First Baptist Church
Knoxville, Tennessee
Sunday, December 30, 1951
DR.
STOKES:
At the direction of the church, a Council of Baptist Preachers met with Cecil Egerton this afternoon. I am going to ask the Clerk of our church, Mr. Russell Parrish, to read the report of that Council. Mr. Parrish:
The examination called
for by action of the Church Conference of October 24, 1951, was convened by the
Pastor on Sunday afternoon, December 30, 1951, in the First Baptist Church of
Knoxville, Tennessee. After due and full examination of the candidate, Mr.
Cecil Baker Egerton, the presbytery recommends that the church proceed with his
Ordination.
Signed by:
Dr.
Fred F. Brown, Pastor Emeritus
Rev.
A.F. Mahan
Dr.
Ramsey Pollard, Pastor Broadway Baptist Church
Dr.
T.C. Wyatt
Dr.
Henry J. Stokes, Jr. Pastor
Thank you Mr. Parrish. Is
there a motion that this recommendation be received? Second. Those in favor
please signify by saying “aye”. So ordered.
Now we come to the first
speaker of the occasion, Dr. Ramsey Pollard, pastor of the Broadway Baptist
Church of our City, who will bring charge to the church itself. Dr. Pollard.
DR. POLLARD
Thank you, Dr. Stokes. It is a
peculiar joy for me to be here at this occasion because of the long friendship
with the Egerton family. Then always to rejoice with my friends at the First
Baptist Church when a great spiritual victory has come into their hearts and
lives. Certainly this church has a peculiar joy tonight. Not only is this an
occasion that the candidate will look back upon with great love for many years,
to come, but likewise this church is experiencing one of the greatest joys it
can ever experience.
His father and mother and
other members of this family have been loyal and devoted Christian workers
here. Years ago, his grandfather was pastor of this church. So, therefore, this
church has a peculiar joy and privilege tonight in ordaining this young man to
the gospel ministry.
I would caution you, however,
to remember that this is simply not a matter of joy, it’s a matter of terrific
responsibility. I shall never forget that day, twenty-six years ago, when I was
set apart to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. I shall never
forget that little building, it still stands there, in Tampa, Florida. That
afternoon with Claude W. Duke and many other ministers of that vicinity came
and put their hands upon my head and set me apart to preach the glorious gospel
of Jesus Christ.
There are many churches,
Cecil, I imagine, that you will have contact with in the years to come, but no
church will ever take the place of this church in your life. I go back to
Dallas, Texas to the church I grew up in, and OH, how I thank God for the
memories of that church, how I thank God for the Sunday School teachers and for
the Training Union Director, and for all the folks who had some part in my life
there, and then you will never forget that first pastor. I was down in Tampa
not long ago. I went out to that little white building, and I somehow felt that
I was standing on sacred ground. I shall never forget that occasion. This
church has a responsibility. Undergird this young man with your prayers, he
will need them. Believe you me, it means something when a preacher is conscious
of the fact that the people are praying for him. And as this young man
continues in his preparation for the ministry, and as he will go wherever God
leads him to go, I know of one thing that will undergird him and strengthen him
as nothing else, and that is to have the consciousness in his heart that the
people of the First Baptist Church of Knoxville, Tennessee, are bearing him
yonder to the throne of God in their prayers. Keep on praying for him.
There are a lot of people who
will pray for you Cecil; churches will pray for you; you will have people in
your congregation wherever you go who will pray for you.
I well remember an old fellow
in my church in Fort Worth, in my third church, he used to come back to the
office and put his arms about me and hug me a little bit every Sunday morning,
and he said, “Brother, I will be praying for you today.” Then the old fellow
would sit over here and go sound to sleep all the while I was preaching, and
after the services were over he would come by the door and shake hands with me
and say, “Pastor, that was one of the finest sermons you ever preached.” Well,
there are folks like that here, too; folks like that right herein the First
Baptist Church, but I tell you, I thank God for people who pray, even if they
do go to sleep sometimes.
Pray for him, pray for him;
undergird this young man, undergird him with your prayers. I don’t know where
God will take him to. It may be in some little humble church, it may be in some
great church, it may be yonder on the foreign mission field, but wherever he
goes, remember that you have stock in this young preacher, and wherever he goes
he needs your prayers. Undergird him by praying for him, and undergird him by
continuing in the marvelous fashion you have already set, giving the
carry-on-the-commission program of Southern Baptists. Sustain these
missionaries with your gifts. Undergird him by seeing to it that this church,
great in its history and marvelous in its potentialities even yet, see to it
that this church keeps in such a spiritual frame of mind through the years yet
to come from the womb of time that other young men and other young women will
hear and answer the call of God for special service. God bless you.
DR. T.C. WYATT
Cecil, it becomes my
good pleasure and duty according to due and ancient form to deliver to you a
charge. Ramsey has delivered to this church a marvelous charge, but there comes
to you a charge, and I would simply remind you that from time immemorial God
has always used his ministers in a marvelous way. There was a time in the
dateless past when there was only one man on earth on whom God could count and
that was his preacher of righteousness. And since the days of Noah, other men
have followed and God has used them. Noah successful only in leading his own
family to God but through the influence of the years to come other ministers
have followed.
God looked down upon a wicked
city, an ignorant city, and it seemed that city must be condemned, and God
selected one man, not two, just one man. And he said, “Jonah, you go to Nineveh
and preach unto that city, the kind of preaching that I did thee. Jonah had a
hard time getting there, but when he arrived in the city he preached as God
directed him and the whole city bowed in sackcloth and ashes, showing what God
can do with just one man, and through the Old Testament and the New Testament,
God wonderfully used his men.
In the fullness of time God
wanted to introduce this son, his only begotten son, the redeemer of the world.
Well, he could have done it any way he wanted to. He could have had some
monarch of some ancient city usher him down the street, but instead God chose a
country Baptist preacher to introduce his son to the world and stand by his
side in the midst of the Jordan waves and bury him in the baptismal waters. And
Jesus paid the greatest compliment to a preacher than he did to any other
person. No greater man was ever born of woman than John. Jesus loved the
preachers. He had a group to follow him and he charged them, many of them
perhaps we would not have selected, but Jesus did, and they followed in the
instructions that he had given them, and now I charge thee in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, Cecil, to follow the examples of God’s great ministers found
in the bible, and example of the great ministers since the days of the New Testament.
There are many of them. The
name Egerton has been mentioned. That Honored Pastor of this church, your own
grandfather; the sweet admonition that has been handed down to you, what a
heritage it is. And the instruction that you had and still having from your own
good father and mother, I charge thee to obey them. I charge tee to follow the
instruction of the man under whose ministry you accepted the lord Jesus Christ,
who is to bring your ordination sermon tonight.
And the instruction of this
Ordaining Council and many other men who have and who will touch your life
through the years to come. I charge you to follow. I charge thee to be a good
minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Preach the word, comfort the
people. Be ye ready at all times, instant in season and out of season. Then, I
would charge thee to be a soul winner, have a deep and abiding conviction for
the lost. You will find them everywhere.
Dr. Moore, the news came to
him that he was going to be made a bishop, and I heard him say, the greatest
honor that my church can bestow on me is to make me a bishop, but I’d rather
not be a bishop if by becoming one I would lose my compassion for lost souls.
Have a compassionate heart for those for whom Christ died, and for those whom
Jesus has called you to deliver the message of redemption.
I charge you above all to
follow the example of him, The Lord Jesus Christ who said, “as the Father has
sent me, so send I You.”
God Bless you, Cecil.
DR. HENRY J. STOKER, JR.
As Pastor of First Baptist
Church, it is my privilege to present to you, Cecil, this leather bound Bible.
Its binding will in time become worn and bruised, its pages one day will be
wrinkled and brittle, but its eternal message, the message of God, who made
himself known to men in Jesus Christ, will ever be adequate in pointing the way
to one who is the only Savior, and the one Lord of the redeemed.
As Baptists, we believe that
the Bible is the revealed word of God, written by men with divine inspiration
and under divine guidance. In fidelity to its message, your preaching should
ever have its roots deep in those sources of truth which are wider than the
measure of the mind of men.
From its inexhaustible
contents may you constantly draw for your message of interpretation of the will
of God for those who hear. And I would read to you one selection. It’s found in the Book of Joshua. (Chapter 1,
Verses 8 and 9)
“This
book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate
therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is
written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou
shalt have good success.
“Have
not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither
be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
And as the trowel is to the
brickmason, and as the multiplication table and the compass are to the mariner,
may this be the guide and source of inspiration in your ministry.
The preacher for the occasion
is Dr. Fred F. Brown, Pastor Emeritus of this church. Dr. Brown.
DR. FRED F. BROWN
As I thought of this
significant occasion this afternoon, I found my mind running back across the
thirty years that I have known you, and I tried to recall the names of those
with whom I had been associated on similar occasions. I think this church, and
the friends gathered here with them, would like to hear those names, and I read
them, recognizing that there are some inaccuracies because there were no
records before me as I tried to think these up together. J.C. Massey and Dick
Houston, both of whom are deceased; William Hamilton, Vaughn Flenniken, Swan
Haworth, Orin Bishop, Wallace Rogers, Jimmie Sharp, Spurgeon Paschall, William
Parrott, Luallen Queener, Judson Jackson, Leonard Richardson (who is now past
of a Presbyterian Church in Texas, don’t know just what happened to Leonard,
but this church ordained him), Stephen Jackson, Leonard Pedigo, Billie Wallace
and now Cecil Egerton, with Arthur Bruner in theological school, who has been
licensed and not yet ordained. You will be interested to know that this group
is scattered over eight of our southern states and one of them is in Brazil.
As we come to the ordination
of Cecil Egerton, you can understand that my emotions are those of affection
and pride, and of confidence, and I am reading just one verse of scripture, the
20th verse of the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians:
“Now
then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we
pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
And
before I read the text I ask you to spend some time with the word “Ambassador,”
simply having in mind that this formal occasion right as it is, with the
scriptural background, that with all the influences that have touched your
life, in the home and in the church, yet back of them all you have been chosen
by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You go as an ambassador to
represent him and his interest, wherever God’s spirit may lead you.
And now for you and for my own
heart, and for my brother preachers here, I reread just this expression “in
Christ’s stead” – “in Christ’s stead,” in His stead, in spirit and in
character. In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh and dwelt
among men. Truth must always be incarnated; character and spirit must wear
flesh. We have a beautiful flower that we call the carnation because it is
flesh colored, and the reincarnation of the spirit of Jesus is left to those of
us who are his followers. And in a very definite way to those of us who are his
ministers in his stead, in spirit, and I read that he looked upon the multitude
and was moved with compassion, saw them in all they sin and suffering; all of
thy defeats and failures; all of the triumphs and joys, people just like
ourselves, men and women and children, and he was moved with compassion. I read
of him that he lingered as he looked over the City of Jerusalem, and finally
cried out, “Oh, Jersualem, Jerusalem, how often I looked down at thee as a hen
gathereth her brood, the mother heart of God, reaching out through a blind
sinful city.” I read of him that he stood by a grave and wept. His gentleness,
his unselfishness, his spiritual insight, his moral courage – in his stead.
Many masquerade as ministers of Christ, but if they display any sense of
egotism, any attitude of selfishness or self-importance, they are contradicting
everything that the expression “minister of Christ” means, and Jesus has a word
for it – “hireling” – “hireling.”
For several years before his
death, Dr. George Truett’s church asked some minister of the South to write a
message in their church paper on the occasion of his anniversary. Dr. Truett’s
impact upon the world is in all probability, or was greater than that of any
Baptist of this generation. The year before. The year before a certain minister
whom I know was to write that. The Editor of the Dallas News wrote in his paper
editorially on Dr. Truett’s anniversary. He says, “We tried to discover the secret
of his power. There is that magnificent physique; there is that marvelous
poise; there is that wonderful voice, like the murmur of many waters or the
notes of an organ; there is that personality that no man can define or analyze.
But you haven’t found it until you remember that he embodies the spirit of
Christ.” So when his son-in-law came to write his book, he wrote one chapter
that this friend of mine wrote in that paper, “Man of God.” “Man of God, Man of
God in his stead.”
We say re present him. Don’t
slur it – we re present him. He was here and presented himself once. We present
him again. We re present him – in his stead – in our ministry. I read of him
that he went about doing good. I read of him that he said, “I am among you as
one who serves.” I read of him that he said, “I came not to do mine own will
but the will of Him who sent me;” and as you go to the golden pages of this
book, wherever you see Him, you see a humble, modest divine servant.
I read of him, that Jesus,
knowing that the Father had delivered all things into his hands, that He came
from God and went to God; after he arose from supper, He laid aside his
garments and took a towel and girded himself and began to wash the disciples
feet. The Lor d of all Glory washing the dusty feet of some farmers and some
bishops. His religion is the religion of a tower. Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thou it not robbery or a
thing to be grasped after, to be on equality with God, but made himself of no
reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness
of man, and being bound in fashion of the mind, he became obedient unto death,
even the death upon the cross.
Wherefore the seven steps from
the throne of God to a Roman Cross. Wherefor God also had highly exhaulted him
and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the Glory of God the Father.
Speaking of being confined to
my home for two weeks, and during that period I had been rereading the lives of
the men who planted Christianity in the modern world, beginning with Carey,
going on through Duff, and Livingston, and the Judsons and Morrisons and Yates,
Albert Swietzer, men, many of whom when they passed out the Nations lowered
their flags to half-mast and publicly said that their services had meant more
to the world than every army that ever marched the field, or every king who
ever wore a crown. Some things in common to all of them.
They were men of prayer, they
were men of this book, they literally saturated their souls with this book.
They were men of faith. As expressed by Robert Morrison, I believe it was, who,
as he went out was asked by the Captain of the ship, “Mr. Morrison, do you really
expect that you will be able to save some of the Chinese?” He said “Oh, no,
sir, but I know that God will.”
I think of Carey there in his
living room as he breathes his last, and young Duff, this brilliant young
Scotch Presbyterian who loved him like a father, came into the room, and the
scene is described of how they talked, and finally Dr. Carey said, “will you
pray,” and in his prayer Duff just naturally called Dr. Carey’s name, Dr.
Carey, Dr. Carey. The prayer finished, he started out when in his frail, feeble
dying voice Carey called him back. He said, “Duff, just when I am gone don’t
say anything about Dr. Carey – Dr. Carey. You talk about my Savior.” And that
is what we are asked to do, in his stead, in our ministry. In his stead, in our
message, that’s what he’s talking about definitely here. In his stead, in our
messages. Jesus spoke upon the profoundest things that had engaged human
thought. He talked about God and life and duty, and he talked about sin, about
its ruin, and its reach and its cure. And Jesus talked in language that a child
could understand. To him religion was light and life and love, and rarely ever
do you find Jesus using a word of more than one syllable. But if your father
and the other lawyers will excuse me, it is the lawyers in the New Testament
who use the big words. They are the ones who talk about justification, the big
words; but Jesus used words that a child could understand.
I found myself at an assembly
two years ago, an assembly of preachers, some two hundred there speaking on the
vocabulary of Jesus, and all at once I said, “Jesus was monosyllabic.” Well,
somebody ought to have thrown a book at me. The idea of a preacher standing in
a pulpit talking about Jesus being monosyllabic. And he found his illustrations
for the most part in the background of their lives. He would look into the
faces of farmers who had left their tools and their tasks and had gathered
about him, and he’d say, “Why, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a sower that
went forth to sow, and you can see their faces brighten and their shoulders
straighten as they say, “Why he knows all about my life out there on the farm;
the hardship of it, the monotony of it, and has gone there to find an
illustration for Kingdom truth.” He would look into the faces of women who had
come from their homes and he would say, “Why the Kingdom of Heaven is liken
unto three measures of meal that a woman, and so forth.” And you can see a new
light in their faces and in their eyes as they say, “Why he knows all about my
life in the home and he knows about my kitchen, and has gone there to find an
illustration for Kingdom of Truth.” All his words, not many of them left to us.
Those that we have you could put into a little pamphlet and yet marred as they
are by translators, they are like the bits of marble in the hands of Phidias,
beautiful to look upon, and that live through the ages, and are the most
significant words that this world has this evening.
And Jesus would talk about
himself. Sometimes take time off and study the “I ams” of Jesus. I am the light
of the world. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the resurrection and
somehow there is no reaction, that those are the words of their devotion; those
great “I ams” on his lips fit like the atmosphere that was made for our lungs.
And sometimes he will talk
about his cross. I see him when he is opening the door of the Kingdom to a man
of prominence, and leadership and scholarship, and as they talk on and on,
Jesus seems to bend closer to him and say, “As Moses was lifted up in the wilderness,
even so must the son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him shall
not perish, but have everlasting life;” and then gives him the reason for all
of it; “for God so loved the world.”
I see him on another occasion
when the Greeks came with their wistful yearning cry, “Sir, we would see
Jesus.” And he seems to turn away from them and he puts one foot on Calvary’s
slope and begins to move toward it, and as he goes he tells them now the
principle of that cross is illustrated out there in nature. “Verily, verily, I
say unto thee, except the corn of a wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.” As it dies the
great forces of the universe of God come to see it.
The soil and the law of
gravity , and the moon and the sun all gather about it as it does, and it stabs
its way to the sunlight, first the grain and then the bloom; the one restored,
the other laid, the stalk, the tassel, and again the gold of newly made grain.
So life by death, the reaper passes away, shall rise again at last, which is
the service of the sod to render God the things of God, and then having given
this illustration he takes a step closer to the cross, and as he does, a
shudder seems to pass over his soul, and from the depths of his soul, “Now is
my soul troubled and what shall I say. Father, save me from this hour.” Shall I
ask God if there is some other way, “But for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father glorify thy name.” Then came there a voice from Heaven saying, “I have
both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Then you have the voices, the
mistaken interpretation of their voices, then you have the interpretation of
Jesus, and “If I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.” This
he said signifying what death he should die. Jesus preaching the force of
Christ that we are drawn to.
Were there time, I would say
that there is a reason we are here this evening. Everything about Jesus is
glorious, his life marching down the century. His lfe stands out like a great
white mountain peak, but not because of his life are we here this evening.
Miracles will stand before them in all, but the winds and the waves crouch at
his feet like dogs at the speak of their master, but not his miracles. When we
stand before the great, wonderous cross of Christ we are drawn to it.
Excuse me, I used to try to
preach on the street, and it taught me a lot of things. It wasn’t easy, nothing
in my training, experience, and bothersome at times. How can you hold a
hurrying group on the street. Well, I learned this. Any time you talk about the
cross there will be a hush of reference. I don’t care where it is, I don’t care
who is talking. It may be some Salvation Army man that breaks the King’s
English and violates the very conventionalities of which we associate this
gentleman, but when he tells the story of the cross there will be a hush of
reverence there. Jesus preached this cross.
The final word as this man who
injected his ministry in yours and mine as being one in which we take his place
in his stead, as he thought about it you will find in the general context here
that a shudder passed over his soul and from the depths of despair he cried
out, “Who is sufficient for these things?” Then the answer came, “Our
sufficiency, our sufficiency, is of God, and so, and so, you have found him.” I
am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. At
the intellectual set yonder at Athens, at the commercial set yonder at Corinth,
at the center of philosophy yonder Ephesus, always where you are, always the
one message of a crucified Christ.
“I know of lands that
are sunk in shame,
Where stout hearts faint and tired,
But I know a name, a
name, a name
That can set those lands on fire.
I know a life that is
lost to God,
Bound down by things on earth.
But I know a name, a
name, a name
That can bring that life new birth.
I know a soul that is
soiled by sin
Which no man’s heart can cure.
But I know a name, a
name, a name
That can make that soul all pure.
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