March 11, 2019 Show with Ryan Denton & Scott Smith on “A Certain Sound: A Primer On Open Air Preaching”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and those listening internationally over the internet at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 11th day of March 2019.

And I am delighted to have two first-time guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio today. We have Ryan Denton and Scott Smith, and they're going to be discussing something that I think is a very important topic, a topic that I have addressed in part in the past.

I have addressed it by interviewing people involved in open-air preaching. And unless I'm suffering from a bad memory, I don't think, though, however, that I've ever done a full two-hour program specifically on the topic of on-air preaching for the full length of the program, and that's what we're doing today.

We're going to be discussing a book written by Ryan Denton and Scott Smith, published by Reformation Heritage Books, titled A Certain Sound, A Primer on Open-Air Preaching. And our guests include, as I mentioned just before, Ryan Denton, who was a pastor on the Navajo Reservation before starting Christ in the Wilderness Ministries, which he has directed since 2016, and Scott Smith, who ran a classical Christian school for 17 years in Orlando, Florida, before going into open-air preaching ministry full-time.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome, for the very first time ever, to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Ryan Denton and Scott Smith.

Thanks for having us on.

It's great to have you on. First of all, since you guys are both first-time guests, I want you to give a summary of your salvation testimonies. What kind of religious background you were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your lives to draw you to himself and save you.

And we'll have you do that in a moment. But I want, Ryan, for you to make sure our listeners know what Christ in the Wild Ministries is.

Yes, sir, yeah. I started in 2016 in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we do that in several locations, but primarily it is the sporting events and preaching. And we also try to equip local churches, open-air ministers, in just open-air preaching.

A lot of interest being raised up, and help churches men to further engage the lost. Try to do quite a bit in the Southwest and in the West, but we do.

Okay, now, if you could, Ryan, give us a summary of your salvation testimony, starting with what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in.

Yeah, so I'm 33 now, and I was brought up every now and then, but then attributed. I mean, for me, it's always just being able to look back on my life and see God's sovereignty, because what he did is, so I had friends and things like that.

One of my friends, he wasn't a close friend. He was more like an acquaintance. But for some reason, I mean, when he died, the Lord just used it in a mighty way to actuality, but more than anything else, the judgment to come, really.

And, I mean, I never had a problem just like everyone else, but that was never the issue. It was just a man, and whenever my friend died, the Lord gave me a heart to start reading the Bible. A few months later, really just through that experience, I started running the race.

And so for the last 10 years, by God's grace,.

The similarity between your testimony and mine is remarkable. I was growing up as a kid in a Roman Catholic home. I never doubted the existence of Jesus Christ. I never doubted that he was God, but I was obviously an unregenerate young man.

It became more obvious when I became a teenager and was living a very rebellious life. And I was starting to think more seriously about my own mortality because of the fact that most young people really think they're going to live forever.

They don't even have it in their mind. They can't even conceive not only dying, but being a middle-aged person with a spouse and children and all those other things. And I was beginning to notice the fact and think more deeply about my mortality when I had heard about friends and acquaintances, just like you had experienced, who had died typically in tragic accidents and always involving drugs or alcohol.

And so it's pretty remarkable. Now, you also obviously had a calling upon your life placed there by God to become a pastor, and not only a pastor, but a pastor on a Navajo reservation. Now tell us about that.

Right. That came about, I grew up in New Mexico, and I did go to school in Albuquerque, so I was familiar a little. But really the thing that attracted me to that area was all of the evangelism that was needed over there.

And it seemed like it was just a lot of evangelism on the one hand, because I went in assuming that if you wanted to preach, you have to be a pastor. And so I think that was kind of where, certainly it was the preach.

I went into all of the evangelism in that area. I had a burden for New Mexico. My wife and I went over there, and my heart in the first place, not necessarily to preach the gospel. I mean, I was doing more ministry outside, a naive understanding of it.

And so as I was meeting other pastors and talking to other pastors and realized, you know, these men have been real help to be, or sent me out to be an open-air preacher. It's more of an evangelistic ministry.

That's, again, in a nutshell.

Well, I hope I remember to repeat this information later, but anybody who wants to learn more about Christ in the wild ministries, go to ChristInTheWild .com. Very easy to remember. ChristInTheWild .com.

And I intend to repeat that throughout the program, but my brain is dissolving in my skull as I get older, and I sometimes don't remember to do these things. And now, Scott Smith, if you could give us a summary of your own salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances were raised up in your life by our Sovereign Lord to draw you to himself and save you.

Sure, that would be my pleasure. So I was raised Roman Catholic, and I had nominally no interest in anything that had to do with religion. You know, when you live a life of rebellion against God, if God is calling you, you often have to use some very trying circumstances to awaken you.

And he decided to do that with me. And so I was probably at the point where I was either going to kill somebody else or kill myself. And to leave the continental U .S. and take Asia, an Asian truth for about two years, just kind of make it my way, and go to Hawaii.

I was going to be an Episcopal priest, who actually has not converted himself, but he gave me a Bible, and he said, you know, I can see your life is going to be a lot like you did in the Bible. He didn't really give me no money.

He didn't have to say to me, hey, do you need a ride? And I said, well, I mean, I'm not hitchhiking.

I'm just wondering where you're going.

And he said, well, I'm going to downtown Honolulu. I said, well, yeah, okay. I'll take a ride down there, because that's where I go. I got in his car. And the guy immediately said to me, I'm going to pick you up.

That God is calling to you to turn from your sins. He can deliver you from your sins. He said, buddy, pull over. I'm serious.

I'm serious.

I will knock your teeth out, and I will break your face across the front of your car. And I started swearing at him. I made him pull over. And I said to myself, what kind of idiots do they have over here in Honolulu?

So I walk to where the bus stop was for me to pick up this bus to get to downtown Honolulu. I sat on the bus stop, and another person did the exact same thing to me. They walked up, tell you that Jesus is calling to you to turn from your sins.

He can free you. He can save your soul. He can give you a reason to live. And at this point, I was spooked. I mean, the anger had gone. I said, well, whatever.

I climb on the bus,.

And a lady, hands moving toward the seats of the bus. And so for the first time in my life, I actually read a gospel tract. And having been raised Roman Catholic, I didn't have any idea about the blood being shed for me.

I didn't have any idea about Jesus Christ earning my righteousness. I didn't really understand that he was calling the sinners to come to him. And so in my cocky sort of arrogant way, I sat on the bus, I read the tract, and I said, okay, God.

I said, if you are really calling to me,.

If this is real,.

Then I need you to show me. I need a sign. And here's the sign I want you to give me. I want you to give me the first job I apply for. So I walked down to downtown Honolulu, and I noticed that they were looking for Kamehameha Private School.

I didn't know at the time that the Kamehameha Private School was the world's largest private school, and it had been endowed by Queen Kamehameha when she sold Waikiki Beach to the developers for multiple millions of dollars.

And so she'd endowed a school. And so I didn't know any of this. I just thought I needed a painter, and I figured I'd beef up my resume and buy a little bit if I had to, and just get a painting job, and that would give me enough money to get to Australia and start my agent.

But he lied. I got a job right away, and I kept calling him. I'd call him in the morning, I'd call him at night. I'm like, hey, I'm the guy that applied for the painting job. I'm ready. And the fellow that was in charge of hiring said, look, if we need you, we'll call you.

And finally, I just figured I'd worn him down.

So you're the guy that lied on his job application. You are the guy that did that.

I was the guy. I mean, I made it sound like I was a super-experienced painter. I mean, I understood how to paint. I was not like a journeyman painter with a lot of skill. I was a guy that could get a job done and work hard if I had to.

So I just figured like everything else. He finally says, all right, tell you what, just come in tomorrow, and we'll start. So I get there. This is like Friday morning. So I applied for the job on a Monday morning.

On Friday morning, he said, come on in. So I come in. And I notice as I'm filling out the paperwork for the job that everybody's looking at me. And I was really kind of weird. I was looking at me. So finally, after I fill out the paperwork and I get with my painting crew, this fellow named Bambino, who was kind of the journeyman on the painting crew, he pulled me off to the side.

And he said, I've got to ask you since who do you know? I said, I don't know anybody. I said, I just applied. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. And no one pulled me straight. I don't know anybody here.

And he said to me, what's so miraculous about that? And he said, to be hired here in 88 years. He said, this is a school that Queen Timaeus specifically said, if you were, you had to be Hawaiian to work here, and you had to be Hawaiian to go here.

Wow. And I understood why everybody was a little white-faced. And so when he said it's a miracle, I remembered that cocky prayer on the bus. And when I get home that night, forgive me. And I said, I will serve you every day of my life if you can save my soul and get me out of this mess I've made of my life.

And so I have not been faithful to me.

Amen.

And it wasn't just. And the next day, that Saturday, I'd been converted. And as I was walking through a park, out of nowhere I see up to me. And it was like I immediately knew there was not anything more important than me taking a stand for Christ after what God had done for me.

Wow.

So that was the first miraculous thing that God did. But when I, so I canceled the Asian Truth Tour, I went back to Boston and, you know, realized the world was sort of showing me, Sky, you need to get your feet on the ground, get a regular job, get, you know, get into a life of normalcy.

So that life of normalcy led to eventually, over many years, I can tell you more of the trial later, but ultimately God gave me the idea to start a classical Christian prep school in Florida after I had gotten out of seminary.

And so he literally dropped the idea in my head, and I started a classical school. I had three campuses around Orlando, and everything was going great. And then about 10 years ago, I felt strongly that it was time now to go into full-time teaching in May of 2010.

Just out of curiosity, was Central Baptist Church of Honolulu at all involved in your conversion or your early days as a Christian?

No. Well, I went to an Assemblies of God church. You know, I was so out of control, even after a Christian, when I say out of control, meaning I was very self-centered, and nobody would tell me anything, so I kind of marketed pretty good there.

The only reason I ask is that providentially,.

Very recently, a listener, Mike, emailed me asking for a church recommendation in Honolulu because he was visiting his son there. And I told him about Central Baptist Church in Honolulu, which is a Reformed Baptist church.

Pastor Chapman is there, and he wrote back and said he really loved it. So I was just curious.

Oh, great.

I was just curious.

Well, yeah, no, I went into a Assembly of God church, and I immediately told the pastor, and he wanted me to speak in tongues, which I never did, but I told him immediately I wanted to be a pastor because that's all I understood.

But in God's providence, I became a businessman. And I basically, before I ran that school, I bought a lot of money, and then the Lord, which was a very important sanctification that He had to do in my life, and it's out of that misery and difficulty that He brought me to seminary.

And then after seminary, it was a lot of preparation for me. It felt like Ryan was moved into front-line ministry pretty quickly. For me, it was about a 30-year lead-up because God had to do so many deep things sanctification-wise in my life that I was just so ill at home.

But I never forgot that the make exalting Him my primary.

Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Well, we are going to be going into our theme momentarily, the specific theme on open-air preaching, and even more specifically, the book that was written by our guest today, Ryan Denton and Scott Smith, A Certain Sound, A Primer on Open-Air Preaching.

I love that title, A Certain Sound. And this is a publication of Reformation Heritage Books, and their website is heritagebooks .org, heritagebooks .org for more details on that. And just so I can let you know right away, you can also order that book through one of our sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, at cvbbs .com.

That's cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs, which stands for biblebookservice .com, cvbbs .com. Please tell them at cvbbs that you heard about them from Chris Arns and An Iron Tripman's Iron Radio when placing the order.

We're going to go to a station break in a second, our first station break. But before we go to the break, I just want to whet your appetite by reading a couple of the, or a few of the commendations that have been written about this book.

First of all, Rob Ventura, who has been a guest on Iron Tripman's Iron Radio several times, pastor at Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence, Rhode Island, and co-author of A Portrait of Paul and Spiritual Warfare.

Rob Ventura said about this book, A Certain Sound by Ryan Denton and Scott Smith is a welcome contribution to the contemporary discussion on open air preaching. From a perspective deeply grounded in the Christian tradition and Reformed and Puritan theology, Denton and Smith defend the ministry of street preaching in a firm but moderate tone.

Everyone who practices open air preaching or who is interested in its biblical basis must read this book. And actually, I think I just read Sam Waldron's. That was Sam Waldron's commendation. That was Sam Waldron.

Sam Waldron is academic dean and professor of systematic theology at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary and a pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky. And I've had Sam on the program a number of times as well, and I think this is a good reminder to get him back.

And Rob Ventura also. Here's Rob Ventura's commendation. A Certain Sound is a well-written, carefully crafted, scripturally saturated book that was a joy to read. As one who has many years experience with open air preaching, I thank God for this stirring call to the church to fulfill one of her main duties, namely preaching Jesus to every creature.

Read this book. Master it. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, let the certain sound of the glorious gospel of Christ be heard outdoors once again. And finally, Al Baker, who I've also had on this program, but not in quite a while.

Another reminder to get Al back on. Al Baker, evangelist with Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship and author of Evangelistic Preaching in the 21st Century. Al says, Without question, there is a resurgence of open air preaching in the United States.

I, for one, welcome it. But I know many others in the Reformed and Evangelical Church world are highly skeptical. I, too, have observed many who have given open air preaching a bad name and brought disrepute on the practice.

For this reason, I have for some time wished someone would write an apologetic book for open air preaching. And I believe we now have such an important book in A Certain Sound, a primer on open air preaching.

The authors are seasoned open air preachers with whom I have preached several times in the streets of America. They are passionate, Reformed, and Christ-centered in their preaching. I urge pastors, evangelists, and lay people to read this book, and hopefully God will use it to lend credibility to the practice and to inspire churches everywhere to get behind open air preaching.

Once again, that was Al Baker. Well, those are quite powerful endorsements for this book, and I hope that you begin to call family, friends, and loved ones and have them tune in to the program. And it seems that I have been told that the Iron Sharpens Iron website is having a bit of difficulty today.

I don't know why. This is news to me for the first time. But you can tell your family, friends, and loved ones to listen at FirstLoveRadio .org. They can hear it live streaming there as well. FirstLoveRadio .org.

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Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture.

I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths.

Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people. If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles. I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guests today, our two guests today are Ryan Denton and Scott Smith. They are co-authors of the book that we are addressing today on open-air preaching.

The book is titled A Certain Sound, a Primer on Open-Air Preaching. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

And please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Well, I think our listeners who are unfamiliar with exactly what open-air preaching is, I mean, the name, the title, is somewhat self-explanatory, but there are, as you both know, a wide spectrum of people who do this, and as even some of your accolades that you received from people who love your book, one of the reasons they are happy you wrote the book is that there are many who give this a bad name.

There are many who practice this and appear to look like nothing more than lunatics. And, of course, we know that those who preach the true gospel of Jesus Christ, who are accurately proclaiming his word and so on, even they, to the unsaved, are very often appearing to be nothing more than lunatics.

But there are others that would truly deserve a description like that. But tell us about, in summary, what is open-air preaching, as far as a biblically accurate and appropriate form of this, and why you two felt the need to write this book.

In fact, I may be not remembering correctly, but I know that Tony Miano wrote a book about his experiences as an open-air preacher, but that was more involving the actual experiences of those he had met in public and those that he led to Christ and some of their background stories.

But as far as a primer on open-air preaching, is this the first one? I'm not familiar with any others right now.

Yes, I think that's really no literature. I think it really is a calling. It's something that the Lord really does, as far as just stirring men to go. And I know my experience, for any kind of... You know, I think Scott and I would both say, you know, a great, ideally, would be... ...that might arise... ...just not happen to me.

You know, aside from the fact of maybe a... And they're not all this... ...and ministers and just crazy guys, and you don't want to do that. And so I think, theologically based, I know, and Scott felt the same way, there needed to be something done about that.

And Scott, if you could give us, Scott, a definition of what biblical open-air preaching, or at least biblically faithful open-air preaching is.

Well, if you're not exalting Christ, and if you're not working from... If you're not... Option A, you have a text that you're preaching from, and B, you're heading toward Christ. If you know what you're doing, you've got to get to Christ.

Getting to Christ also involves laying the foundation. People who need a Savior, they don't just need somebody who recommends some good ideas, or gives them some good advice. They need a Savior from the power of sin and from the guilt of sin.

So, you've got to accurately explain the problem. And if you don't accurately explain the problem, and if you don't use the law to bring the knowledge of sin... But the instrumentality would be to open up the law of God.

And then, once it's clear what the problem is, then, of course, we have a great Savior, and we'd love to make much of Him, but to show how He and He alone... ...any great Savior Jesus... ...what He did in the subset title, a certain sound meant a lot to me and it meant a lot to Brian.

We didn't want it to be unmistakable. Somehow, our... ...Pelagian preaching is the same form of preaching it's not. And we're not trying to... We don't see any reason to...

No, that's exactly what I was looking for. And, well, let's go through some very important... ...basically, things that we need to touch on to give a more comprehensive understanding of open air preaching and how it should be biblically and appropriately conducted for our listeners.

Can you give us both some of a history of open air preaching, the figure that immediately comes to mind, or should I say the two that immediately comes to mind or come to mind? In the Bible, we have John the Baptist, obviously.

And in much more recent history, although not that recent, we have George Whitefield. But if you could, give us a history of open air preaching.

Yeah, I think it's all the way back to the preachers. Even Moses. Moses did a lot. I guess you could say Moses did all of his addresses in the open air. David. And to me, I think that's going to the masses with the Gospel, and that's why there's not...

But even, you know, a lot of times people think, well, yeah, it's, you know, the Old Testament I understand because they didn't have buildings. But even when you get into the New Testament, you have synagogues, and yet where do you find Jesus doing most of his preaching?

It's still on the side of a boat. It's in the mountains. It's the same thing when you go into the book of Acts. And then I think for me my favorite part about open air preaching, or I guess the history of open air preaching, is even the early church.

You know, when we were writing this book and trying to dig through and trying to find, I guess, examples in the early church as far as just open air preachers. And then you have, especially in the Middle Ages, strangely enough, St. Francis of Assisi was an open air preacher.

But I think the neatest thing about open air preaching is that it was, to me, it's the launching pad of the Reformation because they were in these, you know, they were the only way that you could preach.

So even with John Wycliffe and then the Lawlers and guys like that, John Knox, and so even the Puritans. I ran into something yesterday. Whitfield mentioned something about the Puritans having to go to the highways and the hedges and preach the gospel there.

So, I mean, I think the beauty of open air preaching is that if you're looking for historically and extra-biblical resources, they're out there. It's just a matter of looking into it and finding it.

You know, just as we had understanding the Sovereign, but not understanding the Sovereign, you've got manipulation. So when you began with the altar call, it felt like nothing short of a complete overthrowing of the old way of doing stuff, and just again getting out in the public with an open Bible, taking it, come up and answer their objections, their comments, their smart remarks, and get it right back out in the open like it used to be.

When men who believed in Jesus Christ were fearless. And, yeah, you're going to get some turbulence, but whatever happened to church militant? I mean, we get guys that push people. I'm not opposed to not being on the front lines.

That's why I felt like we Reformed guys in particular needed to step it up, take a stand for Christ, and then sort of let the chips fly where they may. And we had so much proof that men have done this in the past that the only thing holding us back really was our own unbelief, and those are two things.

Well, let's move on to another important aspect of this, because as I already mentioned, there are heretics and lunatics doing this. And, of course, it's interesting that somebody would use that as a reason to not be involved in open air preaching, because there are lunatics and heretics in probably most of the pulpits in the world.

So, I mean, if we view the truly regenerate church as being a minority in the world, you would have to come to the conclusion that that would be the case. But why on earth, it's mind-boggling to me, but why on earth are there theologically sound men, those that have an excellent reputation for handling the Word of God appropriately, rightly dividing the Word of Truth, faithful shepherds in nearly every aspect you can imagine, and yet there are some, even under those categories, who are opposed to open air preaching.

Why would that be?

Do you want to give your feedback first, Ryan?

Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if there's a specific answer. I think Scott hit on two of them. I would say, just coming from a perspective, you know, it's true. Christ gives gifts to people. And I think when you're looking at, let's say, the gifting or the calling, it is different than what you have with an evangelist.