Monday, 14th December, 2020

Bible Reading: Isaiah 1:18, 55: 6-7

Memory Verse: Give up your evil ways and your evil thoughts. Return to the LORD our God. He will be merciful and forgive your sins. Isaiah 55:7 (CEV)

A mutineer is someone especially of a soldier who rebels against constituted authority. HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a small merchant vessel that the Royal Navy purchased for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the Pacific Ocean to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a mutiny (open rebellion) led by the then acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian. This incident is now popularly known as the mutiny on the Bounty.

John Adams, known as Jack Adams (4 July 1767 – 5 March 1829), was the last survivor of the Bounty mutineers who settled on Pitcairn Island in January 1790, the year after the mutiny. His real name was John Adams, but he used the name Alexander Smith until he was discovered in 1808. The mutineers of HMS Bounty and their Tahitian companions settled on the island and set fire to the Bounty. Only the ballast stone remains of the wreck in Bounty Bay. Although the settlers were able to survive by farming and fishing, the initial period of settlement was marked by serious tensions among the settlers.

Alcoholism, murder, disease and other ills had taken the lives of most of the mutineers and Tahitian men. John Adams, Ned Young, and Matthew Quintal were the last three mutineers surviving in 1799 when Adams and Young got the thuggish Quintal drunk and killed him with a hatchet. Adams and Young later found a Bible in the ship and that marked a new dawn for their lives. As a result, they embraced Christianity and taught their children to read and write using the Bible.

Young eventually died of an asthmatic infection, but Adams continued his work of educating the women and children. The Pitcairners also converted to Christianity. The Pitcairners would later convert from their existing form of Christianity to Adventism after a successful Adventist mission in the 1890s. The American sailing ship Topaz was the first to rediscover Pitcairn in 1808. John Adams was eventually granted amnesty for the mutiny. Dear brethren, you have just read the story of a transformed life.

A man on his way to hell came across a Bible and that changed his entire life and a whole community. This is the mystery of our faith. Are you there with a load of sin? Perhaps you have done many abominable things. If only you can repent and turn to the Lord, like the prodigal son, He will accept you heartily. Today is your day of salvation. Tomorrow may be too late.

Quote: Nothing can make you clean but the Blood of Jesus.

Prophetic Decree: Receive the convicting and liberating power of the Holy Ghost, in Jesus name.

Prayer Focus

1. Thank you Father for the power in Your Word to transform me.

2. O Lord, I come with a load of sin, wash me and make me white as snow, in Jesus name.

3. Altar of unrighteousness in my heart, catch fire, in Jesus name.

4. Holy Spirit, deliver from any sin in my life that easily snares me.

5. I put on the righteousness of Jesus, in Jesus name.

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:   Acts 27-28