“Would you like to go with me to the Town Prison?” a friend asked me when I was in Jamaica, British West Indies. “We have permission to speak to the prisoners this afternoon.”
That afternoon we arrived at the prison, where over one thousand men were kept in jail. After speaking to the men about God’s wondrous salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, a guard stepped up and asked me if I would like to talk to the fourteen men who were condemned to die on the gallows. He led me into the section where three of the fourteen were imprisoned.
As I looked at these men, I realized that they would never again hear the gospel. This was their last chance to hear that Jesus Christ offered them eternal life. I sang the hymn, “Now I Belong to Jesus,” and then gave a word of personal testimony, telling how I had been saved at the age of eighteen.
Crouched in his cell before me, looking more like a wild beast than a man, was a fifty-two year old murderer. He said, “I’m going to die on Tuesday. Sir, can I be saved?”
“Indeed you can,” I told him. “You must die for the crime you committed, but Jesus Christ died to take your sins away.” I read him Romans 10:1313For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13), “For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” I read him other simple verses that show salvation is God’s work and not man’s. I’ll never forget that experience. He put his face right on that dirty floor, sobbed and cried, as he called upon the name of the Lord. After a moment or so he turned and was smiling through his tears.
“Sing it again!” he asked, “the song you just sang.” So I started to sing once more,
“Now I belong to Jesus,
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone,
But for eternity.”
He tried to sing it with me, but when he got to the third line he was silent. He didn’t have “years of time”; only three days.
It was time to go and as the guard led me to the huge gate, I looked back. There he was, arms waving out through the bars, while he sang, “Now I belong to Jesus.” That was the last I saw of him, but we heard that on Tuesday he went gallantly to the gallows, singing as he was ushered into the presence of Christ. They didn’t tell us what he was singing, but I think I know what it was! “Now I Belong to Jesus!”
ML 12/10/1961