154: Is Street Preaching Biblical?

Is Street Preaching Biblical?

To the Ruled Church podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

A redeemed wretch himself in the flesh.

How you doing, brother?

I'm doing good, brother.

Cody Torres, who hails from, actually, I almost said Hazel, Texas, but it's Paradise, right?

Yeah, so technically, I live, Paradise and Cottondale are kind of one and the same, but yeah, the church is in Hazel.

But you can literally say you're living your life in Paradise.

Yeah, hopefully it gets better than this.

Okay.

Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Nelson. I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. We are a confessionally reformed Baptist church, and the church was founded in 96, so we're celebrating 30 years this year.

Grateful for that, and the reformation the Lord has brought to the church. Cody is, well, I'm gonna ask you, brother, do you have an official title at the church?

I don't. I just lead the evangelism team, so the ministry is called Proclaiming Christ Ministries. Me and Jeff Crago started that. Five years ago, maybe, something like that. Five years ago.

Towards the end of the month?

Okay.

Yeah, something like that. And then the church voted on it, and in that sense, officially sent us out as a ministry supported and backed by the local church. And so since then, we've been going out preaching.

I try and disciple. I try and do Bible studies mostly. Open air preaching, though, is kind of the focus. And lately, that's been more local.

Yeah.

And man, I look forward to jumping in all that. We're gonna tackle all those things. Probably gonna be at least two episodes. Maybe we can make it three. I don't know, but in these episodes, we just kind of lay out, just kind of give a flyover here, the foundation for evangelism, how one important manifestation of evangelism, not the only, but one important, is open air preaching, street preaching.

We wanna talk about how you got into that, how you came to Christ. We wanna talk about the way your church is doing it, the fruit that you've seen from it. We wanna talk about how you would encourage other churches to sort of follow this pattern.

So this is where we're going. Hopefully, our listeners are encouraged by it, maybe challenged some, but I wanna start out. I didn't tell you I was gonna start out this way, so you're completely in not in the know on this, so don't be scared.

But I wanna start out this way to just kind of frame some of the things we wanna talk about, because, let's see, almost two years ago, in 2024, I have a friend that, and I use that word friend sincerely and meaningfully, and I consider this brother a friend.

We're not as close as we used to be, but I still consider him a faithful brother.

I'm grateful for him.

He's a friend. But he preached a message, basically, a couple of different times, and it was on a podcast, just about how street preaching is not biblical. And I'll read you a quote he said. He said, when you do street preaching, like preaching at a gas station or a concert or whatever, you're molesting people.

This is a quote from him. You're molesting people that don't want to hear from you. Now, the word molesting fit his alliteration of his points, but still, that's a strong word and chosen intentionally, that you're molesting people that don't want to hear from you.

He said, biblical evangelism is not shouting. It's not bait and switch. It's not events. It's a church that's been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I'm gonna say a few things about that.

I'm kind of setting this context so as we go forward in our conversation, you kind of see where I'm coming from. Of course, you already know that. We've known each other now. We first met in 2022, so we've known each other over four years.

And so you know where I'm coming from, but I wanna say a few things about that sermon. First, that this brother is right on a lot of things. So he's right in his message about rejecting what we'd say manipulative evangelism.

We're not for that. He is right that holy living, as Titus says, adorns the gospel. He's right in that sermon that God is the one that is sovereign in drawing sinners. The results are mixed. It's up to God.

But I don't know. Have you listened to that message? I don't know. You may not have listened to it. And that's fine.

If you have.

I think I know what message you're talking about, and I think I listened to some of it, if not all of it, a while back, but I wouldn't be able to recall much of it.

Yeah, that's okay, because the whole point is not to pick apart the message, but he's wrong. And here's the thing, brother. Baptists are the worst about finding something to fight about. We will divide, divide, divide, divide until we're living on our own little island, and we can't associate with anybody else.

So we all fight about things, and it's sad that we'll fight about evangelism, but I disagree with him on this. He's wrong about this, but we can still be friends. But I do want to point out that he's made a receptive audience a prerequisite for evangelism.

That's kind of his premise. And I think about that, receptive audience type thing. Scripture never requires that, and in fact, Scripture has, there's a plain biblical pattern of public indiscriminate proclamation.

I'm sure you have some of your own verses, but here's one. I'm going to just cite a few things you might not have been prepared for. One is Proverbs. Have you ever made a case for street preaching from Proverbs?

Oh, there is a particular verse.

Yeah, what are you thinking?

I'm going to butcher the reference, but it's when it says, the righteous are a guide to their neighbor, but the wicked lead them astray. So maybe not explicitly, but implicitly we do that by open air preaching the gospel.

We're trying to lead our neighbors in a right way, a narrow way.

Yeah, amen. Well, listen to this. Proverbs 1, verse 20 through 22. Wisdom cries aloud.

Where?

In the streets.

In the street. Wisdom cries aloud in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice. At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks. How long, O simple ones?

Will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? That's a beautiful, really it's a beautiful point. And I know obviously it's not talking about street preaching there, but it is a foundation that wisdom cries aloud in the street.

And so does the street preacher cry aloud in the street, not waiting for a receptive audience, but crying aloud to the simple ones. How long will you love being simple? Or I think about the Old Testament prophets.

They were not trying to gather a willing audience. They went and proclaimed to kings, to the courts of kings, to the people. How about the, not that this is, we should mimic this, but how about the she bears and Elisha and the boy?

But the Old Testament prophets preached.

Yeah.

Not waiting for a willing audience, but preaching, proclaiming what God sent them to do.

If I could real quick.

Yeah, go ahead.

Ezekiel chapter two, I think is a clear example. When God calls Ezekiel to speak, he doesn't call him to speak to a receptive audience. He causes him or calls him to speak to a people who are not going to listen.

In fact, God says, they're not going to listen to you because they're not willing to listen to me. And yet he tells them to go and to speak. These people have a hard forehead, right? They have a stiff neck, stubborn hearts.

And he tells Ezekiel, but I'm going to make your head harder than their head.

You hardheaded street preacher.

Good sermon here, the hard headed street preacher. But he tells them go and he says, speak to them and say to them, thus says the Lord, whether they hear or refuse to hear. So receptiveness, the willingness to hear is not the condition or the basis on why we go.

We go because God says go. And sometimes he sends us to a hardheaded people.

Yeah, that's good, brother. Acts 17, 17. I'm not going to go through every biblical case, but I just pulled out some and I pulled out some quotes. But Paul reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day.

And then this phrase I think is important, with those who happen to be there.

Yeah, amen.

So I think that's important. John brought us as this, our Lord was for the most part a street preacher and a field preacher. And I think it absolutely necessary if we would interpret or write the teachings of our Lord to remember that he spoke not as a scientific lecturer, but as a preacher, a preacher for the most part to the common people, an open air preacher addressing restless and mainly unsympathizing crowds.

So John brought us by the way, he's one of the early founders of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote an excellent book on the preparation delivery of sermons. So I want to be very clear, brother, I am not condemning anyone who does not street preach, nor, this is also important, am I commending everyone who does street preach?

You got it?

So I'm not, if you don't street preach, I'm not condemning you. If you do street preach, I'm not commending you, okay? I've seen it done bad, pridefully, ill motives. What I want to do here is the outset of these episodes is to lay a biblical and historical foundation for street preaching.

Well, someone comes along and says, what you guys are doing is unbiblical. I would argue not only is it biblical, it's also been supported in church history. Jonah went to Nineveh, uninvited, sent, sent, but uninvited.

John the Baptist confronted crowds bluntly, right? You brood of vipers, how's that? Jesus preached to hostile crowds. Stephen preached to the Sanhedrin who would kill him. I'm wearing this right now in Acts 7.

The point is, the point is that open air preaching, street preaching often creates the moment, right? Like not waiting for, it's going the offensive. It's offensive, I get it, but it's on the offensive, not the defensive.

We're going and telling and taking the gospel to where it's needed, the concerts, the gas stations, the marketplaces. We're not looking for receptive audiences because guess what? No one is receptive to the gospel without the grace of God.

But Paul says that the very voice of Christ pierces through the preaching of Christ. In Romans 10, how will anybody hear without a preacher, right? Not, by the way, that word's important. How will anybody hear without a preacher?

Okay, not a conversation, not a sitting down across from one another. Again, we're not opposed to that. Praise God, like I hope that people are doing that. But how will they hear without a preacher? Have you seen the new movie, A Great Awakening yet?

Yes, I did, I did. I saw it twice.

Aha, so you'll know what I'm talking about. Now there's some, I think that there's some things that got wrong historically. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. But you know where I think I almost wept is one of the most beautiful scenes is when he goes to the coal miners.

Do you remember that?

Yeah.

And he's not going to the coal miners. He's not saying, you guys assemble and let me come preach. He's going and he's preaching. Now, things happen, and of course, God is moving revival. And so they begin to anticipate his preaching and those sorts of things.

But he doesn't go for a receptive audience. He goes and he preaches Christ. And the scene from the movie is amazing, but I think historically it was even greater. You know, people coming to Christ. Do you know the story of A .W. Tozer?

I know who A .W. Tozer is, but no. Oh, about how he got saved?

Yeah.

It's a little foggy, I can't remember the clarity.

He's a young man, like a late teenager. He's walking home from work in Akron, Ohio. And on his way home, he overhears, guess what? A street preacher. The preacher said something pretty simple. If you don't know how to be saved, something like that, you know, call on God.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Saying, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And that lands home for Tozer. So he goes home. I think he like climbs up in an attic or something. And he prays, Lord, I don't know how to be saved. I'm asking you to be merciful to me, a sinner.

And anyway, that's that. Not an event, not, you know, manipulation, not a relationship over time, not a cultivated audience, extended dialogue, just someone out in the street preaching the truth and the spirit of God uses that.

Tom Nettle says this, the use of tracks carefully written so as not to compromise the gospel, the distribution of Bibles and books and the giving of printed copies of the gospel of John may all lead to fruitful and edifying gospel confrontations.

Open air preaching offers a good opportunity for track distribution accompanied by proclamation of the full counsel of God. Many contacts prompted by the power of the gospel may arise in this setting.

Earnest application of energy and intellect to the necessity for personal confrontation can lead to a number of viable ways of setting forth the full force of the gospel message to lost men. This should be pursued with vigor and with the determination that the methods and instruments used will not eclipse the offense of the gospel.

As renowned Baptist historian, Tom Nettle. So here's what I'm getting at with that quote, and I'll say this quote from Richard Phillips. He says, some people prefer to hand out tracks or other printed material and others engage in open air preaching.

In my opinion, there's a great need for all of these methods of evangelism. Instead of picking and choosing between them, we can best profit by considering all of these approaches and making use of them as God gives opportunity.

So as we lay the foundations, we're going to have this discussion. And you didn't know you're going to come on and hear me preach, did you know, but as we have the discussion, I'm saying, why do we need to divide over an issue like this?

It is irrefutable that street preaching is biblical, historical. God has used it to make much of his son, to bring sinners to Christ. You know, Paul says in Philippians 1 .18, what then, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.

And in that, I rejoice. And so these episodes, they'll defend street preaching. They'll commend street preaching. They'll encourage street preaching. But the goal is not to make pastors who don't do street preaching to feel bad, okay?

I would say, I think every pastor should do it at some point, at least once. But if that's not your thing, then you be faithful in evangelism in other ways. And you lead people to do the same. And don't look down your noses at street preachers.

Don't like, I promise you, what our world today does not need is for a set of Christians to stop other Christians or discourage other Christians from proclaiming Christ. You wanna say anything about that?

Well, I mean, yeah, I agree with everything you're saying. And perhaps I won't say it dogmatically at this point, but I do believe that street preaching, if nothing else, is a very strong and useful tool for equipping the pastor.

I believe it's the training grounds. And if you look at the apostles, they were disciples with Jesus first, going in the streets and ministering and preaching and doing these things, and they became apostles and churches were planted after Pentecost and all these things happened.

But I do believe that street preaching, and whether it's standing up and preaching on a box or doing those things, but at least getting out there and confronting people about their souls and communicating the gospel and pleading with people to know Christ is the training grounds for the pastor.

Yeah, amen. So I would say support street preachers, pray for them, encourage them. How about this? Even seek to cultivate, like raise up some in your own church, right? And what I'm saying is that we can't be dividing on the issue, right?

We ought to be encouraged by the proclamation of Christ. Like we're all against gimmicks. We're for the glory of God in the gospel. And so let's encourage one another with these things. And hey, if you walk by a street preacher, encourage it.

And so far as, again, I'm not saying every street preacher is doing it right. I've been with guys who do it wrong and there's guys out there that are doing it wrong that aren't even converted, just like there are pastors out there who aren't even converted.

But the point is we should have unity on this. And I guess another thing I would say just to address as we go up front here is sometimes street preachers, and I've done it too, they put their street preaching online, okay?

Just like Luther published tracts publicly, you know, and Spurgeon published his sermons. So social media is an avenue in our day to proclaim Christ. Can it be done wrongly? Has it been done wrongly?

Yes.

But let's not blast guys for putting Christ on social media. We need more Christ on social media. I can tell you that. Not less. So all this foundational is like, I don't know, almost 20 minutes here.

We're gonna have differences. We're gonna have our quirks. We're gonna have things that we may not see eye to eye on. But at the end of the day, we ought to be partners in the gospel. We reject gimmicks.

We reject bait and switch. We reject manipulation. But where we see faithful evangelism happening, we should encourage it. Anything you wanna say at all, I'm gonna get to, I sent you some questions. I'm gonna get to those.

But anything you wanna say at all to this point, just about this introductory spiel you heard?

Yeah, no. Not much to add to it.

I don't think street preachers are molesters, do you?

Yeah, no, I don't think so. No, those are good points, brother. Yeah, a lot of times people wanna attack street preaching. And it's like, in my view, street preaching is the, capital T, I would say, is the ancient method.

And so if you have other methods, there's many methods. There's all kinds of ways that we can get the gospel out. And they're all great and they're all right and they're all good, as long as the gospel is the focus and the glory of Christ is the motive.

And so if we're doing that, however you're doing that, that's evangelism. And that's right to do and that's good to do. But to say that street preaching is a bad method and to come against that method specifically is to come against God's method.

And I had laid out a lot of verses to show how street preaching is even Trinitarian. Because you go through the scriptures and you can see God the Father open air preaches. You see God the Son open air preaches.

And at Pentecost in Acts 2, you see that the Spirit even open air preaches as He gives them utterance and they begin to speak in different languages so that all the people hear in their own language, the gospel.

And so even at Jesus' baptism, there's a voice born from heaven. This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. And so God the Father open air preaches to a crowd of people and He preaches Christ. And so like street preaching is the method, the prophets, the apostles.

Noah, I was thinking about Noah.

Noah, preacher of righteousness. You were talking about a willing crowd and made me think of Amos 5 .10. And it says, they hate him who reproves at the city gate. They abhor him who speaks the truth. I don't think they were very receptive.

And so, yeah, I mean, all methods are good. What I'm trying to say is I'm for all methods. All methods are good. But to come against street preaching is to come against the method of scripture. And I think it's sad when our nation looks the way it does and our communities look the way they do.

And there's Christians who want to snuff out gospel proclamation when that's the biggest thing we need is for Christ to be faithfully preached, souls to be pleaded with, and for God to save and to cause regeneration in the hearts of our people.

Yeah, I think that it is, particularly among Baptists, we're guilty of this. Like I said, just, and I've been guilty of it, trying to create little islands, but we can have differences. Even in methodology, we can have differences.

We can still be for one another. We can say, hey, look, brother, I'm not gonna go out and stand on the street and preach, but I understand why you do, and I'm gonna pray for you. I'm gonna support that, because Christ is being proclaimed.

So yeah, and I think so much more we'll probably get into. I was just thinking about, I'm not trying to ruin somebody's football game or concert or the gas station. Here's the deal. Now, there are certain events that I think should be ruined, but we'll get into that later.

But the point I'm trying to make is like, I was, I'll tell you this, not long ago, a year ago, maybe it's two years ago, we went to Nate Bargatze. What do you call that show? I guess Nate Bargatze's show.

You know Nate Bargatze, the comedian?

I don't.

He's clean, he's clean, good guy. I'm not sure if he's, I think he professed to be a Christian. Anyway, we went to Nate Bargatze, and on our way to the Nate Bargatze show, there's a guy in Memphis, street preaching.

You know what it did to me? It did not ruin our, it encouraged me. Yeah, I went up and I encouraged him. You know, I said, thank you, brother. Thank you for doing this. Now, I don't even know where he stood on certain things, and he may view things differently than I do, but I received one of his papers that had the gospel on it, and it's like, amen.

And so you just, you keep on pressing. And it's like, we love, we love to hear Christ proclaimed, and we want to hear it proclaimed. And, but again, maybe we'll talk about this later, but I'm not saying everybody who goes out and does it is right.

Some people are certainly wrong, have wrong motivations. Some people just want to fight.

Yeah.

That's why we gotta be careful.

You know, and I'm gonna talk

Yeah, yeah.

Unhealthy craving for controversy.

Yep, exactly. But anyway, it's biblical. It's historical. It's a great place. If you got men in your church that want to preach, you're like, well, it just, there's no opportunities in the pulpit.

Okay.

Take them out. Take them out to the marketplace. Let them preach, you know, and let them have the baptism by fire, as it were.

So. Amen.

Okay, brother. So let's talk about, now, Cody Torres, just for a second. Who in the world are you? Tell me about your family. And then, after that, I'm gonna ask you a question about how you came to know Christ.

Okay.

Yeah, my name is Cody Torres on Facebook. I go by A Redeemed Wretch. My wife's name is Megan. We have three children and a fourth woman on the way. We live here in Fort Worth area. I mean, we live out in the country.

But we're here in the Fort Worth area. Go to By the Word Baptist Church under Pastor Randall Easter and Pastor John Speed. And like I said earlier, I lead the evangelism ministry. I've been doing that for about seven years.

I've been street preaching five years officially as a ministry sent out by the local church. I disciple several brothers, lead a Bible study at my house, and just, we do the best we can to try and reach our community with the gospel.

There's gonna be a Bible study tonight, and there's gonna be, should be several, a handful of people here tonight at our Bible study as a result of street preaching. And so that's what we do. That's what I do.

Amen, amen. So how did you come to know the Lord?

So I was actually raised in the church. I was raised Pentecostal. And maybe some people can see that in my drumming. But I was raised Pentecostal, thought I was a Christian my whole life. Graduated high school, went to the Marine Corps.

So many details, I'm just going to keep it absolutely short and simple. But went to the Marine Corps. I believe God used that time to expose my heart, to test me. Went into a lot of darkness, a lot of sin, a lot of trouble, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideations, drunkenness, anger, the list goes on.

And God used that to expose what I really was. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I had nowhere to live. My parents said, you can live with us, but you're gonna go to church twice a week. And I was good with Sundays.

I was like, man, twice a week. That's a lot. And so it was probably a month, about a month, maybe a little less, right around a month. I was sitting in church on a Sunday and this particular church was not a Pentecostal church.

It was like a non-denominational church, but they had the gospel and they were preaching something I've never heard or even considered before, which was the idea that you could name the name of Christ and yet not be a Christian.

I've never even heard that at that point. And my whole life I thought I was a Christian, living in all kinds of sin and calling myself a Christian. I thought because I was baptized and I professed faith and I believed in Jesus that I was saved.

And I remember I was sitting there in church and probably dozing off and just waiting for it to be over, put my check in the box and no Bible, no real eagerness or desire to be there, just this is what you do on Sunday, right?

As a Christian. And man, it was like somebody turned on the light and I didn't realize I was sitting in a dark room until someone turned the light on. And all of a sudden I start to realize the things that were around me.

And I remember I sat up in that moment and just my whole, like this deep introspective kind of thought process happened where I just started to think about my life in comparison to what the Bible says and what this man is preaching.

And I remember thinking to myself and saying, man, I don't look anything like a Christian. I don't talk like a Christian. I don't think like a Christian. I don't live like a Christian. I don't love God's word.

I don't read his word. I don't seek him. I don't pray. I don't live for him. I'm not living for him. Everything I do is evil and wicked and sinful. And I remember just, boom, just this knife to my chest where I was like, if I died right now, I'd go to hell.

And I remember I was just broken and I had this fear.

What year is this?

This was 2016. I would say August 7th, 2016 was that Sunday. And I remember it just hit me. And I realized that I had professed Christ my whole life, but never knew him. And I did the only thing I knew to do at that moment.

I did the sinner's prayer.

Sure.

Obviously, I believe I was saved before that. Said the sinner's prayer, went and bought a Bible. And brother, I couldn't get out of that thing. I was up in the middle of the night just reading and reading and reading.

And it was like, have I ever read this book before? Like I'm reading scripture, scriptures I've heard, but it was just, I understood them. And I saw them in a whole different light. And I remember I was just reading and it was just one thing after the next as I would read through the Bible, just God, all right, can't talk like that.

Can't think like that. Can't listen to that music. Can't watch that movie. Can't hang out with those people. And it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just things getting kicked out. Started going to my friends and my family like, have y 'all ever read this?

Have you seen this? Did you know this? Boom, they're gone. Lose a lot of family members. Lost all my friends, but gained brothers and sisters in Christ. And yeah, brother, I mean, God just exposed my hypocrisy.

He exposed my false conversion. He truly saved me, gave me a new heart, gave me a right spirit, a new spirit. And as I began to read the Bible, radically changed my life. And that's just been the ongoing story since.

Wow, brother.

This is a great place.

Here's what we're gonna do.

This is, you know, I'm just deciding this as we go, but this is where we're gonna stop episode one. Before we do, why don't you just clearly take, you know, two minutes and give us the gospel?

The Gospel Message

Yeah, yeah.

The Bible is very clear that there is a great dilemma between God and man. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's none who are good. There's none who are righteous. There's none who seek after God.

There's none who understand. The Bible says there's none who are good, not even one. So like, in case you thought you were the exception, not even one. And we've all sinned against God. God who is holy and righteous and just must punish sin.

But God in his infinite love sent his son, Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, came into this world and lived a sinless life that each of us have failed to live. He bore our sins on the cross.

He who knew no sin, the Bible says, became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. On the cross, Christ bore on his blameless shoulders all of our sin. Every sinful thought, every sinful word, every sinful action, every sinful motive, every defilement of our person and our soul, Christ bore on himself on the cross.

And the wrath of God that we deserved for our sin was poured out on him. It says in Isaiah 53, all of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us have turned aside to our own way, but the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

Christ became the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for sin, absorbing the wrath of God and canceling the record of sin that stands against any man, any woman, any boy or girl who would come to the end of themselves, repent, change their mind, look to Christ and cast the anchor of their soul upon him and him alone, believing that he is God in the flesh, that he is the sacrifice who died for sinners, that his death is sufficient.

When Christ died, he was buried for three days. And then on that third day, he rose from the dead, conquering death, hell and the grave. He is ascended to heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And one day he's going to return to gather the church, his bride. The good news of the gospel is that God loved us so much that he became a man and the person and work of Jesus Christ to do everything that we could not do and to accomplish a salvation that is eternal for those who trust him.