WHAT WE BELIEVE

 

 

THE BIBLE: We believe that the Bible is the only book ever written by God himself. It is the very word of God. We believe in the plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible (II Tim. 3:16). We believe that the Bible is eternal and that the Lord has promised to preserve it fully (I Pet. 1:25; Matt. 5:18). We believe that the Bible is both inerrant and infallible (Ps. 12:6). We believe that the King James Version of the Bible is the best translation in the English language and use it in all of our preaching and teaching.

 

GOD:  We believe in the Trinity of God, that He has three separate and distinct persons that make up His Godhead (Matt. 28:19-20); yet we believe in the oneness of God, that He is one God (Deut. 6:4). We believe that God has incommunicable attributes, such as eternality, immutability, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience; as well as communicable attributes, among which are holiness, righteousness, love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. We believe that God performs specific acts and works (Gen. 1:1). Specifically, God the Father is the head of the Trinity (I Cor. 11:3) and is the one to whom believers are to pray (Matt. 6:9).

 

JESUS CHRIST: We believe in Jesus Christ and His eternal part in the Trinity (I John 5:7); His preincarnation (Gen. 18:1-2); His incarnation (John 1:14); His virgin birth (Is. 7:14); His sinless life (Heb. 4:15); His full and simultaneous deity and humanity (John 8:58; Matt. 4:2); His death, burial, and resurrection (I Cor. 15:3-4); His ascension and glorification (Mark 16:19); His second coming (Acts 1:11); and His propitiation and substitutionary atonement for the sins of man (I Pet. 2:24).

 

THE HOLY SPIRIT: We believe that the Holy Spirit is eternally a part of the Trinity (I John 5:7), is fully God (Acts 5:3-4), that He works in various ways (John 14:26), that He is a person (Rom. 8:27), that there are gifts of the Spirit (Rom. 12:6-8), that He produces fruit in the lives of believers (Gal. 5:22-23), and that He has several names describing Him (John 15:26).

 

ANGELS: We believe in angels, both holy and fallen; that they were created by God (Ex. 20:11) and that they are spirits (Ps. 104:4); that there are different classifications of angels (Gen. 3:24); that they have a ministry as messengers (Luke 1:13), guardians (Ps. 34:7), guides (Gen. 24:7), and ministers (Heb. 1:14); and we believe in Satan, an angel (Isaiah 14:12-13), and his fallen angels, demons (Rev. 12:7), and that they have definite functions in both the physical and spiritual world today (I Pet. 5:8), as allowed by God.

 

MAN AND SIN: We believe that man was created by God in the image of God (Gen. 1:27); that he was created with a body, soul, and spirit (I Thess. 5:23); that he has a purpose (Rev. 4:11); that he was given a work ethic (Gen. 2:15); that he sinned (Rom. 5:12), plunging all of mankind into death, both physical and spiritual (Heb. 9:27); that every man is now born with a sin nature and chooses to depart from God (Psalm 51:5); and that the works flowing from his sin nature are what send him to hell (Rom. 5:12).

 

SALVATION: We believe that salvation is only by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8) in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:3-4); that the substitutionary atonement of Christ was necessary for it (I Pet. 2:24); that repentance is necessary for it (Luke 13:3); that salvation brings about regeneration (II Cor. 5:17); that it includes justification (Rom. 5:1), sanctification (I Pet. 1:15), and glorification (Rom. 8:18); and that it is eternal (John 10:28-29).

 

THE CHURCH: We believe in the New Testament church, that it is founded upon Jesus Christ (I Cor. 3:11), that it was started at Pentecost (Acts 2:4), that the church has two offices: pastor (I Tim. 3:1) and deacon (Acts 6:2-3), two ordinances: baptism (Matt. 28:19) and the Lord’s supper (I Cor. 11:26), that church discipline (I Cor. 5:12-13) and church separation (Rom. 16:17) are required to maintain its purity, that the mission of the church should be worldwide missions (Acts 1:8), that membership is vital to the identity of a local church (Acts 2:41), that individual churches should govern themselves (Acts 6:5), and that there is a distinction between the local church (Phil. 1:1) and the family of God (I Cor. 12:13), and that the local church is the vehicle that God has chosen to use during this present time to carry out His will.

 

END TIMES: We believe in the pretribulation, premillennial rapture of the church by Jesus Christ who will come bodily in the clouds to take all believers out of the world (I Thess. 4:16-17). We also believe in the second coming of Christ with His saints to judge the world at the end of the tribulation and to set up His one thousand year reign with those saints (Zech. 14:4; Rev. 20:6). We beleive in the eternal state of salvation in heaven for believers (I Thess. 4:17) and the eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire for the unsaved (Rev. 14:11).