E. V. Hill & S. M. Lockridge

Evie Hill and S.M. Lockridge are worthy of imitation, not because of their oratory, which was great, not because of the size of the congregations they pastored, which were large, not because of the reach of their political influence or the depth of their understanding. They are worthy of imitation because what mattered to them was the gospel of Christ. What motivated them was the approval of Christ. What mesmerized them was the glory of Christ. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey continues through his series entitled Legacies of Light.

In this series, he examines the biographies of Christian heroes from the past. Unlike other lessons, Stephen looks at two people in this lesson, Evie Hill and S.M. Lockridge. What would change in your life if the gospel was your priority?

What if you were to become committed to sharing the truth with the people around you without holding back? Evie Hill and S.M. Lockridge were a lot like Peter and John in the book of Acts. They preached with confidence, inspired by their passion for Jesus. Today, we're going to be inspired to follow their example.

Stay with us. We continue our brief study, a series of identifying the lives of believers worthy of imitation. As the apostles told the early church, even defined within their assembly, those worthy of imitating.

So we've just sort of taken a little pause here and we're introducing some choice servants of the Lord from recent church history and some as far away as about four or five hundred years ago. If you've been around here long enough, you've probably heard me mention, of course, my father preaching in a number of churches. And I can remember growing up traveling with him, his ministry there in Norfolk, Virginia, to sailors, predominantly sailors there in that service center. He would load up an old bus and every Sunday night we'd go to a different church to worship.

Typically it would be a church that would provide prayer support or financial support to their ministry. And he preached in all kinds of churches. I wasn't raised in the Baptist Church.

He would preach in Presbyterian churches, Missionary Alliance churches, Methodist churches, Bible churches, Baptist churches, Brethren churches. And frankly, I didn't realize the wonderful education I was getting in the broader world of evangelical Christianity. And it's something I treasure now. In fact, when he called me this morning, we were reminiscing about one particular Sunday. It's one of really the few Sunday evening services I can, I can still remember.

I can still see myself sitting in that assembly. It was a predominantly African-American church, a Baptist church. They had invited him to preach. It was a different kind of service than I had ever seen before, but it still brings back fond memories. I can tell you nobody was sleeping in the pew, not like while I'm preaching here on Sunday morning. Everybody was alert. In fact, from the announcements to the closing benediction, it was just riveting.

I treasure those memories. In fact, I was telling my dad, I don't know if it's because of events like that, but to this day I am particularly inspired and motivated and moved by the preaching of evangelical black pastors. I so appreciate and admire their courage. They stand on the shoulders of their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers who many of them were pastors who preached and lived with great courage in a culture and society that was not accommodating in any way, shape or form. I love bringing to our congregation so that we can hear the good preaching of men like Richard Allen Farmer and Robert Smith and E.B.

Charles and Charles Ware and others. I love the fact that in our own congregation we're multi-ethnic. We're part of one family in Christ. To this day, some of my favorite preachers are these African-American pastors. I can't imagine, beloved, how difficult it would be to pastor as an African-American in 1860.

I can't imagine how difficult it would be to pastor in this country in 1960. When I think of these men, two of them I'm going to introduce to you, they were not only faithful as men, as husbands, as fathers, but they were faithful to the gospel in a society that was not accommodating to them. In fact, I'm going to tell you a little bit about how they made enemies on both sides of the tennis net simply because they delivered the truth of God's word. Frankly, when I hear them preaching about freedom in Christ, when I hear them preaching about the faithfulness and provision of God, there is a richer, deeper nuance to their voice and they so move me and motivate me and inspire me. Two of my favorite pastors from recent history, both of these men have been with the Lord now for nearly 20 years, are Evie Hill and S.M.

Lockerage. You don't know who they are, it's about time I introduce them to you. There are no biographies written about these men, and that is very unfortunate, but if you read their obituaries, if you read their sermons, if you listen to audio recordings of them, if you read things they've written themselves, you'll pick up enough information as I've tried to piece it together for you today, they lived with similar devotion and courage and passion. And if I could boil down their lives and ministries into three observations, it would simply be these. What mattered to them was the gospel of Christ. What mattered to them was the gospel of Christ. What motivated them was the approval of Christ. That's what motivated them, not the approval of mankind, but the approval of Christ. And what seemed to mesmerize them was the glory of Christ. Reading what little I could find on the life of Evie Hill, it took me in my mind that the book of Acts in the early church, let me invite you, we'll look briefly at a text in Acts chapter 4, so turn there if you have a copy of the New Testament with you. This text could be on the calling card of these men.

This was their highest objective and it ought to be ours as well. And while you're turning, let me tell you a little bit about Edward Victor Hill Sr. He was born in the early 1900s in a log cabin in Texas. He was born into poverty. He grew up in poverty. However, he would later write this and I quote him, I didn't know I was poor. I didn't know I was poor because we never equated material things with poverty. To us, poverty was a matter of the spirit and we were rich in spirit.

That alone is a wonderful lesson for us. Well, through hard work, he graduated from high school and the providence of God, he earned a scholarship to a college that had been founded in the late 1800s to give the children and grandchildren slaves an opportunity to get a college education. Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College for the benefit of colored youth.

How's that for a name? It would later become part of the Texas A&M University System, A&M standing still for agricultural and mechanical education, although of course there are many degrees, but that really wasn't his desire. In fact, he wanted to learn in the ministry, but this was an opportunity to go to college and so he did. His mother sacrificed tremendously, he would say later, to buy a bus ticket to get him there.

And when he arrived, he had a dollar and 83 cents in his pocket and only the suit of clothing on his back, that's all he had. He didn't receive a theological education, he didn't receive a biblical training as a biblical training ground there at the school, but it was valuable in many other aspects. At the age of 21, he then became the pastor of his first church and it was located in Texas. He would go on to pastor for nearly 50 years. He might not have had the best theological preparation, but it couldn't help but think as you study his life that he had the spirit of illumination and a desire to learn the word and for the most part, he was self-taught and if you listen to him, you would think he had earned several degrees. You would think he was a walking Bible encyclopedia, articulate and brilliant, but that wouldn't be how he'd be viewed certainly early on in his ministry and I couldn't help but think of Acts chapter 4 and verse 13. Notice the apostles are called in before the Sanhedrin and we're told now as they, that is the Sanhedrin, the High Court of Israel, the Supreme Court, as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, if I can stop you for just a moment, that word confidence is a word that is nuanced.

It carries the idea of expressing yourself and not holding anything back. So here's Peter and John speaking to the Supreme Court of the nation Israel with confidence. They're delivering the truth of the gospel. They're holding nothing back. In the Sanhedrin, one more comment and then we'll look, by the way, happened to be the most biblically literate, theologically trained group of men in the entire nation.

The Sanhedrin, they're stunned. Notice again, these men are uneducated and untrained. The word for uneducated literally means unlettered. There's no pedigree. In spite of that notice, they were amazed and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.

Don't you love that? They've been with Jesus. See, it wasn't a matter of education. It was a matter of association.

Maybe the reason, and I think about my own life, maybe you wondered the same about your own life. Perhaps we're not having the spiritual fruit we'd like to have is because we're more educated than ever but the world isn't recognizing us as having been with Jesus. You can go out there and you can talk about God all you want but you start talking about Jesus and it's a different story. They have been with Jesus.

Early on, E.V. Hill would be recognized for that kind of intimate association with the Lord. I'm going to tell you, he will be disliked by the white community, he will be disliked by the black community and everybody in between because he's called to preach and he's going to deliver the truth.

He will speak it and hold nothing back. I went to his university online to try to get a little research done. In fact, I thought there'd probably be a paragraph or a page on this most illustrious alumnus. They did have a page. In fact, it's titled Notable Alumni of Prairie View and the list is quite impressive.

There are the names of corporate CEOs, university presidents, professional athletes in the WNBA, the NBA, the NFL, many names I recognize. There are the names of recording artists and concert musicians and civil rights leaders but his name isn't found among the notable alumni of Prairie View. The most famous pastor to have ever graduated from that school is not listed. I just sort of propped my feet up on my desk and said, well, let me think of why and it was pretty obvious why as you study his life. He didn't fit. He didn't fit the white community, he didn't fit the black community. He was a notable alumnus in the school of biblical doctrine but because of that, he made enemies on both sides. It might have been because he placed the gospel above racial issues even though he was a confidant to Martin Luther King Jr.

When he preached, it was about the gospel. Maybe he didn't make the list because he was more interested than in building a church than a political movement. Maybe it was because he had friendships with men like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham. Maybe it was because he preached as he did a very strong pro-life position.

In fact, he preached and held to a very strong six literal day creation view. Maybe it was because he left the Democratic Party early in his ministry and began identifying with conservative political leaders. He would pray at the inauguration of one Republican president. He would become a confidant to another one. Maybe he didn't make the list because on one occasion, he called the American Civil Liberties Union satanic.

That's not going to win you friends. You see, what mattered to him was the gospel of Christ. What motivated him was the approval of Christ and not man. He is worthy of imitation. How freely do you speak out there of your association, not with God, but with Jesus. This mattered most to him.

It's interesting. I read a book some time ago by James Montgomery Boyce, now the Lord was the pastor of 10th Presbyterian in Philadelphia. He was a friend of Evie Hill's. In his book, Boyce's book on the Christian and politics, which is the name of it, I copied out of that book an illustration about the ministry of Evie Hill as he pastored Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in the Los Angeles, California area. He eventually left Texas.

In fact, he spent nearly 40 years in California. Well, at one time early in his ministry, Evie Hill was a ward leader for the Democratic Party. As a ward leader, his assignment was to get his ward out to vote. That strategy continues to this day on both sides of the aisle and in the middle as well. He designed the strategy that what he needed to do was get a block captain for each block in his region. On election day, the block captain would call their neighbors on the block and encourage them, remind them, today you got to go vote.

A great strategy. When Evie came to Los Angeles and began pastoring, he was convicted by that thought. He thought if I used to do that for politics, why don't I translate that into the ministry of the gospel? He thought why don't I get a block captain for each block in this Los Angeles area from our church?

He calculated that in his area, South Central Los Angeles, the number of city blocks was 3,100. That was an ambitious goal, but he decided that would be their goal. The entire church moved intentionally in that direction.

Church members decided where they lived based on whether or not somebody in the church already lived on that block. Can you imagine? In our day, my thinking is, hey, I got a couple of families on my street that go to Columbia. This is great.

They would have said, no, no, no, no. You got to spread out. We need somebody on every block. When Evie was sharing this strategic method with James Montgomery Boyce, he had already established block captains in 1,900 blocks in South Central LA. He tells, Evie does, of a funny story of something that happened. He said there was one man who had been so put off by the block captain where he lived. She was always inviting him to church. Every time she saw him, she wanted to talk to him about the Lord, the gospel.

She was friendly, tactful, yet persistent, and he kind of avoided her at every opportunity, and finally he got tired of her. Then he decided to move. The moving truck came. He loaded up his possessions, and just before he drove away, the block captain came out there and bid him farewell, gave him one more invitation to church as he was driving away, and as he drove away, he said to himself, I'm so glad I'm rid of you people.

The moving truck pulled away, and as soon as it was out of sight, the block captain ran into her house, got out the directory of the Mount Zion block captains, found the person in charge of the block to which her neighbor was moving, and when he pulled up, there was the new block captain waiting. Welcome to your new home, and let me invite you to church. His comment was classic. He said, good Lord, you people are everywhere. I love that.

I read that, though I was deeply convicted by that. Imagine if we truly believed we were positioned and stationed and assigned to our block, that cubicle, that desk, on assignment, not to get out the vote, but to exalt Jesus Christ. His life is worthy of imitation. Let me introduce you to a colleague of his who grew up equally passionate about the Gospel. His name was Shadrach Meshach Lockeridge.

He would go by SM, a lot shorter. He was born in 1913. He lived to the end of that century. He died in the year 2000. Again, there is no biography on his life.

In fact, there's less information on SM's life than EVs. Again, if you look for scraps here and there and read the obituaries and what other people said about him and listen to some sermons and whatever, you can put some pieces together as I have for you and for my own ministry and heart. He also grew up in Texas in poverty. He pastored his first church in Texas. I can't imagine how difficult it would have been to pastor a church in Texas in 1925, to go through what he went through on so many levels societally as well as pastorally. He would serve for nearly 40 years in the ministry, much of it in California. He was called to pastor in San Diego and while there for decades became a really powerful religious voice and social voice, he became the president of the California Missionary Baptist State Convention. He was also known for his courageous and powerful preaching. He, like E.V. Hill, they were like Peter and John to me.

They just laid it all out there and held nothing back, made plenty of enemies, plenty of friends. SM eventually served on the faculty of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism and would teach evangelism courses. He served on the Greater Los Angeles Sunday School Convention. He even published two books that were, for the most part, sermons, one on the Lordship of Christ and the other entitled Rekindling Holy Fires, which he tended to do. He would be used widely of the Lord. He'd preach at crusades associated with the Billy Graham, evangelistic rallies, conferences all around the world. Colleagues called him a giant among preachers. Again, self-taught, but when you listen to his articulation, you would think he had earned theological degrees because of his study and life in the word. His best-known message is a sermon entitled That's My King. He preached it 40 years ago. In this sermon, he describes the Lord and it's clear to me and that's why I put that third observation on the lives of these two men. He was mesmerized by the glory of Christ. To date, that sermon, there's no video, there's only audio and it's kind of scratchy, but that audio from 40 years ago now has been downloaded millions upon millions of times. It's more than likely the most listened to sermon in modern church history and it's nothing more than the exaltation of Jesus Christ. The lyrics, and I say lyrics because it is poetry in motion. Some of them, I've edited down, it's an hour long. Let me give you three or four minutes worth.

Some of it goes like this. My Bible says he's the king of the Jews. He's the king of Israel. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of the ages. He's the king of heaven. He's the king of glory. He's the king of kings and he's the Lord of lords. He's my king.

I wonder, do you know him? He's the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world. He's God's son.

He's a sinner savior. He's the centerpiece of civilization. He's unparalleled.

He's unprecedented. I wonder if you know him. He sympathizes and he saves. He strengthens and sustains. He guards and he guides. He forgives sinners.

He discharges debtors. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the aged and he rewards the diligent.

I wonder if you know him. His light is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting.

His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. I wish I could describe him to you, but he's indescribable.

He's incomprehensible. You can't get him out of your mind. You can't get him off your hand. You can't outlive him and you can't live without him. The Pharisees couldn't stand him, but they found out they couldn't stop him like Peter and John. Pilate couldn't find any fault in him. Herod couldn't kill him. Death couldn't handle him and the grave couldn't hold him. That's my king.

Wow. Evie Hill and S.M. Lockridge are worthy of imitation. Not because of their oratory, their skill in communication, which was great. Not because of the size of the congregations they pastored, which were large.

Not because of the reach of their political influence or the depth of their understanding. They are worthy of imitation because what mattered to them was the gospel of Christ. What motivated them was the approval of Christ. What mesmerized them was the glory of Christ.

Like Evie Hill and S.M. Lockridge, the gospel, the glory, and the approval of Jesus Christ should consume us as well. I'm glad you joined us today here on Wisdom for the Hearts with Stephen Davey. We've just about come to the end of Stephen's series entitled Legacies of Light as he examines the biographies of Christian heroes. We have one more lesson to go in this series and we'll bring you that next time. I hope you have a great weekend. We'll conclude this current series on Monday, so join us for that here on Wisdom for the Hearts.