Some may have noticed the silence here on the blog over the last two months. Summer is always a very busy time, and I chose to step back from blogging over these months to savor moments spent with family and accomplish the demands of summer.

This week I thought I would kick off getting back into blogging with a Heroes From History Spotlight. Our last spotlight was on Audie Murphy — the man who single-handedly held off an entire company of Germans during WWII.

Today’s hero is a man who was equally as courageous, though not nearly as well known.

The original plans for their journey would have placed them aboard the Lusitania. A short time before they left, however, Harper postponed their journey by a week so that they could travel on the maiden voyage of a new luxury ship — the Titanic.

The largest ship ever built at that time, it was hailed as being “practically unsinkable”. Some were reported as having said that “God himself could never sink the Titanic“. A trip aboard the Titanic was promised to be an unforgettable journey.

Sunday, April 14th started out calm and still. Harper preached a sermon to the passengers gathered for church services that morning. Always seeming to find avenues with which to care for the lost souls of men wherever he went, Harper then spent the afternoon sharing the gospel with those aboard. That night, as he and Jessie leaned against the rail of the ship and admired the sunset, Harper remarked “It will be beautiful in the morning.”

Around 11:40 that night, the Titanic hit an iceberg that badly damaged the ship. At least five of the “watertight” compartments within the ship ruptured, allowing the icy waters of the Atlantic to gush in.

Passengers were told to leave their cabins and get into the lifeboats, woman and children first. One of the great tragedies surrounding the sinking of the Titanic was that there were only enough lifeboats to save a third of the people on board.

As chaos consumed the ship, Harper wrapped his daughter in a blanket and kissed her goodbye. He told her that she would see him again, then placed her into a lifeboat alongside Jessie.

Although Harper would have been allowed onto the lifeboat with Anna, due to his status as her sole guardian, he refused to save himself while so many others were perishing. He turned back into the confusion aboard ship and began shouting “Women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats!”

“Women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats!”

John Harper

Reports of those who witnessed his courageous actions that fateful night tell us that he spent the final hours of his life pleading with the lost to trust in Jesus before it was too late. He went person to person, asking if they knew Jesus.

It was during these final moments on board the ship that Harper asked the band to play Nearer My God To Thee. The last of the ship slipped beneath the water. Harper gave his lifejacket to another man and was left clinging to a piece of debris.

The horror of being lost in the waves of the sea was not unknown to Harper. As a two year old child he fell into a well and was pulled out by his mother, who performed first-aid that saved his life. In his twenties he was swept out to sea, while swimming, and nearly drowned but the current changed and carried him back to shore just in the nick of time. Again in his thirties, he was caught in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with a ship that was sinking, but his life was spared once again.

There is no denying the obvious fact that God’s hand of providence was at work in those three instances. He still had work for Harper to do here on earth.

As the waves surged and rolled over him, he was pushed toward another man adrift on a piece of debris.

“Are you saved?” Harper asked the young man.

“No, I’m not saved!” replied the man in desperation.

As the waves pulled them apart Harper called out, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

Darkness separated the two men lost in the angry waves of the icy Atlantic. It was solely by God’s mercy that His unseen hand caused them to drift back together some time later.

Harper asked yet again if the man was saved. Again the man gave the same answer.

In his final recorded words, Harper pleaded with the man, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

A short while later, Harper slipped beneath the surface of the frigid water for the last time. Lost to the grip of hypothermia, yet safe in the arms of Jesus. His words from earlier in the night proved true in a capacity that he had never imagined. Indeed, Heaven’s dawn was the beautiful sight that met his eyes that morning.

Some may wonder why God would allow such a powerful preacher to be lost in such a tragic manner while still in the prime of his life. Perhaps the answer can be found in the life of that young man clinging to the wreckage of the greatest tragedy of his life.

He was eventually rescued by a lifeboat and was among the survivors of that terrible night. But more important than his physical rescue was the rescue of his soul that took place in those icy waters. In his own words, “There, two miles above the ocean floor, I did believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation. I was John Harper’s last convert.”

“There, two miles above the ocean floor, I did believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation. I was John Harper’s last convert.””

Would he have accepted Christ as his Savior if John Harper had not been present to share the gospel with him in the darkest hours of that night? Only God knows the answer to that question.

One of John Harper’s friends said it best.

“Some of us can well imagine him in these last awful minutes on board the doomed Titanic, standing amidst a group of stricken, repentant souls pointing them to the Savior he had loved and served so well, and helping them to seize their eleventh-hour opportunity. God has not many servants whom He could trust with such a service, and that, to me at least, is the explanation of our brother being on board the Titanic instead of on the Lusitania as he had at one time planned.”

John Paton

The sinking of the Titanic was one of the biggest tragedies of the early 20th century. Dozens of documentaries, movies, and books have been made about it. Yet seldom, if ever, is John Harper’s courage remembered or talked about.

His selfless actions and steadfast faith have earned him a place in my mind’s hall of heroes. But I hope this series of posts does more than simply introduce you to amazing heroes from history. I hope it inspires us to learn from what made them heroes and implement those characteristics into our lives.

I wonder, would you or I be willing to give up our place in a lifeboat to save a lost soul from going into eternity without Christ?

A. M. Watson

Hebrews 13:8