The following biography is a compilation of material originally published on the websites of tlogical.net and swordofthelord.com:

Robert Green Lee was born in South Carolina, November 11, 1886, and died July 20, 1978.  The midwife attending his birth held baby Lee in her black arms while dancing a jig around the room, saying, “Praise God! Glory be! The good Lord has done sent a preacher to this here house.” Indeed a preacher had been born.  

Lee began his career on a farm near Fort Mill, South Carolina, where he was born of poor but deeply religious parents. Early in life, he felt the call to be a preacher, and in spite of many obstacles he heeded that call.

He won many scholastic and oratory honors at the Furman Preparatory School and Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina, where he graduated with an A.B. degree in 1913. He took postgraduate work at the Chicago Law School, receiving a Ph.D. in international law in 1919. He was ordained at his boyhood church at Fort Mill, South Carolina, in 1910.

His first full-time pastorate was at Edgefield, South Carolina. This was followed by pastorates at First Baptist Church, Chester, South Carolina; First Baptist Church, New Orleans, Louisiana; and Citadel Square Baptist Church, Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1927 Lee was called to pastor Bellevue Baptist Church of Memphis, TN. Lee would stay 33 years at Bellevue, not retiring until 1960. During his pastorate at Bellevue, its membership grew from 1,430 members to 10,000 members.

His ministry was one of love for his people and determined defense of the Word of God. In his resignation address, Lee voiced his profound dedication to the Bible: "You can count on me until my tongue is silent in the grave and until my hand can no longer wield a pen to keep my unalterable stand for the Bible as the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God - giving rebuke to and standing in opposition to all enemies of the Bible, even as I have done for 50 years."  Dr. Lee laid the foundation for young preachers who followed him who would fight the great battle for the Bible within the Southern Baptist Convention.
 

One of those young preachers, so influenced by Dr. Lee was Adrian Rogers who would take up Lee's mantle both at Bellevue Baptist and in the Convention. Lee was thoroughly evangelical. In his sermon, Bed of Pearls, he said: "So long as Southern Baptists have a passion for the salvation of sinners everywhere, there is little danger of our drifting into materialism ... But if give up our position as an evangelistic storm center and court riches and court fashion and court friendships of self-elected scholars with bloodless gospels. we shall not be found following in Christ's train. In these days of molluscous liberalism, of self-satisfied complacency, if we emphasize little the old familiar notes of Calvary, of hell, of sin, and take up the merely tender note of humanitarian philosophy, we sound our death knell, dig our grave, write our epitaph."

He served an unprecedented four terms as president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention and then an unprecedented three terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Lee preached another 18 years after his retirement. He traveled 100,000 miles a year preaching in small and large churches, and places like the Moody Bible Institute.

But perhaps, Lee will be most remembered for "Pay-Day Someday" his famous sermon. First preached as a Wednesday night devotional it still stands as what could only be called a classic. In all, Lee preached it 1,275 times in every venue from small churches to state legislatures to foreign countries.

When Lee resigned his pastorate in 1960 a reporter for the Memphis, Commercial Appeal wrote: "For half a century he has thrown punches at the devil, punches containing the same power and vengeance as those of Billy Sunday, George Truett, or C.H. Spurgeon. In all these years he has never quit slugging. He says the devil never sleeps. So he has worked night and day to bring the gospel to as many people as possible."