nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

678 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
CHORUS
The winds of hell have blown,
The world its hate hath shown,
Yet it is not overthrown,
Hallelujah for the cross!
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
Hallelujah for the cross!
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
It shall never suffer loss!
It is the old cross still,
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Its triumph let us tell,
HaDelujah, hallelujah!
The grace of God here shone
Thro' Christ the blessed Son,
Who did for sin atone,
Hallelujah for the cross!
'Twas here the debt was paid,
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Our sins on Jesus laid,
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
So round the cross we sing
Of Christ our offering,
Of Christ our living King,
Hallelujah for the cross!
Reader:
Who hath believed our report?—ISAIAH 53:1.
The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.—PSALM 126:3.
The world is full of wonder and romance:
From the little acorn comes the majestic oak;
From a handful of wheat comes the golden harvest;
From brown, shriveled bulbs come the fragrant
lilies;
From speckled eggs come the song birds;
From sweet babies in mothers' arms come the saints
and sages.
And from the two or three who followed our Lord from the banks of the Jordan
have come a great multitude constituting the largest body of free Christians
in the world.
The history of Baptists has been romantic from its beginning. They have
been misunderstood, misrepresented, and persecuted; but they have fought for
their faith and finally won for themselves and for others freedom of religion
and have carried their message to the ends of the world.
Certainly Baptist history did not begin just one hundred years ago nor
even one thousand years ago. No man can name the time or place this side of
John the Baptist and say, "Here is where Baptists began."
Through the Christian centuries there have been groups, sometimes large
sometimes small, who have held views similar to our own. Those we gratefully
acknowledge as spiritual kinsmen.
This romantic story we can tell only in part. We must confine ourselves to
the one hundred years since the organization of the Southern Baptist Convention
May 8, 1845.
It was persecution in Europe that drove our Baptist forefathers to America.
And it was persecution in this country that drove Roger Williams and his followers
into the wilderness, where they established the first Baptist church in
America in 1639; near this place the organization still worships. They loved
liberty better than life itself.