In this sermon transcript, Dr. Evie Hill delivers a heartfelt message at his wife's funeral. He reflects on the 32 years they spent together and the love and support she gave him. Through his words, Dr. Hill emphasizes the peace and love that comes from God, which the world cannot understand. He praises his wife for her simplicity, contentment, and unwavering support for her family. Dr. Hill acknowledges that he is emotionally moved as he delivers this message and encourages the listeners to open their hearts and let the Lord speak to them.

The following was originally produced for the National Radio Series Focus on the Family, featuring psychologist and best-selling author Dr. James Dobson. Doctor, why don't you give us some background? Well, Mike, this program is certainly being broadcast with someone in mind. There is someone who desperately needs to hear the tape recording that we're about to listen to. I feel very strongly about this broadcast. I have listened to the tape several times, and I've wept every time I've listened to it. And there will be some people who will identify with what Reverend E.V. Hill has to say in just a few minutes. We're going to go back to October of 1987 and the funeral of Dr. E.V. Hill's wife, Jane Edna. She had been his partner for 32 years, and they were deeply committed to one another. Jane Edna died early. She died of cancer. And we're going to hear the comments made at the funeral by her pastor, who also happens to be our very good friend and the pastor of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Dr. E.V. Hill, and one of the finest deliverers of the word of God that I've ever heard. He also has served on the board of the Billy Graham Association. He has so many, many credentials. You know, Dr. Hill is black, and his church congregation is largely made up of black constituents. And I tell you, there is an incredible spirit there. We don't have to be there. You can feel it on this tape. This will be the first time that a lot of our stations in this network will have ever aired a message like this. And I mean that in a special way. And probably you better give a little disclaimer regarding the way Dr. Hill ends this presentation. Well, Mike, he has a booming voice, and he felt so strongly about what he was talking about that toward the end he was screaming. And I want to make some comments about that at the end. I want to just say to our listeners, don't tune him out. Stay with him. There's a message in that booming voice. Open your heart and let the Lord speak to you through this. This man was emotionally moved, obviously, as he delivered this message at his wife's funeral. Let's go ahead and listen to the tape of Dr. E.V. Hill. By the way, Mike, he called her baby. I don't know how to express myself and to thank all of you who have come from so many places. And not any of you have had to be asked to come. All of you called and said, I'm on my way. I have not stood as an act of super strength, nor a selfish effort. I have no special strength for this task. I have never done this before. This is an unusual experience. But I stand fulfilling a promise that my member asked of me. My member said, preach my funeral. And I am not only her husband and lover, I'm her pastor. I shall, I baptized her and I shall bury her remains. There'll be some rough spots. And you'll just have to help me. I said to someone who called me today, this morning, they said, Hill, how are you feeling? I said, I, I feel like I had a 12 point on the Richter scale in my chest. And I said, there's a lot still falling. I said, but I'm experiencing two things. I'm experiencing tears and I'm experiencing strength. A rare combination. I'm crying and I'm getting strong. And he promised that as my days, so will my strength. He did promise that. And so I have come. I shall preach today from the subject, my wife's death in biblical perspective. My text is Job 1 21. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So my wife's death in biblical perspective, my doctors explained in medical perspective, the passing of my wife, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Now I recognize that this is a controversial text. Many said that the Lord giveth, but they said it is not right to say he take it away. This is a raging controversy among you preachers who are having trouble just accepting the word. Many preachers now are so deep in Greek and the original language of which few of us have seen a problem until we're having trouble just accepting the word. And so there is this great controversy that the Lord in fact does give, takes away. They say, according to the scriptures, the devil has come to steal and to kill. But the Bible didn't say he would do it. He said he came to do it. In my wife, he gave a great gift. She was a gift from the union of great powers. I want to pay respect to the parents of my wife. My wife was well bred. My wife's father was a distinguished man who got his PhD from Cornell University in 1920. My wife's mother was secretary to Felton Clark Sr. at Southern University of Baton Rouge. She was secretary to the lady who organized Phyllis Wheatley homes throughout America. My wife was well bred. And I want to drop a word, be careful who your children are mating up with. You can't get no racehorses out of mules. Sitting here, something that knocked on my door said, here, I said, not for you. Come sit, you can't. You mean I can't sit? No. Who said so? I did. You don't even look like. Since then, taken over and paid for everything. Best we can, unless she goes crazy. We're going to try to give her to something that has some potential. Looked at me and she said, well, I think he's a nice choice. She said, I will never marry a man like you. You're a chauvinist. You're a dictator. She said, you're good for my mother, but never for me. So I finally married a chauvinist association. As an attorney practicing in Bronx, New York, and my son-in-law is an attorney practicing on Wall Street. Gave a sweet child. She honored her parents. She loved them dearly. She slaved beside the bedside of her father till death. She kept in her home, her mother, till death. And made her last days her best days. The Lord gave. She was never in any trouble to her parents. The Lord gave in baby. A great student. She was trained in the best of schools. Born on a university campus, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Reared on a university campus, Furview University. She was exposed to the great minds and personalities. The Marin Anderson's, the Mordecai Johnson's, the Benjamin May's. She had the best in rearing and in culture. And she aspired to become a feminine woman. It is amazing. How a woman who never led a liberation movement, who would tell anybody, speak to my husband please, on any matter, who was never aggressive, who never said I should be elected to nothing, could quietly, with a feminine approach, fill up two churches in one day. It might be saying something to women. You may not have to get out here and fight with us. You might need to just be what God made you. She did not come by accident. She studied. She studied culture and refinement. And her greatest desire was to always be appropriate. She would often come to my bedside before going to Bible study. And she would say, do I look all right? She would say, am I pretty? I had to say, yesterday at the funeral home, to an empty shell, you're pretty. You're classy. You're a lady. She studied and read classic literature. She was an extremist in what was adequate and what was proper. Extreme without being a show. She accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. And the Bible as a guide in all truths. The Lord truly gave. He gave you a sister, Rose. He gave you a sister, John. He gave our family a great woman. She was determined to be the best moral, spiritual, physical, clean, and appropriate woman ever given to a man. From a child, she wanted nothing to be spotted on her. She wanted to save herself, to give herself to a man. And so on August the 29th, 1955, 32 years ago, I received my wife. Only God could give. I must confess, it was a one-sided affair. I only wish I could have been half as good as the woman I married. Through my wife, the Lord gave. I'm still on my text. He gave me an encourager. And I'd like, if you would give me time, to give you several examples. I invested in a service station down in Houston. Many of you remember my service station. And I lost my shirt. And my wife, for one of those rare moments, said to me, Edward, you don't have time for service station. I wouldn't put any money in that. I said, I want to do it. She said, go right ahead. When I lost it, I called her. And I said, well, I've lost the station. She said, all right. And when I got home, she wasn't at the door. And that's always her position, would be at the door. I said, uh-huh, she's pouting, because we done lost this money. And I said, baby, where are you? She said, I'll be out in a little bit. And she kept on. I said, she's back there pouting, because she's trying to tell me she told me so. And she finally came out. And I said, now, what's wrong? She said, well, I've been figuring up something. I said, what have you been figuring? She said, well, I figured that you don't smoke and you don't drink. And if you had smoked and drank, you would have lost by smoking as much as you've lost in the service station. So six in one hand, half done in the other. Let's forget it. She could have broken me at that point. She could have said, I told you. I went home one evening at night, and I walked in the door, and there were candles everywhere. And I said to her, what meaneth thou this? And she said, well, we've been married right at six months, and I just thought we would have a candlelight supper. And that sounded groovy to me. And so she said, we're just going to eat by candlelight. But she forgot to put a candle in the bathroom. And I went in the bathroom to wash my face and cut on the lights, and no light came. I went in the bedroom and cut on light, and no light came. I went out and sat down. I said, baby, did they cut the lights off? She began to cry. She said, you work so hard, and we're trying. It was pretty rough. And I didn't quite have enough money to pay the light bill. And I didn't want you to know about it. So I thought we would just eat by candle. And she could have said, I've never been in this shape before. She could have said that I was reared in the home of Dr. Caruthers, and we've never had our lights cut off. She could have said I could have married the young fellow whose father was president of Chile, I believe it was. He was president of Chile, and he came over. He was my brother-in-law's roommate. And he fell in love with my wife. And he said, come on back to Chile. My father is president of Chile. And she turned him down for me. She could have said that in Chile, our lights would be on. But she didn't say it. She could have broken my spirit. She could have ruined me. She could have demoralized me. But she said, let's eat by candle. We'll turn the light on one day. Somehow or another, we're going to get these lights on. But let's eat by candle. She was my protector. One week when I received quite a few death notices. And one night when I received a notice that I would be killed the next day, I woke up, thankful to be alive. But I noticed she was gone. And I looked out the window, and my car was gone. And I went outside, and finally she drove up in a road. And I said, where have you been? She said, it just occurred to me. That they put a bomb in that car last night. And that if you had gotten in there, you would have been blown away. So I got up and drove it. And she said, it's all right. The Lord gave. Greatest thing I liked about it, she was so excitable. It did not require a fur coat, just a simple print dress. It did not require a Mercedes Benz, just a simple Ford. And she was so excited. It did not require the stoffer. She was happy at stop six. Never pushed, never contended. Her words were, if my husband and my children are all right, I'm all right. The Lord gave. The Lord gave to Mount Corinth a great woman. But the Lord gave to Mount Zion a great woman, a great woman. A great encourager. The Lord gave to this community a good citizen. And I could go on and on for like Joe. So far as a wife is concerned, I was one of the richest men of earth. It is because of this that the controversy arises. It is because of having been given so much. In baby, that the rest of the text seems out of order. Having made up and fixed up and provided for me such a person as baby was and is. We get so used to, and the Lord gave. We get so used to morning by morning. New mercies we see. Yeah, we get so used to having all that our hearts desire. Until all we can get to is the Lord gave. Those who can say everything I've asked. God has given it to me. And if that's true in your experience, keep on living. Because I'm a witness that there is some more to this verse. For it says, and the Lord. Same God, same God. We get so used to, and the Lord give it. We take it for granted. And so when the Lord take it away, we pitch a temper tantrum. And the sign of Christian maturity is that when the Lord. Here is the biblical explanation. He said, your doctors are only practicing physicians. They're not physicians. They are practicing physicians. Job said, here is the explanation. The Lord took away. Oh, bless his name. My text not only provides the explanation of her death. But it provides the proper response that I must have. Blessed be the name of the Lord. When her illness became serious. And when her doctors in private conference said that they could do all they could do. I thank them for their services. And my doctor who's here today with tears in his eyes, almost apologetically said, there's nothing we can do. I said, thank you. You are a practicing physician. You practice the best you can. And I went into the chapel. And in the chapel, I said, God, I want to talk to you. And I want you to permit me to speak to you as I am. I'm an ignorant man. I don't know how to talk to you. You're God. I said to him, if you were a mayor, I could talk to you. If you were a governor, I could talk to you. If you were president of the United States, I've talked to several of them. But you're God. I said, so don't strain me to talk with you. Just let me write. And I talked with God. And when I got through talking with God, I said, I want her back. And you're able to do the miracle. I said, and yet, if there is something better, then my love for her says, let her go. When I got through talking to God, two words came into my spirit. And I got up, two simple words, trust me. Now, I quickly concluded that this trust me meant that he was going to heal her. As a living miracle. But the spirit did not say that. The spirit said, trust me. And I said, in an argument, I said, trust you. What is there to trust if you're not going to heal? What is there to trust? My interpretation, I was arguing with the spirit, is when he said, trust me, that he would bring it out. And he would touch that liver and like he did her lungs. And make it disappear. But the spirit says, no, that's not all that he meant. He meant was that he may take her. Amen. Amen. I said, trust him. And he may take a yes. This may be it. But trust me, trust me with baby out of your sight. Doesn't involve, yes, involves that you know the best. And if you got to say no to me, then said I had to go to my study. What does God, they see from there. Well, that's the way that Dr. E.V. Hill's portion of the funeral service for his wife in October of 1987 ended. And Dr. Dobson, that man's faith moves me. I can't listen to that message without being changed by what he has to say and the way he trusts the Lord in that most difficult of circumstances. Mike, let me go back to what we said at the top of the program. You know, many of our churches today are very quiet and very worshipful, and there would never be a moment like we just heard in those churches. And that's all right. People worship God in different ways. But for those who who might be inclined to write me and criticize us for playing this tape and for especially the way Dr. Hill ended it there with his voice at full volume. Don't bother to do that. I often ask for criticism. If you don't like what we're doing, let me hear from you. But I tell you, we were listening there, as I said before, to a man who was saying goodbye to a woman that he had spent 32 years with, a woman that he had become one flesh with. The Lord had given her and she had given to him. She had given him children. She had supported him. Some of those stories in the middle there when he was talking about how she loved him and cared for him. You can imagine what agony he was in that day. And what is the Lord saying through all this? What message is coming through? There is only one message. Trust me. You don't understand. You don't comprehend it. You can't explain it. But trust me. I tell you, there are people listening to us in the in the audience today who are dying of cancer. And while he was saying, trust me, they were saying, trust me. That's what God is saying to them. There are others whose kids are out in sin and there are others whose marriages are falling apart. There are others who are going through unimaginable pain and suffering today. There is only one message. It doesn't make sense today. Someday it will. Hold on to your faith. Trust me. That's what the Lord was saying to E.B. Hill. And I appreciate his message. It's a peace that the world cannot give. It's a peace that the world cannot understand. Peace to know. Peace to live. My peace I give unto you. It's a love that it's a love that the world cannot understand. Love to know. Your love to me. My love I give.