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THE BEACON BEAM May 2020 Redeeming the Time 8 Reminders in the Face of the Coronavirus Pandemic by Dane C. Ortlund The Cure for Latent Anxiety align our professed belief with our is forced to the surface in times of actual belief. We all say we be- public alarm, such as we're wading These are strange days, days of lieve God is sovereign and he is into now. fear, days of hysteria. In other taking care of us. But we reveal our words, days that simply bring all true trust when the world goes 3. Neighborly Love our latent anxieties up to the sur- into meltdown. What’s really our When the economy is tanking, face; anxieties that were there all heart’s deepest loyalty? The answer opportunities to surprise our neigh- along but are now made visible to bors with our confidence and joy others. because of the gospel surge for- What do we need to remember in ward. Now is the time to be outside these days of alarm? more, to be loving more, to be hos- We all say we believe pitable more. Love stands out 1. The World of the Bible strongest when it is least expected, God is sovereign Now we know how the people of rarest, but needed most. God felt throughout the Bible, es- and he is taking 4. Family Discipleship pecially in the Old Testament. The Prophets and many of the Psalms care of us. But we Our kids’ teachers are telling them speak to people who are caught up to wash their hands longer. Why? in mass hysteria or subject to pan- reveal our true trust Their teachers won’t tell them, but demics. Maybe the current cultural it’s because there is a dangerous moment is precisely the hermeneu- when the world goes virus infecting thousands of people tic we need to read the Old Testa- around the world right now—both ment, which can otherwise feel so into meltdown. young and old—and some of those foreign, deeply for the first time. people will die. Heaven and hell are staring every fourth-grader in the face. That’s why they’re being told to wash their hands for twenty 2. Our True Trust Times of public panic force us to (Continued on page 2) Sunday Beacon Baptist Church Morning Worship….9:30 AM 1622 Kirkpatrick Road Sunday School…....11:10 AM Evening Worship…..6:00 PM Burlington, NC 27215 Gregory N. Barkman, Senior Pastor (336) 226-5205 Wednesday beaconbaptist.com Michael R. Karns, Minister of Christian Education Prayer Meeting…...…7:00 PM [email protected] Robert F. LaTour, Minister of Families IMPACT Clubs........7:00 PM Gregory L. Phillips, Minister of Music Teen Ministry……....7:00 PM 1 (Continued from page 1) and lean years, food and drink, health From heaven’s shore we will see how seconds. We have an opportunity to and sickness, prosperity and pov- eternally safe we were all along, even instill in our kids a deeper aware- erty—all things, in fact, come to us amid the global upheaval and anxie- ness of eternity than they have ever not by chance but by his fatherly ties that loom so large as we walk known. There is a salutary effect to hand.” That truth is like an asthmat- through them. The dangers out there all of this because either heaven or are real. The cautions are wise. Our hell awaits every fourth-grader, ei- bodies are mortal, vulnerable. But our ther taken out by a virus next month From heaven’s shore souls, for those united to a resurrected or taken out by old age decades we will see how Christ, are beyond the reach of all from now. Ten thousand years from eternal danger. How un-harm-able we now, the difference between dying eternally safe we were are, we who are in Christ. Be at at age ten or age eighty will seem all along, even amid peace. All is assured. trivial. This is an opportunity to disciple our families into the brac- the global upheaval ing reality of eternity. Dane C. Ortlund (PhD, Wheaton College) is and anxieties that chief publishing officer and Bible publisher at 5. Eschatological Hope loom so large as Crossway. He serves as an editor for the Knowing the Bible series and the Short Studies Maybe this is the end. I doubt it, we walk in Biblical Theology series, and is the author but maybe. Jesus said no one knows of several books, including Gentle and Lowly and Edwards on the Christian Life. He is an through them. the day or the hour (Matthew elder at Naperville Presbyterian Church in 24:36). Maybe the sight of Jesus Naperville, Illinois. Dane lives with his wife, descending from heaven, robed in Stacey, and their five children in Wheaton, glory, surrounded by angels, is right Illinois. around the corner. If so, hallelujah. If not, hallelujah. We’re being re- ic’s inhaler to our soul—it calms us minded that he will indeed return down, allows us to breathe again. one day. Either way, let us rejoice 7. Christ's Heart our way through the chaos. In times of turmoil, in seasons of dis- From heaven’s shore we will see tress, Jesus is more feelingly with his how eternally safe we were people than ever. Hebrews tells us all along. that Jesus experienced all the horror of this world that we do, minus sin 6. Invincible Providence (Hebrews 4:15). So apparently he No infected molecule can enter your knows—he himself knows—way lungs, or your three-year-old’s lungs, down deep, what it feels like for life unless sent by the hand of a heavenly to close in on you and for your world Father. The Heidelberg Catechism to go into meltdown. We can go to defines God’s providence as, “The him. We can sit with him. His arm is almighty and ever-present power of around us—stronger than ever—right God by which God upholds, as with now. His tears are larger than ours. his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf 8. Heaven and blade, rain and drought, fruitful For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16). 2 May 2020 THE BEACON BEAM Tribute to a Faithful Missionary by Greg Barkman It was the Summer of 1969, That is how I met Rev. W. C. soon had extensive impact throughout and I found myself in Memphis, Ten- Standridge, founder of Interstate Bap- the nation. God blessed their home nessee, pursuing some practical as- tist Church, and still going strong into with three boys and a girl, and God pects of training for ministry. For his senior years. He and his wife prospered their tireless labors in two years, I had served as week-end hosted me in their home, and I had one of the most challenging countries Youth Pastor and Music Director for ample opportunity to observe their in the world. During his time in Faith Baptist church in Chester, South lives, both private and public at close Memphis, Bill urged me to come to Carolina. I traveled the eighty miles range. They were the real deal. They Italy to labor alongside them. I felt from Greenville to Chester on Satur- spoke frequently about their son, Bill, honored to be asked, but did not sense day afternoons, conducted a Teen Jr., a missionary in Italy, and the day God’s leading in that direction. We meeting Saturday Evening, and slept came when Bill and his family arrived parted friends and went our separate on a pull-out bed in the church office in Memphis. I was placed with an- ways. I didn’t imagine that we would Saturday night. Sunday mornings other church family so that Bill and cross paths again. found me sponge bathing in the Maria Theresa (MT) along with their About ten years later, I was church bathroom, teaching a Teen four children could stay with Bill’s invited to serve on the board of Sunday School class, leading congre- parents for a couple of weeks. Independent Faith Mission, which gational singing and directing the Bill Standridge was an outstanding had recently relocated their office choir for morning worship. After- from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to noons involved choir rehearsal, an- Greensboro, North Carolina. W. C. other Teen meeting, and music for More than anything, Standridge was still active on the evening worship. Exhausted, I would Bill Standridge leaves board, having founded the mission in drive home Sunday night, tumble into the early 1950’s to undergird the bed, and arise at 5:00 a.m., to deliver behind a record of faithful, ministry of his son, Bill, who had newspapers before my first university dedicated gospel labors gone to Italy without the backing of a class at eight. until his dying breath. board. IFM added many missionaries I cherished the opportunities over the years, and here I was, face to in Chester, as they taught me much That is truly heaven’s face with the pastor I had served in about pastoral ministry. But I also highest honor. “Moreover, Memphis, participating in the work of sensed a need for additional experi- it is required in stewards his son Bill in Italy.

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