The Making Of A Monster Series

I. Introduction

I know some of you will think less of me after I admit to you that I can remember when I was a young boy that when I went to bed, I did not want to sleep with my hand hanging off the side of my bed! I know I am supposed to be tough and courageous, but I was afraid that something would crawl out from under my bed and grab me. Don't look at me like that for some of you had to have that security blanket, stuffed animal or maybe for you it was the need for a night light. Or maybe you had to make sure every closet door was closed completely.

A few years ago, this childhood reality was captured and capitalized on in the movie Monsters Inc. In the movie the city the monsters lived in was called “Monstropolis” and it is powered by energy harvested from the screams of human children. So, at Monsters Incorporated (a.k.a. The Scare Factory), skilled monsters employed as "scarers" venture into the human world, through doors that are portals to children's bedroom closets. They sneak into the bedrooms to scare children and harvest their screams. The whole thing gets turned on its head when a baby girl comes back through the portal of her closet door into the Scare Factory. In the process she destroys the façade that these scary looking characters are actually scary! She discovers that some of them are actually nice, and they discover that she isn't toxic. In the end the monsters discover that they gain all the necessary power they need from children’s laughter, and they change their mission into the bedrooms at night.

It was a cool and fun movie. However, I think we need to admit that there is still a scare factory in existence today. If we would be honest with one another our minds are full of mind monsters.

Nikita Gill said it correctly when she said . . .

The monsters were never under my bed.

Because the monsters were inside my head.

Why do we struggle with mind monsters?

Let's go back to the beginning. Adam and Eve allow a scare factory to be built in our minds when they eat from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Text: Genesis 3:1-5 (NIV)

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. (hear what the devil says) “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Adam and Eve fall for the lie of the enemy and in that moment mind monsters are created.

Then Paul comes along and says . . .

Romans 5:12 (TLB)

When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die, for all sinned.

So, it is no wonder that their fall impacts us till this day. It is no wonder that those same mind monsters still operate to this day. So, we are living under the curse of the Scare Factory.

Jesus comes along on a mission to redeem/reconcile/restore everything that was lost in the garden and declares this in . . .

Matthew 22:37 (NIV)

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Lot here don’t have time to deal with. We are made up of three parts. Heart – flesh, Soul – spirit, and Mind – Man’s “Mind” is an organ of the soul and is his computer by which he stores information gained through his six senses. The mind, like the heart, is a separate but integral part of the soul.

Paul tries to explain how all of this works.

Galatians 5:17 - For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Romans 8:7 - Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

So, he is teaching us that there is war going on inside of us. The spiritual part of us is at war against the mind that has been established in us. Then Paul comes along in Romans 7:25 and lets us in on a truth that we need to gain.