Calling the Orkin Man
IllustrationAnalogy★★★★MANY people have the habit of killing roaches, one at a time, as they appear in their homes. They will chase a roach, corner it, and stomp on it. The problem is, their success will be short- lived because they have only dealt with the roach that they see. Behind that roach, there is probably a whole family of roaches.
Dealing with one roach doesn’t truly address the problem. Unless the roaches hidden in the walls are dealt with, the satisfaction of getting rid of one roach is only a momentary success. In order to deal with the real problem, the Orkin man must be called. That’s the problem with sin.
When a Christian is operating in the flesh, victory over sin is possible, but only for a little while. The symptoms of sin can be handled one at a time but they will keep coming back because there is always more than what we see.
When we call the Orkin man, he has never asked me to help him. He has never asked for my support. In fact, I have to leave so that he can effectively deal with my problem. When we call on Jesus Christ to come deal with our problems, He is not interested in helping me with my life.
He wants to be my life.
The point
Dealing with sin's outward symptoms one at a time brings only temporary relief; true victory requires Jesus to deal with the root problem.