“This is the story of Dr. Richard Kimble, falsely convicted of the murder of his wife, reprieved by fate when a train wreck freed him on route to the death house, freed him to change his identity, freed him to toil at many jobs, freed him to search for the one armed man he saw leave the scene of the crime, freed him to run before the relentless pursuit of the police lieutenant obsessed with his capture!”

        Believe me when these words were spoken my family and I were glued to the television set to see what would happen next to “Dr. Richard Kimble.”  As I look back now David Jansen has become an iconic figure in my mind, he played his part so well.  At those nail biting times when he was about to be discovered, I remember my dad saying “That guy has an amazing ability to look guilty!”

          Those opening words will forever be etched on my mind.  I really didn’t know what the word, “reprieved” meant.  I thought it meant fate had freed him.  Now I find out it doesn’t mean freed at all it means, “delayed his execution,” or gave him time! 

We see this often when a convicted murderer is setting on death row.  His lawyer feels that given a little more time he might be able to prove his innocence.  So he petitions the Governor or the President for a reprieval.

Picture now in your mind a convicted murderer sitting on death row.  He does not want a reprieval.  He despises his life and everyone he knows.  He is bitter his heart has been hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.  His lawyer who of course just happens to be Jesus feels given a little more time this man might change his ways so he petitions the governor which of course is God the Father.  He pleads not innocence but insanity, “Father this man (or woman) is sin sick, what he has done he has done ignorantly in unbelief, please just a little more time.”

2 Peter 3:3

     3. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts

     4. And saying, where is the promise of his coming?  For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

         2 Peter 3:8

     8. But, beloved be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the  Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day

     9. The Lord is not slack concerning his promises, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance.

    Man has been given a reprieval, unlike David Jansen we don’t even know how to blush much less confess our sins.