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 are in the faith yet the majority
of these "faithful" lamentably have an erroneous understanding of the
doctine of ecclesiology, and/or do not place an importance, or have the
time to study to attain an accurate understanding of the Lord's
kind of church.If we love our Lord Jesus Christ we owe it to Him to be
members in HIS KIND OF CHURCH, NOT SOME MAN-MADE INVENTION OR RELIGIOUS
SOCIAL CLUB! Today what is mistaken for FUNDAMENTALISM is
FUN-damentalism, with an emphasis on the FUN, revealed to be an
entertainment based mish-mash of humanism and philosophy focused on
sports or social dating focused "ministries," good story telling mixed
in with psycology aimed at lightening the pocketbook, and very little of
the Gospel of Redemption, the sinner set free through the Wonderful
Person, Glorious Work and in the Merit of our Saviour the LORD Jesus
Christ. 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.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. It 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). In Heaven there will be no more need
for a church, since all will taught of our Lord Jesus Christ. She is
properly named "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 by which name our churches go by. 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
the 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 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
during the time frame that 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 trace our church to Christ during His earthly ministry from A.D.
29 to A.D.33 by the Trail of Blood left by over 100 million Baptist martyrs
tortured and murdered first by the Roman Catholics, and then by
Protestants
to include the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists. 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 provided 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 beginning in Rome, 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 Romish empire or 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, that only a scripturally organized church can
"give birth"
to another church, what is 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 and hierarchies with the Great
Schism 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 jewels in a treasure chest, hidden
away in many little places, gathering the elect in places like the Valleys of Piedmont, and 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 of Christ corporately kept spotless by The Bridegroom
that has kept the ordinances that tell the Gospel entrusted to her
pure, as the "spotless" Baptist Bride of Christ, "a garden
inclosed." (Cant. 4:7, 12)
The Lord's Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas is a
scripturally organized church, a daughter church of the Providence
Baptist Church of Henderson, Texas. Providence was organized in 1899
because of the encroaching evil of conventionalism, a few faithful
reorganizing as the others joined the unscriptural and increasingly
apostate Southern Baptist Convention. She was first a mission in Orange,
Texas around 1965, was scripturally organized as a church a couple of
years later,
moving to the present location in Silsbee in 1986, all under the
leadership of her then pastor Elder Walter Herrin. Elder Herrin left a
legacy of a church that teaches and preaches a Sovereign God, loves the
Lord, stands for strong doctrine, 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 Herrin is now with our
Lord.
The Sovereign Grace Baptist Church of Silsbee, Texas made up of
scripturally baptized believers only, and continues this
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.
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 homeland of the
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 help treat the
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, and was 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 to me,
except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I
will raise him up at the last day.
This glorious doctrine which gives eternal security to
the true believer 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 to be 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 2009. 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.
