Stone the Preacher

“I know of nothing which I would choose to have as the subject of my ambition for life than to be kept faithful to my God till death, still to be a soul winner, still to be a true herald of the cross, and testify the name of Jesus to the last hour.

It is only such who in the ministry shall be saved.”

(I’m taking Monday off. I will return on Tuesday with the possible reason why the Pete’s coffee server lady hates me so much… I have some clues!)

I parked my car in front of a restaurant, ready to run in “for a quick second” to get some take-out. There was a parking meter.
Should I pay the quarter? After all, I will only be here for a moment.

I thought about a question I ask when sharing my faith: “Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever taken a cookie, a pencil, a paperclip… too much time on a parking meter?”

I wrestled with God.
 

I will only be in there for 4 minutes. I don’t need to pay a quarter for 4 minutes! Surely God wouldn’t mind…

“…too much time on a parkiiiiiiinnnnnggggg meeeettttteeeerrrr?”

Dang! I couldn’t get away from that question. I was stuck, conscience stricken by the eighth Commandment—His unchanging, permanent, moral law: “Do not steal.”

“Have you ever stolen anything?”

Opening my ashtray, I grudgingly dug out twenty-five cents and reluctantly—bitterly—dropped it in the meter to pay for my 4 MINUTES! of parking, then went inside the restaurant shaking my head.

I paid the bill, tipped the cashier, and picked up the bag of food all within a lousy 4 MINUTES!, opened the door to exit… when suddenly I saw—the meter maid chalking my tire!
She then buzzed on up the street hoping to catch some other scofflaw wanting to save two bits.

I’m no thief. And God just saved me 160 quarters—in parking fines.

—you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? —Romans 2:21

“Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.”

—Quote from Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 229.

This one minute video confirms Darwin’s greatest fear.

I was very moved when I saw “Righteous” Richard Chavarria do open-air preaching at the Torrance DMV, and was amazed at the stilled hush of the more than 50 people standing in line who listened intently as he delivered his 8 minute message from the sidewalk. I asked him for a copy of the message he preached and was determined to practice this at home for a few days hoping to try it out the following Monday when Richard was on vacation from his duties at the DMV.

Monday came and I was awakened at 2:45. The doubts came flooding in my mind: Just wait until Wednesday… You’re not ready yet….

I asked the Lord to confirm if He wanted me to go out. As I opened up my Bible, I received a text message at 3:12am from a man who lives and ministers in Washington D.C.: “Ye shall be my witnesses, to the ends of the earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and I am with you.” The same text message then came again! This man had never sent me a text message in the 3 years that I have known him, so I knew this was the Lord.

Since Aug 13, I have gone out every morning Monday through Friday, and have had the opportunty to preach to over 200 people in one week!
That’s more non-Christians that I have been able to deliver the gospel to than in the last 5 years combined!

(Tatsuo is the newest member of our evangelism team. He will now preach every day at the Torrance DMV. “Righteous” Richard has now moved to the City of Hawthorne DMV where he will preach Tuesday thru Thursday. And we have a new guy, B.J., who will start preaching at the San Pedro DMV.)

Catherine Booth was the wife of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.

REVELATION 6:17: For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

 THERE have been some terrible days of wrath in the past history of this world. That was a day of wrath when, wearied by the cry of their sins and iniquities, the Lord rained fire from Heaven on the guilty inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. What consternation and dismay must have seized them when they beheld the first fiery strokes of His vengeance! What a change in their feelings, they who had thought themselves and their deeds of darkness so hidden from the eye of God and from the strokes of His justice; they who had revelled in their iniquities, laughed at His threatenings, and mocked the prophecies of His vengeance, how must they have quailed and howled as each torrent of fire fell on their devoted heads! It was a day of vengeance, a day of wrath. Click here to read the rest.

Can you guess what’s wrong with this church’s Gospel message?

Their statement of purpose reads: “A Judeo-Christian Fellowship with the belief that the Ten Commandments are the moral and spiritual guide that G-D has given us. The Fellowship holds Cannabis as a sacrament, as mentioned in both the Old and New Testament, and most specifically in Revelation 22:2 as a plant for the healing of all nations.”

Incidentally, The Rev. Craig X Rubin, 41, was arrested and now faces up to four years, eight months in prison for possessing marijuana for sale. Read the story here.

As you have read on this blog, I take the Western church to task for its lack of evangelistic zeal. But I have just discovered a great new site that uncovers everything that’s wrong with American Christianity. It’s called www.alittleleaven.com and the stuff it features shows how far we have fallen as a nation from worshiping the One True God.

Since Christians don’t share their faith anymore, churches must come up with new, exciting —abhorrent—gimmicks to attract the crowds.

Here’s a sample I found of an Elvis impersonator leading a concregation (choir and all) in a classic hymn. The wrath of God is indeed being revealed…

In Surrey, Canada, a hot air balloon burst into flames just before launching killing a woman and her daughter, and seriously injuring 11 other people.
Three passengers were not able to escape before the balloon shot in the air, burned and plummeted into an RV park. Photos and video here.

This is an excerpt from R.C. Sproul’s preface to his commentary on the book of Romans.

We can think too of a young Anglican clergyman in England during the 18th century who, though he had been trained in the seminary and had been ordained by the church, was cold of heart and not even a believer.
One day he was standing in a crowd of people listening to a fervent preacher in Aldersgate, London. Although he wasn’t really all that interested in the sermon, somehow he seemed drawn by the words he was hearing in a sermon taken from the book of Romans. And the young man, John Wesley, said, “Suddenly, my heart was strangely warmed.” As the Word of God from the book of Romans fell upon John Wesley, he was converted and later became one of the most forcible, religious reformers the world has ever known.

I wonder if Wesley was standing at a stoplight when he heard the sermon? Read his bio here.

To find out where we are going this Friday and Saturday, and when our evangelism classes will be held, click here for all updated info (and to watch a cool video, too).

It may seem ridiculous. It may seem highly unorthodox. It may seem kinda weird.

And you’d be right. But it’s needed now more than ever. What am I referring to? Stoplight preaching.

While Ray Comfort and his team preached at the base of the Huntington Beach Pier, six of us saw a golden opportunity to reach the lost with 50 second sermons at the stoplight across the street.

Twenty to thirty unsuspecting pedestrians gathered at the crosswalk before crossing over to the pier side; the vast majority lost, and heading for Judgment Day and an eternity in Hell because of their offenses toward God. We had to do something!

Our strategy: When the light blinked red, the evangelism team would hand out Gospel tracts to those waiting at the curb.

Then one of the preachers would stand on a milkcrate…
…and launch into a sermon that went something like this:

“Hi Everybody! You just received a million dollar bill with the million dollar question written on the back.
Here it is: If you were to die today, would you go to Heaven or Hell? Here’s a quick test: Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen? Or misused God’s name? If so, then God sees you as a liar, thief, and blasphemer. On Judgment Day you will be found guilty and end up in Hell to pay for your sins.
But that’s not God’s will. Jesus paid the price for all your sins by dying on a cross. If you repent and put your trust in Him, He will forgive you of every sin you’ve ever committed and grant you everlasting life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have have eternal life. Jesus said that you cannot see the kingdom of God unless you’ve been born again.
It’s not God’s will that any should perish but all should come to repentance. Please consider what I said. Thank you.”

The people would then move, I mean move! across the street.
At the same time, hundreds more people would cross over to us from the pier side. We’d make sure that everyone got a Gospel tract before leaving.

The light would turn red again, a new group of people would stop, then we’d rotate in another preacher.

Again…
…and again and again.

This is certainly not “light” preaching, it’s pretty heavy—and serious—stuff! We don’t preach that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. We don’t preach that Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart or that you have a God-shaped vacuum in your heart or that you will have all joy and happiness and peace all the time. No! I hate light preaching. In fact we should stop light preaching!

Yes, there was some persecution, y’know, American style. I heard one lady say, “Oh no! they’re over there, too,” as she crossed from Ray Comfort’s side of the street to ours.

Every now and then some anonymous face in the crowd would let loose with a cuss word. We’d redeem it by giving each other a high five and saying, “You just got blessed, brother!” (Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”)

“Shut up, you idiot!” High five! “Religious fanatics!” Slap me another one, bro.

I won the blessed contest by having physical violence perpetrated against my body—by getting shot in the chest …with a high-powered squirt gun. He didn’t hit me in the mouth, so I just kept on preaching.
Then he shot me again. Give me ten!

One guy was readying himself to curse me big time, when his girlfriend suddenly slammed him in the chest saying, “Listen to him!” There were also scattered “Amens!” on occasion.

In one day, we preached 50 sermons collectively to over 1000 people who for the most part would not be caught alive in church.

You just might call what we were doing a signal from God…

“No sort of defense is needed for preaching out-of-doors; but it would need very potent arguments to prove that a man had done his duty who has never preached beyond the walls of his meetinghouse.”
—Charles H. Spurgeon

(The featured stoplight evangelists in order of photos are: Richard Hidalgo, Mark Haley, myself, Richard Chavarria, Johnny Su and Tatsuo Akimine.)

Richard Dawkins is the Pope of atheism.

And his website, RichardDawkins.net is the place where adherents all agree that God doesn’t exist, humans came from ants, and Christians are kooks.

I happened to find my blog referred to in the comments section of an article called “Jesus ‘Love-Bombs’ You”.

The author of this article “attended a five-day seminar at Coral Ridge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where I was taught, often by D. James Kennedy, the techniques of conversion. The callousness of these techniques—targeting the vulnerable, building false friendships with the lonely or troubled, promising to relieve people of the most fundamental dreads of human existence from the fear of mortality to the numbing pain of grief—gave to the process an awful cruelty and dishonesty. I attended the seminar as part of the research for my book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” The rest is predictable, slamming Christians for their commitment to living a Christ-honoring life by going out and sharing their faith.

But the fun really began when I read the comments referencing my blog. Here they are:

em>From Devolution:If you want a great example of a Los Angeles based Christian group that follows this cult-like system of conversion, check this out: www.evtales.com. You will not believe some of the ridiculous things on this site.

From flobear:Devolution, [Re:] www.evtales.com. Maybe I’m dense, but is this satire?

From davyB: Www.evtales.com asks the “million dollar question”, “If you were to die today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?” I hope one of them asks me someday - at the mall maybe. I’ll say, “That’s easy. The answer is no.”

Read some ridiculously cynical lost words of Richard Dawkins here.

It can get a little crazy when Ray does open air preaching in Huntington…

Tomorrow I will post a recent experience when six of us “Stop Light Preached” right across the street from him.

Last week there was no small brouhaha concerning a posting about an anti-evangelism book by author John Shore called “I’m OK — You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Unbelievers And Why We Should Stop”.

The author responded with criticism that we were unfairly scrutinizing his book without having read it. However, in various interviews with the author, it was easy to determine that his book was unbiblical and heretical.

One couple, Dale and Anna Jackson, took John Shore’s challenge, read the book, and were so appalled with the content that they created a website called HeresyWatchdog.com devoted to sniffing out the anti-evangelism heresy in this book.

Check out the website here and read for yourself the review to make your own determination if what he has written is heretical or not.

If you still want to read the book, borrow it.

Read part 4 in this sordid series here.

In the meantime check out Dale and Anna (Banana) Jackson’s Evangelism store!

Click here to see their wares.

Here are some other samples to peruse:

You may want to send some of these items to author John Shore.

But will he wear them?

I had just arrived in the locker room, readying myself for a morning workout when I heard, “Nice haircut.”

Looking around, I noticed a naked guy drying himself with a towel and staring at me. “Where did you get your haircut? I like the way it looks.”

You have to understand something. Guys rarely compliment another guy’s hair, especially in a locker room. Guys look at the T.V., check the clock, talk about work and sports and superficial stuff—and never, ever, ever, compliment another man’s hair.

Feeling rather odd and uncomfortable with his comment I answered, “Uh, thanks.”

“Who cuts your hair?”

He continued to dry himself off. I tried to ignore him by looking at the clock and watching the T.V., then answered in a too loud voice, “My WIFE and I have a friend who comes over to the house to cut our hair. My whole FAMILY gets their hair cut by her.”

I thought that would send a signal. It didn’t.

“Yeah, your hair lays really nice…”

“Thanks. I’M A PASTOR RIGHT UP THE STREET AT HOPE CHAPEL.”

Undeterred and still unclothed, he persisted with a different tact.
“The Good Lord is doing some good things at Hope Chapel.”

Now, most Christians don’t call the good Lord, “Good Lord,” so I took this opportunity to see where he was with the Lord. But I really wanted him to put on some pants. “Yes, I’ve been there for about 17 years.”

He spewed out an expletive, then declared that he was a blankety-blank Christian. He used the S-word and dropped the F-bomb again while complaining how hard it was to live the Christian life, but that he admired me for living it—or something like that.

“You know… the Bible says that we should not let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths…” I said in my most subtle self-righteous way. “And I’m confused at the way that you are speaking since you are a brother.”

“We all have our ways of interpreting the Bible,” he replied, wrapping a towel around himself finally.

End of conversation. I headed to my workout, mussing up my hair a little.

A taxi driver suddenly died of a heart attack while driving on a highway in Berlin. A 78-year-old lady was riding in the cab at the time and saved herself from sudden death by being very wise. Read the article from MSN here.

The latest evangelism class at Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach, graduated Wednesday night. We started out with 72 students the first week and ended up with nearly 50 finishers!
As a rule, there is a 50% drop out rate by the end of the 6 week course. I figured out the reason why there is such a drastic drop-out rate after teaching 9 classes over the last 1 1/2 years:

If you take a doctrines class, at the end of the class you take a test and are a little smarter in your theological understanding. When you enroll in a course on prayer, at the end you are expected to pray. But when you take an evangelism class, you have to evangelize! Most people are terrified to do that, or don’t think that they can, or are convinced that they don’t have to or, or, or… so they drop out.

Our valedictorian, the top-o’-the-the-class, was Richard Hidalgo. (I spared no expense in achieving the dark, moody, sepia tone effect in these photos.)

His wife, Dora, was a previous valedictorian. With their two daughters, Makayla and Celina, (who are also evangelists), they are an awesome example of what God can do with an obedient family. Read one of their adventures here.

If you are interested in this free curriculum, leave a comment and I will email you for your mailing address.

The motto of every evangelism class that I teach is:

“Go and make _______!!!”

Fill in the last word. Disciples, right?

Wrong.

Go and make mistakes!

Jesus said to “Go!” but He didn’t tell us how, per se; so we need to be bold, adventurous, risk-takers.

Go ahead, make that foolish error that offends someone.

Tell someone too harshly that they are going to Hell. Shake your finger in someone’s face. Get in the flesh once or twice.

Heck, turn the volume of your bullhorn up real loud. Accidentally.

The only way we learn and get better at something is to try. You can’t be a Barry Bonds without striking out. Tiger Woods duffed many. And I’m sure that Beckham didn’t bend it with out biffing it one or two times.

You have my permission to muck it up, screw it up, and just plain blow it when sharing the Gospel. You will get better, I promise.

Spurgeon said to “Do something! Do something! Do something!”

Don’t listen to those misguided anti-evangelists who promote “Do nothing! Do nothing! Do nothing!”

I’m proud of you.

In yesterday’s column of “Famous Lost Words” I featured an author, John Shore, saying in an interview that Christians don’t need to evangelize; they just need to live their lives and God will do the rest.
Well, imagine my surprise! The author himself responded, starting a nice heated debate.

Mr. Shore has taken issue with a few bloggers who have not read his book, but have critiqued it negatively. He wrote:
“C’mon, now: You know better than to criticize something you haven’t read. That’s just … wrong. : - )” And: “How in the world can you expect anyone to take you seriously when you’re too lazy to even bother READING a book you dare to then criticize? It’s so deeply …. well, lame.”

Everyone has offered to read his book if he provided a “sample” copy for free. So far, Mr. Shore has not taken us up on our suggestion.

Is it indeed wrong to criticize a book without reading it when an author has already declared the irrational content in a public interview? Do I need to read every Jehovah’s Witness book to come to the conclusion that they are misguided? Wait. JW’s share their faith. Bad example.

Mr. Shore also sent me a link to his website further detailing his rather, um, strange, Emergent positions. Here are some samples: “Simply love the nonbeliever in your life. Christ will take it from there… When it comes to the relationship between you and a nonbeliever–and especially with a nonbeliever to whom you’re necessarily close–be patient. Wait. Never stop waiting. Have no agenda.”

Read the “Heresy Watchdog” website set up in his honor here.

Read his take on this passive, do-nothing approach to evangelism here.

As a counterpoint to John Shore’s seeker friendly-don’t evangelize-book (which I haven’t read and probably won’t), I thought it appropriate to post this article by a true and faithful witness…
..who doesn’t question God’s command to “Go!”:

One hundred and fifty thousand children had been on the brink of starving to death, but thanks to the kind gift of a very generous billionaire, every child now had enough food to keep him alive. That gift had arrived in the form of one big check. The horror was now over. It was finished. It was just a matter of distributing the food using the few relief workers we had. Without them to get the food to the children, there would have been many more deaths.Some days later, a frantic worker burst into the camp and cried, “Some of the relief workers have stopped distributing food. Masses of children are dying!”

Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16) If you have been unashamed to share your faith this week, write down your own tale here.
This Saturday we will go to the Redondo Beach Pier with our preaching dummy Eutychus’ Sis. For details click here.

Our very own “Righteous” Richard Chavarria is featured in the latest Newsblast, the monthly newsletter put out by The Way of the Master, that goes out to 100,000 people around the world!
Click to read it here!

To read all the articles featuring this wild and crazy evangelist, just put the words Richard Chavarria in the search bar of this blog. Then click on the title of each article to read it.

This well-meaning atheist thought he was doing a great disservice to the cause of Christianity by assembling this 4 minute video, when in fact, he has done the exact opposite. Can you figure out why?

Most books about evangelism go unread. In the case of John Shore, author of a new book called, “I’m OK — You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Unbelievers And Why We Should Stop”, that is a good thing. Why is it a good thing that this book about “evangelism” will go unread? Well, read this quote from the author, taken from an interview with him by Christianbook.com:
“I honestly think the very best way to evangelize is not to evangelize at all. Just live your life. Be true to God. Be someone whom other people just naturally admire and respect. Anyone who is honorable, kind, thoughtful, and honest will draw others to them. And it’s a real challenge to be honorable, kind, thoughtful, and honest. It’s such a challenge that anyone serious about becoming the kind of person God means for them to be has enough on their plate, right there, to stop worrying about what other people are doing. We should tend to our business, and let God handle the business of others. I think we can trust that he’s up to the job.”

And no, I’m not gonna read it…

The author responds to this article here!

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time then you know that I am adamantly opposed to the “Therapeutic Gospel.” This type of Gospel presents Christ as a cure-all, a pill, that can make life happy and oh-so-bright. “God loves you and will give you things like health, wealth, a beautiful spouse, joy all the time, and peace, peace, peace!”

While at times those things are possible to achieve, this is not the message we want to present to the lost. No, the best and most biblical message we can bring is the message that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. All have sinned because they have broken God’s moral Law, the 10 Commandments, and if found guilty the pagan will be condemned to Hell for eternity. We need to warn them with the truth, not placate them with promises of comfort.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this flyer inviting me to a convention. It read:

FOLLOW THE CHRIST!

How can following the Christ help you to

—improve family life?—deal with life’s difficult problems?

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO ATTEND THE

“FOLLOW THE CHRIST!”

DISTRICT CONVENTION OF…

Can you guess what group invited me? Was it the local “Seeker Friendly” church down the street? Or maybe the mailer was from the financiers of Joel Osteen’s building committee? Click to read what group is now also giving a man-centered presentation…
(more…)

Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for the Creator, addresses the problem of man-centered approaches to the Gospel in this article from Outreach Magazine.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on repentance seems to have evaporated in many churches these days. Instead, some churches attract people by simply telling them their life will improve if they become a follower of Jesus. The result can be false conversions—people who “sign up” for a better life through Christ, only to fall away when times get tough. They’ve never really come face-to-face with the depth of their own sinfulness and called out in utter helplessness to Jesus for forgiveness and mercy as the only alternative to spending eternity in hell. (Read the rest of the article here.)

I was carrying a huge box of vegetables at the Farmer’s Market when a man in a wheelchair pulled up alongside. “Did ya hear about Tammy Faye Baker? She died. Did ya see her on Larry King? Those big eyes, skinny—now she’s dead.”
 I’ve had my run-ins with him in the past when handing out my million dollar bill Gospel tracts. He’s always gives me a hard time about my style of evangelism and thinks that what I do is offensive. Since he was a Vietnam veteran, I never argued with him because he was very angry and seemed emotionally disturbed. He apparently hadn’t recognized me and just wanted someone to talk to.

“I told my wife about it,” he continued, explaining the tragedy of Tammy Faye. “She said, ‘God got her for all the people she ripped off.’”

Hmmm. What was his point and why was he telling me? Then I found out.

“You better tell the truth!” he warned. “God is going to get you, too.” He noticed my very heavy box full of leafy produce and added, “You can’t hand out those f—– bills carrying that thing!”

“I already reached my quota,” I assured him.

“Does anybody ever give you s— for that?”

“Lots of people,” I answered smiling. “But the Bible says that I”m blessed.”

He quickly rolled away.

Tammy Faye rolled over… in her grave.

Two weeks ago I featured a story about how Anna (Banana) Jackson witnesses inside a local Starbucks with management’s permission. I provided a link for a “Coffee Trivia” tract but there was a problem: the tract said “Coffee TriVA“.
If you’d like to download the new and improved “Coffee TriVIA” tract with the correct spelling, it’s available here.

Here’s yet another reason why I try to ask the million dollar question everyday, which is: “If you were to die today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?
Four grandmothers were bludgeoned by a crazy man wielding a hammer as they were peacefully sitting in their chairs at a beauty parlor getting their hair done. One suffered a severe fracture to her skull. Read the full story here.