Bobby L. Graham preaches and is an elder for the Old Moulton Rd. church of Christ. He and his wife Karen have three children: Richard, Mary Katherine Winland (Darren), and Laura Paschall (Jeremy). His email is bobbylgraham@pclnet.net.
Brother Carrol Sutton devoted his life to the preaching of the gospel, having been encouraged by John Hayes, an earlier soldier of the cross and proponent of the ancient pattern.
Recent Loss
Carrol Ray Sutton was born in Limestone County, Alabama, to Thomas and Irene Sutton on April 13, 1932. He was tragically killed in an automobile accident near Winchester, TN, on December 20, 2016. In the same accident, his wife, Mamie, was severely injured; however, she now is recuperating well at her home in Albertville, AL, where she is being cared for by her youngest son, Jonathan, and his wife, Samantha Sutton, who moved into her house to help after the wreck.
Carrol spent his life from the age of fourteen to his death at eighty-four preaching the Gospel of Christ. His last sermon was presented in Shelbyville, TN, at the El Bethel congregation on Sunday evening, December 18, 2016.
Though his preaching took him to many locations, including Eastern Kentucky, Illinois, and Tennessee, it was his fifty-three years of work with the East Albertville church in Albertville, Alabama, which marked the highlight of his preaching career. He also served as an elder there since 1991. The Instructor, a mail-out bulletin which survived many similar bulletins now extinct across the country, also was his work for fifty-three years. His many sermons, classes, articles, debates and radio lessons are among the works that now follow him. Let none doubt the scope, depth, quality or benefit of brother Sutton’s work in God’s kingdom.
Earlier Interview
The following observations came from an interview with Carroll Sutton on June 8, 2014, concerning brother John Hayes.
John Hayes was a Limestone County native who was born in Athens on October 20, 1870. He lived in a house at the corner of Hobbs and Clinton Streets, and died on October 2, 1959, at his home near Athens, Alabama. He spent his final three weeks on his sickbed preparing a tract for publication. To many, including himself, he was “Old Brother Hayes.”
When David Lipscomb and James A. Harding opened the Nashville Bible School in 1891 on the Lipscomb farm, John Hayes was one of six young men waiting for the school to open. A letter I have from Hayes’ daughter, Lucille Qualls, says that John Hayes was waiting on the steps for David Lipscomb to open the building that morning. I have seen pictures of the first class. He studied there for two and a half years.
Afterwards, Hayes returned to Limestone County to preach and to farm, though he spent a small period of time preaching in Texas and Florida. At the time of the division in Athens over the instrument in 1903, because of which some people with social standing had moved into the church building for a wedding, but never removed, John Hayes took a firm stand against it and refused to preach for the digressives after the division.
For years he preached often at the Athens Church of Christ, which became Market Street after their move to its present location in 1950, and also in various county churches, gaining a reputation as a “hard liner” for holding closely to the Scriptures. When I came to the county in 1967 to preach and teach school, many brethren asked me if had known “old Brother Hayes.” Unfortunately, he had died some eight years previously.
About a year before his death, John Hayes had a conversation with Carroll Sutton, seeking to impress on brother Sutton the same spirit of faithfulness and adherence to the Scriptures which became so characteristic of Carroll Sutton’s preaching.
Brother Sutton described this conversation to me in 2014. It originally took place after Sutton, in 1958, preached a sermon concerning “Institutionalism,” which was the raging issue of that day. He commended Carroll for preaching the truth on his subject, adding that the issues he had discussed were the same ones involved in the battle with the Christian Church. Hayes observed, “That’s what our battle with the Christian Church was all about.”
He also told Sutton of a trying time which he had experienced in his preaching. In a lean times, when John Hayes wore patched overalls and his third wife Helen wore patched dresses, a representative of the Alabama State Missionary Society made Hayes an offer: “If you will join us, I will assure you $600 (or some such figure of which Sutton was unsure, BLG) from the Society.” Sutton thought the offer was made in 1898.
John Hayes later told his wife Helen of the offer, only to be reminded not to sell out his convictions because he taught the truth. “John Hayes,” she responded, “if you sell out to that brother, I won’t have any more respect for you. Don’t sell out!” He didn’t sell out, nor did Carroll Sutton.
Hayes opposed the Mormons when they tried to exert some early influence in Limestone County. According to my interview with Carroll Sutton, because John Hayes stood for truth, he bought radio time to answer a denominational preacher.
In like manner, brother Carol Sutton also was firmly committed to the truth. I wonder how many radio sermons, debates, and bulletin articles brother Sutton wrote in propagation and defense of truth! I also wonder how many sermons I heard him preach from bed-sheet charts. He truly was “The Instructor.”