speaking the truth in love -Ephesians 4:15
parlant la vérité dans l'amour -Éphésiens 4:15
THE TESTIMONY OF PASTOR GEORGES ANTONIOS
Born in Lebanon during the civil war, Georges Antonios heard the gospel in Beirut’s Evangelical churches and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ in 1990. His family emigrated to Quebec, Canada in 1991. As early as his teenage years he desired to serve his Saviour but in 1998 he returned to Lebanon where he got away from the Lord for about five years. Thankfully, his mother, sister, and his church back in Canada kept on praying for him. In the summer of 2001, he began reading his Bible again, and came across the following words of God which caused him to repent:
Jeremiah 31:18 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.
31:19 Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.
31:20 Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.
In 2006 he graduated from the American University of Beirut and prepared himself to enter Harvard University. However the Lord had other plans and led him to remain in Montreal and register in the Preachers’ Course of his local Baptist church where he began growing under the sound preaching and teaching of the King James Bible. He entered full-time ministry in 2007 as a counsellor at the Welcome Hall Mission where he preached and served men struggling with drugs, alcohol, gambling, and fornication. In 2010 he headed a small Christian school and in 2011 began preaching to the Arabic community of Montreal and Laval including a two-year Arabic radio program. This led him to be the assistant pastor in an Arabic church which had held a special preaching service at the Decarie Square Dollar Cinema in September 2015. His pastor eventually invited him to take the fruit of that event and use it to found an independent church there; thus Hope Baptist Church was born! Glory to God!
Pastor Antonios obtained his PhD in Theology in 2018.