RUNNING THE WRONG WAY
by Pastor Jim May
If you are a sports fan may remember the story of how, on New Year’s Day in 1929, Georgia Tech played the University of California in the annual Rose Bowl football game. In that game a man named Roy Riegels, the center of the California football team, recovered a fumble.
In all the excitement and pressure of the moment, Reigels became confused and began running the wrong way. One of his teammates, Benny Lom, saw what was happening and ran with all his might, overtook Reigels and tackled him just before he could cross the goal line and score for the opposing team.
This was during the first half. Everyone was wondering what Coach Nibbs Price would do with Roy Riegels in the second half. During the half-time break Riegels sat alone in a corner, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, put his hands in his face and cried like a baby.
Three minutes before the start of the second half Coach Price looked at the team and said, "Men, the same team that played the first half will start the second."
Riegels never moved. The coach called him and again he never moved. Coach Price went over to where Riegels sat and said, "Roy, didn’t you hear me? The same team that played the first half will start the second."
Reigels said, "Coach, I can’t do it to save my life. I’ve ruined you. I’ve ruined the University of California. I’ve ruined myself. I couldn’t face that crowd in the stadium to save my life."
Then Coach Price reached out and put his hand on Riegels’ shoulder and said, "Roy, get up and go on back, the game is only half over."
Roy Reigels went back in and there has never seen a man play football as Roy Riegels played that second half. Sadly though, he was never able to overcome the nickname that he had earned by that one mistake on the field. He was forever known as “Wrong Way Reigels”.
I know that life isn’t fair and that sometimes we really make some dumb mistakes. All too often, one single mistake, one act of rebellion, or one moment of sin and failure will stay with us for the rest of our lives. We will be forever branded and known by the mistake that we made.
Have you ever made a mistake that you can’t live down? Is there something in your life that happened, maybe even a long time ago; something that you wish you could take back or forget, but your friends and family just won’t let you do it.
Most of the time those mistakes are made in times of confusion and not knowing really what to do, and we just do something really dumb. But there are times when the mistakes are made because of the choice that we make to be rebellious against what we know is the right thing to do and we just refuse to do it anyway. It’s when we live in that state of rebellion that we often commit an act of sin, or make a mistake, that will live with us forever.
It may even be etched into our tombstone like some of the ones you can find in cemeteries right now.
For example, here are a few of the tombstones that I found. Each one of them tells of a man or woman who made a single mistake, but their lives will ever be associated with that one instant in life.
Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a forty-four, No Les - No More.
Here lays Butch, We planted him raw, He was quick on the trigger, But slow on the draw.
Here lies a man named Zeke, Second fastest draw in Cripple Creek
Here lies the body of our Anna, Brought to death by a banana. It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low, but the skin of the thing that made her go.
Here lies Harry Smith – He Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was.
Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. He stepped on the gas Instead of the brake.
There are a number of people in the Bible whose mistake (let’s call it what it is – a sin of rebellion) has forever branded them. It doesn’t matter how much they eventually accomplished for the Kingdom of God, they are forever known by the one time in life that they failed so miserably.
What about Samson – he is forever identified as revealing the secret of his power to Delilah and then ending his life in one last show of strength as he brought down the house where the Philistines were having their party.
What about David – even though God described him as a man after God’s own heart, we will always remember him for his sin with Bath Sheba.
What about Saul – he is forever branded as the King who consorted with a witch.
What about Peter – he is forever known as the man who denied Christ three times.
Aren’t you glad that God does not hold such sin and mistakes over our head like the world does, or how other Christians do! God is a God of second chances and he desires for us to get up off the floor when we fall, brush ourselves off and then start out again!
Psalms 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." I have heard it described like this. God takes the mistakes, the sin that we have repented of, casts it into a “sea of forgetfulness”, blots it out of the records of Heaven, and remembers it no more. When God forgives, He forgives completely. He doesn’t hold it over our head like a “Sword of Demosthenes”, just waiting for moment when He can let it fall and remind us of every time we fail.
In Hebrews 10:16-17, Paul tells us God’s righteous judgment for the sin of those who will confess it to Him, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."
I’m so glad that I serve a God that forgives and forgets. I’m so glad that my Heavenly Father is faithful and just and will forgive my sin, forgive my dumb mistakes and then he will turn me around and still use me for his Glory!
One of those in the Bible who will ever be known by his mistake is the Prophet Jonah. Who can doubt that Jonah was called by God? Even so, we see that this man of God certainly had his moment of rebelliousness and he has forever been branded as the man who ran from the call of God and was swallowed by a fish.
Jonah 1:1-3, "Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD."
(Show map of Jonah’s “Wrong Way” run from God!)
Jonah didn’t want to do what God said to do because he hated the Ninevites. He began to run, but not just in any direction. He ran in the opposite direction of where God had told him to go. Nineveh was only three days journey from where Jonah was when God called him but Jonah had to take a different route and one that he would never forget as long as he lived. He argued with God and didn’t want to go. He thought he could even talk God out of making him go. If he could just come up with the right excuse, the right reason, the right words, then maybe God would change His mind.
You can see Jonah’s attitude in Jonah 4:1-4, "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."
God heard the repentant cry of the Ninevites and He stayed his hand of judgment against them. That made Jonah mad. He felt embarrassed, angry and humiliated. He just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He felt like God had made a fool of him in not bringing the judgment promised upon Nineveh.
Jonah was trying to justify his rebellious nature. He was trying to even blame God for everything. The only reason he ran was because Jonah just knew that this was what was going to happen. Why didn’t God just do what he wanted to and leave Jonah out of it!
Have you ever tried to justify what you knew was wrong to begin with? I see that all the time. If we don’t want to confess our sin, and we want to lay the blame for what we do on something, or someone else, there will always be a way to do that. Satan loves to help us find an “out”. He loves to help us run the wrong way. He is working overtime just to give us a reason to sin that seems justifiable and right. But no matter how we try to sugarcoat it, it’s still sin and it still carries the penalty of death eternally.
There’s a story of the office manager who decided that she was going on a diet. She enlisted all the ladies in the office to join her in this effort. Sure enough they began losing weight, and lots of it. Everything was going great until one morning the office manager came in with two boxes of donuts surprising everbody.
She begin to explain to them that it was God’s will that she bring these donuts to work. She said that ever since we started this diet, I had changed my route to work, because my old route took me by the donut shop. To remove the temptation; I changed the way I traveled to the office. But today I forgot to take the new route and found myself near the donut shop. I began to pray and said, “Lord, if indeed it is your will that I should stop and buy donuts, then let there be a parking place near the front door, and I’ll accept that as an indication of your will in my life.” And sure enough the 8th time around the block there it was!!
Now you can laugh at that, and it is funny, but that’s the same attitude we take when we sit and argue with God like Jonah. We know what we are doing is wrong, but we have to argue anyway. We know we should repent, but we just keep doing the same things over and again. We know that there will be a heavy price to pay for our rebellion but somehow Satan blinds us to that and makes us believe that we can still get away with it.
My friend, God has a way of getting your attention. He got Samson’s attention when Samson lost his eyesight and had to live as a slave, entertaining his enemies as they laughed at him. He got David’s attention when he sent the prophet of God to point out David’s sin in front of the whole court of Israel and then took the life of David’s son born of that adulterous relationship. He got Saul’s attention by rejecting him as the King of Israel. He got Peter’s attention and Peter ran out weeping with bitter tears and repenting of his denial of Christ.
For those who did repent there was a second chance. All of those we have named and many more, came back from that great failure, that great moment of sin and rebellion, and were used mightily by God. Saul never came back though. He hardened his heart and would not fall in repentance before God. His life is forever identified with nothing but failure because he chose to march on into hell rather than surrender to God’s will.
Jonah 1:17, "Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."
Jonah was thrown into the water as the storm waves were crashing. He knew that this was the end. His sin of rebelliousness had finally caught up with him. He had wasted all that he had done as a prophet before. All of his good works for God would be for nothing. He was about to die the death of a sinner on the run from God. But God had mercy on him and gave him a second chance.
Jonah 2:1, "Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,"
I believe that I would have been praying too. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like in the belly of a fish. I get cold chills just thinking about it. I hope that Jonah wasn’t claustrophobic, but I can guess that he was by the time the three days had passed.
It’s a miracle that Jonah even survived. It’s a testimony to the mercy and keeping power of God that any of us survive those moments of running the wrong way. At any moment, all it would take is for God to say, “That’s enough!” It could all end so very quickly. But God allows us to stay in that place of rebellion long enough, and works with our heart long enough, to get us to realize that it’s time to turn around and run the other way.
God heard Jonah’s cry. God will hear your cry too; if you are running from his will for your life. He will hear that cry, but only if it is coming from a truly repentant heart. God knows the difference and he only answers the prayer of a wayward child if he knows the heart is ready for a change.
Some of us tend to cry in our distress but as soon as the distress passes we are back into running the wrong way. Some of us cry tears of repentance and then show that we really aren’t repentant at all – we are just sorry for getting caught.
Jonah’s repentance was real. God heard him and started the fish on his way back to Joppa where Jonah had come from. Remember, God is in control of everything. Every circumstance of your life will work to bring about God’s will if you will allow God to do it.
Jonah learned the lesson of Romans 8:28 long before the words were ever penned by the Apostle Paul, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
He had to learn that if his circumstances were going to work out for his good, then he had to love God and follow the call of God in his life. If he didn’t repent, turn around, and obey God’s call, then he was never going to see the light of day again.
Remember that! If you aren’t following the call of God in your life, and you aren’t truly serving the Lord out of a heart of love, then God is under no obligation to make your circumstances work out to your good. In fact, he is under obligation to bring circumstances into your life that will bring you to a place of repentance, no matter what it takes. Those bad things that are happening in your life will never turn around for your good until you first come back to Jesus in true repentance.
Jonah 2:10, "And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land."
What a sight that “man of God” must have been. What kind of odor must have gone with him? The fish had developed indigestion from eating a sour prophet. I can imagine that it never wanted another man again.
All of the fish in the stomach with Jonah was partially digested. Jonah had felt the effects of stomach acids too. I can imagine that his hair was gone and his skin was white as it could be and he probably wasn’t feeling very well as he felt and tasted and smelled everything in the belly of that fish.
But I can’t imagine Jonah wading back into the sea to wash off. I imagine he ran inland as fast as he could go to do what God had told him to do in the first place.
My friends, God can and will get your attention. He will bring you to a place where you don’t want to be, in order to get you to go and do what you are supposed to for his glory.
We can make it hard by running the wrong way and being branded like Jonah as a rebellious Christian, or we can run the right way with God and cross the goal line into Heaven as a faithful and just servant. The choice is yours. Which will it be?
