[Gary Petty] When I was a teenager, a couple of friends of mine pick me up. We were gonna go see a movie. And when I got in the car they instructed me that they were gonna pick up one of the boy's cousins to go with us, he didn't like his cousin. So they told me that they were gonna offer him some chewing gum but not to take it myself because what they were giving him was actually a laxative. Now, I wasn't sure what a laxative would do to a healthy person, I thought very uncomfortable about it. I just didn't have the moral courage to say, "Hey, guys, do you think this is a good idea?"

Well, they stopped by and they picked up his cousin and they gave him this gum as a laxative. In various times during the evening, they keep saying, "Do you want some more gum?" And they gave it to him. Well, it didn't seem to bother him, I didn't think much about it until I found out later that my friend's cousin went home and was sick, very, very sick, all night. And it really bothered me because I realized that was a dangerous thing that he did to him, I didn't stand up, I didn't let him realize how dangerous it was, but it made me think about practical jokes, I mean practical jokes can be fun but this wasn't fun, it was cruel.

You know, Solomon makes this statement about practical jokes. He's just "Like a mad man who throws firebrands, arrows, and death, is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, "I was only joking", like a mad man. (Proverbs 26:18-19). You know, Solomon says here, when we play practical jokes they're really cruel. When we hurt somebody just to put them down in order to make us feel better, he said, "You're like a crazy man who's just throwing around this fiery spears or shooting arrows wildly into the air not caring who it hurts," something to think about.

Next time, you, because you want to put down somebody else or embarrass them or hurt them you decide to do a practical joke, think about what Solomon says. Don't be a mad man.

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