The Eleventh Hour June 2020

On April 14, 1912 at 11:40 PM, an iceberg scraped the ship’s starboard side of the famous Titanic ripping open six water-tight compartments.  By 2:20AM the next morning the ship sank with 712 saved in life boats and 1,522 dying in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

One well-known pastor was aboard on his way back for a return preaching engagement at the Moody Church in Chicago accompanied by his six year old daughter.  John Harper was a man on fire for Christ and had a burden for souls.  During those final minutes in the cold water, John was near a man on a board drifting and asked him if he was saved?  The man said “no” and Harper shouted from the Bible: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”  The man drifted out of sight.  Later, the man came back into sight and Harper asked him the question again, “Are you saved?”  The man said “no” and so John repeated Acts 16:31.  Before he could hear the man’s answer, drowning Harper slipped into his watery grave, but the man put his faith in Christ.  Later the survivor said that he was the pastor’s last convert.

John Harper may not have seen his little girl grow up, but his zeal for Christ was part of his life up to the end.  Do we have that zeal?  Ask Jesus to give us more of that desire to be His Light and guess what, He will!

The Information about Pastor Harper was from pages 16-25 of the book, “The Titanic’s Last Hero” by Moody Adams, the Olive Press.)

~CMS