Hello, this is Dr. B. calling. I have the results of your blood tests, and I would like to have some more tests done.”
“OK. When should I come to your office?”
“I would want to have these done in the hospital, Mr. Cameron.”
“Will this not take some time to have the arrangements made, doctor?”
“Oh, I have already made the arrangements.”
“Alright. When is it? Next week?”
“No, this week.”
“But this is Thursday. Shall I come tomorrow?”
“No, I want you in at 2 o’clock this afternoon.”
A sudden call like the above is enough to put the shakes into the most stout-hearted Christian. But I did not feel too bad, so I did not worry too much. So within three hours I was in what was to be my bed for the next five weeks.
I introduced myself to the other occupant of the room I was given by saying, “I guess I’m your new roommate.”
My speech betrayed me, for he replied, “So you’re a Scotsman. Where do you come from?”
“Paisley,” I replied.
“It’s a small world. I come from Barhead.” Now Barhead was about fifteen minutes in the trolley car from Paisley, and here we were about 4,000 miles from home and only three feet separating our beds. “For me,” I told him, “Barhead was a place to pass through. The only times that I went there were if there were any special meetings in the Gospel Hall there.”
He replied with a surprising suddenness, “Were you in ‘the meetings’ in the old country?”
“Yes,” I said. “Were you?”
“No, I was not.”
“Well, what do you know about the meetings?” Then his history came out. He said that he had been compelled to go to Gospel meetings until he was seventeen years of age when he ran away from home and joined the army. This began a week of discussion and talk about the meetings of the Lord’s people in Scotland.
We spoke about the preachers and about gospel tents–everything but his soul. When the moment came, he sensed it, and would turn away or leave the room. And I, a soldier of the cross, was too much of a chicken to jump out of bed and grab him and say, “You need to accept Christ as your Saviour right now.” However, when he left at the end of the week, he gripped my hand and said, “This has been the most unusual experience of my life to spend a week in this room and discuss all these things with you.”
The next man to come into my room was Walter. When he came in, I introduced myself by saying, “I suppose you’re my new roommate. My name is Fred.”
“My name is Walter,” he responded simply. Walter had been brought in in a wheelchair and I saw he was having some difficulty getting out of it into bed. I asked him what his problem was. He said he had very bad arthritis in his hips. The worst of it was that he had lost his wife six months before and was trying to continue to live alone in his own home. It was just too much for him. His family had suggested that he go to the hospital for some treatment.
“Walter, I can’t sympathize with you as I ought to because I haven’t passed through what you have. I still have my wife. But you have my sympathy for your situation. When I get into problems like that in life, I pray about them, and I’d be glad to pray for you. ”
“Oh, are you a religious man?” he inquired.
“I guess you could call me a religious man.”
“I see you have a Bible there.”
“Yes, I do, and I read it every day. What kind of work did you do when you were working?” I asked, to continue the conversation.
He said, “I worked in a liquor store.”
“Were you their customer too?”
“Yes, I was a customer, too.” So we talked about his life. Did he go to church? No, he wasn’t a churchman at all. So I went on talking to him about prayer and about himself and how a Christian could depend on the Lord. He hadn’t been in the room an hour at this point, and I thought that maybe I was coming on too strong too quickly. I lay back in my bed and so did he; the curtain was half pulled around between us so we couldn’t see each other. We lay quietly for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, Walter began to pray! His prayer wasn’t in the words we are accustomed to using in our prayers, but what I heard was this: “O God, You know the kind of man I am. You know the kind of life I’ve lived. Come into my life and help me; there’s no one can help me but You.”
I waited for a few moments to hear if there was any more. But Walter was finished, so I added a hearty “Amen!” I spent about a week with that man, telling him the details of the Gospel, that it wasn’t just a cry to God, but all the Lord Jesus had done for him. When that man left, I thought he would never let me go. Actually I had been moved to another room by that time. He clung to my hand, tears in his eyes, so glad he had met me. What a good thing it was for him that he had come into the same room as I was in. Anytime I saw Walter in the hospital after that, he was always beeming with pleasure and wanting to cling to my hand and tell me how much he appreciated his discussions with me about the Gospel.
One morning, a young man came into my room. He told me he was studying psychology at the university and he spent a forenoon every week going around the hospital wards speaking to people who wanted to talk to him about anything. He said to me, “Do you want to talk?”
“Oh, yes, I would be glad to talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, I have just been reading my Bible. I would like to talk about that.”
“Oh,” he said, “that book. That book’s full of contradictions.”
“Is it? Well now, that would really give us something to talk about. If it’s full of contradictions, you should have no trouble,” I said, “picking out one of the contradictions, just one, and you and I will discuss it and see what we come up with.”
“Oh,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Well, you asked me if I wanted to talk and what I wanted to talk about. So I said, yes, and I gave you my subject. I think the reason you don’t want to talk about it is because you don’t know anything about it. And you’re probably just repeating something you heard some of your teachers saying in the university. ”
“Yes, we have a professor, and, every time the Bible comes up for discussion, that’s what he says: ‘Oh, that book’s full of contradictions.'”
“Well, if you’re studying psychology, young fellow, take it from me–you better start using your own head and do a little thinking for yourself, and reading.”
He was not at all upset by that, and we talked for a while about general things and away he went. But I bumped into him the day I was leaving the hospital, about four weeks later. He spoke to me about our conversation, but there was no sign of conversion. I hadn’t really preached the Gospel to him, but perhaps he would think twice before he idly attacked the Word of God.
One night, I was standing in the hallway, speaking to a man when another man came along.
“What are you gentleman discussing so seriously together?” he inquired. “Is it the immortality of the butterfly?”
“No, we’re not talking about the immortality of the butterfly, but if you would like to join the conversation, I’d be glad to discuss immortality with you. You know, we’re all mortal; that is why we are in this hospital. The doctors are trying to stave off the inevitability of our mortality.
Have you ever heard the expression–the immortality of the soul?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard that expression.”
“I want to tell you something. When the Bible is discussing the subject of mortality and immortality, it’s never talking about the soul; it’s always talking about the body. What’s wrong with us is that we have mortal bodies that are subject to death. And the hope of the Christian is that one day this mortal will put on immortality–we’re going to have real bodies in the eternal state. That’s the hope of the Christian. We are not going to be like little puffs of smoke out of a genie’s lamp or anything like that that you can pass your hand through, but real, immortal bodies. Jesus Himself said, when He rose from the dead, ‘Handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see Me have.'”
“Well, you have your religion and I have mine. And besides, I’m feeling fine anyway and I’m going home tomorrow morning. The doctor said I can leave tomorrow morning. Good night,” and he left me standing with the other man I had been talking with.
At six o’clock the next morning, there was a bit of commotion outside the room next to mine. It was where the man who thought he was immortal–for a little longer, at least–was staying. The doctors and nurses were running back and forth. This went on for about an hour and I didn’t interfere in any way. I lay in my bed until I saw his son-in-law at about a quarter to eight. I signed for him to come into the room. I had met this young man before.
“What’s going on in your father-in-law’s room?”
“He took a serious stroke at six this morning and he has just passed away.”
It gave me such a feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wonder if I made things clear to that man the night before. He was gone into eternity and he had brushed me off with what I told him.
There was a man who used to walk around and around the ward. It was a very large ward and he never seemed to talk to anybody. I thought one night that I would watch for him and walk around with him and ask him how he was getting on. So I slipped on a housecoat and waited for him. When he was just passing my door, I stepped out and I said, “Hello. Can I walk with you?”
“Oh, yes, yes.”
“How are you getting on?”
“Oh,” he said, “I don’t know how I’m getting on. I have to go for surgery and I’m worried.”
“You’re worried about it? You know, I’m a Christian and I pray about these things.” There was a bit of quietness and he didn’t answer me.
“I don’t always get the answer that I would like,” I continued, “but I get an answer; and another thing I get is the assurance that My Father in heaven will do what is best for me.” So gradually we talked a little bit, but I couldn’t get much out of him. I only took one or maybe two turns of the ward with him, and I found he wasn’t going to communicate with me at all, so I said “Good night” to him and went back into my own room.
The next day, two nurses came in and said, “We’re moving your bed and you over to the other side of the ward.”
“Who is my roommate going to be?”
“That big man who walks around the ward all the time.”
So they wheeled the bed around and into this man’s room. I said, “You’ve got me as a roommate. I hope I will be some encouragement to you because I know you are going for a fairly serious operation.” He didn’t say too much at all. They took him away the next day for his surgery. He was expected to be away for three or four hours –but he was away for eight. I was being taken away for tests at different times as well, so it was the following day before I saw him. He appeared to be sound asleep, or still under the anesthetic. His wife was sitting on a little stool by the bedside, with her head very close to his. She had a big Bible in her lap which had some markings in it.
“Oh, you have a Bible, Mrs. Smith.”
“Yes, this is his Bible. He called me and told me to bring his Bible down.”
“Where are you reading?”
“I’m not reading,” she said. “It just happened to open there. He had a bookmark in there.”
“Where is it?”
“In Joshua chapter 1.”
“Oh,” I said, “do you know that in that chapter it says four times, ‘Be strong and of a good courage’? And I was telling your husband that I pray about these situations and I will be glad to continue to pray for him and you both.” She thanked me very much. I went to lay down in my bed and, after the visiting hours, his wife went away. The nurses came and attended to him.
About 6 o’clock the next morning, I heard him say, “Would you read the Word of God to me, Mr. Cameron?” Now, ordinary sinners don’t usually speak about the Bible that way.
“Yes, I would be glad to read the Word of God to you,” I replied. So I took my Bible over to the little stool and sat fairly close to him. I opened up to Isaiah and read those wonderful verses: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,” and so on. He seemed to sort of fall asleep again, so I closed my Bible, had a word of prayer with him and I went back to my bed.
The following morning, he asked again if I would read the Word of God with him. Then he said, “I would like to ask you a question.”
“What question?”
“Do you think if a man is a Christian that God deals with him in discipline?”
“Well, we had better turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews and I will read that to you. ‘Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.'” I spoke to him about God’s discipline of His children because by this time I sensed that this man was a Christian, even though he hadn’t told me.
“The first night you spoke to me,” he said, “you couldn’t have hurt me more if you had stuck a knife into me.” Now that wasn’t a nice thing to hear.
“Oh, I am so sorry. What did I say that hurt you?”
“Well, the first thing you said when you stepped out to walk with me was that you were a Christian. I had been in this hospital two weeks before you came and nobody knew that I was a Christian. I haven’t been living like a Christian. And I believe what you read to me, that the Lord has been disciplining me for the way I have been living.”
So that week we prayed and read the Scriptures together. When that man left the hospital, tears ran unashamedly down his cheeks when he said good-bye to me. He said, “Mr. Cameron, I will never be the same man again. I am so glad that I have been able to spend this time with you. I have been restored to the Lord.”
One night, there were two nurses on duty. A fairly old man had been brought in who was evidently senile. He was shouting for his wife, his daughter, and for the nurses, making a noise that disturbed the whole ward. The nurses were very busy and couldn’t be attending to him all the time as there were one or two very sick patients on the ward. So I got up from my bed and went down to this old man’s room.
When I went in, I discovered he had been restrained in the bed with straps and a restraining harness to keep him from getting up. He was almost half-strangled with it as he had been struggling and kicking. He had kicked all the bed clothes off. With what little strength I had, I hauled him back up to the middle of his bed and covered him up with his blanket.
“What are you making all the noise for?” I inquired.
“I’m not making any noise.”
“You’ve been shouting for your wife, your daughters, and the nurses. What do you want? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m not shouting for anybody.”
“I think I detect a Scots accent,” I said. Are you a Scotsman?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you come from in Scotland?”
“I come from Bairdmoors.”
“Bairdmoors? There’s no such place as Bairdmoors. I know a large factory at a place called Parkhead–Bairdmoors Factory.”
“Yes, Parkhead, that’s it, Parkhead,” he said.
“Did you, by any chance, go to the Gospel Hall Sunday School in Parkhead?”
“Yes,” he answered hesitantly.
“Do you remember anything you learned in the Sunday School in Parkhead?” There was no response. He began shouting again, and calling and wriggling about in the bed. I managed to settle him down a bit, but he couldn’t continue any more of the conversation. Evidently he just had a few moments of lucidity, then his mind would go completely blank. He got settled down and I went back to my bed. He remained quiet and the rest of us got to sleep.
Two days after, they took the restraining straps from him and he was allowed to walk around the ward. He wandered about and couldn’t find his own room and wandered into mine.
I said to him, “Have you lost your room?”
“Yes,” he responded simply.
“You’re the man who told me that you went to the Parkhead Sunday School when you were a boy.” He nodded. I said, “Do you not remember yet anything you learned in the Parkhead Sunday School?”
He stood there quite still and his face got red–and then redder still. It seemed to me that his mind was struggling away back almost 90 years. He was trying to get a grasp of something. Suddenly, he said to me quite loudly, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.” I could have fallen through the floor. Having said that, he turned and walked out.
Here I had been in the hospital for five weeks. I had had every conceivable test that they could give a man to find out what was wrong. The doctors came and told me they were sending me home undiagnosed and they thought that my blood condition was settling down. So all that time in the hospital, and they couldn’t find out what was wrong with me. At home, I made a full recovery–that is about twelve years ago.
But it dawned on me that the reason I was in that hospital was simply this: that Jesus wanted me for a sunbeam.