the schedule( ms , objID or 0, functionName, arg0, ... , argN ) function.
basically, if you wanted to delay this:
messageClient(16874, '', "moose");
by three seconds, you'd do this:
schedule(3000, 0, messageClient, 16874, '', "moose");
for objects, typically people do this:
%obj.schedule(3000, addVelocity, "5.66 23.3 0 255");