Behold the Works of God

The Bible commands us to remember what God has done. I chose him for a text today, Psalm 66 5.

Come and see the works of God. He is awesome and he is doing toward the sons of men. And that is just one of dozens of similar admonitions scattered throughout the Word of God to remind us how important it is to remember, to reflect on what God has done and to praise him and let that be an impetus to our faith to trust him in the days ahead. So our primary focus today on this forty ninth anniversary of the beginning of this church is to remember what God has done.

And to celebrate these forty nine years of God's goodness and his mercy in the life of our church. It has become increasingly apparent to me as I talk to people that God brings to us that many do not know the history of our church. And it's not surprising since you weren't here. You haven't lived through much of it.

Some of you through virtually none of it. And so I do think it's important from time to time to help you to understand where we came from and how God brought us into being and how God has guided and directed us down through these years. Very recently, on the Nine Marks Web site, there was an article talking about the importance of churches knowing their history. And I have taken that to heart and I will try to do do something in that direction today and hopefully continue to do things from time to time to remind our people of the history of God's working in our lives.

There are fewer and fewer who were with us when this all began forty nine years ago. You have in your bulletin a an insert that has the names of our charter members. I've got one somewhere.

Here it is. Twenty nine people who came together and I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment. But of those twenty nine, ten are now with the Lord. We look forward to seeing them again. Some have been with the Lord a good long while.

Others only a short while. But let me read the names of those who were with us in the beginning and who have now joined the church triumphant around the throne of God. They are Gerald Counts, Robbie Counts, Agnes Edwards, Ralph Fawcett, Margie Holland, Otis Holland, Randy Holland, Burnett Roberson, Alan Vestal and Betty Vestal. I wish all of you could have known these people as God allowed me to know them and as some of you know them. But indeed, the Lord used them in a wonderful way in the beginning of our church. Of the twenty nine that we began with in 1973, eight are still present and active in the congregation today. These forty nine years later. That is my wife and I. Gail and Joe Davis.

Don and Fawcett. She's not able to get out much. Is she here today by any chance? I know she would be, if at all possible. But she's not doing well. And Sue Vestal and Laurie Vestal Craig. And it's good to have Laurie here.

She's been struggling with health issues and good to have her in the service today. Well, these are the people that God used, just ordinary people. Carpenters, bricklayers. Electrical engineers and on and on it goes that God used to bring this church into being in 1973. And so today I'm departing from my normal pulpit ministry, which is consecutive exposition. And I am currently preaching through the Book of Philippians.

And if you've been here lately, you know that. And next time that I step into the pulpit, I will preach what comes next. That's what we do in preaching through books of the Bible. And we'll be back into the Book of Philippians and preach what comes next. But today we take a vacation from that and we focus on the history of our church.

Behold the works of God. I've divided my remarks today into two sections. Number one, a brief summary of Psalm 66. And then number two, a brief review of our church's history.

I have exposition in my blood, so I can't just ignore it entirely. And so looking at Psalm 66 today, let's just quickly review what we have in this psalm. It divides into four parts, and you can find those parts pretty much spelled out by that word sila that you'll see scattered throughout the psalm, which means to pause and reflect.

It's a musical notation. And that divides the psalm into four parts, and we have, number one, a command to praise, number two, a call to reflect, number three, a promise to preserve, and number four, a testimony of mercy. The first four verses are a summons or a call to praise. Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth, sing out the honor of his name, make his praise glorious.

This is what God's people are supposed to be doing. We are to be enthusiastically, gloriously, energetically raising our voices in praise to God. And so there's a call to enthusiastic praise and to universal praise, which we recognize is not a reality yet, but the promise is that one day it will be. There will be a day when all of the people that God has created, all of the spirit beings, the angels that God has created, all rational beings are all going to open their mouths in praise to God.

Some enthusiastically and gratefully, others begrudgingly, but nevertheless, all are going to do it. All are going to recognize that God is worthy of praise and there will be universal praise. But in the meantime, God's people who know him are the ones who must raise his praises before the world that does not know him and will not praise him. But we know him and he has saved us and he has been so merciful and kind to us in so many ways. And we are called upon to praise him, praise him with our voices, praise him with our songs, praise him in every way that we can, a command to praise. Verses five through seven are a call to reflect.

Come and see the works of God. He is awesome and he's doing toward the sons of men. He turned the sea into dry land. That's the Red Sea.

They went through the river on foot. That's the Jordan. They went through different elements from the history of Israel, some of the major events to be reflected upon and for which to give God thanks. So a call to reflect, to remember what God has done in the history of Israel in the case of Psalm 66, but by extension for us to remember what God has done in our lives and in the history of our church. And along with that call to reflect, you will notice there is a command to submit to his sovereign rule. As we reflect upon who he is and what he has done, it not only should draw forth from our hearts thanksgiving and praise, but it ought to draw forth from our hearts fresh submission, fresh surrender, and fresh confidence in knowing that what ere my God ordains is right and I will submit myself to that.

A call to reflect. The next section, the longest one, verses eight through 15, is a promise to preserve. Bless our God, O you people, make the voice of his praise to be heard, who keeps our soul among the living and does not allow our feet to be moved, a promise to preserve. And without reading through all of these verses, let me say that there is the promise that God will preserve his people. And then there is in verses 10 through 12 a reminder of the process that God uses to do this. And the process has to do with trials and tribulations and refining like silver in the furnace and all of these difficulties, these suffering, these challenging times of illness and of financial problems and of broken relationships and heartaches and deaths of loved ones that we go through.

And sometimes we put those in a different category as if somehow that shouldn't be happening. And the Bible reminds us over and over and over that this is God's process to preserve us faithfully until we get home to heaven. This is how he sanctifies us. This is how he preserves us.

We need this. It's part of his perfect plan for our lives, a promise to preserve. And finally, the psalm ends in verses 16 through 20 with a testimony of mercy. The testimony is rehearsed in verses 16 and following. Come and hear all you who fear God and I will declare what he has done for my soul. And God's mercy is extolled once more in the final verse. Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer nor his mercy from me.

And all God's people said, Amen. A brief summary of Psalm 66. Now, for the remainder of my message today, a brief history of our church. And this will be brief.

I can't possibly give you many details in a few minutes. But I've selected six words that I'm going to follow in my organization of the history of our church. Preparation, initiation, provision, instruction, protection and renewal. And I begin with preparation for a church to be brought into existence. God must prepare a people and God must prepare a pastor. And indeed, God did exactly that. And how God prepared the people to begin a church was through one of these refining episodes that I made reference to a moment ago. It really wasn't a very pretty time. Our initial people were part of another Baptist church in this area. And there were a lot of heartaches.

I won't go into them now. But some serious, serious matters. And it caused great pain within the congregation and a great deal of suffering and anguish and it even brought a lot of division within that congregation. The pastor had failed grievously. And the church was divided as to what direction they should go in. This was back in 19...well, all of this happened in 1972 when the immorality of the pastor came to light. And then some of these things began to develop.

And most of you are not old enough to remember what I'm going to tell you now. Back in 1972, the Southern Baptist Convention was sliding rapidly into what looked like fatal apostasy from which it would never recover. Now, in the goodness of God, that's not what happened, but that's the way it looked in 1972. And there were those who were raising the alarm, writing books like Southern Baptist Wake Up and other similar books. And these materials were coming into the hands of people in our congregation. And so in the course of what was taking place in that church, there were a large number of these folks who said, you know, what we need to do while we're making these transitions is just transition out of the Southern Baptist Convention. Get away from the apostasy. Get away from the influence of apostates who are teaching in our school seminaries.

Get away from this publishing house that's putting out material that is questioning the truthfulness of God's word. And let's just become an independent church. Well, that was what some people thought was exactly what ought to be done, and that was what other people thought was exactly what ought not to be done.

And so the conflict arose, and eventually the people that, some of whom, not all the people who took this position, but some of the people who took that position decided the only honorable thing to do was to withdraw, stop the fighting, withdraw. But they wanted to stay together as a congregation. Those that hadn't already, some had already left and gone to other churches, but they wanted to stay together as a congregation. They would like to start another church. That's the preparation of the people. Preparation of the pastor, of course, is my story.

I had finished my training at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. I was doing some candidating, looking for God's direction in my life, and in the course of that time I did some pulpit supply for this church that I've just described. They had an empty pulpit, and I actually came at their invitation on three weekends to preach for them, and some of the people said, let's call this man to be our pastor, and others said, nope, he's going to lead us out of the Southern Baptist Convention. In fact, when I met with the pulpit committee, I was young and audacious and foolish.

I know that now. And I don't remember exactly how the meeting got started, but it wasn't long into the meeting that I said something like this. Folks, maybe we can just save a lot of time here. If you're interested in getting someone that will help lead you out of the SBC, I would be happy to consider that. If you're not, I'm not interested in coming. I don't want to pastor a Southern Baptist church. That pretty much ended the meeting, and I thought that was the end of it. And I went on preaching other places from time to time and still looking for God's direction. But little known to me, people in the church were still working, and I learned later that actually the church leaders, deacons and pulpit committee, had put a candidate before the church and asked them to vote that person into the pastoral office, and the church voted no. They voted him down.

And so the leader, I can still see this gentleman. I wasn't at this meeting, of course, but I had gotten to know him, and I can just about see him standing there wondering what's going to happen next. And it's my report, someone told me later, that one of the people who were with us from the beginning stood up and said, I'd like to nominate Greg Barkman to become our next pastor. And that was immediately ruled out of order because it had not gone through the proper channels.

So that was aborted. So when all of this developed, these people reached out and said, would you come and help us start a church? And my initial response was, no, I'm not interested in that, really. It's clear that what we're talking about here is a church split. I don't like, I know sometimes that's necessary, but I just don't like the idea of being involved in fostering a church split.

And other things that I won't go into now. So my initial response was, no, I don't think I'd be interested, but they said, we'll pray about it. And in praying about it and talking to others, including my own pastor to receive counsel, within two weeks my mind was completely changed, and I was assured that God wanted my wife and I to come here and I am sure that my name is Greg Barkman.

It was just that clear. And so here we came and here we started, and it was quite an adventure. So that's the preparation. The initiation. How and when did we begin? The 19 adults that constituted the group that I'm talking about had gotten together and they signed a piece of paper that said something like this.

I think we've still got it somewhere. I should have dug it out and reviewed it. But it said something like this. If Greg Barkman will come and become pastor to our new church that we desire to begin, we pledge our commitment and support. And these 19 people signed their names. And they gave that to me to pray about this, to take with me and to pray about coming as their pastor.

That was the agreement. And so when we decided to come, we came. I had come up on a weekend prior to this to meet with the people. We met at the home of Joe and Gail Davis for one of our meetings that weekend and talked together. I don't remember what all took place at that meeting. And then I think the next night met at the home of Ralph and Don and Fawcett and had another meeting with the people. Five Forks Baptist Church opened their pulpit to me on that Sunday and all of our people came to Five Forks Baptist where Hunter Strink pastored for a couple of years. And I preached the congregation that day and went home with this promise of 19 people that they would support the beginning of a new church if I would agree to come. And so we came, had our first service on the 29th of April in 1973.

I turned 25 years old on the 28th of April and we had our first service on the 29th of April. Meeting at E.M. Holtz School that had opened the doors to us. We rented that facility. The only requirement was that we have a school employee present with us and we didn't have anybody in our congregation who was employed by the school system.

It didn't have to be that school but it had to be somebody in the Aliment school system. And so we found a janitor who was willing to come. We paid him by the hour to come and be with us and he did.

We had to pick him up and bring him to the services and he slept through most of them. We met the requirement and I still have great fond memories in my heart of dear old Clifton Slade who made it possible for us to meet those first several months. What a blessing that was.

What a jolly happy man. That was a wonderful time. But after about four months of meeting in the school the oil embargo of 1973 caused by a shortage similar to what we're having now but that descended upon America. There were gas lines.

Some of you are old enough to remember that. We went by the last number on our license plate. If it was an even number you went on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and if it was an odd number on Saturday whatever, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday the only days you could buy gas if you could find it.

Line up at the gas stations and buy gas and the school board said we don't know if we're going to have enough oil to heat the school during the school week Monday through Friday let alone the extra heat required for you to use it on the weekend on Sunday so you need to find another place. So, long story short, we wondered what in the world is the Lord going to do here and he did. He supplied marvelously. I know I saw Joanna Isley here, yeah, back there. It was her father. Long story, but anyway, her father was still involved with a little church over on the corner trailing in Rand Street and the congregation had dwindled and they were really not sure what they were going to do and the pastor that had actually founded that church was now pastoring in Greensboro, Elmer Cates and he contacted Ralph Anderson and said any possibility that you would be willing to let these people use your facility and he said yes. They were only like five or six at a meeting on Sundays so we agreed. The terms were that we would pay the mortgage. They still had a mortgage on the building and we would take care of the utilities and any repairs and upkeep but that was our rent. We could use the building under those conditions and so we began to use that building and it was very suitable for a while but the church was growing and we actually outgrew it. But in the meantime, the Lord gave us the land where we are here and in fact, we had our eye on that and that's another story that would take too long to explain but it was our confidence that the Lord was going to supply this place, this location that directed us to name our church Beacon Baptist Church because we said we're going to locate near the airport and the airport beacon is there and everybody will know, they'll associate that and they'll know right where we are.

Wrong, I've never met anybody yet that made that connection. It seemed like a good idea but it didn't work out that way. But that's why we are Beacon Baptist Church because there's an airport beacon right over here. But the Lord gave us this facility or this land and property to develop. So we began, we built a building and moved into it incredibly on our third anniversary in 1976, occupied our first building and have been building and developing and renovating and working at it ever since. The Lord has been so good. The first couple of projects we had to borrow money in order to accomplish but after that the Lord has supplied everything ahead of time and everything we have done since, I think since 1992 has been done cash, money already in the bank ahead of time and that has been a wonderful blessing of God. I mean He has just blessed in so many ways. This is a good time to say thanks to all of you who over the last two or three weeks have been working so diligently to refresh our facilities. There's been painting, there's been cleaning, there's been landscaping, there's been repairs, there has been decorating that has gone on the last two or three weeks just to make things as nice and fresh for our anniversary as possible. And for those of us who are here regularly, it's real obvious.

I mean bang, it pops when we drive into the parking lot or walk into the building. If you're visiting today you don't know what to compare it to but I assure you there has been an awful lot of work that has gone on here recently and we thank the Lord for that. And so that's preparation, initiation, provision. God gave us a place to meet, God gave us a property to develop. Number four is instruction. And in many ways this is the most important part.

All of these other things are significant but this is the most important part. We started in the beginning with an expository pulpit. I had developed a desire and a taste for that. But our theology was very different from what it is today. What were you, people sometimes ask.

What were you in those days? Baptist. What kind of Baptist? Regular Baptist. Ordinary Baptist. Baptist. Just sort of standard Baptist theology in those days.

And we started out with a bang. With enthusiastic evangelism, door to door visitation. I was talking with one of our charter members just a few days ago and said remember when so and so on a Sunday afternoon when we were passing out tracts found a nearby mainline denominational church with the doors open and he went in there and laid one of our tracts on every spot in the pews. And his father found out and said, you go back in there and pick all those up.

And he went back in there and picked them all up before anybody saw them. But we had zeal, sometimes with more zeal than knowledge but we certainly had zeal in those days. But we had an expository pulpit. One of the things that we noticed was we were seeing professions of faith by the scores and scores and scores and scores. But the number of those who gave real evidence of changed lives and who showed a serious interest in church and the word of God was just a handful. Something wrong, big gap between all these people professing to be saved and the ones who gave evidence that they really were saved.

Some churches, some pastors go on in that condition without any problems, without seeing that there's anything wrong but we began to see that something was wrong. And I'm really embarrassed and apologetic for people that I know I and others, our church, misled in the early days in regard to their eternal condition before God. Someone said to me recently about somebody they wanted us to pray for and I said, you baptized him. I don't remember that but we baptized so many people that back then I couldn't possibly remember. And my response was, is he walking with the Lord?

And the answer is, well, I don't think so. I said, well, I'm sorry I baptized him. I hope I didn't mislead him into thinking that he's eternally secure and if he dies he'll be with the Lord in heaven if there's no evidence of a changed life. So that led me initially into a real difficult time of soul searching that eventually led me to an understanding of what is known as the doctrines of grace or known as reformed theology or Calvinist theology and a different understanding of salvation, which was not easy. It was not easy. And then after having come to that myself, I didn't have a clue as to where to go from there and how to bring the church along to that same understanding, knowing that we had people that were vehemently opposed to what they considered to be the heirs of Calvinism, rightly out of misconceptions of what actually was taught, but nevertheless that strong reaction. So it was a long, slow, arduous process, but little by little by little by little the church came along. The Lord brought us together in unity in our understanding of these truths.

People left along the way. Unfortunately, that was sad. My goal was to bring everybody to an understanding of this. Surely you'll understand that if we could just patiently show it to you from the Bible.

But it didn't always have that result. But God preserved us. God kept us. God strengthened us. God protected us.

And here we are. And we're united in doctrine and believing in the doctrines of grace. God was so good. One of the things that helped us along the way was this hymnal. We needed a new hymnal. We had a hymnal that was fine as far as it went, but we needed one that had a little stronger doctrinal emphasis.

And our friend Joan Pinkston, who's been here a number of times along with Ed Dunbar, who plays the organ and she plays the piano and she's quite a talented musician, and has written I don't know how many hymn tunes. And we heard that she was editing a new church hymnal, so we said we'd like to have that. We put in our advance order and waited and waited and waited and waited. And two years went by the date when it was supposed to be delivered and we still didn't have it. And eventually the day came.

Here it came. We grabbed the hymnal and put it into use in our worship service on that first Sunday. There was one other church in America that had it that same Sunday. And it was not Faith Free Presbyterian Church.

They didn't get it until the Sunday following. It was Mount Calvary Baptist in Greenville. And we both started with this. Can you imagine two Baptist churches using a Presbyterian hymnal? But it was perfectly suited for our purposes and full of sound doctrine. We're singing truth. We're singing doctrine. And that's part of the instruction, how the Lord has helped to instruct and solidify us along the way. But I come to number five, which is protection, how God has protected us over these years. And there have been a number of crises. Some of you have observed them and some of you have been spared them. I'll tell you the first one. I don't think I've ever said anything about this one publicly.

It embarrasses me. Church was about a year and a half old. We had started a bus ministry. We were bringing children to church, some of whom had black skin. And we had some men in the church who said, we don't want those black children coming. I said, what do you mean?

I couldn't imagine a Christian with that attitude. What do you mean? We don't want those black children coming.

So I tried to deal with it kind of behind the scenes. It wasn't getting anywhere. This is a Baptist church. We demand that we vote on it. The congregation will make this decision.

These people were very certain that the majority would agree with them. Now, this is 1975. Things aren't that bad today, thankfully.

There's been a lot of progress since then. So I said, okay, we'll vote on it, but here's what we're going to vote on. I said, I promise you, I refuse to pastor a church that will not allow blacks or anyone of any color who wants to come to church to come. So here's the vote. You're going to vote either to dismiss me as pastor or to retain me as pastor.

That's what we're going to vote on, with the understanding that if you vote to keep me, we will continue to open the doors to whoever desires to come. Well, the night came for that vote. I was full of fear and trepidation in my mind.

I had already packed my bags. I didn't know where I was going, but I figured I was going to be looking for another place. I preached that night on Acts 10, the sheet let down from heaven, what God has called unclean, don't you call unclean. I thought that ought to persuade them, but it didn't.

We had our business meeting and people had their say. It was hard to tell from the way that business meeting was going what was going to happen until dear David Graham stood up, who was principal of Alamance Christian School and a member of our church, and a son of the South. His father had pastored in Ashboro.

That's where he grew up, and his wife grew up in Winston-Salem. He said something like this, folks, our pastor is young, and he may have said some things that were a little hard to hear, but he said he's right. I'm behind him 100%. I'm going to vote to keep him, and I hope you'll join me. When he sat down, he was well respected, had a lot of influence in the congregation.

When he sat down, it was just like a breath of fresh air, like letting air out of a balloon. We had the vote, and there were five men and their wives who voted no, not to keep me as pastor, and the rest all voted yes. I don't even remember how many that was all together, but let's say 40 or 50 who voted yes and 10 who voted no. So those 10 adults left. I wasn't happy to see them go.

I wanted to see them change. I wanted them to embrace truth and come to a better understanding, but they weren't willing. They left, so we went on without them.

For the size of our church in those days, that was a pretty big disruption, probably the biggest in terms of percentage that we had in all of these years. But the Lord kept us together, and we kept going. I knew that we had taken a stand on truth, and what we agreed on was right, and God would honor and bless that, and he has. My only regret is that we have not seen the Lord bring us more brothers and sisters of different colored skin and ethnic background and so forth, and I know it's a challenge, I know, but we're united in Christ. Skin color, these things don't matter.

These things don't matter. We're all sons and daughters of Adam. We're all members of the human race. There's only one race, the human race. We're all descendants of Noah. We're all one blood.

What's a little bit of skin pigment? I mean, it's amazing how the devil can make nothing into mountains of problems in opposition. But anyway, that was our big crisis. We've had some others.

I don't have time to spell them out, some unfaithful men, some unfaithful staff members over the years that have been a great burden to us. But God has been faithful, some unfaithful deacons over the years that have been a burden to us, but God has been faithful. And so that brings me finally to my last point, which is renewal. As the church has progressed, some of us have grown older. I once was young and now I'm old and have not seen God's people, the righteous forsaken or God's people, begging bread. I once was young. When we started, I was 25. I now am old.

I'm 74. And a lot of other people that have been committed and faithful in this work have grown older, too. It seemed like our congregation was aging. We used to have the halls just teeming with young children and used to have the nursery just overflowing with babies.

And that kind of has changed over the years. But we've prayed and God has begun to bring young families again. Thank you. I'm looking at some now, some who have just started coming. God is answering that prayer. And just this one thing about it, a lot of churches have gone through that and people sort of hit the panic button. Oh, we need more youth. We need more youth. They're the future of the church. If we don't get them, the church is going to die. What are we going to do?

The answer for most people? Contemporary music. That'll bring them. It will.

It will. And I don't want to get into an argument. I'm not saying that contemporary Christian music is per se wrong or sinful.

I'm not saying that. I just don't think it's best, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong. But I do think that in most cases the motivation behind it is not a good one.

It's very pragmatic. And I think the best thing to do is pray for God to bring young people who have a heart to worship God in a reverent, orderly way. And that's what God is doing. It doesn't happen as quickly. But have you noticed these churches that grow big by contemporary music and contemporary staging and all of the modern stuff? Most of them only last a few years until punk. They have problems.

I can remember one of the biggest ones in Alamance County has now imploded to even survive, had to merge with another church. They're trying to keep things going. That doesn't do it. It's got to be the spirit of the living God working in the hearts of people and honoring His word. And if it is that, the church goes on. It lives. It grows. It's vital. And if it's something else, whatever it may be.

In the early years of the church, we had people that came to me and said, now, if we'd have some good old country music, some gospel quartets and so forth, the church would grow a lot quicker. And I said, I know. I know.

I've observed that. But no, we're not going to do that. Why not? Because I don't think it's best. And someone even has said along the way, well, who made you the one to decide? I said, well, God made me the pastor, and I don't know who else should decide things like that that have to do with the way we worship. I think that's pretty much a spiritual decision, and the pastor has to take the lead in that.

So I'm not saying that these things are wrong. I'm just saying this is the way the Lord has led me. And as long as I'm pastor, that's the way it's going to be. And I won't be here forever, and you can make your decisions after I'm gone.

But while I'm here, kind of like that first thing, while I'm here, we're not going to close the door to anybody who wants to come. While I'm here, we're going to continue to worship God in a reverent, traditional, if you want to call it that, manner, and trust God to bring to us people of all ages, young and old and middle, who have a desire for that. Let's just see what God will do. Let's pray and trust Him and see what God will do. We see what He has done. You think He's going to abandon us now? Come and see the works of the Lord, shall we pray. Father, thank You for what You have done these 49 years. We look to You, O Lord, to protect us and preserve us and to take us on as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.