What I Believe

Here's a listing of my beliefs. PRIORITIES First and foremost is the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. BASICS The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. It is divinely inspired and inerrant in the original texts. Its assertions are 100% factually true in all autographs, and it is the supreme authority in everything it teaches. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science. The final guide to the interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself (Sola Scriptura). All accounts in the Bible are to be taken in the plain literary sense as the Author intended it. It does not require any special training or revelation to interpret Scripture objectively. THEOLOGY The Godhead is triune: one God, three equal Persons; one What and three Whos—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (The Trinity). All members of the human race are sinners, inherently from the conscious, literal sin of the first man, Adam, and individually by their personal choice. Their sin is rebellion against God, placing them under the same eternal penalty as the fallen angels and their leader, Satan. Freedom from the penalty and power of sin is available to man only through the acceptance of the sacrificial death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, and His complete and bodily Resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit enables the sinner to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit lives and works in each believer to produce the fruits of righteousness. Salvation is a gift received by faith alone in Christ alone; it is dependent upon the acknowledgement of and belief in the four concrete doctrines found in Scripture:

+ The Trinity (One God, three Persons) + The plan of Redemption (Sin of man, sacrificial death of Christ, literal and bodily ressurrection from the dead) + Sola Scriptura (The Bible is its own best interpretation; it is infallible and inerrant in its original autographs) + Salvation by God's grace alone through faith in Christ and the Bible, not by works of the flesh

Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead, ascended to Heaven, is currently seated at the right hand of God the Father, and shall return in like manner to this Earth as Judge of the living and the dead. Satan, the leader of all rebellion against God, is the personal spiritual adversary of both God and man. Those who do not believe in Christ are subject to everlasting conscious punishment, but believers enjoy eternal life with God. PERSONAL I believe that the following statements, though not essential to the Gospel message, are 100% consistent with or directly implied by the plain meaning of Scripture: God's Word teaches a recent origin (within the past 10,000 years) for man and the whole creation. The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation. The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time. The ‘gap’ theory has no basis in Scripture. The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, is rejected. By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information. DEBATABLE I believe that Scripture teaches that Christ's Second return will be in two parts: the "catching up" of the Christians on the earth consistent with 1 Thessalonians 4, followed by a period of tribulations of the unbelievers still on the earth, and culminating in the Glorious Appearing of Christ to rule for an unparallelled period of peace on earth for 1,000 years. The details and concepts of this plan are debatable, but it is still absolute that Christ will be coming back to judge the living and the dead.