ROY W. PHILLIPS, Smith County, TX

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
24 February 2001
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First Baptist Church, Tyler, Texas (Bulletin), Sunday, August 18, 1929

AND HE BROUGH HIM TO JESUS

By G. L. Yates

When I think of the tremendous evangelistic possibilites of the Adult
Bible Class, numerous examples of far-reaching and heart-moving 
experiences loom before me.  In the brief limits of this article I can 
only mention one and do so to emphasize mainly two things.  First, the 
boundless opportunities within easy reach of us all; and second, to pay
tribute to one of the most useful men I have ever known.

I shall call names because he is gone and his memory lingers in 
thousands of hearts like the fragrance of June roses.  Roy W. Phillips, 
of Tyler, Texas, was a machinist by trade and worked in the shops of 
the Cotton Belt Railroad of that city.  He was not a professing 
Christian, but his wife was a devoted member of the First Baptist 
Church.  I think it was providential that in the beginning of my 
pastorate I moved next door to him.  He was full of fun and pranks, the
personification of graciousness and one of the friendliest men I have 
ever known.  At our first meeting as neighbors he chided me for moving
so close to him since it would embarass him to mow his yard or work his
garden on Sunday with a preacher next door.  Of course, we soon became
fast friends, and later to his own surprise, at my solocitation he began
to attend the Men's Bible Class, which I was teaching at that time.  His
keen mind open, and his genial heart responsive, it was only a few weeks
until one Sunday night in a quiet evening service he unconditionally 
surrendered to Jesus Christ and rising from his place, put his arms 
around one of the finest young men of the city, his friend and mine,
and literally, like Andrew, brought him with him to Jesus.  He at once
became active in the Men's Bible Class, making the rounds of the shops 
of his city, cordially inviting and graciously pressing the invitation
to all men to meet him at the Bible Class.  Literally hundreds 
responded to his invitation.  It was their testimony that they could not 
do otherwise.  In a short while he was made president of the class, and
I set it down here that he was one of the most active and efficient 
presidents of Bible class I have ever know.  Everybody loved him, rich
and poor, cultured and uncultured, for like the Saviour, he went about
doing good.  He ministered to more sick people, sent more flowers, sat
up with more corpses, spoke more comforting and encouraging words to 
his fellow pilgrims than any laymen I have ever known.

After some ten years of such service in which he revelled as a child 
he passed to the Summer Land after a short illness and his remains 
were followed to the cemetery by the largest throng of sorrowing 
people that had ever assembled in that city.  Scores that he had won 
to Christ, hundreds, yea thousand who had been blessed and sweeetened
and gladdened by his life united in paying him the tribute, "Prince of
God and Friend of Men."

Is there not such a man in your community that your class could reach, 
and in reaching him a thousand hearts besides, and thus help to heal
the hurt of a sinning, dying world?


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NOTE:  G. L. Yates was pastor of First Baptist Church, Tyler, 1910-1917