WARNING! WARNING!

WARNING! WARNING!

I know this will make me seem ancient to some but I’m remembering a mechanical character on an old, very old, black and white TV program. When I was a kid there was a popular program called “Lost in Space!” It featured the Robinson family, a syrup sweet family with a precocious little lad called Will and a stowaway scientist whose name now escapes me. It also featured a robot; I think his name was “Roby,” who was more intelligent than them all. Roby’s main function seemed to be flailing his arms about shouting “warning, warning!” He seemed to be the babysitter for young Will and so more often than not he would be shouting: “Warning, warning Will Robinson!” Oh how I wish we had Roby the robot with us today to flail his arms about, twirl his antennae, and shout “warning!” Roby, our nation and our world need you!

Thankfully we still have preachers and prophets to sound the alarm. Jeremiah was called “the weeping prophet” and I think it was because his task seemed to him so futile. His listeners were incorrigible sinners and Jeremiah took his job very seriously. This was a sure formula for frustration. Listen as he complains!

Jer 6:10

10 To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

The Amplified Bible helps our understanding somewhat by putting it this way: “their ears are uncircumcised [never brought into covenant with God or consecrated to His service].” Ezekiel had a similar problem as we read: “And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.” Ezek 2:7 In  spite of crisp and clear differences between right and wrong, I still observe many people who will not heed warnings because “they have no delight in it.”

The Winter 1991 issue of the University of Pacific Review offers a chilling description of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster:

   There were two electrical engineers in the control room that night, and the best thing that could be said for what they were doing is they were "playing around" with the machine. They were performing what the Soviets later described as an unauthorized experiment. They were trying to see how long a turbine would "free wheel" when they took the power off it.

   Now, taking the power off that kind of a nuclear reactor is a difficult, dangerous thing to do, because these reactors are very unstable in their lower ranges. In order to get the reactor down to that kind of power, where they could perform the test they were interested in performing, they had to override manually six separate computer-driven alarm systems.

   One by one the computers would come up and say, "Stop! Dangerous! Go no further!" And one by one, rather than shutting off the experiment, they shut off the alarms and kept going. You know the results: nuclear fallout that was recorded all around the world, from the largest industrial accident ever to occur in the world.

   The instructions and warnings in Scripture are just as clear. We ignore them at our own peril, and tragically, at the peril of innocent others.

n  Attributed to Tom Tripp in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.

Col 1:28

28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

Dear Lord, make me faithful to give warnings and wise to heed them. AMEN