WARNINGS!

Have you ever ignored warning signals?  Like when you were a kid and your mother said, “You’re climbing to high on the monkey bars, get down!”  You didn’t listen, in fact you went higher; You mother then warned you a second time, ’If you fall and break your legs, don’t come running to me!”

     While driving have you ever ignored the warning sirens of an ambulance?  You hear it, but you can’t see it.  You look every direction but no ambulance or firetruck.  Do you keep driving or do you pull over to the side, thus heeding the warning?  My wife always pulls over to the side.

     Does your body ever send you a warning?  It’s called pain.  Do you respond either with medicine, or, stop what you are doing, or make a point to check it out?  Or do you keep doing what you were doing because you’ve had that pain before and besides that if you stopped every time you had a pain, you’d never start up again?

     A comedian from Russia, had a shtick he called “What a Country.”  It was a humorous look at coming to and appreciating America.  In his monologue, he said what he liked best about America was ‘warning shots!’  He said in Russia they only shoot, but there were no warnings.

     I love the story about the elderly man who noticed his light was on in his tool shed.  It was about bedtime, he really didn’t want to go out and turn the light off.  Then noticed, it wasn’t his light he left on it was a flash light and someone was in his shed, probably taking his tools.  So, he called the police and explained what he was seeing to a dispatcher.  The reply from the officer was, “Sir, lock your doors and go to bed we will investigate in the morning.  We are too busy with more important things tonight that a tool shed robbery.” 

    So, the elderly gentleman hung the phone and waited 60 seconds, then he called the police again.  The same dispatcher began to scold the man repeating they were too busy to investigate tonight, wait till morning.  The man said to the officer, “I was calling to tell you don’t bother coming to my place in the morning, I just shot the man in my tool shop.  Everything is O.K. here.”  Before the old guy could hang his phone up, he heard sirens and saw all kinds of light flashing around his house.  The police found the thief in the shed and promptly handcuffed him and took him away.  An officer went to the house and said to man, “I thought you shot said you shot him?”  To which the elderly man said, “I thought you were too busy to deal with a tool thief?” 

     Sometimes warnings aren’t warnings, they are threats.  The Bible is full of warnings… or are they threats?  I think I’ll let you figure it out.