I'm an orderly at the county hospital, where you can see human misery in its worst form. The 'County' is a busy place and the orderlies manage to keep pretty busy. But there are certain hours during the day when you can stop and relax. The hours between 9 and 11 in the evening, for instance, are ordinarily pretty dull.
It was just after 9 o'clock one evening when something happened that set me to thinking. The nurses had finished their dressings, the lights were out, and my patients were settled for the night. I was walking past one of the units where we keep the more seriously ill patients when I was stopped by a call.
I went in to see if I could be of any help. It was the patient in bed #52 who had called, but he hadn't called me. It wasn't my assistance he needed that night. As I leaned over to ask him what he wanted, he called out again: "O God, please help me tonight."
Just then the patient in bed #53 spoke up. "Why don't you shut up?" he snapped peevishly. "You've been moaning all night. Look at me―I'm going up for a major operation tonight and I'm not squawking. It'll take more than God to help you now."
I looked over at #53. He had a tube inserted through his nose, and I silently agreed that he did have some reason for complaint. But the patient in #52 paid no attention to him and kept calling on God for assistance.
I couldn't help wondering at their opposite views. One, close to death, was calling with simple faith to his Maker while the other, so soon to be under the knife, was callously denouncing Him.
Another patient called me just then and I left the room. I told the nurse that #52 was in pain, and let it go at that.
I came to work at 2:30 the next day, the incident completely erased from my mind. I put on my jacket and was making a round of the patients when the head nurse pulled me aside.
The patient in #53 went up to the Operating Room and expired under the anesthetic," she said.
That set me to thinking again, so I went to look at #52. He was sleeping, but I picked up the chart from the foot of his bed. I glanced past the reports of temperature and medication until my eye caught the report of his condition: "Patient much improved."
Since then I've thought a great deal about these two patients, #52 and #53. The one without faith, dead; and the one whose faith in God had made him a "patient much improved."
How tragic to be "without faith." Far better to be without health, without wealth, without work, without comforts―even without food―than to be without faith!
Without faith there is no forgiveness of sins, no deliverance from judgment, no eternal life, no peace, no joy, no hope!
But no one need be "without faith" for "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:1717So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17).