Slideshow of past and present members and friends of the Sovereign Grace
Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas
Our First Undershepherd
Elder Walter Herin
Our Second Undershepherd
Elder Tom Horn
Our Third Undershepherd
Elder José Serrano, DMin, ThD, PhD
About the Little Flock at Silsbee
There be many who say they are in the "ONE GOD ONE
FAITH ONE BAPTISM" type of faith, yet the majority
of these "faithful" lamentably have an erroneous understanding of the
doctine of ecclesiology, AND BAPTISM, do not attach to the doctrine of
the church any importance, or have the
time or inclination to study to attain an accurate knowledge of the Lord's
kind of church.If we love our Lord Jesus Christ WE WILL BE MEMBERS OF HIS KIND OF CHURCH, NOT SOME MAN-MADE INVENTION OR RELIGIOUS
GOD-CLUB!
Today what is mistaken for FUNDAMENTALISM is actually
FUN-damentalism, with an emphasis on the FUN. Worship has
degraded into sensous entertainment, centered on humanism and worldly philosophy
instead of Christ, focused on sports or social dating "ministries;"
what passes for preaching is just story telling mixed
in with psychology (while lightening the pocketbook with unscriptural
collection methods); and very little of
the Gospel of Redemption, which is the church's message to the world,
that the already condemned sinner who has no righteousness of his
own can be set free from sins and death in and through the Wonderful
Person, Glorious Work and in the Merit of our Saviour the LORD Jesus
Christ. It is a defective view of the depravity of man that has led to a
defective view of salvation; for if man is able to come to save himself
then the Cursed tree of Calvary is merely symbolic or didactic. It is a
defective view of the church, which the Word of God calls "the
Pillar and Ground of the Truth," that has led to the prophetic
"falling away" or apostasizing of Christendom, and the worldliness
of the lukewarm, Laodicean church.
They talk disrespectfully about this mere "Jesus" who they say
had the same blood that we have, supposedly was temptable as we are and
capable of sinning; and yet call other men "Reverend" when He should
properly be addressed as the "Lord Jesus Christ," as He almost
always is after His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, or
"Master," if you are His servant.There are
many hispanic guys named "Jesus" BUT THERE IS ONLY ONE LORD JESUS. Satan
is a powerful deceiver, so much so that he could take our Lord as it
were to a high mountain top and "in a moment of time" show him
all the kingdoms of the world! (Lk. 4:5) It is nothing for him to
counterfeit a church.
For this same reason in His Omniscience God the Holy
Spirit caused the doctrine of the true church of our Lord Jesus Christ
to be set forth in the New Testament, to counteract against the deceiver
in these last days. She is a local "called out" (from
ek-kaleo [a calling]-sia) company or church,
not yet an "assembly" (at the present time she is
a called-out company of baptized believers; she will become an
"assembly" when all in the Body of Christ are ultimately
"assembled" in heaven).
She is properly nominated "BAPTIST," the name given by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who
was baptized by the "man sent from God" (Jn. 1:6). John THE
BAPTIST (not baptizer). Many object to the name
BAPTIST given him by our Lord, to nominate our church (in the
institutional sense). They say
we do "err" by calling ourselves after one of the ordinances. But this
is faulty reasoning. John was also a prophet, but he was not named by
Christ "John THE PROPHET," BUT "JOHN THE BAPTIST!"
Luke 7:28
28 For I say unto you, Among
those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John
t
he Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than
he.
If our Lord Jesus Christ afforded John THE BAPTIST this honor, why do
men seek to take it away? Why do they hate the Baptist name and Baptist
doctrine so much? Why do they despise the Doctrines of Grace, when God's
Holy and Infallible Word of Truth says that CHRIST
IS THE
PERSONIFICATION OF GRACE AND TRUTH?
John 1:14
14 And the Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father,)
full of grace and truth.
John 1:17
17 For the law was given by
Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
To reject the Doctrines of Grace is to reject the Lord Jesus Christ, for
Christ is the personification of grace and truth; to reject the Baptist
name and church is to reject the name that He gave and the church that
He built, the guardian of the truth.
1 Timothy 3:15
15 But if I tarry long, that
thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of
God, which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and
ground of the truth.
She is Baptist both in doctrine and practice
(all churches up to the second half of the third century were Baptist so
there was no need in the Bible for any other name until the roman
schismatics appeared. Furthermore, our Lord's kind of church
began during His earthly ministry for she had a Pastor
"I am the Good Shepherd;" they had business meetings, meeting places, meeting
variably on the beach, on a Mount, and in a Upper Room; she had a
mission for He sent out first the 12 and then the 70; she even had a
treasurer, although he was a betrayer. God the Holy Spirit did not
found the church at Pentecost as the false teachers would have it, she
was founded by He Who Himself states the
perpetuity (chain-link succession) of His church in Matthew 16:18b, "I
will build my church [then existing-in the process of completing] ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it..." (Matt. 16:18) and again, "And
if he shall neglect to hear them, TELL IT UNTO THE CHURCH: but if he
neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a
publican." (Matt. 18:17)
How could the brethren
bring a case and TELL IT UNTO THE CHURCH
when our Lord Jesus Christ uttered these words
if the church did not exist, as the false teachers would have it,
until Pentecost, which was after our Lord had ascended into heaven?
Additionally, the Lord's kind of church cannot include those saints in
heaven for "gates of hell" or the devil's organization
cannot be said to prevail against the saints in heaven, so the church is
visible and local. Next to the Wonderful Person, Glorious Work and Merit
of Christ the devil hates the Baptist church the most.The invisible
universal church theory and visible universal church theory is the spawn
of popery and a trick of the devil to lead people away from the Lord's
true Baptist church and to his synagogue of Satan.
2 John 1:10-11
10 If there come any unto you,
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
your house,
neither bid him God speed:
11 For he that biddeth him God
speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
We believe in chain-link church succession and
perpetuity since our Lord said it would be so! This is sufficient. This is why we are called
Landmark Sovereign Grace Baptists. Landmarkism is that which
distinguishes the true Baptist.
"As Baptists we
are to stand for the supreme authority of the New Testament as our only
and sufficient rule of faith and practice. This is the distinguishing
doctrine of our denomination." (1st Premise of Landmarkism)
Job 24:2
“Some
remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed
thereof.”
We haved traced the Lord's Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of
Silsbee, Texas back to the first church in Jerusalem from carefully searching
the Scriptures, church records,family geneologies, county historical
markers, and grave markers. We can show the links of eight generations
of churches from which we trace our succession ALL THE WAY to Christ during His
earthly ministry! (A.D.
26 to A.D.29). The evidence was repressed by our enemies but the
with the advent of computers, and the Trail of Baptist Blood left by over 100 million martyrs
THE TRUTH could not be hid; the reality of Baptist men, women, boys, girls, and infants who were
tortured and murdered, first by the Roman Catholics, and then by
the Protestants, including the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists
is a matter of record. Read for
yourself Foxe's Book of [Baptist] Martyr's, or Morland's [Baptist]
Churches of the Piedmont Valley, or the biography
of Baptist preacher John Bunyan author of Pilgrim's Progress.
Any religious organization that does not trace it's succession to the
church that our Lord Jesus Christ built during His earthly ministry,
from disciples prepared by John the
Baptist, and/or not kept the ordinances
entrusted to her as given in God's Holy and Infallible Word,
or is one that was founded with the Great Schism that began with the
apostasizing of some of the churches in Rome, or has a
human founder, or began with the "Reformation," does not have
any right to claim to be a
scriptural church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Baptists are not
"Protestants" since they never were a part of the
Roman (Babylonian) empire, nor ever
practiced popery, and for this same reason true Baptists cannot be
nominated "reformed" either. For a Statement of The Ten Premises of
Landmarkism please navigate to our FAQ page.
We believe in scriptural church authority; we believe that only a scripturally organized church can
"give birth"
to another church, we believe in what has been called the EMDA, the Essential Mother
Daughter Association. The apostate romanists fell away from the
truth and were expelled from true Baptist churches when they introduced
alien immersion, baptismal regeneration, sacramental salvation, and hierarchies with the Great
Schism beginning in A.D. 241, hundreds of years after the true New
Testament church was already founded by our Lord Jesus Christ! After the initial spread
of the Glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the then known
world, and because of her persecution by the murderous romanists, our Lord's true churches
were kept by our Sovereign God as precious jewels in His treasure chest, hidden
away in many little places, for the purpose of calling out His elect.
The Baptist people were found in places like the Valleys of Piedmont, Wales, parts of Africa,
and even in 11th century North America under the leadership of exiled
Welsh Prince Marduc and his Baptist brethren.
Our Baptist brethren went by many different names
given them by the enemy, such as Montanists, Paulicians, Anabaptists,
Albigenses, Cathari, the Purists, and Waldenses. Many of these isolated
churches eventually succumbed to the murdering romanist Babylonish whore
and her whorish daughters the Protestants, and compromised the "... the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints." However there was a "little flock" that
remained and "earnestly contended." (Jude 3)
While no individual member is "spotless," it is the Baptist
Bride "Elect" of Christ corporately kept spotless under
the administration of God the Holy Spirit until the Marriage Supper of
the Lamb. She is the church that has kept the ordinances entrusted
to her pure, ordinances which are pictures of the Gospel, as the "spotless" Baptist Bride-to-Be of Christ, "a garden
inclosed." (Cant. 4:7, 12)
The Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas
is made up of scripturally baptized believers only, and continues the
legacy of contending for the faith "...once delivered unto the
saints." She has eschewed the worldly practices that have
crept into Christen-DUMB, and has not "gone down to Egypt for help." She
heralds the proclamation of pardon by the King to
the sinner who will repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as his or
her Saviour, for the reconciliation of the sinner to a friendly
relationship with God. She preaches and teaches the necessity of a spiritual rebirth as a son or a daughter of God,
and adoption into the family of God. To this end we hold worship
services that evangelize and proclaim Christ and edify the true
believer, support several
missionaries of like precious faith, and are active in short-term
missions to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in the
process of organizing a church in the Kalookan City area of the
Philippines, as well as a Bible Institute for the training of native
pastors, missionaries, and workers.
The Lord's Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas is a
scripturally organized church, with the following links:
History of the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, the
Local Body of Christ in Silsbee, Texas traced back to the church that
our Lord Jesus Christ built at Jerusalem
The Grace Baptist Mission of Orange, Texas began as a work authorized
by the Providence Baptist Church of Henderson,Texas under Elder Walter
Herin in Orange, Texas on March 14, 1965. She held her first worship
service March 17, 1965 at 412 Holley Street, Orange, Texas with eight
souls present.
The Grace Baptist Church was scripturally established by the
authority of Providence Baptist Church of Henderson, Texas on October
12, 1968 with six charter members: A. D. Jones, June Jones; Walter
Herin, Lola Herin, Janine Herin, and Wayne Herin. Present on
Organization Day to assist were Elder M. C. Hughes; Elder Clarence
McNealey; Elder Wm. Doyal Thomas; Elder B. A. Langford; and Elder John
C. Reynolds, pastor of Providence Baptist Church, Henderson, Texas.
She purchased property on December 14, 1966. Missionaries supported
were Bill Mayes, Fred Roberts, Ralph Doty, Keith Schuetz, and M.C.
Hughes. We supported the Baptist Examiner, and still support
the Berea Baptist Banner and the Voice in the Wilderness.
We provided for the needy widow of our missionary Elder Feliciano
Tuazon, who was killed by religious fanticists in the Philippines while
on his journey to preach the Word of God, earning us a Red Dot on the
Trail of Blood. In Silsbee, Texas we have recently been censored in the
press, for printing an article exposing the pagan practice of Easter. We
had two radio broadcasts on Lord's Day morning on KLVI from 8:45 to 9:15
A. M. and on KOGT from 9:15 to 9:30 A. M. We held worship services at
the Jones Rest Home every other Thursday night.
Grace Baptist Church moved
years later to the present location in Silsbee, Texas in 1985, changing
her name in 1986 to the Lord's Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, under the
leadership of her then pastor Elder Walter Herin. Elder Herin left a
legacy of a church is Christo-centric, teaches and preaches a Sovereign
God, loves the Lord, stands for Old Landmarkism and the Doctrine of
Grace, adherence to God's
Holy and Infallible Word of Truth, as well as the fulfilling of the Great
Commission. In 2002 the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas
organized The Lord's Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Eagle, Alaska,
where Elder Gary Howard is her pastor. Elder Herin is now with our
Lord. Elder Tom Horn served as her pastor, and in 2008 the church called
Elder José Serrano, DMin, ThD, PhD, the former
Dean of Seminary of the Landmark Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort
Worth, Texas, and former missionary to the Philippine Islands as her
pastor. The church has only had three pastors in 46 years!
Link #1 Providence
Baptist Church of Henderson, Texas (formerly the Crim's Chapel community
in Texas)
History
of Providence Baptist Church, Henderson, Texas
(Formerly Crim's Chapel Community,
Rusk County, Texas)
(A History by Flora Roman Kirksey, the oldest surviving member born
March 3, 1909, went to be with our Lord at 101 years of age on February
4, 2011)
Providence Baptist Church of Crim's Chapel, Rusk County, Texas was
organized the second Sunday in January 1875 with a membership of twelve,
composed of four men and eight women. Services were held in the school
building during the early period of its organization.
Some years later a church building was erected approximately one hundred
yards south of the present building. During the 1880's this building was
destroyed by a storm but rebuilt on the same site.
Names of the twelve original members : Elliot Barton and wife, Mary
Barton; W.P. Bassett and wife , Mendocia Basset; E.P.. Spivey and wife,
Mary Spivey; Elizia Gibson; Maria Gibson; America (Crim) Honeycutt; Elsa
Irwin; Mary Standard and C.A. Todd.
During the first six months of 1901 when many Baptist churches were
being allied with the Southern Baptist Association (Convention) the
issue came before the Providence Baptist Church with part of the members
being in favor of the alliance an another part being bitterly opposed to
it. The disagreement came to a climax in the summer of 1901. By a small
majority those favoring the alliance voted to join the Southern Baptist
Association. The opposing members withdrew and reorganized into a
separate church to be known as Providence Missionary Baptist Church.
Services were held in the school building until a church could be built.
It was finished and dedicated in April 1902.
Elder C. T. Sanders was first pastor of the new church. Next came F. W.
Capps, who pastored the church from 1902 to 1905. The church then called
T. H. Irwin, a young minister and native of the community. He served the
church as its pastor for sixteen years, resigning in 1921. Succeeding
Brother Irwin was Elder C.P. Spivey who began his ministry with the
church in January 1922, a position he held until 1942 when he was forced
to resign because of ill health. Upon the retirement of Brother Spivey,
Elder John W. Reynolds was serving as interim pastor, later being called
full time by the church. (Under the pastorate of Elder Reynolds the
Grace Baptist Church, now the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee,
Texas was organized). After serving the church as its pastor for thirty
two years he was forced to retire because of ill health and age made it
impossible for him to carry on in that capacity.
Elder Steve Fulton was called by the members in October 1974 and is
currently serving the church as pastor.Deacons of the church at this
time are: L. G. Holland, L.O. Cole, Troy Irwin, Wayland Irwin, Prentiss
Irwin, Mark McMahon, and Carleton Cole. Wayland Irwin is church clerk,
also Sunday School superintendent.
The history of this church is significant as it is part of the history
of Rusk County. It is the church that Flora Kirksey has attended for
sixty eight years and still does. Today it is a small country church
with an average attendance of 60 to 75 people, and it is some kind of a
record that the church has had only three pastors since 1922.
Seventy-six years and going strong.
Link #2
Mulberry Baptist Church of Chilton County, Alabama.
Alexander Cobb, James Davenport arrive in Alabama 1816,is organized by
21 individuals in 1818
Link #3
Horn’s Creek Church,
(from early Edgefield County, South Carolina History,) founded in 1768,
Edgefield, South Carolina,
Link #4
Welsh Neck Church, South Carolina, January 1738
Link #5
Welsh Tract Church, Pennsylvania 1650’s
Link #6
Wales A.D. 63 Pudens and Claudia
Link #7 Apostle Paul, prisoner at Mamertine
Prison in Rome, Italy; sent from church in Antioch (Acts 13:2; 2 Tim
4:21)
Link #8 Church at
Jerusalem, founded by our Lord Jesus Christ,
(This page is still under construction)
Meet our Pastor
By God's Sovereign and FREE Grace our Lord saved Elder Serrano
in 1996 as he crawled around in the dunghill that was his life. He is a
veteran of the Vietnam era, the Cold War, is retired from the military,
and is a Life Member of the Disabled American Veterans. Elder Serrano
felt early the call to preach, is the son of a preacher, and his younger
brother Francisco is also a preacher in their native Bronx.
In early 2006 Elder Serrano joined an Evangelical
Medical Mission to the Philippines with the former Surgeon General of
the Philippine Air Force Col. Dr. Noli de Jesus. They traveled with
native missionary pastors (in the Philippines the pastors take the lead
in evangelizing!) to many war-torn areas of Muslim Mindanao, bringing
the Gospel along with medicine, to treat oppressed
tribal people affected with acute diseases caused by the jungle and the
environment, with the primary intent to introduce them to The Great Physician, the
Lord our God! This is called Medical Evangelism, because the
missionaries would not normally be allowed to enter into those areas
without the medical skills. During this campaign to the the
Ilocano, the Pampaginense, the Tagalog, and the Aeta, Mamanhua, the Lumad, and Manobo tribes in the poor, underserved, abandoned tribal areas, under the
direction of God the Holy Spirit, Elder Serrano was instrumental in
leading hundreds of souls to
receive Christ as their Saviour on the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte,
Cebu, Bohol, Panglao, and Mindanao, including some Muslims who traveled
on a ship with them! It was during a trip to an orphanage on the
island of Mindanao
where Elder Serrano saw the reality of war's effect on children, seeing
many of them missing limbs and near starvation, that Elder
Serrano was called by God the Holy Spirit into the Gospel Ministry.
Elder Serrano was first licensed to preach in
the Philippines. It was then that he also realized the need for
strong doctrine, and to that end Elder Serrano and Sister Rosalinda
enrolled in the Landmark Baptist Theological Seminary of Fort Worth,
Texas.
Elder Serrano was led to the Doctrines of Grace
(called by some the 5 points) by God
the Holy Spirit through a study of God's Holy and Infallible Word, which
teaches from cover to cover about God's free and sovereign grace through
the atoning Blood Sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the elect of God. God the Holy Spirit
first helped him to see the doctrine of unconditional election by
BOLDPRINTING for him the words in John 6:44,
John 6:44
44 No man CAN COME [he is
UNABLE] to me,
except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I
will raise him up at the last day.
This glorious doctrine that GLORIFIES GOD and presents
the total depravity of man WHO CANNOT COME TO GOD OF HIS OWN SELF, was not
being taught in the "church" so-called where he and Rosalinda
attended. One "pastor" who liked Hawaaian shirts during his "Power
Point" presentations, (there was no pulpit), tried to sell him real
estate, and when he said no, the next week he tried to sell him
restaurant tickets! But the conviction was so great that God the Holy Spirit
led him to the Landmark Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas. He was mentored in the Doctrines of Grace
first by Elder Jack Green, PhD, then his pastor and President of the LBTS,
who also administered scriptural baptism to both Elder Serrano and
Sister Rosalinda, and
then by Elder Jimmy Nelson, PhD, former missionary to Mexico, now pastor of Landmark Baptist Church and
President of the Landmark Baptist Theological Seminary.
Attending full
time as a campus student, and taking many Seminary Extension Courses, Elder Serrano earned
the Master of Theology Degree; and then the Doctor of
Ministry Degree, his doctoral thesis being an original published research thesis on Church
History. Afterward work was completed for the Doctor of Theology Degree; and
then the Doctor of Philosophy
Degree.
He was ordained to the Gospel Ministry on May 25, 2008 by a Presbytery
council of Elders called by Elder Jack Green his pastor at the Landmark
Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas. Elder Serrano later joined the faculty
of Landmark Baptist Theological Seminary as a Professor of Church History, and
was then called as the Dean of Seminary, an office which he held until
he answered the call
to the pastorate of the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas
in November 2008. Elder Serrano remains on the faculty of the Landmark
Baptist Theological Seminary and the Church History course that he
teaches is sent around the world to train pastors, missionaries, and
workers.
Elder Serrano is married to his soul mate and
sweetheart Sister Rosalinda, who is a native Ilocana (Ilocano tribe)
from La Union Province in the northern island of Luzon, Philippines.
Sister Rosalinda is his helpmeet also in the ministry; before they
married a "mission statement" was drawn up, in it stating the purpose
for their marriage, (a marriage of three, not two, to include God), a
marriage which purpose is to glorify God!
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (KJV)
9 Two
are better than
one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
10 For if they fall, the one
will lift up his fellow: but woe to him
that is alone when he
falleth; for
he hath not another to help him up.
11 Again, if two lie together,
then they have heat: but how can one be warm
alone?
12 And if one prevail against
him, two shall withstand him;
and a threefold cord is not
quickly broken.
To this end the Serrano's have literally traveled "to the
remotest parts of the earth"
for the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to Sister
Rosalinda's native Philippines to organize churches, children's homes,
and Bible Institutes. Elder Serrano also preaches in many Bible
Conferences in the South, Midwest, and Alaska, as well as in Southeast
Asia. The preaching is Christ-centered and intended to lead the lost soul to Christ,
and to edify the believer. A favorite preaching subject of Elder Serrano is the
fact that we true believers are going home soon to be with our Lord,
very soon.
