Thoughts After Ten Years in the Public Square ~ Part 2

Over the passage of many years, I have received numerous entreaties from those proposing to join me in the labor of street preaching. Too often, they approach the task as if it were a mere exercise of piety—an experience to be tasted, not a life to be surrendered. I have both taught and stood beside many who began with zeal, only to fall away after a season; and I have watched as former acquaintances, once strong in the battle, have slipped back into the obscurity of  everyday life. A full decade of labor has passed, and yet, by His mercy, the fire in me does not dim. It does not merely smolder; it continues to burn hotter with every passing mile. While others have laid down their crosses for comfort, the Master has seen fit to keep the flame alive upon the altar of this servant's heart. It is a mystery of grace that after a decade of pleading with a sea of peoples, the burden for the lost is heavier now than when the journey first began.

It is a testimony to the peculiar grace of the Lord that the very videos of our labor in the streets have been used as a net to draw in inquiring souls. The church that now gathers did not come from other churches. . It was birthed upon the hard pavement of the public square, through the raw and steady preaching of the Cross.

Though few in modern religion will admit it, there exists a restless and worldly hunger to fill the pews. Invitations are scattered like seeds on stony ground, not to find the lost, but to gather the already-convinced—to move the sheep from one fold to another until the seats are filled and the denomination can be presented as 'successful.' We see the constant posting of images on social media, the curated displays of a 'group picture,' all designed to paint a portrait of prosperity for the eyes of men. It is a trend truly despicable—that we have become a people who chase the 'shadow of success' rather than the 'substance of the new creation.' We celebrate the filling of a building while the heavens wait in vain for the repentance of a single soul. To measure the Kingdom by the census of a Sunday morning is to mistake the 'noise of the gathering' for the 'pulse of the Life.'

Our labor in the crossroads of Bulacan was never for the filling of a room, but for one, the witness of Christ against the world (Matthew 24:14), and two, the birth of a creature (John 3:3)—that divine and sudden work of the Spirit that turns a rebel into a son. A church filled with the 'stolen sheep' of other pastures is but a museum of movement; but a church birthed from the hard pavement of the public square is a living testimony to the ransom of the cross. We must remain steadfast in this: that one soul brought from death unto life is of more weight than ten thousand who merely come to sit and be seen. We have not sought to decorate our gathering with the 'stolen' sheep of other folds to promote a hollow image of prosperity to the world. Instead, we have seen the Lord call His own from darkness and death. Ministry is not the foundation; it is the fruit. It does not precede the Master, but follows in His wake. We do not gather for the sake of a 'work'; we gather because we have been apprehended by a Person. To know Him as Lord is the beginning and the end of our errand; all else is but the overflow of a heart that has found its rest in Him.

There is perhaps no more misguided beginning to a spiritual errand than the inquiry, 'How can I do street preaching?' It is a question that betrays a fundamental ignorance of the war; it is the talk of a traveler who admires the map but has never the weight of the pack. To ask for the 'method' before the 'mandate' is to weigh the few coins of a momentary impulse while remaining entirely bankrupt of the gold required to finish the journey.

This inquiry does not take into account the troubles that follow in the wake of such a work—the reproach of the world, the weariness of the soul, and the long, silent seasons where the fire must burn without the fuel of human applause. It is a building planned without a foundation; a war declared without a census of the troops. Those who ask 'how' are often looking for an 'experience of piety' to add to their collection, rather than a Cross to which they must be nailed. They have not counted the cost. They do not ask if they have the breath to reach the summit, only if the view from the foothills is pleasant. But the street is not a stage for the performer; it is a battlefield for the broken. To enter it with anything less than the hand of God is to invite a collapse that dishonors the very Christ we profess to lift up. God does not discard what He starts. He finishes what He authors.

To lift up the name of Christ before men is to build the altar upon which you will be sacrificed. Every word of the Gospel is a stone laid in place; every plea to the indifferent is a binding of the soul to the will of God. We do not go into the street to be seen of men, but to be 'offered up' for their sake. It is a work that demands the life of the messenger, and consumes the self-preservation and pleasurable experience we so desperately cling to. It is a work where your life does not matter, only that Christ's name would be made known.

We err most grievously when we reduce the high calling of the Gospel to a matter of knowing what to say or having been trained enough. These are but the tools of the trade, and a man may possess a full chest of tools while his heart remains a cold and empty hearth. The question that must first be answered—the only inquiry that carries the weight of eternity—is not 'Do I know how?', but 'Do I love Christ?' If there is a heavy hand upon the soul, it is not fueled by a mere pity for the lost, (human pity is a shallow well that soon runs dry under the heat of rejection.) The true messenger is never a volunteer of his own ambition; he is a man motivated by the very Heart of Christ for the lost. His primary devotion is not to a 'cause' or a 'method,' but to the Person of the Savior. He loves Christ, and because he has been brought into the inner chambers of that love, he knows that the Master yearns for those whom the Father has given Him. He seeks them out not for the sake of a successful census, but for the sake of the Shepherd who loves them.

We must see the street for what it truly is: a field where the Shepherd Himself is seeking His sheep through the messenger He sends. The messenger is but the voice; the Shepherd is the caller. The messenger is the feet; the Shepherd is the guide. It is this Love for Christ that acts as the great 'urgency'—a holy pressure that drives the servant onward regardless of the cost, the weariness, or the indifference of the crowd.

To 'go' is to be carried by the momentum of the Shepherd’s own pursuit. It is to be so consumed by His affection for the elect of God that the messenger cannot rest until the fold is full. This is the only 'motivation' that can endure—not a love for the work, but a love for Christ who continues to seek His own through the lives He has made alive.

We do not look upon the peoples with our own eyes, but through the heart of the Savior, and the fulfillment of God's eternal covenant. To preach Christ before men is to be 'captured' by His affection, to be so possessed by the glory of His ransom. He does not know how to begin or where to go or what to say. He only knows he must.

On this earth, there are no medals in this labor, only thorns. There are more rejections than receptions. More who will leave you than who will remain with you. More slander than encouragement. Devils, than angels. Anger against you, than love for you. You will receive no dues, yet it will cost you dearly. 

To stand before people and merely speak of Christ whom you merely know about is to offer a stone to those who perish for bread. It is a spiritual bankruptcy that no amount of 'training' or 'doctrine' can ever hide. If you have not experienced the Christ of whom you speak, you are doing nothing more than presenting a theory—a lecture on a person you have never met and a power you have never felt. How can a man speak with any authority of a place he has never visited? How can he describe the atmosphere of Heaven if he does not breathe its air in his daily life? To speak of the Savior without having walked with Him daily is to be like a beggar describing the interior of a palace he has only seen through a window. 

 The street does not need 'theories'; it needs people quickened by the power of God. It does not need men who have 'studied the map,' but men who have 'walked the road.' We do not offer Christ as a subject for the mind, but as the life the life; we do not point to a place called heaven, but we carry the very fragrance of its courts upon our garments because we have been in the presence of the King.