate from them. We want to indulge in sin once in a while and still have the illusion that we are in complete control. Sin is much like Mr. Hyde. The more we give into sin, the more sin controls us. It will become more and more difficult to escape the clutches of sin and more and more difficult to turn our mind back to the good side.

Sin will present itself as being easy to control, put in its place, and manage. We will excuse the evil thoughts because after all, we don’t often act on them. We will then excuse the occasional action because after all, it is just once in a while. Yet before we realize what happed, sin will grab hold and consume our thoughts, until it consumes our actions, until we no longer recognize good person we originally set out to be.

Satan is a roaring lion seeking to devour— 1 Peter 5:8 says, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:"

The mind is a battleground that we must control if we intend to do what is right— Proverbs 23:7 says, "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:"

Following evil desires will lead down a very quick and steep slope to destruction— 1 John 2:16-17 says, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

If we don’t actively and continually seek to control sin, then sin will control us!