When I was a young patrol officer, I almost shot a man. I was working in a two-man unit during a midnight shift. We stopped a vehicle that drove past us at high rate of speed in violation of the posted speed limit. So, we pulled in behind the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop.

Because we were a two-man car, and since I was the passenger officer, I walked ahead of my partner outside the illumination of our spotlight to check the interior of the car. After seeing no dangerous issues were present, I give an OK sign to my partner, raising four fingers signaling back to him the situation appeared Code 4. Code 4 is a police signal letting other officers know the situation possessed no threat at the time.

When my partner arrived at the driver’s door, he asked the driver for his driver’s license, vehicle registration and insurance. The driver did what many people do when asked for documentation, he reached into his glove box. As the light from my flashlight followed his hand into the glovebox, he took hold of a handgun and moved it in the direction of my partner. This is when our mental response time in a life-threatening experience slows down allowing us to respond to an emergency. 

As I drew my handgun and began to squeeze the trigger in defense of my partner, I yelled “Gun!” In that moment as both my partner and I were beginning to fire our weapons, the man yelled, “It’s a fake!” and dropped the gun on the floorboard. I was literally only an ounce or two of trigger pressure away from ending the man’s life.

We pulled the man out of his car and explained in energetic terms how close he had come to dying. He got weak in the knees and had to sit against the trunk of his car to gain his balance. His only defense for his actions was an idiotic defense – “I just wanted you to know the gun was fake.”

The story reveals the various levels of discernment we as believers need to have. Some levels of discernment will require different responses.

The first level is seeing what is OBVIOUS

It was like me walking forward and illuminating the interior to of the suspect car and giving my partner the Code 4 signal that all seems well.

The next level of discernment INTERRUPTS our initial discernment. 

This level of discernment will reveal what is present that was not initially seen like the man reaching into his glovebox and retrieving what looked like a Colt .45 1911 pistol. That level of discernment changes everything.

The third level of discernment is to issue a WARNING.

This happened for me when the suspect’s gun was being moved toward my partner and putting his life in danger. This level of discernment speaks out a warning to others of things they do not yet see or realize. These warnings are like the moment when I yelled “Gun!” to my partner. That warning gave my partner a heads up to the emergency and prepared him to respond accordingly . It was also a stark warning to the man holding the fake gun that he needed to drop the weapon or he could die. Without the loud and direct warning, the whole situation would have taken at tragic turn.

We need to pay attention to the prophetic warnings currently being issued. We also need to be aware of the progression of discernment that led us to a place where a warning was needed. These warnings can save a life or direct an entire nation away from unnecessary peril. Warnings will also keep us safe when the enemy is attempting to lure us into a conflict that should never have entered had we known all the facts.