Part 2. The Two Labors. An Introduction To The Necessity Of The Street Meeting

The street meeting is a necessary departure from that narrow and common notion which prescribes confining the movement of the Spirit within the walls of a building. It is a work of double grace for the benefit of souls: Firstly, the saints are gathered, under the canopy of heaven, together for edification and fellowship. Secondly, the Gospel is sounded in the midst of the public square. The entirety of the Holy Scriptures breathes with a missionary spirit (Psalm 119:176, Isaiah 40:11, Jeremiah 50:6, Ezekiel 34:11-12, 34:16, Zechariah 10:6, Mark 6:34, Luke 15:4, 15:8, 15:24, 19:10, John 10:11, 14, 27, Hebrews 13:20, James 5:19–20, 1 Peter 2:25, Revelation 7:17), revealing a God who is even now bringing to pass the glorious fulfillment of His Covenant: the bringing of a chosen people to Himself. In His sovereign mercy, He is pleased to redeem His elect unto Himself, not by the wisdom of men, but by the bold proclamation of the Gospel of Christ—a work most powerfully quickened by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

Ezekiel 34:11,12

In the days of the early Church, the brethren were compelled to seek the shelter of private dwellings. It was a perilous thing to be found gathering as an outlawed sect. Though the record does not detail the exact manner in which three thousand souls were brought to a saving knowledge in a single day (Acts 2:41), it is a safe assumption that such a multitude was not gathered regularly for a formal service within four walls as we do today. It may have been in one another's houses that the multitude converged that the Spirit moved with such mighty power as the church grew.

It is a lamentable truth that we have too often married our earthly comfort to our religion, and this at the bitter expense of the Great Commission. We have become a people who prefer the soft cushion of the pew to the hard soil of the harvest field, the air-conditioned halls to the humid air of the marketplace. To be sure, the meeting upon the open street is but one path in the service of the Master. There is also that noble labor of church planting—the establishing of a new lighthouse in a dark land. Yet, this, too, is but the fruit of a most intentional evangelism. No vine ever brought forth such grapes without the gardener first treading the ground with great toil and a determined hand.

Crude though the street meeting may be deemed by the refined, it remains a piercing appeal to the lost, such as the comfortable religion of our day has seen fit to discard. No longer viewed as a mandated commission from the hand of the Lord, evangelism has been relegated to the status of a mere optional program. In a tragic exchange, the agony of the secret closet has been bartered for the organization of the committee; men have dared to lay their hands upon the Ark of God, seeking to drape it in the glittering trinkets of the world to entice the entitled and augment their numbers. Yet, though the land overflows with liturgy and hermeneutics—though well-prepared messages are delivered week after week and the professing church indulges in praising itself, contented with its religious crowns—Christ is continually scoffed at, and the nation remains darker than ever. Such empty ceremony was never the heartbeat of true, Biblical worship. The small New Testament church, insignificant by today's standards, turned the world upside down. 

Did not our Master give the solemn command, 'Do this in remembrance of Me'? (Luke 22:19) And with the same breath, did He not charge us also to 'Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature'?(Mark 16:15) To whom did He give this charge? Was it only for the disciples present then, or for the whole company of the redeemed? Are we not plainly told to make disciples of all nations?(Matthew 28:19) This is no light suggestion for the clergy, but a binding duty laid upon every heart that calls Him Lord. Why then do we exalt the former, while we cast the latter behind as a mere voluntary option? It is because the one invites us to a seat of ease, while the other demands we partake of His humiliation. We are willing to sit solemnly at His table, but we shrink from standing at His side as He is presented before men. We do so for it is a path that costs us nothing of our pride, nothing of our comfort, nothing of the scorn of men, and brings us no shame in the eyes of men. 

We have chosen the safe seclusion of the pew; our pride cannot bear the shame of being publicly ignored, nor can it endure to be treated with contempt and apathy. Oh, how unthinkable it is to our refined taste that we should heed the primitive command to crucify the flesh.

It is not my design to take the reader upon a mere historical journey, seeking therein a justification for drawing the light of the Gospel from beneath the modern bushel; rather, I stand to declare that the proclamation of the Word is the sole, divinely ordained instrument by which the Kingdom of God shall advance. Now I shall say that which stands as an observable and bitter truth: man corrupts all he touches, and that not even the purity of biblical Christianity is spared his defilement. Our lack is not found in a scarcity of students who learn about Christ; it is found in the scarcity of soldiers, who after having counted the cost, are prepared to bleed in His service. This glaring predicament is due to one cause alone: we do not know God, and therefore, we find ourselves utterly devoid of faith in His promises. We have Christianity, but have not its power. 

A holy necessity is laid upon us, for the hand of the Almighty constrains our very souls. When we look upon the sea of faces before us as we lift up the glorious Gospel, the weight of their eternal destiny presses heavily upon our hearts. For should we remain silent, might these not be the very souls who, on that great day of Judgment, would plead that no warning was ever sounded for them to heed? Oh, what sorrow. For God is robbed of His rightful honor wherever a lamp remains unlit, a believer keeps his silence, or a professor of religion plows on in the arm of his own strength, without the quickening power of the Holy Spirit.

Heaven forbid that we should think the silence of His children brings glory to the Most High. No, it is only those who know their God who shall wax valiant and do exploits, heeding that Great Commission laid upon us all. The assembly of the saints must be nurtured in the deep things of the Almighty, that they may be fitted to go forth into the celestial warfare for the souls of men. For while the Church is surely a nursery for new babes in Christ, it is likewise a mighty forge, where the soldiers of the Mighty God are tempered and clothed with that promised power—the power to advance against and withstand the hosts of darkness, over all the power of the enemy, of whom we are assured a final and glorious victory.

A Burning Question

In the twilight of this present age, we must ask: Why do we no longer witness the mighty outworkings of YHWH’s hand as recorded in the Holy Scriptures? We no more behold parting of the Red Sea’s depths; no pillar of fire illuminates our midnight wanderings. We see no great deliverances from the hosts of the enemy, nor does the sun stays still in its place at the cry of a mortal man. Where are the Dagons that once fell prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant? Where are the Samsons who, by the Spirit’s might, laid low the temples of the heathen? Our eyes search in vain for the miraculous feeding of the multitudes, the leaping of the lame, or the opening of eyes long sealed in darkness.

Gideon said to him, “Pardon me, but if the LORD is with us, why has all this disaster overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about?

Judges 6:13  

This is that great disaster that hath befallen the professing Church in these our latter days. Though the form of our holy religion remains among us, the tares of worldliness and heathenism triumphs in the pulpits, in the pews, in their families, and overflows in the streets. 

Indeed, the enemy of souls hath placed his foot upon the very neck of God's people, unafraid and laughing, taunting with a seething and haughty voice: "Hush now dear Christian, hold thy peace. Conform thy ways to the fashions of this age, and be silent in thy testimony." Too many of the faithful are happy and content to blend their colors with the shadows of the world, treading the wide path that costs the least, and unmindful of their calling as ambassadors of Christ (2 Timothy 3:5, 2 Corinthians 5:20).

For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. To you this entire prophetic revelation is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.” Or when they hand the scroll to one who can’t read and say, “Read this,” he says, “I can’t read.”
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is nothing but man-made ritual.
Isaiah 29:10-13

Tell me, dear soul, has the Ancient of Days grown weary? Has His arm become shortened that it cannot save, or His heart grown cold to the cries of His children? Or is it we who are slow of heart to believe? We have become a people content to boast of a hollow faith, cherishing the dry husks of outward religion while our souls remain strangers to the quickening power of the Living God. Ask yourself, what need hath the world from a church no different from any other, or from a Christianity void of power?