This sermon emphasizes the importance of being called by God before engaging in street preaching, highlighting the need to be set afire by the Holy Spirit, eliminate idolatry, and focus on the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. It challenges street preachers to prioritize their love for Christ above all else, to be consecrated to the cause, and to invite people to come to Jesus for salvation.

All right, well I know it's late and I'm kind of glad that it's late. It kind of ties into what I want to speak to you about. How many of you right here right now consider yourself to be either a veteran or an aspiring street preacher? Let me see your hands. It's mostly everybody here. How many of you are right now saying, get this thing over with so I can go out on Flatbush Avenue and lift up the name of Jesus Christ? The seven most important words that you could ever hear on the street as a preacher and the seven most important words that you can ever say as a person? Here they are. What must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? Seven most important words that we can hear as a preacher and the seven most important words that we can say, that people can say, any human being alive. But before I pray, I want to ask you this, why don't we hear those words out on the street? Why don't we hear those words? Jesus, we pray to you right now, Father. Lord God, we pray to you that you would rain down righteousness on this place, Lord. That you would open up our eyes, you would open up our hearts to receive this word, God. Father, this is a difficult word to give, Lord. But I pray that you, I know, Lord, that you brought these people here to hear what you have to say before they go out on the street, Lord, and myself as well. So God, please do something here tonight, Lord. Please do something here tonight. Let us walk out of here bleeding tonight from your word, Lord. Father, let this not just be another message that I give tonight, Lord. Let it be the very words of your Son, Jesus Christ. He is the word. Father, we bow down before you. I pray, God, for help. I pray for help right now, God. And I know you will give it to me, Father. In your name, your Son's name, we pray. Amen. So with that said, it's okay. With that said, I want you to listen. Street preachers, please listen to me. Inspiring street preachers, listen. Listen. I don't say this lightly. I don't say this to become controversial. I don't say this to be popular. I don't say this for any other reason, but because as sure as I'm standing here right now, I believe Jesus Christ wants you to hear these words. So you can believe I'm either lying or it's from Him. And I believe we've made street preaching an idol. I believe that we have made street preaching. Street preachers have made street preaching. And they've shaped it like the golden calf. And they've danced around it. And they've cherished it. And they've celebrated around it. And now our leader is coming down. And he's going to slay 3,000. We cannot replace, we cannot take Jesus Christ out of the picture. We cannot take Jesus and put street preaching in. And that's exactly what we've done. That's exactly what we've done. I would say that 90% of us in this room have done that. And I'm going to ask you several things today before you go out on that street to make sure that you get your head right, that you repent. And the Bible says that repentance is something that you change about yourself that displeases you. It's not just the change of action, because we can all do that. We can all change our actions. But sometimes we change our actions when we're still pleased with the thing we turn from. You need to walk out of here today, and I pray by the Word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will walk out of here today and street preaching will no longer be an idol. Street preaching will not be an idol. Now you know, most of you know in this room, there's not many of you here, I believe, that walked in and didn't notice we have a DVD that's coming out that's exactly pretty much opposite of what I'm telling you right now. Go stand and speak. Go out there, do it. And God is raising up an army right now throughout the world. Throughout the world right now there's an uprising. There is an apostolic uprising that is happening right now. But what's happening is that that apostolic uprising we've shot over. My little daughter recently coloring on my desk with her magic marker, that big old fat black magic marker. The first thing I do is look, she went right through and that's what we've done with street preaching. That's what we've done with our doctrines. That's what we've done with our anger towards the modern church. That's what we've done with calling people to Jesus Christ. We've eliminated Christ and we've rolled in the idol of street preaching. So that's what I want to talk to you about. That's what I want to ask you about before you leave here today. Don't walk out of these doors unless you've been like Gideon and you've torn those idols down and replaced it with an altar to God. Now my text is going to be, I'm going to start out with some of the dangers about what we're talking about here. So I want you to, you know the scripture, Ephesians 5 chapter 5 verse 23. I'll start at verse 22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your husband as unto the Lord. For the husband is the wife's head, even as Christ is the head of the church. And the same is the Savior of the body. Christ is the head of the church. Now we've been pounded with this scripture in the context of marriage. But I want you to imagine right now if you were to take the head of Jesus Christ off of his church. Take the head of Jesus Christ off of his church. Take the head of the husband and decapitate him and watch that family start to crumble. Is anyone here, you don't put your hands up, do you have a spouse that, as the Bible says, is that dripping faucet? Wives, do you have a husband that just does not want to hear about Jesus Christ? He won't lead. He won't lead. He's a headless horseman. How hard is it to live? How hard is it? Is the power of the gospel reigning in your house right now? No, it's not. Maybe through you and through your faithfulness God is going to work. Yes, I'm not saying that, but the power is gone. The power of the gospel is gone when we remove Christ out of the picture and we roll in street preaching as the idol. I was talking to somebody recently about the Leathernecks. Is there any ex-Marines, Steve, or an ex-Marine? The Leathernecks, it's a nickname for the Marines, but that nickname started back in 1798 when, during that time right after the Revolutionary War, people used to fight with muskets, cannons, and swords. As soon as the battle got close, the swords would come out. So typically what would happen is, as a warrior, the first thing somebody would do is they would pull out that sword and they would have different moves and maneuvers. And what they would try to do is they would try to get you to drop your guard so that they can go directly for where it's going to count, and that is for the neck. They would go to decapitate the soldier, and if they didn't decapitate the soldier, they seriously wounded the soldier where it hit his jugular vein, and it was only a matter of minutes until he was out on the ground and the blood was drained out of his body and he was dead. These were called the Leathernecks. They said, we need to do something here, so they went out and they maneuvered their outfits and they maneuvered their uniforms to put a strip of leather around. So now they were able to withstand the blow of the sword. They can go into battle more fiercely with these leather strips. After a few years, they got rid of it until the year 1899, when we were for four years in a war over in the Philippines. It was called the Filipino-American War, and the United States Army had faced something that they had not faced since the Revolutionary War, and that was a sword fight. And what was happening was these incredibly passionate Moro warriors would charge through the battle lines, and the American soldiers that were in the bunker, they would pull out their pistols, and they were using a .38 handgun, and they would start to fire at the person, the Moro warrior coming at them. Now this Moro warrior had nothing but a sword and a crazy attitude, and he would scream and he would run in and he would dive into the trench, and those soldiers would fire their weapons. They would unload clips into these people, and they realized that it's getting close, because when we fire these sharp little tiny fierce speeding bullets into these people, it's barely affecting them. It's killing them, but they're getting too close, until finally the Moro warriors got smart, and they said they're using these .38s, so when you go in, go directly for the neck. So they would charge in with this sword, and they had all the maneuvers down, and American soldiers would take out their gun, and they would fire, and it would do absolutely nothing in time to stop them from getting their heads chopped right off. Their heads would just, it would just be gone. If you look it up, you'll see on several occasions, soldiers got decapitated, because their power of their, the power of their handgun, the impact of the bullet, it was powerless against these people. They got smart. They went to the .45. Now if you see a .45 handgun, and you run full speed, and I shoot a .45 handgun at your chest, and you just run 10 feet towards me, that bullet is going to hit you and send you 10 feet back. That's the power of the gospel, when Christ is at the head, but when Christ is not at the head, we can fire all the bullets that we want. We can have all the training that we want, and it's going to do absolutely nothing. This has been a common theme throughout the day. If you look in the book of Acts, chapter 5, verse 20, it says, we know that the apostles were jailed, and they were miraculously released by the angel of the Lord. And in Acts 5.20, it says, go your way and stand in the temple, the doors being open, in verse 19, and speak to the people all the words of this life. All the words of this life, talking about the gospel message, the full gospel message. But what is very unique about this chapter in Acts chapter 5, verse 20, if you just go back one chapter to Acts chapter 4, verse 20, you'll see the true power and the true motivating force behind these disciples. Look at Acts chapter 4, verse 20. It's very simple. They're in front of the Sanhedrin. They're getting questioned. If you look up at verse 13, these people looked at these, they looked at the apostles, and they said, these guys are bold. These guys are bold, and they're unlearned. They don't have anything outward that would make them be so confident and so bold with this message that they're preaching. This message that they're preaching is coming with unusual power. They're upbraiding the whole entire city. As a matter of fact, we have to be careful on what we do right now because the whole entire city will turn against us if we treat them wrong. So let's call them over. And they call them over in verse 18, and they commanded them that no wise should you speak or teach in the name of Jesus. And Peter and John, I can imagine, looking at each other and just answering and saying, well, whether it be right in the sight of God to obey you rather than God, judge ye. You make the call. Should we obey you or God? And then they go on in verse 20 and show you the key to their evangelistic preaching, the key to their apostolic movement was right here. The key to go stand speak all the words of this life, the key to the power of the gospel in God using you. God is the power of the gospel. Christ is the power of the gospel. I'm not putting the power of the gospel in your hands, but we know that God uses human instruments, which we're going to talk about in a second. He uses human instruments, and he judges human instruments, and he's faithful to reward human instruments. As a matter of fact, he's not even looking for instruments, he's looking for one man. He's looking for one man to stand in the gap. He's not sitting back saying, well, I can do everything because I deliberately cause every single movement in the universe anyway, so I don't need anybody, any person at all. He's not saying that. No, he's saying I'm searching to and fro throughout the earth for someone whose heart is turned towards me. Who is it? Is he over there? Is it over there? And the person that can look at the person condemning in them and say, do whatever you want because I cannot but speak that which I've seen and that which I've heard. And that's what I believe that many of you cannot say. I believe that many of us here have not been able to say that. We've been propped up, we've been propped up by four-point questions and five-point presos. I know I came from a world of sales where I could take anybody in this audience right now and beat you with a presentation for long enough and you'll go out there and you'll recite it and you'll sell. How many of you know about that? Listen, presentations are great. It's biblical to go out there and prepare. It's biblical to be an apologist. It's biblical to go out there and defend and to rebuke and to have it all in your mind. It's biblical. You cannot get there unless you first can say that you've seen Jesus. He is Jesus. He's not just Christ. He's Jesus. He's a real person. He's a real person in heaven at the right hand of God. In the realm with God. He's not going to be physically here until he returns but his spirit is here. And we are to point people. Person of Christ preaching is what we must get back to. It's been a theme at the conference but we've had so much training. We've had so many things thrown at us. So many conferences. So many things where people are saying, I have the answer over here. If you come to this conference you can really get amped up and then we'll go out on the street and we'll stand up and we'll have the preaching tournament. I've been to so many of them. That's why I'm glad this is running late. I pray you don't go out and preach the gospel tonight. We have to get right with Christ. He doesn't need us out on the street in Brooklyn. He doesn't need us to go out there and tell people you need to read. He doesn't need us at all. He wants you and him. He wants you to kiss the Son. That's what he wants. You need to change your mind. If street preaching has become an idol so many of you are so precious. I am so excited about the thing that God is doing here with street preaching. Praise God it's never happened like this before. Not in Whitefield's time. Not in Spurgeon's time. It's never been like this. Those guys had to go out and preach. You couldn't go out and preach during the time of Whitefield on the street because you would be flagged. You'd be yanked right out of there. You would need a preaching license. You would be arrested. There are people in congregations where I live in Freehold, New Jersey that if they listen to another preacher out on the street that preacher would be fined and they would get church discipline for listening to somebody other than the pastor. It's never been like this. We have street preachers popping up like weeds everywhere. No matter where I look on the internet there's another street preacher. But you know what? We're all saying the same thing. We're all using the same script. And you know what happens? I see anger. I see angry militant zeal. I see superiority. I see people saying, oh did you see that? I'm gonna preach and yell and convict you of sin and do all these things and then when you walk away I'm gonna slap my boys, high-five and laugh and talk about how I just made that person feel stupid. Preaching at the train station. We would have, you could see the picture of Sean Holes back there at the desk. We have a train station that has 4,000 people every morning right at our fingertips. And I always remember when new people come out to the train station with us. We'll get done preaching. We have about five minutes to preach to them across the tracks. And we're pouring our heart out. And then the train comes and then they get on the train. And then typically what happens is is the preachers all congregate. And typically when they come over to speak I ignore them. But I keep my head down or I'll talk like this because I know all those people on the train are watching me. They're watching me. What is he doing? He was just yelling at me and telling me that that I am that I am under God's wrath. That I'm a sinner. He was pleading for me. And now look at him laughing about the exchange that he just had with me. This isn't, this is the sin about this is we have street preaching as an idol. And it's devastating. It's a devastating blow to the kingdom of God. It's the devastating blow to any war. Now I'm from Freehold, New Jersey. There's so much great rich Christian history in Freehold, New Jersey. We have the Tenet Church in Freehold, New Jersey right in my backyard. I often drive up there on Sundays with my daughter peeking through looking at the old pulpit. It's way up in the in the sky. William Tenet is buried right in the middle under the center aisle. There's bloodstains from the Battle of Monmouth on the pews. I think of the pastor John Whittle who is a who who was during that time he pastored that church. And the year before the Battle of Monmouth William Tenet senior died and he came in to pastor the church. But as soon as the battle came he left the pulpit and went out on the battlefield as a chaplain. And the stories about this man. We heard of Molly Pitcher. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. Well this man picked up the cannons on a occasions as well. Battle of Monmouth was a very unique battle. It started with a group of 17,000 soldiers in Valley Forge that were an absolute mess. Many of them didn't have any clothes. Some of them had sheets wrapped around them with no underwear, with no clothes, with no socks in the dead of winter. Many of them were sick. They started out about six months before the Battle of Monmouth with 17,000 soldiers. Up to the time that they went in and marched from Valley Forge they ended up with about 6,000. Most of them have, most of them deserted. Many of them fell dead. Some of them died of sickness. Some of them were incapacitated because they were sick. So George Washington the general at the time had a very tough decision to make. He says we need somebody to train these troops. So you know what he did? He got the best military general in the whole entire world at the time. His name was General von Steuben. He was a general from Germany. And he was sent, he came from Germany, got into the army, got into the Continental Army. George Washington sends him there and he was meticulous in training these soldiers. The best absolute training. But George Washington made a big mistake. What he did is he put somebody named General Lee in as charge of that army. General Lee was a man who had just been released from the British camp as a prisoner. We didn't find out till six years after, but General Lee had sold secrets to the British Army. And he said listen, this is how the army is going to move. They're going to go up this way and they're going to do that. And he's telling all the British Army how the Americans are going to maneuver. And then he comes back to the War Council at Valley Forge a few days before the Battle of Monmouth and he sees that George Washington is going to meet the British Army in Monmouth County on the Monmouth battlefield and he knows that that doesn't go according to the plan that he told the British. So he tries to maneuver. He tries to finagle and he says listen, you shouldn't do it. So George Washington says listen, you seem awful convinced that this plan isn't going to work. So he yanks him out and he puts a new general in. Halfway marching to the battle for some crazy reason, one of the biggest mistakes that George Washington ever did is he responded to a letter from General Lee pleading that he wanted to be back in control of that army because he was looking at this from a selfish perspective. He knew that there was going to be a big giant battle. He wanted to get the credit for it. So George Washington says listen, I want you just to meet up General Lafayette. Just meet up with him. You're a general. He's a major general. So you'll have charge of it. I don't want to offend him in anything like that. So you guys go ahead and you blend in together and he did that. Well listen, halfway through the battle with the finest army that the Continental Army ever produced, the finest soldiers, General Von Steuben got people to load their muskets, fire their muskets, clean their muskets in half the amount of time. He taught them how to maneuver on the battlefield. It wasn't just left flank, right flank. It was about like a linebacker. You know how a linebacker, an NFL linebacker can back up and he can sense any defensive line. He can sense where the offense is coming. That's what he taught them. He taught them how to fight guerrilla style. But guess what happened in the middle of the battle. General Lee retreated when he was ordered to go and fight. In the middle of the Battle of Monmouth, General Lee calls a retreat and it just so happens that at the same time as he's calling the retreat, General Washington, if you know the area, comes up from Englishtown with his soldiers, a whole brigade of 2,000, and sees this retreat and goes ballistic. Goes ballistic, grabs General Lee. General Lee ends up getting court-martialed and tried for treason down the road. But it was just amazing what General Washington did. He ran to the retreating troops. He got them all recruited. He got them all back and they ended up winning the Battle of Monmouth. Now why am I telling you all this? Very simple. Training means absolutely nothing without being consecrated to the cause. Training means absolutely nothing. I tell you all that to tell you this. As a personal trainer for my whole life, as Jeff said before, 17 years, 20 years, I remember the frustration of training people, of giving them the best diet, the best equipment, the best plan, but their commitment would fail. This is what I believe we're at right now as Christians, street preachers. We are in a time where God is sparking up. He's shaking up doctrines that have been buried and lost. The doctrines of grace. How many of us have ever heard of Puritan paperbacks ten years ago? He's stirring up evangelism. He's stirring up boot camps. He's stirring up training systems. And what's happening is people are going forward without first being consecrated to the cause. And that consecration is Christ, Jesus. We must be consecrated to Jesus. It means to make sacred. It means to set apart. It means to be devoted. Now what happened in the Old Testament with the priests? When they were consecrated there was a there was a ritual. If you look back in Exodus, you don't have to go there, Exodus 29, and this is what you shall do to them to hollow them for ministering to me as priests. You're priest before God. Listen to this. Listen to this. Listen what he had him do. First of all in Exodus 30 chapter 30 verse 22 to 30 says, you shall consecrate them that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them must be holy. And you shall anoint Aaron. Here's what I want you to get before you go out and street preach again. Anoint Aaron and consecrate them that they may minister to me. And how did they do it? Every day for seven days a ram was offered for the priest and a special ceremony was given. What would happen is is they would lay, they would take the lamb, they would kill it, they would take some blood, and they would take the blood and they would put it on the ear lobes, and they would put it on the toes, and they would put it on the hands of the priests. The ear lobes, what do we do with our ears? We hear our hands. See in the Psalms I believe it says that they have ears but they hear not, and they have eyes but they see not, and mouths but they speak not, and hands but they handle not. And those that worship them are not unlike them. See we need to make sure that our eyes, our ears, our feet, our feet is walking in the path of Jesus. You ought to walk as he walked, says first John. What we look at with our eyes. When I don't understand how so many in this room can spend so much time on the internet. I'm not trying to be nitpicky, I'm not trying to beat you up. Listen, the internet is great. It's great. I have an internet business that I run, and you know what? We service different industries. I'm not in it anymore as much. My brother runs it full-time, but he still gets the same thing. You know what happens when we deal with different doctors and so forth and they come and purchase our product? You know what they end up doing? They make a big mistake. Instead of using the internet to build their business and make their life easier, they try to get into the internet and make it a business. And that's what you're doing. That's what you're doing. Now listen, it's a tool to promote the gospel. It's a tool to research. But if you're on that internet and you are spending time looking at images that cause you to stumble. If you are looking at images that cause you to stumble and you believe that it's just okay in the name of Jesus, like we do out in street preach. We say it's okay that I'm not consecrated to Christ because I'm going out and we ease our conscience when we step up on the ladder and we preach and we get back and we feel better. And we do the same thing when we go out on the internet. Well I'm doing it for ministry purposes. I'm doing it because I want to post on Facebook and let everybody see my preaching. Could you imagine if Wesleyan Whitfield came up from the dead or Paul and said, why are you so focused on your own videos? Why do you think everybody needs to see every sermon that you preach? There's nothing wrong with it. But I believe it's because street preaching, I believe it's because. One of my favorite preachers of all is Gilbert Tennant who was preaching around the Great Awakening 1747. As a matter of fact for the Battle of Monmouth, Gilbert Tennant preached the sermon years before that Battle of Monmouth happened in 1779. Gilbert Tennant was 1747. He had been dead by the time of the Battle of Monmouth. But he had preached such, he preached a sermon. There's a popular sermon by Gilbert Tennant called the dangers of an unconverted ministry. But he preached actually another sermon that was just as popular. But because he wasn't pummeling people with it and because it didn't cause as much controversy as the unconverted ministry sermon, it didn't get well known. And it was called the lawfulness of a defensive war. The lawfulness of a defensive war. And Benjamin Franklin, who was a printer as we know, made copies of this sermon and he hand-delivered to the artillery barracks in Philadelphia just a few weeks before the Battle of Monmouth. There was about as many people that are as in this room right here, 70 to 100 women who are working for the cause behind the scenes. They were in the warehouse and they were taking the ammunition that was going to get sent to the Battle of Monmouth. And they took every ammunition, every round of bullet, and they wrapped it because it had to be sealed in a copy of this sermon by Gilbert Tennant to encourage the troops. Now Gilbert Tennant preached in 1747. He walked up to a congregation in Maryland and of course he had his black gown on and he had his white wig. And he was preaching to a church that was looking for a pastor. And he took that gown off. Everyone looked. And he lassoed it around his shoulder and tied it on his waist with a belt. He took his wig off. He shook his hair out. And he says, today I am going to preach to you like John the Baptist. The dangers of an unconverted ministry. And he went on and told them. And here's the two points from his message. He said, number one, and here's a street preacher what I want to say to you right now. No cause can produce an effect above its own power. You know that. You apologetic guys know that. No cause can produce an effect beyond its own power. So you can go out and preach and post and do all the things you want to do. Street preaching wise. But you're not going to be able to replicate anything other than what you are. And if you are not converted. If you are not converted and know Jesus Christ. Where you could say I cannot but speak that which I've seen and heard. Then you're absolutely powerless out there. Absolutely powerless and foolish. Did you ever hear of Tite Sufra? Stephen Ocean? January 30th, 2010. Two men that were called to street preach. Called by God. I spoke to Tite Sufra, not his wife, but his wife's best friend this week. And I said, before he got killed on the street. What was his attitude towards street preaching? She said, well, I'm going to paraphrase. She says he knew the dangers of it. He would go into the areas. Into gang territories where he was from. He was converted. He was ordained a pastor at 24 years old. And he knew the dangers. January 30th he went out. Him and Stephen Ocean. Street preaching on the corner. They were talking to a man named Jeriah Woody. Who is in jail right now. 18 years old. And they were sharing with him. And they were presenting the gospel. And he said, you know what? You're manipulating me. Stop trying to manipulate me. And he walks away. He comes back with a sawed-off shotgun. And points it right at Stephen Ocean. Right at his chest. And pulls the trigger. And Tite Sufra sits there and looks at his best friend. Laying on the ground. And says, listen man. We don't know. All we know is that he spoke to him for a few more minutes. I'm assuming he told him. He was sharing with him. Probably offering forgiveness. Knowing this guy's history. And this guy said no. Shot him. And then put one right behind his head. Execution style. I don't tell you this to try to get you emotional or anything like that. I'm trying to tell you that it's foolish to go out and not be called. It's absolutely foolish. America is so far gone when it's conception of what it means to go out and preach the gospel. We have absolutely no risk. And we make it a tournament. I want to give you what the scriptures say about preaching. What the scriptures say about how we should go out and preach the gospel. Not with idolatry. Not with a mentality that if I don't go out and preach today, I'm not going to be as spiritual. I am going to flagellate myself because I didn't go out and preach. What's wrong honey? How come you're so sad? Leave me alone. What's wrong? Oh, you must not have preached today, did you? Oh, I can't believe I didn't go out today. It's terrible. Does that happen in your house? Oh man, I can't believe I didn't give that guy a track. Oh, oh, oh. I'm not spiritual. That's what happens. I know because it's me. I know because it happened to me. You can ask my close friends about that situation. In the middle of production to this film that Eric and I were doing, you know what I did? I quit street preaching. I just said, I'm not going out anymore. I'm absolutely, completely sick and tired of Christless preaching. I preached one, my last sermon, I preached so hard, I just, I went crazy out on the train station. Pastor John comes up to me and says, Pat, brother, you were preaching in a, I don't know, brother. He just, Pastor John's so gracious. So for him to say that, he never said that. I said, man, and I just really felt that that was the Lord. And I looked at myself and I said, why am I going out and street preaching? Have I really been called to do this? Is this something that I've really been called to do? I can't do it if I'm not called to it. Can you stop preaching right now? Can you not street preach anymore? Is it aggravating you that I'm saying that you're idolatrous with street preaching? If it is, you probably are idolatrous with street preaching. It's probably an idol if it's bothering you. If you can say, I won't go out anymore and street preach. I don't have to do it. If I'm not called, I will step down. Then that, I praise God. We don't see it in the scriptures. We don't see Jeremiah sitting there saying, okay, where can I go? I'm ready to go. No, I don't want to sit here and listen to you, God. I want to get out on the streets. Oh, man, I can't go out on the streets and preach today. Bam, bam, bam. He doesn't do that. He just says, oh, man. Isaiah says, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. I can't do this. These days we say, give me the, I have to do this. I have to do this. I've been studying. I know the presentation. I'm ready. Give me the pulpit. Give me the step. Give me the ladder. I go up and I say my thing. I get down and I cheer that I did it. Where is Christ? Where is Jesus in this? You know what I'm talking about. And I believe a lot has to do, a lot of this has to do with our training, but I believe a lot of this has to do with hyper-Calvinism as well that's going on in street preaching. Now, don't get me wrong. I guarantee that nobody is going to say, well, that's right, Pat. Hyper-Calvinism is correct and I'm doing that. Or you may look at hyper-Calvinism and say, no, I believe, you know, the gospel, you know, it should be preached to everybody. See, hyper-Calvinists don't believe that. They don't believe that the gospel is for everyone. I believe it's only for the elect. They don't believe that faith is a duty for you. They don't believe that. They don't believe in God's common grace. Not provenient grace. Not that everybody has enough grace where they can choose. No. No man is able to choose. But common grace. God has benevolent love for everyone. A hyper-Calvinist will say no. But yet that's what we've done in a sense as street preachers. Because we've taken, again, we've taken street preaching and we've said, Jesus, move out of the way. Here comes street preaching for me. And we've also done this too. Take prayer, get this out of the way, God, because I'm a Calvinist now. Take faith, Lord, and put that over here because I'm a reformed theologian now. Get rid of that Holy Spirit, God, because I know it's really not available today other than just being inside me. I don't, don't give me any Holy Spirit. Don't give me any faith. Don't give me any prayer. Just give me amazing grace. That's what's happening. We have to take out our predestination. We have to take out our election. And we have to look at them and praise you, God, for what you've done. We have to look at the atonement of Christ and say, yes, Jesus, I, you looked at me and saw absolutely nothing. There's nothing good in me. And on top of that, you need nothing. There's nothing that can make you more satisfied than you already are. But yet, you've applied it to me. But then, do not expect God to do something for you that he's commanded you to do. Go out and call people to Christ. It's okay. It's okay to invite them to come. We're so afraid of our Arminianism. We're so afraid of those Pelagians over there. Say I'm over there. I'll never preach with them. I challenge you to read Phinney. That's right. I said the word in a Reformed Baptist term. Phinney, Phinney, Phinney, Phinney, Phinney. I believe that if every solid believer here that knows Jesus Christ, that's a Reformed street preacher, if they were to pick up Revivals of Religion by Charles Phinney and read about preaching and read, Jonathan Speed's going, oh no, he just didn't say that. I just threw out 50 copies of that. No, but listen, listen, skip all the theology in it. But we would do well to learn because we're not going out there and calling people to Christ. We're professional seed sowers. We're afraid to invite anybody to Christ. Don't follow Phinney. And if you don't know who Phinney is, don't look him up. But I'm trying to communicate something to you. We need to call people to Jesus Christ. Did you know how an Eskimo kills a wolf up in Alaska? He takes a razor-sharp blade. Those Eskimos that live out in the igloos, you know that we always imagine in our mind. He takes a razor-sharp blade and he dips it in animal blood and sticks it in the ground and goes to sleep. The wolf comes and smells out the blood and starts licking the blade. And you can imagine what happens. He licks and licks and licks until the blood of the animal is all gone. The blade penetrates his own tongue and he starts drinking himself to death. And that's what we've done with our doctrines. It sucked the love of God right out of our preaching. We must get back to the love, compassion of Jesus in our preaching. Whatever you have to do, do that. The only way it's gonna happen is if you could say, I cannot but speak. I've seen him. I've heard him. I've seen him and I've heard him. So I'm gonna go out and preach him. Now, listen. How do you get this? See, again, this is a very difficult concept. But we must wait, we must tarry, and we must pray. You being evil, giving your children good gifts, how much more will your Father in heaven give those who ask the Holy Spirit? Holy Spirit, I refuse to get up from my knees until you make me what I need to be. Holy Spirit, Jesus, I'm not going out again until I know it's from you. I'm not gonna go out and proclaim. If I don't know for sure, I'm not going out again on that ladder unless I know that I've seen you and I've heard from you. Go! That's where we must get because we're filtering out the militia right now. The militia. We're filtering it out. You know what the militia was known for? They were a bunch of farmers. You know what set them apart from everything else? Their enthusiasm. George Washington hated the militia. He said, man, these guys are crazy. They're patriots. They're enthusiastic. But until they get trained up, and when they got trained up, they picked them right out. They said, you, you, you, you, you, you're coming. Minutemen. Continental Army. Minutemen were known for their radical, enthusiastic commitment to the cause. You see, we have a bunch of militia that we're just saying, oh, you want to evangelize? Great! Come on up. Yeah, come on. Come on on the pulpit. Yeah, you can do it. Come on, you can do it. Oh, hi, everyone. My name is Pat. I did it! We don't see that. We don't see that in Scripture. It's the opposite in Scripture. It's being drugged. It's being cornered. That's what street preaching is. That's what we must get to. That's what we must get to. We must eliminate substitutes. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 117, for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be of none effect. And you know what that means in the Greek? Just as it means in the English, as Dr. White said. It means no effect. You're not going to affect everyone when you go out there with enticing words. And in the Greek, I believe that that means not that we can't talk intelligently. It doesn't mean that we can't go out and speak well, but it means like an extravagant overemphasis on the oratory of your presentation. That's not what Paul did. He knew one thing and one thing only. Christ and Him crucified. So what does that mean? It means the redemption that he provided for us. He bought us out of slavery. Preach it. Preach the Lamb of God has been slain since the foundation of the world. Preach justification by faith, but then invite people to come to Christ. Not come and repeat after me. I'm so, so sick of hearing street preachers beat up on the modern church. It's gotten so popular to beat up on the modern church, that the modern church is actually now beating up on the modern church. You see Benny Hinn beating up on Joel Osteen. Benny Hinn beating up on Joel Osteen. It's gotten so popular to beat up on the modern church, that Joel Osteen is getting beat up on by Benny Hinn. I'll punch him right out, man. He listened to Paul Washer once and Benny Hinn's like, get me the cameras. I'm gonna beat up on Joel Osteen. We must be Christ-like. I want to explain to you what I mean by this. Go to Acts chapter 18 verse 24. Acts 18 verse 24. One of my heroes. Acts 18 24. And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, came to Ephesus. An eloquent man. It's okay to be eloquent. And mighty in the scriptures. The same was instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spake fervently in the Spirit, and taught diligently the things of the Lord, and knew but the baptism of John only. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him a way of God more perfectly. Assuming, speaking to him about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In verse 27 it says, and when he was minded to go into Achaia, the brethren exhorting him wrote to the disciples to receive him. And after he was come thither, he helped them much, which had believed through grace. Now here's what I wanted to get to. Verse 28. For mightily he confuted publicly the Jews with great vehemency, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. He publicly confuted. He went out and battled with them, and pleaded with them about Christ. I'm not talking about saying, go out and be like the modern church. I'm not saying go out and invite sinners to do something. But no, we are to command people to come. We are to command them to come to God, to come to Christ, to come to the cross and be saved. And what must I do to be saved? When you start doing that, God will start moving. When you start praying for that, and not going out until you know that you're called, and the idolatry of street preaching is left, and you don't care if you street preach or not, and it becomes something that you don't care you're gonna do it, no matter if anybody knows about it, no matter if you never get recognition, no matter if you never receive a pat on the back, no matter if you never make it up to a pulpit or a conference or anything, you're gonna do it because you cannot but speak that which you've seen and heard. Now, go to Revelation chapter 2. I believe this is so applicable to street preacher. And this is what I want to say before I read this. God does not put your love for Jesus Christ, he does not put your love for Jesus Christ higher, I'm So in other words, your love, your passionate love for Jesus, your passionate love for that man, that God-man that laid his life down, chose you, laid his life down for you, that's what's number one to God. It's more important than doctrine, it's more important than your hate for those that hate God, it's more important of your righteous anger, it's more important than everything, and it says it right here. Listen, I know thy works, street preacher. I see you go out to the train stations, I see you go out to the street corners, I see you travel across the countries and across the oceans. I know your labor, I know your patience, how you cannot bear with them that are evil. Oh, I cannot stand the wickedness. I can't stand it when they blaspheme God. And you've examined them which say that they are apostles. You're being a heretic when you preach that. You cannot say those things about my God on television and out on the street corner. He knows that, Jesus knows your passion there. He knows that you have been burdened and you have patience for his namesake, you have labored, you have not fainted, you've been persistent, he loves it, he's happy with it, but nevertheless he has something against you. You've left your first love. You've left your first love. Walked away. You haven't divorced him. You haven't said, I'm done. Although I have to say right now, if I look back over the past year, I could tell you many street preachers that have, that were amped up, they were amped up, they were preaching last summer. Some of you know people even here as well, you've told me. Men that I stood and preached with last summer in New York City, who sat up and in the middle of Union Square and just being just amazing with their apologetic preaching, sold everything, did everything that you would look at and say, man this guy is on fire for the Lord and now he's gone. He's gone. That's happened many times. Why? Because street preaching was an idol. It wasn't something that they had to speak about. It was an idol. I leave you with Gideon. Let's go to Judges chapter 6. This is what we must do. Now I wish I had time here to tell you the whole story of Gideon, but I pray that you would go to Gideon tonight and I pray that I'm going to talk to you tomorrow in the morning, first thing tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, about what I believe is the most important element in street preaching. If you can be here tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, please come tomorrow at 10. I believe the Lord would have you come. But Gideon was a man that was called by God. Gideon was a man that had what we would say every reason not to be called by God. He was found hiding from the Midianites because the Midianites were surrounding the Jewish camp and he was threshing wheat for his family because he knew if the Midianites saw it they would just come up and take it. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto Gideon and said, oh valiant man. He was like, what? Humility! Don't you know? No one even knows my father. I'm nothing but a farm boy. He says, no you're going to deliver the Israelites. So then Gideon goes through this process that I believe each one of us must go through. And then number one, the number one thing that Gideon did is that he immediately went to God with a sacrifice and God set it afire. And that's what we must do. He said right here in verse 19, he said Gideon went in he made ready a kid and unleavened bread of an epah of flour and put the flesh in a basket and put the broth in the pot. He brought a whole thing that he prepared. He brought all his skills. He brought all his resources. He brought all his ingredients. And God said, no. What I want you to do is take all that and lay it upon this stone. We see that in scripture a lot. God's always looking for a rock or a stone to do something on because he wants the human element completely eliminated when he's about to do his work. So what does he do? He says take all that, pour out the broth, and throw that upon the stone. And then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff and he held it in his hand. He touched the flesh and the unleavened bread and there arose up fire out of the stone. That's what God must do before you go out. Don't go out tonight unless you can say that God has done this to you. Has he set you afire for this? Has he taken your sacrifice, your consecration, laid it on the stone and set you aflame? That's number one. Number two, Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord after this happened. He says, I've seen the Lord. I'm going to die. This is verse 22. The Lord said, peace, fear not. You're not going to die. And Gideon made an altar and called it Jehovah Shalom. And that same night the Lord, that same night the Lord said unto him, take thy father's young bullock and another bullock of seven years old and destroy the altar of Baal that thy father hath and cut down the grove and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon this rock in a plain place, in a place where everyone can see it. Publicly proclaim what I am going to show you. And he says to offer a burnt offering with the wood of the grove. This is what he did. He says take the the idols and use that as fuel to burn the sacrifice. Take the idol of street preaching and don't give up. Don't have a pity party. Don't say, I just must not be called God if you're not going to come down and appear to me and set me on fire. No, get rid of it and do it just for Christ and that will be fuel to send you out. Now, what he did was after that the men of the city went into an uprising. What happened here? How could you do this? Everybody went to turn against Gideon and then the Spirit of the Lord came. And when you see a trumpet, when you see the shofar, the shofar in the Bible is the ram's horn that God usually uses to do some serious business. He uses it to simulate or to announce victory. He uses it as a battle call. He uses it to rally the troops, but he also uses it to proclaim his judgment. Many times it's happened through Scripture as we know Joshua. What happened during Joshua? When Joshua went around and they blew the trumpets, the wall fell. But something very unique happened in Joshua. I'm sorry, in Gideon. Guys, I know. Listen, cut the videos. I don't care. All right, just cut them. This is what God did in Gideon. Okay, it said verse, but check this out. He cuts his army down to 300. He cuts his army down to 300. He says, look, I'm going to make you an army. I'm going to give you help. He sounded the shofar. I got to tell you this. I got distracted, but listen. He sounded the shofar. He sounded the trumpet. The Spirit of the Lord came in first. He blew the trumpet and all of the people, all of the tribes around him came, including the ones that were against him for tearing down the altars. Are you getting what I'm saying? Then Gideon was just excited. He was on fire. He was about to get an army built for him. But God took this huge army, this tremendous thousands, and cuts it down to 300. And who does he take? He takes the ones that walk by the pond to get water and just slap it in their mouth. The ones that are quick, not the whiners, the low-maintenance, the ones that are willing to forsake it, not the ones that bend down on the knee, that go down and lick it down and eat it just like a dog would do. Not those. The ones that just scoop it up. That's what he did. But what I'm getting at is then he says, Gideon's still upset. He's still afraid. He says, you know, God, you know, I'm nervous about this. So Gideon says, go down to the camp and bring one of your servants. Go down to the camp and listen to what he says. Listen in the camp, in the tent.