Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 12
January 19, 1961
NUMBER 36, PAGE 9

"After He Had In His Own Generation Served The Counsel Of God, Fell Asleep"

H. Osby Weaver, Dallas, Texas

Brother John W. Akin departed this life at early dawn on Monday morning, November 28th after but a few brief hours in a Dallas hospital, at the full age of 87 years and 3 months.

Funeral services were conducted by James W. Adams, Roy E. Cogdill, Bryan Vinson, and this writer at the Judson Road church of Christ in Longview, Tuesday afternoon of the 29th, and interment was in a Longview cemetery.

While conducting funeral services, all preachers have at one time or another been somewhat confined respecting complimentary remarks that could be truthfully spoken about the deceased, but no such limitations were experienced in regard to brother John W. Akin.

It was not difficult for brother Akin to live good, because he was good. He had a good reputation. All who knew him constantly affirmed that he was one of the best men that they had ever known, and his character was entirely consistent with his reputation. Not only did he hold for himself the highest standard, but he looked for the same in others and at no time did he ever knowingly contribute in any sense to the delinquency of others.

Brother Akin was a tender-hearted, compassionate man who could be and was touched by the feelings of others' infirmities. Being blessed with this world's goods above that which many of us experience, he never failed to "give to him that asked and from him that would borrow he turned not away" if there was even the slightest inkling that the solicitor was in any degree an object of benevolence. On more than one occasion did he allow himself to be "used" by the unscrupulous lest he refuse one who was worthy of help. He was a most unselfish man, spending very little of his material wealth on himself, but living for the pleasure which was his in doing for others. He came as near as any we have ever known being a living demonstration of the principles laid down by our Lord who said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

He was a devoted friend to youth and remained intensely interested in their welfare unto the very end. He was always willing to spend and be spent to assist them in better equipping themselves to face and solve the problems confronting them to the end that they might bless humanity and glorify God. While his home was never blessed with off-spring of his own, yet his children through the years have been legion. Every boy and girl who had a desire to do right was his. He had an especially keen interest in young gospel preachers and helped many of them through school.

Brother Akin gave himself wholly unto the Lord. Daily Bible study and daily prayer was as much a part of his life as eating, drinking, and sleeping. The night that he was rushed to the hospital, which proved to be his last upon this earth, while treatment was being administered by careful and tender hands, he requested that since he had left home before reading the Bible and praying that it be done in the hospital room. At the conclusion of the prayer, he gave as hearty "Amen" as he had ever uttered. His faith was unshakeable. Equally as strong in death as in life, and it adequately sustained him both.

His conviction for truth was so firmly fixed that he needed no excuses. He had the conviction of truth and the courage of his conviction. He built a home near a church building in Dallas thinking that in his declining years this would afford him a convenient place to go to worship. But in spite of his advanced years and his investment in his home, as well as in this church and its building, he did not hesitate to leave this church when it started down the road of digression. He refused to be swept along in digression for convenience's sake but went seven miles to help start a new congregation dedicated and consecrated to the New Testament pattern for the Lord's church in organization, work, and worship. He remained faithful in this capacity until the day of his death — attending every service when he felt physically able to do so and a good many times when he did not feel able.

We would not leave the impression that he was perfect. He would be the first to correct any such impression of himself. He recognized his faults and freely confessed his mistakes even to the point of magnifying them. Perhaps this knowledge of his weaknesses kept him humble, for he was a modest and unassuming man, which does not always characterize men of his status.

He recognized that he had not always used perfect judgment in the use of those things committed to his care. Many people and things to which he contributed did not always turn out as he had hoped. He frequently talked of such mistakes. Yet at the time he thought it was the thing to do, and therefore lived in all good conscience before God until his last day. We often wondered, as we listened to him talk, how he could have any confidence left in anything or anybody and asked him about it. With a keen insight and a quick reply he said, "I never charge men's faults to the Lord." When he did what he did, he thought It was what the Lord would have him do. If men failed, he reasoned, such did not give him the right to forsake God's will and what he conceived to be his duty.

There is truly "a prince and a great man fallen in Israel this day." Brother John W. Akin "after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep."