At the request of Dr. Cooke, Rev. Ivan Foster (Rtd) delivered a message of thanksgiving for the life and service of this servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The service took place at Moneyslane Free Presbyterian Church on December 8th, 2025.

 A TRIBUTE TO DEAR AND ADMIRED FRIEND — DR S B COOKE.

I count it a privilege to have been asked to pay tribute to our dear departed brother, Dr Bertie Cooke, affectionately known amongst us as ‘SB’.

He was a much revered lecturer in ‘Pastoral Theology’ from 1965 and also  Deputy Moderator until his retirement in 1994.

Bertie’s brother, Ronnie, to whom we offer our sincere sympathies and rejoice with him in the knowledge that his dear brother is in glory, has told me that Bertie was born in 1929. And he was saved September 1949. This would have been but a short time after his cousin, Dr John Douglas, was converted under Dr Ian Paisley.

Dr Cooke preached his first sermon in December of 1950. 

Both of them would have been very aware of the historic events of March 1951, when the Free Presbyterian Church was born in Crossgar.

Back then, Dr Paisley was enjoying great blessing as an evangelist, winning many souls to Christ at meetings attended by hundreds of people.

It was a time of great evangelistic outreaches in the USA as well and that had deeply impressed the young S B Cooke.

However, 1951 changed that most dramatically. Many of the venues open to Dr Paisley were firmly closed against him as a result of his stand against the error and ecumenism of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. This was brought to a head by the actions of the Down Presbytery in closing Crossgar Presbyterian Church against him and the elders who had invited him there for a mission.

Dr Cooke has told me on a number of occasions over the years how that this turn of events shook him and, for a time, he thought that Ian Paisley had taken the wrong road.

However, in 1955, after getting before the Lord in prayer when office bearers in the Mount Merrion congregation, where he was placed as a student minister, opposed the stand of the Free Presbyterian Church against the ecumenical apostasy of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Bertie learned that separation from apostasy was God’s will and he became a committed Free Presbyterian. 

He remained such until his translation to heaven. His views never changed nor his opposition to any deviation to absolute separation from all things ecumenical. 

He undoubtedly ‘Fought a good fight, . . .finished the course, and kept the faith’ (2 Timothy 4:7). 

I sometimes think that younger Free Presbyterian ministers today have not encountered the dreadfulness of the apostasy as have older men who were raised within apostate denominations. As a result, they have not seen and heard first hand the darkness that has overtaken the three main denominations here in Ulster. 

That knowledge has been burned into their minds and hearts of men such as Dr Cooke and produced a fervent and militant response to error. I know that many young people (and some not so young) have found fault with my responses to the activities of the purveyors of error. 

I only ask them to read Matthew 23 to see the Saviour’s reaction to the false teachers of His day!

Dr S B Cooke understood the darkness of apostasy and was its implacable opponent and denouncer of its evil ways and the eternal result of its wickedness. He set that forth in the little invaluable booklet, ‘Free Presbyterianism - WHY?’ He once told me that the book for today is the prophecy of Jeremiah, and how right he was. I studied it closely during my days in prison in 1966 and ever since!

When I first gave thought to my duty this day, I recalled John Bunyan’s immortal tale, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and the passing of the heroes in that book. One of which, I believe, depicts well our late brother — ‘Mr. Valiant-for-truth’.

 “After this, it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other and had this for a token that the summons was true: that his pitcher is broken at the fountain. 

When he understood it, he called for his friends and told them.

Then said he, ‘I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have arrived here, yet now I do not regret all the trouble I have had to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can obtain it. My marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder.’

When the day that he must go there was come, many accompanied him to the riverside, into which as he went, he said, ‘O Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he went down deeper, he said, ‘O Hades, where is thy victory?’

So, he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.”

So it would have when Bertie left this sinful world and passed into the presence of His Saviour.

He was a prince of preachers. I am among many who counted it a great mercy to have know him and Agnes, his dear wife. 

They were married on June 25, 1957, 68 years ago in June past. 

Today we offer her our sincere condolences and in love will continue to remember her, and all the family circle, before the Lord in prayer.

“«A Psalm of David, Maschil.» Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” Psalm 32:1.

That ‘blessedness’ is Bertie’s portion today and forever!