There is a simple and comforting atmosphere at Hope Baptist Church Sunbury, an unpretentious desire to love one another and to talk of the witness of Jesus Christ within our lives and how that has impacted each member.
It’s through this that we comfort and exhort one another, it’s the reason Hope Baptist Church assembles each week as we live in a world that needs the Saviour and the hope he offers now more than any time in history. It is about Jesus, it is all about his love that he demonstrated ever so clearly when he willing went to the cross. A crown of thorns pierced his brow, iron nails pierced his body and a spear pierced his side to tell you of his love for you personally, a love that we endeavour to share.
This is the love the Bible speaks of, this book that the world and even many Christians have set aside, is the focus of each service. It tells of the origin of the world, the state of man, the love of God and the provision God has made for man through the death of his Son, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Nothing is more important, no teaching has greater impact and no knowledge has more lasting effect. Eternal is the work Jesus has effected for all who believe, and whosoever comes to him he will in no wise cast out (Jn 6:37).
We, as a Baptist Church, are governed by this truth, holding firm to the teaching of the Bible through the Spirit of his grace. This being contrary to the rising tide of emotion, experience and entertainment that is diverting the message of the cross, and keeping the lost in everlasting ignorance in many modern congregations, and linking with the disheartening state of the world as it appeals to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).
We are therefore non-charismatic, non-Pentecostal and non-ecumenical. We believe that many false prophets have gone out into the world and churches that focus on these areas within their services are in great error and have led many people astray. Tremendous hurt has been done to the cause of Christ through these organizations. Though they believe they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, yet fail to see they are in fact wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. On the surface they seem alive, however their modern and contemporary entertainments together with short, self-inflating and indulgent messages, betray the dying nature of their services and leave their ‘pastors’ accumulating for themselves much wood, hay and stubble (1 Cor 3:12-15).
These are the Churches of the Laodicean age; the last major move in Church history where Jesus stands on the outside and knocks
“I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
(Rev 3:14-22).
Regarding the Bible
Directly related to the turning away of many; tremendous confusion abounds as people struggle to identify the true bible among 400 or more English translations since the the publication of the Revised Version in 1881. What happened in 1881?
God promised to preserve his words, unlimited by language and knowing from eternity past that the English language would become a truly Global language of the last days, God provided for mankind his words in what became known today as the King James Version (KJV). The testimony of this final English translation is written in history; stemming from the great reformation it became the version through which rolling revivals had seen many come to Christ in those centuries prior to and including part of the 20th century.
Contrary wise, the creation of the Revised Version in 1881 stemmed from the imagination of two influential Anglican men, glorified in their own scholarship, created a revision from an eclectic assortment of corrupted greek manuscripts to form the Westcott and Hort Greek text. A text dramatically diverse in its readings from the KJV, and the parent influencing ALL modern translations since the KJV. Its testimony has resulted in a church seeking narcissistic personal experience and fulfilment rather than the salvation of others. This confusion leads the demoralising of the culture in general and a world lost to any source of truth.
In discarding The Book (a great pleasure to the devil) the world is seeking its own “truth”, a relativistic endeavour in our postmodern culture that determines reality by nothing more that the whims and emotion of personal experience.
We therefore hold unabashedly to the Authorised Version of the Bible (KJV) as the perfect word of God for the English speaking people.
The Answer In The Gospel
Finally we know that it will be the love of Jesus through the Gospel, that can turn the hearts of men. This grace then is that which we desire to preach, to teach and to show with all hope, knowing that it can only be through the grace of Jesus Christ imparted to man that they may turn from sin and to the living Saviour. Certain then it is also that the love of God is what constrains us, propelling us forward even though we may be reviled by some. We know also that it is the word of God alone that is sufficient for godliness and contentment, it is in this simple formula that we rejoice (2 Tim 3:16-17, Phil 4:11).
At Hope Baptist Church then you can expect to be challenged, you can expect to be reminded of why you are here, you can expect to be renewed in spirit and restored in joy. The Gospel is preached that all may hear of the love of God through Jesus Christ. Finally, you can expect to have all that you require to both exercise the gift God has given you as a born again believer, as well as being equipped to live joyfully and Godly in Christ Jesus. If we fail in this primary endeavor, we would fail indeed.
Pr Edi Giudetti