Over the history of the Southern Baptist Convention there have been many gifted preachers. Those men have been used by God to provide timely and prophetic sermons that have guided, shaped, and corrected the course of individuals, churches, and the SBC. In this series we will look at some of those sermons. Even though most of these men will be dead, the message that they preached lives on because of the truth of the ever living Word of God.
When RG Lee was a young pastor in SC, a deacon came up to him after a prayer meeting where he had given a devotion. The deacon told the young preacher that the material was pretty good but he needed to work on it some. Lee did and turned the devotion into a sermon called “Payday Someday” that he preached over 1,200 times in pulpits all across the SBC.
RG Lee was the pastor at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis from 1927-1960. (!) He served as President of the SBC, and was called “a veritable paragon of excellence in the preparation and delivery of sermons” by WA Criswell.
Payday Someday starts off with an introduction to the major characters. Naboth, the devout Israelite. He calls Jezebel the “the evil genius at once of her dynasty and of her country.” And last but not least is Ahab, “the vile human toad who squatted upon the throne of his nation — the worst of Israel’s kings.”
“Payday Someday” is one of the greatest sermons from one of the greatest SBC pulpiteers. It illustrates the reality of sin and points the sinner toward Jesus. He reminds his hearers that no sinner can escape the wrath of God. Payday will come someday for every sinner. The only way to escape the coming payday is through Jesus Christ.
“Did God mean what He said, Or was He playing a prank on royalty? Did pay-day come? “Pay-day—Someday” is written in the constitution of God’s universe. The retributive providence of God is a reality as certainly as the laws of gravitation are a reality. And to Ahab and Jezebel, pay-day came as certainly as night follows day, because sin carries in itself the seed of its own fatal penalty.”
“The only way I know for any man or woman on earth to escape the sinner’s payday on earth and the sinner’s hell beyond – making sure of the Christian’s payday – is through Christ Jesus, who took the sinner’s place on the cross, becoming for all sinners all that God must judge, that sinners through faith in Christ Jesus might become all that God cannot judge.”
Take the time to watch it below or read it here.