Hainault Road Baptist Church, Leyton

Hainault Road Baptist Church, Leyton Our church belongs to the Association of Grace Baptist Churches (South East).

It is multi-ethnic, as befits the area in which it is situated, and welcomes people of all ages and all ethnic groups.

29/07/2025

As of this coming Sunday (3 August 2025) we will be holding all our meetings back in our own premises in Hainault Road, E11 1EE. Come along at 10.45am and rejoice with us!

23/05/2025

Job asks, "Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?" (Job 24.1)
Perhaps you too sometimes look at the world around us and ask why God seems to allow evil to triumph over good. Why does "wokeness" prevail over sheer common sense in so many parts of every day life? Why does violence increase, so that even child-on-child murders are becoming increasingly common? And nation rising up against nation? And why is there widespread hunger when we are assured there is enough food in the world to feed everyone?
Some will even justify their own atheism on the grounds that "Surely, if there is a God in Heaven, He would not allow such things to happen?" Well, we know that some people will always rationalise their own unbelief and they will always do so, regardless of any move by God,
But remember the old adage, "Be careful of what you wish for."
And remember also the lesson that the prophet Jonah had to learn the hard way. The LORD had said to him, "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." As we all know, originally Jonah was reluctant to go, but eventually he did go and he proclaimed in the great city of Nineveh, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned" (Jonah 3.4).
Possibly the familiarity of the story has blunted our appreciation of the situation here: this Hebrew prophet has gone to the capital of a Gentile nation and started proclaiming to them the words of his God - and, please note, not a message of peace and love, but of certain judgment and the urgent need of repentance. With what result? Imprisonment? Ex*****on? No - they believed God and repented, every one of them, from the greatest to the least.
If that had been any of us there in Jonah's place, at that point we would have been doing a quick, approximate head count ("Just for the folks back home") - but not Jonah! The repentance had pleased God and He had relented of His stated intention to destroy Nineveh. But Jonah was sulking. Why? Because he knew God was a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity (Jonah 4.2). Although up until that time, as far as we know there had been no external evidence of the LORD showing mercy to any nation other than Israel, Jonah was so well-acquainted with God's nature that he just knew that if the people of Nineveh did repent, the LORD would be likely to forgive them: that's the kind of God He was. You would imagine Jonah would have been cock-a-hoop with the result - but not Jonah! Oh, no. He wanted to demonstrate that he was more righteous than God.
When you reach the end of a film and it's just the hero and the arch-villain left. And you've witnessed all the dreadful crimes the villain has committed all through the film and by now even the pacifists amongst you are baying for the blood of the villain, and please let it be as horrible a death as possible, in order that justice can be seen to have been done. And then ... he says, "Sorry" and the hero accepts his apology and they go off together, like old pals! You'd understandably feel cheated, and think, "We wuz robbed". You might even try asking for your money back on your way out.
But this is no Hollywood script. This is real life. And the LORD is certainly not an imaginary character created but the God of heaven and earth whose mercies do not cease, a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
So - back to today in 2025 in our native modern-day environment, and we're looking around us at all the evil that is being perpetrated on every hand, and men's hearts failing them for fear, and we good evangelicals wondering why God is so slow in carrying out punitive justice on evil-doers. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3.9). We may be impatient for Jesus to return, for God to judge, but even if you personally already have your salvation secure, have you shared the gospel with everyone you know and love - friends and family, workmates and colleagues? If not, then maybe that is part of the reason why He has not yet wound up everything - perhaps he is waiting for you to be their personal Jonah, the would-be prophet of doom who turned out to be a messenger of mercy!
'What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming' ( 2 Peter 3.11-12).

16/05/2025

Hezekiah was one of the better kings of Judah. Here's just one of the things God says about him in His word,
(2 Chronicles 31:20-21): 'This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God. In everything that he undertook in the service of God's temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.'

What a wonderful testimony! Let us just spend a moment or so, reflecting upon that.

1. He did what was good and right and faithful. He did that which was virtuous - nobody could have accused him of doing anything bad. Of how many of us could THAT be said? He did that which was right - sometimes we may have several options before us, none of which are bad, per se, but which is the right choice? Hezekiah obviously understood the mind of God sufficiently to be able to assess a situation pretty accurately and to come up with the appropriate solution. And he was faithful - if he promised to do something, he did it. It is required of servants that they be found faithful (1 Cor 4.2). Some of us are never going to superstars, but we can at least be faithful. As William Carey said of himself, "I can plod". He certainly could. And Carey's dogged "plodding" resulted in the translation of God's word into innumerable Indian languages and thereby contribute to many, many souls being saved.

2. In everything that he undertook in the service of God's temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God. He sought his God: he looked for Him. Hezekiah looked for God in serving Him in His temple. By serving Him, he expected to find Him. And by keeping God's law and commands he anticipated encountering Him. That's not the only place we might meet Him, but by serving Him by ministering to the needs of God's people, we can assuredly expect to come close to Him, and know His approving presence with us.

3. And he worked wholeheartedly. If we are going to do something for the Lord, let us not do it with HALF a heart, but with a WHOLE one, a heart full of gratitude and love and worship. Don't be double-minded, for a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Most of us start life with two ears, two eyes, two lungs, etc. But we have only ONE heart and ONE mind. Let us therefore resolve to use that heart to the utmost, and all of that one mind for His greater glory.

And so, we read, he prospered. Not necessarily in material things, though it might include such benefits at times. But wouldn't we just love to prosper spiritually as a church? What would we give to see our redeveloped chapel bursting at the seams with sinners pleading with God to forgive them, and with saints rejoicing in assurance of sins forgiven? Congregations comprised of all ages, racial classes and social classes, all united in praising God, serving Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit?

Let us be diligent to:
1. do that which is good and right and faithful;
2. serve God and, in obedience to God's law, seek Him; and
3. work wholeheartedly.
If we do these things, then we can reasonably expect God to be pleased to cause us to prosper.
And to Him be all the praise and the glory.

09/05/2025

Psalm 100.4: 'Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.'

When we go to church on a Sunday morning and seek to come into God's presence, are we doing so with thanksgiving in our hearts? Are we praising Him for all He has done, and is doing, in our lives? If not, we should not be surprised if we find the worship boring, the sermon dry and uninteresting. If we are true Christians then there is just SO MUCH that He has done for us, for us to be a continually thankful people..
Before we even leave home, we can thank God for our breakfast. Indeed, before we eat we can thank for bringing us safely through another night. There will be many who lay down last night but who didn't sleep a wink because of pain, or worry. Including many who, through no fault of their own, did not have a comfortable bed to sleep in, perhaps not even a roof over their heads. They may be living in a war zone, through no decision on their part.
If we travel to work, we can thank God for every time we make that journey safely, and we can thank Him for every person we sit beside on public transport. And if we stay alert, we may be able to thank Him for every time He gives us an opportunity to speak to a fellow traveller about Him. Or we may be able to utilise our time spent travelling by reading something that will benefit us spiritually. One friend of mine taught himself New Testament Greek whilst travelling to and from university in just one year!
And, of course, if we have a job to go to, we can thank God for that - it's not something we should just take for granted. If the work itself seems a thankless task, just because we feel we don't receive the thanks we deserve does not mean we should not thank the Lord for it.
We could go on, itemising every action, word, thought, word, deed of the day. Leave nothing out - there is nothing for which we cannot give thanks.
Christians are to be a thankful people. Every day we should give thanks to God for saving us. I remember, with thanks, having met brother Bausch in a prayer meeting in Yugoslavia during the communist regime. We met in secret in the loft of an old barn, just the owner of the barn, brother Bausch, one of his daughters, my missionary friend and I. When it came to brother Bausch's turn to lead in prayer, he spoke in his native Serbo-Croat, which I didn't understand but couldn't help but detect the deep emotion in his voice and repetition of one word in particular. After we left the meeting, my missionary friend explained to me our brother's circumstances. He was a lowly farm worker. He had a wife and two daughters, one of whom was a hunchbacked dwarf, and who cursed God for allowing her to be born the way she was. She never came to church (for "church" read "the barn"). The other daughter was the one who accompanied him this day (and every time he came to the meeting), but she was a simpleton, unable to read or write, although now a young woman. His wife was unable to accompany him because she was so overweight, she could no longer walk, or indeed do anything for herself. Every morning, he would help her wash and dress, feed her and sit her on the bed, since it was the only piece of furniture strong enough to bear her weight. He would leave her food for the day, placed within her reach, and then go to work or, on the Lord's Day, to the meeting at the barn. Bausch himself suffered from tremors and as a consequence could not shave himself without cutting himself with his razor, so his face was heavily lacerated. But his prayers were just full of thanksgiving to God for all His many mercies. I often think of this dear brother even now, many years later.

Colossians 2:6-7: 'So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.'

25/04/2025

Students of the Bible may remember the story of the four lepers at the entrance to Jerusalem. Of course, they were not allowed into the city because of their leprosy, but at this time there would have been little point trying to go in anyway, due to the fact that there was famine in the city as a result of being besieged by the Aramean army. You can read the story in 2 Kings, chapter 7.
The lepers reasoned with themselves that if they remained where they were - starving men outside the city, hoping that starving men inside the city might take pity on them and throw them at least some scraps. Some chance! On the other hand, if they went to the Aramean camp and threw themselves upon their mercies, there was just a chance they might get at least some unwanted scraps. If not, and the Arameans ran them through, then at least their present suffering would be put to an end and they would be no worse off than those dwelling in the relatively safe environment of Jerusalem. Put like that, it must have seemed a no-brainer, so off they went to the Aramean camp, to "try their luck", as it were, with the enemies of their own people, who had rejected them because of their leprosy. They were trusting that their enemies' enemy might be their friend.
But imagine their surprise, and probably their bewilderment, to find the Arameans' camp deserted! For we read,
'the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!" Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact -- their tents, their horses, and their donkeys -- and they fled for their lives' (2 Kings 7.6-7). This was more than they could have imagined or dreamt of - beyond their wildest dreams! It was like Christmas, birthday and Thanksgiving, all come together. But while the four were busy, gathering together all the b***y, they came to themselves and spared a thought for the citizens starving back in Jerusalem and said to each other, "We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace" (2 Kings 7.9).
We too are living in a "day of good news" - we live in the gospel era, the times when the good news about salvation through Jesus is not only open to us, but the ways in which the gospel can be made known are easily available to us, through the spoken and printed word, email, social media, telephone, etc. We are not ignorant of what is happening in other countries and we are not short of ways of communicating with people far and near. These four lepers had experienced a raw deal in life, having contracted leprosy, and they could have been very bitter against society for isolating them. But none of that embittered them against their fellow Israelis.
How dare we keep this blessed good news to ourselves! What kind of human beings are we that can stand back and watch fellow beings run headlong into everlasting punishment, without even trying to warn them? These lepers might have nursed a grievance against the society that had rejected them. But even they felt ashamed to continue enjoying the benefits of their discovery. Let us seek to emulate them and tell them of the life-giving discovery we have made. Let us seek to make Christ and His salvation known to all!

18/04/2025

What's your ambition in life? To be financially secure? To be happily married to someone who really loves you? To be successful in your job? Just to be happy? There are so many possibilities.
In Philippians 3:10-11 we have the stated ambition of the apostle Paul: 'I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.' That might surprise us - and perhaps on two seemingly contradictory levels.
First, it might seem like the waste of a good wish. Imagine you've found Aladdin's lamp, which you duly rub and a genie suddenly appears and offers to grant you three wishes. What would your three wishes be? I'm sure no part of Paul's ambition would feature anywhere in the wishes of the majority of people in the world today.
But second, those of us who know anything of Paul's life would probably assume that Paul had already achieved all those aspirations already. We might have guessed that he had already done everything he had wished to do.. Surely, all those floggings, beatings, stonings and the like must have had the result of bringing him as close to Christ as it is possible for a man to be, this side of glory? But apparently he still regarded likeness to Christ as being out there somewhere - somewhere in the future, if achievable at all.
Well, if that is the case, we must be way back at the back of the queue. Whatever chance is there for you or me to achieve that measure of holiness in this life? Very little, if any at all, it would seem.
And yet Paul tells the Christians in the church at Colosse, 'Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things' (Colossians 3.1-2). So Christians, according to Paul, have already been resurrected, at least in spirit; those who have been born again and that is why we should set our hearts and our minds upon those things above. At the moment, we are in an in-between state - physically still on earth, but our minds and our hearts have been resurrected to higher, heavenly things. We have the possibility of living on a much more heavenly level, even while still encumbered with this body of sin and death.
Which nature are we going to make our first priority - the flesh or the spirit? He continues, 'For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory' (Colossians 3.3-4).
When we repented of our sin and put our trust in Jesus, we died to this world. We are now viewed by God as being in His Son, being "in Christ". We now have a new passport, one that shows each of us as being a "Citizen of Heaven". Of course, we are each also a Citizen of the United Kingdom, or Ghana, or Poland, or wherever. But after death, it will not be an earthly passport that gains us entrance to Heaven, but the spiritual passport.
And in the meantime, let us focus on our spiritual duties, and delight ourselves increasingly in heavenly joys. If the world were to observe our living as already resurrected, we should have less trouble proving to them that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day because our lives would bear witness to the power of His resurrection, at work within us.

11/04/2025

A MISSIONARY GOD

Psalm 67 reads:
'For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm. A song.
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, Selah
that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.
May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.
May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. Selah
May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.
Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us.
God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.'

David prays that God would be gracious to His people, that He would make His face to shine upon them (verse 1).
And why? So that God's ways may be made known on earth, His salvation among all nations (verse 2).
David, as we know, was the one who initiated the building of the temple, because David felt uncomfortable relaxing in his grand palace, while there was no temple (God's official residence, we might say) - which seemed to David quite inappropriate. But God refused David's offer, however well-intentioned it might seem to us. And why did He refuse it? Because David was a warrior king: he had blood on his hands. Innocent blood, in the case of Uriah the Hittite. But quite apart from that, David had killed many of God's enemies. David had killed them on God's instruction, so it had not been wrong for him to kill them, but it was just inappropriate for that same brave warrior king to now be the one to build a temple dedicated to the Lord. The honour of building a temple in which the Lord was to be worshipped would pass to David's son, Solomon, who would reign in an era associated with peace and prosperity.
And this new golden era would also be associated with a wider concept of the extent of God's love and His rule. Isaac Watts gets it right in his wonderful hymn, 'Jesus shall reign, where'er the sun. ' Look at verse 3, for instance:

People and realms of every tongue,
Dwell on His love with sweetest song;

We do get hints of it various places in the Old Testament, but it's not until we reach the New Testament that the people of God really wake up to the fact that it was not only within the scope of God's redemptive plan to allow Gentiles to be saved, but that it was His desire that they should be, and that God's people should be actively engaged in the evangelisation of the world, Jew and Gentile alike. Remember how long it took for that message to pe*****te the preconceptions of the apostle Peter. That was some 2,000 years ago and since then we have settled into a new apathy and complacency, that of "holding our own". In other words, we feel relatively satisfied if we retain a core of people like ourselves. But sadly, we're not even succeeding in doing that nowadays. And we feel relatively content if people are at least following some kind of religion. If they don't trouble us, we won't trouble them. But God's word is so clear: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4.12). Only faith in Christ will save us, regardless of ethnicity, social class or any other factor. Some well-meaning Christians might want to extend salvation to those who are Jewish by birth or by choice, but no doubt Misha Vayshengelts will disabuse us of any such fantasy when he speaks to us this Sunday. Some might allow that if a person is sincere and believes with all his heart something is true, then God will overlook any discrepancy.
But God is no respecter of persons and He gives grace to whomsoever He will. He alone knows His own - those whom He has loved from before time began, and whom He has chosen to save. And the very fact that Christ has not yet returned is evidence that not all the elect have yet been gathered in. And so, in the absence of any instructions to the contrary, we are commissioned to carry on spreading the gospel to all and sundry for we, of course, who are the elect and who are not. It is with this mandate that we shall, God willing, take advantage of the good weather and the topicality of this being Easter, and go out from door to door, in the streets and on Stratford concourse, giving out Easter tracts and seeking to engage people in conversation about the Gospel. Are you going to participate? We have, literally, hundreds of tracts ready to be given out. We have many more, just waiting for the church stickers to be put on them. And if you feel you can't do either of those tasks, we need people to pray for those giving them out. Truly, the fields are white to harvest, but the labourers are few. Please let me know if you are willing to help in any of these ways.

04/04/2025

"The family that prays together
Stays together."

No, there is no Bible reference for that, because it's not taken directly from the Bible. But nevertheless one could argue that it is Biblical, in the sense that it is in accordance with much that is taught in the Bible. And before you start coming up with examples from life that might seem to prove the opposite, I would recommend you re-read the book of Proverbs. Proverbs, as a general rule for all that literary genre, are not meant to provide a hard and fast rule for every single case, but rather a general rule.

For instance, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" can be true in some situations. But in other cases, so can "Many hands make light work". "Ah, but." you say, "That is because that is worldly wisdom. The book of Proverbs is in the Bible and is therefore infallible." That's true, and I'm glad to hear you acknowledge it. But take Proverbs 26.4 as an example:
'Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.'
And now look at the following verse:
'Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes' (Proverbs 26.5).
I know they can be reconciled - I believe that with all of my heart - but it wouldn't be unreasonable to offer some explanation (for what might appear to be a contradiction), would it? And which rule applies in which situation? This calls for wisdom

But - since I have mentioned the book of Proverbs - the whole of that book is replete with parental guidance to the young, eg 'Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching' (1.8), 'My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,' (2.1), My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart,' (3.1), and many more. It is obvious that the teaching of scripture was a fundamental part of Jewish family life, and we can be sure that prayer would accompany that. And this continued to be the case into the New Testament era, even in mixed households such as the one in which Timothy was born, where one parent was Jewish and the other Gentile. For Paul attests that Timothy had been 'brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed' (1 Timothy 4.6). Timothy had been twice blessed, in that both his mother and his grandmother were Jewish-born Christians (2 Timothy 1.5), and were obviously faithfully discharging their responsibilities of bringing him up in the faith. What a wonderful heritage that young lad inherited! And likewise any child growing up now, even in godless Britain, if he or she has even one parental figure who is a Christian, if they are taught the word of God from an early age has a good start in life, with a firm moral base and a great advantage over many in his peer group. Family prayers and Scripture reading don't have to be relegated to the Victorian age. The Devil is rampant NOW and anxious to get his hooks into our children from as early an age as possible. Let us be sure to surround each child in our care with a protective layer of love, scripture teaching and family prayer. It's never too early to start.

Are you young and single? Make sure you have a time alone every day, reading God's word and praying to Him. However busy you may consider yourself to be, it will never be this easy again. Are you dating a member of the opposite s*x? Why not suggest you have at least a short time together every day, considering the scriptures and praying as a couple? It may even help your relationship and enable you both to know whether this person is really for you or not. And if and when you do marry, don't wait until such-and-such time has elapsed, but start straight away to have a shared devotional time together. And then, if God in His goodness, grants you a child, although there will inevitably be many other things competing for your time and attention, introduce Junior to your existing routine of Bible reading and prayer, in much the same way as you would expect him or her to learn all the other rules of conduct in the home.

At every stage of your life, honour the Lord. What youngsters need and respect (whether they admit it or not) is stability, routine, order. Then, when they do go out into the world, they have a fixed base, a firm foundation, on which to build. And the sooner you start that in your own life, the more likely you are to succeed in improving life for others and securing their happiness too.

28/03/2025

Greetings to everyone from Anthony,

A very recent report has shown that President Trump's approval rate in America has slumped below 50%. Similarly, Labour's support here is in freefall, and they are scared of what by-elections may reveal. In both cases, they came to power in landslides. It does not take long for voters to become disillusioned with their choices. Part of the the problem is that electorates expect too much of their governments. Heaven on Earth is simply never going to happen - in the political sense.

The Bible gives this commend, Psalm 146.3: 'Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.' Psalm 118.9 states: 'It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.' By 'princes' it does not mean nobles like our esteemed Prince William, but rather rulers, and by extension, politicians. The point is, such politicians will ALWAYS disappoint us.

Sir Thomas More wrote a satire called 'Utopia' describing a mythical perfect society. The name in Greek means 'nowhere', and that sums up all human attempts at a perfect society. At its worst, such attempts have led to atrocities, as under Fascism and Communism. However, even Christians have made failed attempts, as in the Cromwellian era, which tried to make Britons a righteous, religious society - only to be followed by the lasciviousness and debauchery of the Restoration era under King Charles II.

The essential problem is human sin. Politicians are sinful, flawed human beings like the rest of us, and their voters are equally fallen in sin. Just as alchemists couldn't make gold from lead, so politicians cannot make perfect societies out of imperfect beings. The role of the State in the New Testament is simply to RESTRAIN evil conduct such as murder or theft, Romans 13.3: 'For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.' The best that Christians can do is to mobilise against egregious conduct allowed by the State, such as Wilberforce's campaign against slavery.

All is not hopeless. When Jesus returns, and the Judgment and Resurrection ensue, there will be a New Heavens and a New Earth, 2 Peter 3.13. Satan and Sin will be no more, and Christians will become completely sanctified. There will indeed be a perfect society - eternally. THAT is the hope that sustains us - we wait for the true ruler, the Lord Himself.

Anthony

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E111EE

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