About This Product
The remarkable conversion of Dr. W.P. Mackay, author of Grace and Truth. Formerly, "The Forgotten Bible" and "The Doctor's Bible". As a student, Mackay pawned the Bible his mother gave him. But, it followed him . . . literally! A good Mother's Day tract.
Full Text of This Product
William Patton MacKay left his home in Scotland to attend College at the age of 17. His mother gave him a Bible, writing her name, his name, and a verse of Scripture on the fly leaf. He graduated with high honors and became the head of a large hospital. He also became the head of a club of infidels where they practiced everything that was licentious and vile. He was open in his ridicule of God and the Bible. Two of his chief pleasures in life were confronting critical medical cases and drinking.
One day the ambulance brought in a man who had been horribly crushed. On his face, however, was a look of calm and peace so pronounced that it amazed Dr. MacKay, who was accustomed to seeing people suffer. With a smile the patient asked what the verdict was.
“Oh, I guess we will pull you through and fix you up,” replied the doctor.
“No, Doctor, I don’t want any guess,” the man said. “I want to know if it is life or death. Just lay me down easy, anywhere, Doctor, I am ready. I am saved and am not afraid to die.” With a radiant face he continued. “I know I am going to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out’ [John 6:37], and I have come and accepted Him as my personal Savior. But I want the truth. Just what is my condition?”
The doctor replied: “You have at the most three hours to live.” Observing the evident peace with which the young man accepted this news, the doctor was moved to ask, “Is there anything you would like to have us do for you?”
Thanking him, the injured man replied, “In one of my pockets is a two weeks’ paycheck. If you can get it, I wish you would send it at once to my landlady, and ask her to send me the Book.”
“What book?” inquired the doctor.
“Oh, just the Book,” the man answered. “She will know.”
Dr. MacKay arranged for the man’s request to be cared for, and then started on his rounds through the hospital. These words kept ringing in his ears: “I am ready, Doctor. Just lay me down easy, anywhere, Doctor, I am ready.” Dr. MacKay had never been known to inquire about a patient from any personal interest; but for the first time in his life he wanted to know how this one was getting along. He returned to the ward where the man had been placed, and seeing the nurse whom he had assigned to the case, inquired as to his condition.
“He died just a few minutes ago,” the nurse informed him.
“Did the book get here?” asked the doctor.
“Yes, it arrived shortly before he died,” the nurse answered.
“What was it?” asked Dr. MacKay, “his bank-book?”
“No, it wasn’t his bank-book,” replied the nurse. “It is still there, though, if you care to look at it. He died with it under his pillow.”
Dr. MacKay went to the bedside, reached under the sheet and drew a Bible from under the pillow. As he did so the Bible opened and the pages turned over to the flyleaf. There, in his mother’s handwriting, was Dr. MacKay’s name, his mother’s name, and a verse of Scripture. It was the very Bible given to him by his mother when he had left home to attend college. Long ago, in a drunken spree, he had pawned it to obtain more liquor.
Dr. MacKay slipped the Book under his coat and rushed upstairs to his private office. He asked God to have mercy upon him; and, in repentance, he accepted Christ as his Savior. He was heard; his “blind eyes opened on a sweet new world.” The old things passed away, and he realized he was a new creation in Christ Jesus. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Dr. MacKay, the physician, be-came Dr. MacKay the preacher; and as a preacher of the Gospel, he turned many to the Lord.
Just as God had His eye on that Bible and on W. P. Mackay and had determined that they should meet again, so He has His eye on you, dear reader.
“The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 AEH
If the foregoing story impressed you, or has caused you to wonder if it could really be true, consider the following equally amazing and true story:
In the 1930s, Stalin, the Russian dictator, ordered massive purges of segments of the Soviet population to eliminate any whom he considered to be a threat to his rule. Christians (with their Bibles) were among the groups specially marked for elimination. Some historians estimate that over one million Christians died in Stalin’s purges.
In Stavropol, Russia, Stalin's order to eliminate all Christians and all Bibles was strongly enforced. Thousands of Bibles were confiscated, while many Christians were immediately executed or sent to the gulags (prisons) where most died, branded as “enemies of the state.”
Many years later, when Soviet persecution of Christians had greatly eased, a Christian missionary team, was allowed to visit Stavropol to make contact with any Christians living there. However, the Bibles they had ordered from Moscow to distribute in Stavropol had not arrived. A local Russian who knew the history of the Stavropol purges mentioned that the warehouse where the confiscated Bibles had been stored still existed.
A member of the missionary team went to the warehouse to see if the Bibles were still there. The warehouse officials assured him that they were indeed still stored there. A request to remove the Bibles and to distribute them to the people of Stavropol also received official approval.
The next day the missionary team returned with a truck and with several Russian men who had been hired to help load the Bibles. One of these, a young college student, was particularly hostile and arrogant, a self-proclaimed agnostic. It was obvious he had come just to earn a day's wages.
While loading the Bibles one of the missionaries noticed that the young man had disappeared. When they found him, he was huddled in the corner of the warehouse holding a Bible in his hands and weeping. He had planned to take one of the Bibles for himself and had stolen away from the truck unnoticed so that none would know that he too wanted a Bible.
Once alone with a pile of Bibles, he had picked up a dusty, well-worn copy. Opening it, he was deeply shaken when he saw, inside the front cover, the faded hand-writing and name of the Bible’s former owner—one of the Christians who had been purged by Stalin so many years before—his own grandmother.
So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isaiah 55:11