Our Beliefs

We believe the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, to be the verbally inspired word of God and sole authority in all matters of faith and practice; inerrant, infallible and God-breathed in the original writings. (Matthew 5:18, Mark 13:31, John 16:12, 13, I Cor. 2:13, II Timothy 3:16, 17, II Peter 1:20, 21)

We believe in God, a Spirit (John 4:24), One in character (Righteous, Just, Love, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Immutable, Truth), Three in personality:

 

God, the Father: planner of the great salvation for mankind, concerns Himself in grace towards every detail of the affairs of mankind, saving from sin and death all who trust Him through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, hearing and answering the prayers of His saints. (Eph. 4:6, John 3:16, II Cor. 5:21, Isa. 53:6, II Peter 3:9).

 

God, the Son: fulfiller of the plan of the Father, was born in human flesh, not of a human father, but the seed of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, living a sinless life of example, making atonement for the sins of the world by His death on the cross, bodily rising from the grave in resurrection victory over sin, death, hell and Satan: ascending into Heaven, bestowing gifts to men to carry on His work while He intercedes as advocate of His saints until the rapture at which time He will receive His own unto Himself as he promised. (Matt 28:6; Matt 1:18; John 14:2,3,6; Eph. 16:8; Heb. 4:14-15; I Peter 2:21; I Thess. 4:16-18; I John 2:12; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:7, John 1:1).

 

God, the Holy Spirit: was sent by the Son to reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment; to regenerate, sanctify, fill, empower, comfort, and anoint to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. (John 16:8; I Peter 1:12; Acts 9:31; Eph. 5:18).

We believe that God created all things after the purpose of His good will and according to His good pleasure. He created the heavens and the earth with its creatures, each after its own kind, instantaneously, in a span of six (6) twenty-four (24) hour periods by the Word of His power. (Gen. 1 and 2; Col. 1:16-17; John 1:3; Matt. 14:15-21; Numbers 17:8).

We believe in a personal devil whose single ambition is to turn people from God and all that is good; that He is author of sin, accusing, tempting, influencing, devouring, destroying, corrupting, distracting, murdering, and lying as the enemy of God, for whom the lake of fire has been prepared and will be his eternal punishment. (Job 1:6-7; Isa. 14:12-17; Matt. 2:2-11, 25:41; I Peter 5:8-9; Rev. 20:10).

 

We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that through the sin of Adam, the human race fell and all have inherited a sinful nature, without any possibility for obtaining reward of God for himself, being totally depraved and not having anything to offer God. (Gen. 1:26-27; Rom. 3:22-23, 5:12; Eph. 2:1-3,12).

 

We believe that salvation is the gift of God brought to man by grace and is received only by personal faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose shed blood cleanses us of sin, giving us forgiveness from the Father. This faith is manifested by the works for which we are saved, to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph. 2:8-10; John 1:12; Eph. 1:7, Titus 2:11-14; John 3:36; I Peter 1:18-19).

 

We believe that all the redeemed are kept by the power of God from the moment they first place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive the salvation of God. Our position in Christ, being sealed by the Holy Spirit, is untouchable, a never-ending security. (John 5:24, 10:27-30; Rom. 8:1, 5:1,9; Eph. 1:13).

We accept the testimony of God’s Word as clearly forbidding the attitude that Christian liberty is a license for the lusts of the flesh. (Rom. 13:13-14; Gal. 5:13; Titus 2:11-15).

 

We believe the believer possesses two natures with the provision for victory over the old sin nature through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Claims for the eradication of the “old man” in this life are unscriptural. (Rom. 6:13, 8:12-13; Gal. 5:16-25; Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:10; I Peter 1:14-16; I John 3:5-9).

 

We believe that positionally, in Christ, every believer is perfectly sanctified. (I Cor. 1:30, I Peter 1:2; Acts 26:18; Heb. 10:10, 14).

We believe that it is also a process through which the Holy Spirit, through the Word, conforms us to the will and pleasure of God in this world. (I Thess. 4:3; Eph. 5:25, 27).

 

We believe that all the saved should live in such a manner as not to bring reproach upon their Saviour and Lord; and that separation from all religious apostasy, all worldly and sinful pleasures, practices and associations is commanded by God. (II Tim. 3:1-5; Rom. 12:1-2, 14:13; II Cor. 6:14, 7:1).

 

We believe God is sovereign in the bestowment of all His Gifts, giving at least one to every believer for edification and encouragement of the brethren; that the gifts of evangelist and pastor-teacher are sufficient for the perfecting of the saints today: that speaking in tongues and sign miracles gradually ceased as the New Testament was completed and its authority established. (I Cor. 12:4-11; II Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:7-12).

We believe that “the prayer of faith”, which never asks anything out of the will of God, is heard and answered by Him; and that such prayer must come from the Son, through the Holy Spirit and honored by the Father for all our needs. (John 15:7; I John 5:14-14; Rom. 8:26-27; Phil. 4:19).

 

We believe the church is an organism made up of visible, local churches, authorized by the Lord in conformity to His Word to carry out His Commission in independent, self-governing bodies of born again, baptized believers; that Jesus Christ our Lord is the only Head of the Church. The church is perpetuated to this day to observe the ordinances, to maintain order, to edify and encourage one another and to evangelize until the Lord returns. (Acts 14:27; I Tim. 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-11; Heb. 10:25; Acts 2:41-42; I Cor. 11:2; Matt. 18:28-20; I Cor. 14:40; Eph. 4:16).

 

Baptism is restricted in three ways: (1) the candidate must be a born again believer; (2) it is administered by the proper authority (New Testament local church; (3) it is administered by the proper mode (immersion). It declares the death of the believer to the self-life and the beginning of a new life, which took place when we were born again of the Holy Spirit and placed in the body of Christ. (Acts 8:26-39; Matt. 28:19-20).

The Lord’s Supper is to be observed as a memorial of the Saviour’s death, by self-examined believers, who are Scripturally baptized and in good standing as a member of a Bible-believing New Testament local church. (I Cor. 11:26-31).

 

We believe discipline is a Scriptural exercise for the purity of the testimony of the church and its individual members. (Mat. 18:16-18; II Thess. 3:14; Gal. 6:1).

 

We believe that it is the solemn obligation and glorious privilege of the saved to witness by life and by word to the truths of the Holy Scriptures; that the burden and effort of each church and each born-again believer should include all of the world in giving, praying and going. (Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8; II Cor. 5:19-20; Matt. 28:18-20; John 15:16).

 

We believe that civil government is of divine appointment for the interest and good order of human society; that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored and obeyed, except in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the conscience and the coming King of Kings to the earth. (Rom. 13:1-7; II Sam. 23:3; Ex. 18:21-22; Acts 23:5, 5:29, 4:19; Dan. 3:16-19).

 

We believe in the imminent, pre-tribulation, pre-millennial return of Christ for his church, and at that moment the dead in Christ shall be raised in glorified bodies, and the living, who are truly born again, shall be given glorified bodies without tasting death, and shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. (I Thess. 4:13-18; I Cor. 15:42-44, 51-54; Phil. 3:20-21; Rev. 3:10).

 

We believe that the Great Tribulation, which follows the Rapture of the Church, will be culminated by the revelation of Christ in power and great glory to sit upon the throne of David and to establish the millennial reign. (Dan. 9:25,27; Matt. 24:29-31; Luke 1:30-33; Isaiah 9:6-7, 11:1-9; Acts 2:29-30; Rev. 20:1-4,6).

 

We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men, the saved to eternal life, and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment. (Dan. 12:2-3; Matt. 25:46; Rev. 20:4-6, 12-13).

 

We believe that the souls of the redeemed are, at death, absent from the body and blissfully present with the Lord, where they await the completion of the first resurrection of which Christ was the first-fruits, when spirit, soul and body are reunited in the glorified state, forever with the Lord. (Luke 23:43; II Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; I Thess. 4:16-17; Rev. 20:4-6; I Cor. 15:12-19, 51-54; I John 3:1-3).

 

We believe that the souls of unbelievers, after death, remain in conscious misery until the second resurrection when soul and body shall be reunited and stand before the Great White throne judgment from which they shall be cast into the lake of fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting, conscious punishments, because they believed not in the Lord Jesus Christ. (Matt. 25:41-46; Luke 16:19-26; Mark 9:43-48; II Thess. 1:7-9; Jude 6 & 7; Rev. 20:11-15).