To
Inquiring Members
“Who
now rejoice in my sufferings for you,and fill up that which is
behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s
sake, which is the church: whereof I am made a minster, according
to the dispensation of God.”
- Colossians 1:24,25
These
are days when we ought to die to be ministers of God, in which
days the proof of being a true minister of God does not hang in
a frame on a wall in the pastor’s office, nor as the subtitle
to the Church’s street sign, or newspaper advertisement.
These are days wherein young Christian men with “too much
zeal” dream of the days of Jermiah, Elijah and Elisha, hoping
again that God might lay his hand upon them, in some daring last
attempt to save a wicked nation for whom God cares more about,
than they care about Him. The wicked nation is here! God is still
here! And God still cares! But where are the young men?
The proofs of the ministry of God in such an age are what they
have always been. And those same proofs are the requirements of
character needed if God does find a man (Jeremiah 5:1) to lay
His hand upon in these last days. But those proofs are out of
reach and beyond the desire of the average effeminate clergy occupying
the pulpits of churches across America and the world.
“But
in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God,
in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities,
in distresses, in stripes, in imprionments,
in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings.”
- 2 Corinthians 6:4,5
Those are the situational requirements “in” which
a true minister of God is required to minister, and the demands
of scripture require a character that can, “in” those
situations continue to preach “by pureness, by knowledge,
by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness
on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by
evil report and good report” (6:6-8). And those same scriptural
requirements and demands laid upon the minister, require such
strength of character and devotion to the Lamb of God that to
endure those afflictions as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, true
ministers of God will appear “as deceivers, and yet true;
as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live;
as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;
as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing
all things” (6:8-10).
Those are the proofs of the ministry, and the requirements to
minister the word of God in a wicked nation that has forsaken
God, and resent God’s ministers warning them that “the
wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget
God” (Psalm 9:17). And it is prophetically unchangeable,
that for a young man to “make up the hedge, and stand in
the gap before God for the land…and fill up that which is
behind of the afflictions of Christ” (Ezekiel 22:30/ Colossians
1:24), it will always bring prophetic results that cannot be got
around, changed, or swapped for a more comfortable calling. To
attempt such, is to remove yourself from the ministry of God,
whether you keep your church or not. Great old John Bunyan lost
his church, but kept his ministry. There are hundreds of thousands
of so called ministers today, that keep their churches, but loose
their ministration (2 Corinthians 3:6-9/ 4:1,2). While imprisoned
in his Bedford prison’s cell, John Bunyan was told he could
keep his church, if he would sign the license, the permit to preach,
otherwise he would rot in prison. That godly saint of God said
of such,
“If
in a moment of delirium, I should reach forth my
hand to sign that paper, you would do me much service
if you would draw your sword, and sever my
arm from my body!”
God does not need anymore churches just like the ones He already
has. Neither is He calling anymore ministers just like the ones
already comfortable without Him, once they have their church house
to preach in! In these last tragic days of the church age, God
could use several thousand street preachers (Revelation 7:4).
He will settle for two (Revelation 11:7,8) if that is all that
surrender. And He will use them to do the work of thousands.
Howbeit, it requires a walk with God that surpasses education
(Acts 4:13), but instills in the man of God a wisdom and a zeal
of God to “withstand in the evil day” (Ephesians 6:13).
Not just zeal, but wisdom (Proverbs 1:20) and zeal (Psalm 119:139).
And the God called Street Preacher must be both, and can be both.
But his walk with God, demands a discipline (hence: disciples)
that surpasses the seminary and Bible school degrees passed out
like honours at a grade school for the retarded.
Hence, The Street Preachers Fellowship was created of God to fulfill
that discipline, and establish “according to the measure
of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach
even unto you” (2 Corinthians 10:13), the standard of which
can be seen in the public and private lives of all the members
of the Fellowship, “known and read of all men” (2
Corinthians 3:2), both lost and saved, in churches, and in the
prisons and courts of men when “necessity is laid upon us”
(1 Corinthians 9:16). Thus it is our goal, as a ministerial fellowship
and standards insitute, to train Street Preachers, not just in
the Biblical conduct of the open air evanglists, but to establish
that same Biblical measure as the accepted standard of both conscience
and law.
It is the position of the Fellowship that “the law is good,
if a man use it lawfully” (1 Timothy 1:8), and such is definitive
for both God’s Law and man’s, for the scriptures have
said of the latter,
“The
powers that be are ordained of God.”
- Romans 13:1
Therefore,
it is the intent and goal of the Fellowship to train its members
in the Biblical and Legal use of both God’s word and man’s
law, in the arena of conflict, when the unlawful use of the latter,
attempts to stop the lawful preaching of the former.
Additionally, it is not a sin to go to jail rather than stop preaching
the former, when they who enforce the latter know little of either.
Rather, it is the clear and repeated command and example of scriptures,
that the preaching of Jesus Christ not cease because men of authority
say so (Acts 4:1,2, 18-20/ 5:16-20, 26-27/6:10-15/12:1-6), but
continue “even unto bonds; for the word of God is not bound”
(2 Timothy 2:9).
“Did
not we straitly command you that ye
should not teach in this name?
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said,
We ought to obey God rather than man.”
- Acts 5:28,29
The
test of the preacher’s obedience to God is never in the
pew at church or the desk at Bible School. The test of the preacher’s
obedience is not in the mayor’s office asking for permission
to preach openly, or in court arguing for the right, when permision
is denied. The test of the preacher’s obedience is down
on the street where God commanded him to preach the word of God
to every creature and man says he is not allowed to do so. That
is the test of a Street Preacher’s obedience. Though you
can bind the preacher who refuses the command to be silent, you
cannot bind the word of God. You can pass all the tests at Bible
School and have your ordination papers in hand, but you fail this
test and God will find Him another minister that He can trust
to do what he commanded him to do!
O, Young men of God, “do not err my beloved Brethren”
(James 1:16). Can you not see how God has ordained the powers
that be (Romans 13:1) and also called you to preach the glorious
gospel of Jesus Christ at all costs. “Necessity…Necessity...Necessity
is laid upon me; yea, Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel”
(1 Corinthians 9:16). And “necessity” is in the same
list of requirements for the ministry as “imprisonments”
(2 Corinthians 6:4,5), because many times we “ministers
of God” need to “approve ourselves” obedient
in “the trial of our faith” (1 Peter 1:7) by going
to prison if need be, before we will quit preaching the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Because it is God, Brethren, It is God that is
looking for a man (Jeremiah 5:1) that will not compromise, and
it has always been so!
Can you not see that?? Can you not see that the same God that
called you to preach and sent you down to the streets, also sent
the policeman down to stop you? The coward my ask, Why would God
do that? But it is as plain as the scriptures (Habakkuk 2:2),
that God calls His ministers to preach, and requires of them to
“obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29). He also “ordains”
“the powers that be”, and sends them down to your
street corner as “the minister of God to thee for good”
(Romans 13:1,4), and requires that you “must needs be subject,
not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake” (vs. 5).
Hence, the Lord wants you to obey God, and at the same time “be
subject” to the power that tells you to disobey God, and
cease preaching Christ “right now”. God never tells
you to obey the man that commands you to quit preaching (Acts
5:29). God requires your subjection unto him, when he tells you
the cost of your continued preaching is imprisonment. The only
way to pass that test, is to be “obey God” and continue
preaching, yet “subject” yourself to arrest for so
doing!! But you cannot obey both God and man in that conflict,
without compromising the word of God! But you can obey one, while
subjecting youself to the other’s authority. The true minister
of God, is the man that can do both, and must do both! You “obey
God” (Acts 5:29) and preach, and you subject yourself to
the powers that be (Romans 13:1-5) and “submit”…
(1 Peter 2:13,14….It does not say ‘obey’) …you
“submit” to arrest by “them that are sent by
him for the punishment of evildoers” as the costs of preaching.
And why? For the same reasons that you are preaching in the first
place.
1. For your obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) and the love
of God (2 Corinthians 5:14).
2. For the salvation of souls, and the warning of the wicked to
repent (1 Corinthians 9:18,19).
3. For to be what God wants you to be (Philippians 3:9-12).
Brethren, the reason the gospel today has no effect, is because
the lack of the above. There are no men willing to pay the costs
God requires to bless the preaching with power. You cannot manifest
the life of Christ by this lackadaisical, effeminate, Laodecian
ministry of weak kneed and cowardly ministers of self and not
Christ alone. There is only one deifnitive verse in the entire
Bible that tells the minister of God how to manifest the life
of Christ in his ministration. And it is a ministry of conflict.
What is missing in the ministry today, are men whose “sufficiency
is of God”, and who have willfully allowed God to make them
“able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter,
but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life” (2 Corinthians 3:5,6). Why are you preaching in the
streets if all it amounts to is yelling a bunch of Bible verses,
and then going around to all the churches bragging about having
done it in so many places, making you an expert in being able
to do it with “minimum controversy”? The Bible is
very clear, there must be a spirit behind your ministration (2
Corinthians 3:8), and “the Lord is that Spirit” (vs.
17). And having such a ministry (4:1), it requires that we “faint
not” in the conflict, for such a ministration does in deed
cause conflict and controversy that is unsurpassed, and unavoidable.
God has constructed “the preaching of the cross” as
“foolishness to them that perish” (1 Corinthians 1:
18) and a job seemingly for fools, who do not mind being one for
God (1 Corinthians 4:10). And when done with the power of God
behind you, and not the pathetic feelings and reputation of the
menpleasers, it will always produce the following;
“But
we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on
every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always…always…always
bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the
life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we
which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal
flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. WE HAVING
THE SAME SPIRIT OF FAITH, ACCORDING AS IT IS WRITTEN, I BLIEVED,
AND THEREFORE HAVE I SPOKEN; WE ALSO BELIEVE, AND THEREFOR SPEAK!!!!!”
(2 Corinthians 4:7-13).
But have you ever wondered why some ministers preach, and it never
produces that, never bothers anyone, never causes any sort of
a conflict? Then there are others, that can open their mouth,
and immediately they “are troubled on every side”
(4:8)?? There is in this country, a smooth, effeminate “street
preacher”, who gives himself off as an authority and expert
on street preaching, who never worked a day in his life, but wears
a gold ring and some of the most expensive “gay clothing”
(see James 2:1-3) you will ever find. When we last knew of him,
he wore women’s make up when he preached or sang, to cut
down the shine of his oily skin when in the pulpit. That same
man is on his second “christian marriage”, and behind
the scenes is an actual “male masseusse”, who has
a proffessional clientele of homosexual “male models”
that pay him with those expensive suits of “goodly apparel”
for taking oil and massaging their naked bodies when he is not
giving himself off as an expert street preacher. That same man
has written his books about how to preach on the street, and will
tell you to obey every man, and shut up when told to do so, never
preach “to go to jail”, “don’t call names”,
don’t preach about sin, but just put out the gospel and
leave early before trouble starts, so you can be home with momy,
while the wicked go to hell at midnight. His kind never upsets
anyone, and if someone with him does, they exit stage left as
soon as possible, and criticize the “trouble maker”
as not using wisdom.
Ever met his kind? They preach the gospel too! But they never
go to jail, and probably never will. If that is your mold, The
Street Preachers’ Fellowship is not for you! We sincerely
prefer “the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings”
(see Philippians 3:10), and those minister’s, though few,
that have the courage to walk therein for the preaching of the
cross, and the salvation of lost souls.
The conflict is not an easy one. But the fellowship is designed
to train, strengthen and assist each of its memebers in their
individual ministries as they “press toward the mark for
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians
3:14). Its goals are mentioned herein. A lot of what we do is
unbelievably wonderful in the blessings of God, the power of the
Holy Ghost, and the joy of the Lord as our strength. But it requires
wisdom and zeal, strength and beauty (Psalm 96:6). With our street
preachers continually fighting sin along with the right to reprove
the same openly, there will be times of unbelievable liberty and
freedom. But in this country there will also be times of unsurpassed
hardships, enormous trouble on every side, and “labours
more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent,
in deaths oft” (2 Corinthians 11:23) as each member “makes
full proof of his ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). If God has
called you to preach, and the world is your pulpit, and you are
of the character of Christ, come join us. God as our help, we
will be there when others flee!
By
the grace of God alone,
The Street Preachers’ Fellowship
Ron McRae
Director & founder