You are the jailer.
You may or may not be the Barney Fife type, but there you are, the keeper of the keys.
You have only one prisoner, a big fellow named Ed. He has a Hell’s Angels reputation, but there he sits, lethargic, causing you no trouble at all, a model prisoner.
In time you forget about Ed’s nasty reputation. It’s just the two of you there at the old jail, so you talk about things. You give your buddy Ed a glass of lemonade now and then, even though he’s only supposed to have water. Sometimes you even slip into his cell and play cards.
As days turn into weeks, and weeks into months, you wonder why Ed is locked up at all. He never gives you any trouble, and he seems perfectly harmless.
Then one day, in the middle of a card game, you smell something. Ed smells it, too.
It’s perfume.
You go back to the game, but Ed is distracted. You see a look in Ed’s eyes that you’ve never seen before. You decide it’s time to slip out of the cell and check things out.
You step out front in time to see someone coming down the road, a woman.
Petunia.
Yes, you’ve heard about Petunia. The Sheriff told you to watch for her, and at all costs keep her away from Ed.
Well, there she is, so now what? Should you run her off? She seems harmless enough, unarmed, not even a cake with a file in it.
As Petunia approaches, you hear noises back inside the jail. The native is restless.
What does she want? She wants to visit Ed. You tell her she can’t, but she’s a sweet-talker.
From behind you Ed is calling out to Petunia. Now she’s calling back to him, “I’ll be right there, Honey. I just need to talk to this fine jailer.”
“Petunia, I can’t let you go in there.”
“Now what’s the harm in me seeing Ed?”
“Well…”
Ed shouts, “Come on, you can let her in, the sheriff will never know.”
“That’s right,” says Petunia, “And besides, the sheriff is kinda sweet on me. That’s why he doesn’t want me to see Ed.”
With that new information, you decide one little visit won’t hurt. But as soon as Ed and Petunia get in close proximity, Ed becomes the Hell’s Angel you had heard about. And what’s this? He took the keys from you while you were playing cards, and now he’s unlocking his cell.
Ed and Petunia embrace and begin to leave. You try to intervene, but Ed surprises you with an elbow to the nose so fierce that blood splatters and you collapse.
The last thing you see is Ed and Petunia walking out arm in arm, and taking with them your job, your reputation, and everything you had worked so hard for over the years.
And now…the story explained.
Ed stands for “evil desire.” Evil desire is found within every human being.
Petunia is short for
We are the jailer, responsible for keeping those two from getting together.
What we must do is keep Ed away from Petunia – which means we must keep our evil desire away from opportunity.
The evil desire within us tends to sit there quietly and not cause much trouble – until opportunity comes along. But when the right opportunity shows up, look out. It will drive the evil desire within us crazy, just like Ed when Petunia came along.
You probably know what your weaknesses are, which evil desires are likely to cause you trouble. What you must do is stay far away from opportunities to carry out those desires.
For example, if you do things on the computer that are sinful, you better think about getting that computer out of the house. You can’t allow evil desire and opportunity to be together. When you do, evil desire will always get the best of you. Ed, in the presence of Petunia, becomes uncontrollable.
The story of Ed and Petunia is a fresh way to look at temptation. James 1:14 says we are each tempted when we are dragged away by our own evil desires and enticed.
Remember in the story, when you were the jailer? You let Petunia get close to Ed, and you ended up a bloody mess. That’s what happens when we allow our evil desires to come close to opportunities. Our evil desires will get the best of us, and our life will end up a bloody mess. And if we don’t stop it, our evil desires will cost us our job, our reputation, everything we’ve worked so hard for.
So take a look at your life and identify the Ed’s. Then make it a point, do whatever you have to do, to keep Ed far away from Petunia.
(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)
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