1. This is the story of little red riding hood. Captain Dave’s version.
2. Once up a time, in a land far away . . . because that’s the way it always is.
3. There lived a little girl. Everyone who knew her loved this little girl, but her grandma loved her most of all. Her Grandma made her a bright red cloak with a little hood. The little girl wore it all the time. ‘We shall have to call you little red riding hood,’ said Grandma, and everyone did.
4. Now little red riding hood lived alone with her mother at the edge of the wild wood. Her grandmother lived in a cottage on the other side of the forest. One day, her mother asked her to take a basket of goodies to poor grandma who was ill in bed. She promised her mother that she would not talk to any strangers or wolves. She felt very grown up.
5. Little Red Riding Hood usually turned back for home at the edge of the wood. This time she let her legs go forward and listened to the twigs crunching under her feet. The question is; will she do as her mother commanded?
6. Needless to say, a huge wolf jumped out in front of her ‘Good morning’ said the wolf. Immediately Little Red Riding Hood thought of her mothers warning. ‘You’re not a wolf by any chance are you . . . cause I’m not supposed to talk to wolves’
7. Now little Red Riding Hood was a bit vague at times. You could say that the lights were on, but there was no one at home. She hadn’t paid attention to her mother describing what a wolf looked like. She hadn’t bothered to plan and work out the safest path to grandma’s house. All in all, she had made some poor decisions regarding her trip. Decisions that would have consequences down the road.
8. ‘Well, I may be a wolf, but I’m a very nice wolf’ he said. Being a naïve young girl, Little Red Riding Hood answered the wolf very politely and inadvertently gave him all the information necessary for the wolf to fulfil his fiendish plot.
9. Little Red Riding Hood thought that if she stopped and picked some flowers, this creature who claimed to be a wolf might just go away and any associated problems with it. She was lucky at this stage, and the wolfish creature vanished back into trees as quickly as he had come.
10. At last, she saw Grandma’s house. Clutching her basket, she ran to the door and knocked as hard as she could. She heard a husky ‘Come in my dear.’ Little Red Riding Hood pressed on the latch thinking ‘Grandma sounds very ill.’ Then she saw Grandma and thought ‘Yes, I’m right, she looks awful’. If Little Red Riding Hood had bothered to pay attention to her mother, she would have known that the only problem with her Grandmother was a sore leg, which would have in no way impinged on voice or her looks, saving her from the peril which she would soon find herself in.
11. She approached her grandmother ‘Oh Grandma,’ said Little Red Riding Hood. ‘What big eyes you have.’ ‘All the better to see you with my dear. Come a little closer’
12. The fact that people’s eyes don’t tend to double in size was neither here nor there to our Little Red Riding Hood. She moved closer ‘Oh Grandma,’ said Little Red Riding Hood. ‘What big ears you have.’ ‘All the better to hear you with my dear. I can’t speak very loudly, come closer.’
13. Curiosity was getting the better of her. She took another step closer. She could see how grandma’s mouth appeared to be swollen and ulcerated. ‘Oh Grandma,’ said Little Red Riding Hood. ‘What big teeth you have’. The Grandma figure responded ‘All the better to . . .’
14. Little Red Riding Hood saw the inside of a huge Red slobbering pair of jaws with teeth that flashed like razors. Even to our Little Red Riding Hood it was obvious. This was no Grandma. This was a wolf. A wolf crossdressed in Grandma’s nightshirt. Let me gobble you up.
15. Little Red Riding Hood had been tricked. Worse still, what had happened to Grandma. The wolf was getting too close for comfort. She made herself scream, then scream again, and again as loud as she could.
16. Luckily, as fortune would have it, there was a woodcutter nearby. He heard the constant screams for help, and rushed towards the house with the tools of his trade.
17. He got into the house, just as Little Red Riding Hood was about to be eaten by the Wolf. He swung his axe hard into the wolf, causing a fatal haemorrhaging of the skull. As the blood poured all over . . . I think I’ll skip this bit.
18. As he chopped at the wolf’s body, out sprang Grandma alive and well.
19. ‘Well done, Mr Woodman,’ said Grandma ‘That was a lucky escape. I feel a bit wobbly and very hungry. Don’t know how Jonah coped being in a fish for 3 days.’ They all tucked into the cakes that Little Red Riding Hood had brought along in her basket.
20. As we leave this story it should be noted that a few changes were made by characters within the story. The woodcutter fitted a security system in Grandma’s house, and our Little Red Riding Hood did some serious studies on stranger danger, and the correct way to travel from one destination to another. Apart from that, its safe to say that all our characters lived happily ever after.
THE END
Grandma, what big ears you have, said little red riding hood.
All the better to hear you with, my dear.
Why grandma, what big eyes you have, she said.
All the better to see you with.
Oh grandma, what big teeth you have.
Jesus says watch out for false prophets. That is people who want to trick you into believing something that ain’t true.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
A wolf in grandma’s nightgown.
When Jesus told stories, he would often use illustrations from everyday
life that people in that culture would have been well aware of. Therefore,
I reckon that if the story of little read riding hood had existed in Jesus’
time, we may have read in the bible;
‘Watch out for false prophets – they come to you in your grandma’s
nightshirt, but inwardly they are ferocious hungry wolves. By the fact
that they will try and devour you, you will know them.
Matthew 7:15-16
My very loose paraphrase
All those nice words from the wolf lulling Little Red Riding Hood into a false sense of security. If only . . . she had listened and acted on her mother’s warning. If only she had heard her grandma’s voice. If only . . . if only . . . but before you know it, it’s too late. There were several stages in the story where LRRH could have made a different choice that would have changed the outcome of the story.
When Jesus talks of himself as the good shepherd, he said “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me, and I give them eternal life”
The question for you today is ‘what are the voices that will you listen to in life?’ For our choices we make will have consequences.
Jesus offers a warning and a choice. Will you follow the path under God’s perfect ways, or will you choose to do your own thing?
What type of friend do you choose to keep? Your choice here is vital
– your friends can build you up, or tear you down. Put a child in with
a group of good children, and chances are they will turn out OK. Put that
same child with a group of ‘bad’ children, and chances are they will go
down to the groups level. This isn’t just true for children. This principle
holds true regardless of our stage in life.
What are the messages in the music that you listen to?
What are the motivating forces behind your actions?
Many choices, made every day; manu outcomes in many ways.
Sir Alexander Flemming discovered the drug Penicillin. But this discovery
came with a warning: taking too little of it could be dangerous. It would
let germs remain in the system and build up an immunity not to the germs,
but to the drugs. There is a sense in which this is true for the Christian
faith. It seems to me that there are many in our community that know enough
about the right words, about so called ‘Christian moral principles’ to
inoculate themselves from true faith. Jesus says;
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven’
What is the will of the Father? To believe in Jesus Christ and be saved.
However fancy our good deeds, whatever our words, we run the risk of being
nothing but clanging symbols or sounding gongs if they are not based on
the love of God that we have through faith in Jesus Christ.
We have the chance to hear God’s ways. What do we do with the information? What will you choose as the basis for your life? Some people choose many, while others choose fame. Others choose the family (very noble) while others choose their careers or companies. What you choose will show itself up in how you spend your time. What you choose will show in how you relate to people. Our choices have consequences. Whose purpose will you serve? Who will get the glory?
Jesus wound up the sermon on the mount with the story of the building of two houses. It would be fair to say that these houses would have looked pretty much the same to the average passer-by. The difference between the houses was in the foundations.
You may have heard of a structure called the leaning tower of Pisa
In the year 1174, Bonnano Pisano, an Italian engineer, began to work on a bell tower for the cathedral in Pisa, Italy. When he started, he had no idea that the bell tower would become a tourist attraction and one of the most famous structures in the world because of a mistake. The tower was to be 185 feet high. Construction started and three stories were completed. Then the tower began to lean. Pisano tried to offset the lean by making the new stories slightly taller on the short side, but the extra building materials caused the tower to lean still further
Construction was halted for almost 100 years. In 1275 construction began again. This time 2 stories were built out of line with the others, in an attempt to alter the centre of gravity. The tower was finally finished in the 14th century, but each year it leans 1.25 milimeters. At it’s peak, the tower leaned 5.2 meters. $25 million has been spent renovating the structure to shore it up.
What was the problem? Poor design? No, they used the best. Poor workmanship? They used the best that the world could offer. An inferior grade of marble? No. The problem was underneath. The tower was built on shifting sands, not stable enough to support a structure this size. There was no firm foundation. A beautiful tower, but in danger of collapse. Could this be your life? A beautiful life in danger of collapse. Have you been making a beautiful life on a weak foundation?
In 1992 Hurricane Andrew wiped out a large part of South Florida. The
news pictures showed full neighbourhoods completely destroyed. But in the
footage, 1 home remained standing, firmly anchored to its foundation. The
reported asked the owner why his house was left standing while all others
were destroyed. He replied ‘I build this house myself. I built it according
to the state building code. When the code called for 2X6 roof trusses,
that’s what I used. I was told a house built according to the code could
withstand a hurricane – and it did!’. What’s the lesson here? Our choices
have consequences. Build your life according to the code that we have in
the scriptures, and we will withstand the storms that come our way.
The bible speaks about personal responsibility in building our lives. Keep your ear attuned to the right voices. Listen to what God may be saying to you about the way you plan to live your life. Keep your foundations firm.
Choices have consequences. It’s easy for most of us to take responsibility when things turn out successfully. But when there are problems, it’s just as easy to blame someone else, and sidestep personal responsibility. Your choices have consequences.
You make the right choices, and God will bless what you do. Make bad choices, listen to destructive influences and you will reap the consequences of those choices. Remember Little Red Riding Hood? She made some bad choices; and by the time she got to grandmas house, the wolf was lying in wait for her. She was doomed, had not the woodcutter come to her rescue. He saved her, not by anything she had done, but by his own choice to help. This is a parallel to the work of Jesus. Relying on what he has done by his death on the cross saves us from the ultimate consequences of living life our own way. Christ dies so we don’t have to. Christ lives to bless our choices. What choice’s will you make?