The first day of our evangelistic effort was fantastic and highly effective. The weather was great, the morale was high for the sports fans, so there were many people in the streets, so much that most streets had to be blocked off due to such a high concentration of pedestrian traffic. This set a fantastic stage for our tracting and preaching.
On that day my particular group had many efforts in preaching and producing responses. If you've never open air preached before then know that when you get a response, whether good or bad, then you've done something right, as long as the message you've preached was not intended to provoke aggressive behavior but instead trusted in the solid truth of the gospel, for His Word will not return void (Isa 55:11).
That was a Friday, so on Friday we did not have that many mockers, although I did have one person perform a "magic" trick in front of me while preaching. The few drive-by scoffers and mockers are always normal, as the message of the cross is always foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18) although my group and I did have a large amount of individuals encourage us and thank us for doing what we were doing.
Saturday however, was a cold, windy and rainy day, which means that the crowds were much more irritated and enticed by their alcohol. We even had one of our brothers get hit with a burrito while preaching, from someone who despised his message to repent and come to Jesus (see link below). The evening contained a good amount of personal hecklers, those who you end up individually addressing because of their openness to distract you, which isn't always a bad thing. This is one of the lessons I learned; hecklers aren't always a bad thing. I had one guy walk by me while I was preaching, lift up his shirt, and show me a tattoo of a demon skull. So what did I think of when I saw it? I remembered what Jesus told the Pharisee's in John 8:44, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire." so this individual was an example to use to show the crowds that he proved my point. After he saw that he had gotten attention, he proceeded to stand in front of me and portray vulgar acts, which I then used against him again, pointing out the pleasure that the lost get in sexual immorality and the perverseness of the depraved mind, which in turn points to the law of God (Mat 5:28).
We even spoke to a guy who claimed to be Chrislamic (a blend of Islam and Christianity). When asked how he were to get to heaven, he replied "be a good person and repent" which then gave my pastor the opportunity to share the standard of Jesus and the law of God. Jesus said we must be perfect to enter heaven (Mat 5:48) but the natural condition of man is that which is not good and unrighteous (Rom 3:12,23). We also know that God is just and must punish sin, so he also shared how atonement works and how Jesus became the scapegoat of sin that the sacrificial system pointed to (Lev 16:10). The importance of that being explained is because Muslims do not believe in substitutionary atonement, rather that God simply forgives you without justice for your sins, much like the Pelagian view.
The pinnacle of the trip was Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl. The area surrounding the stadium was packed with people who had started drinking early in the day in order to prepare themselves for the football game. Big events draw odd groups of people such as the Westboro Baptist Cult, pelagian groups of many kinds, shock-and-awe preachers and legalists. If I recall, one group had a sign that said "real men of God don't drink alcohol" which would make Christ a sinner if it were true.
Aside from the conversation with a member of Westboro, which went reasonably well, the streets were filled to the brim with mockers, scoffers and God haters. All I had to do to get an angry response was just stand on the street with a cross that said "Repent and believe". As I passed out tracts many would raise their nostrils in disgust or share a few blasphemous words as they walked by. Among these little things to a silent Christian, they became much more vocal about it when the preaching started.
Because the crowds were so large, we used amplification to preach with. This set a level of volume that the crowd could not speak over, so it tended to make people become more vocal. The core of open air preaching the gospel to an audience that is constantly changing is to be sure you don't become a broken record. Most of the time you can't explain why you ended up saying what you said, except that you improvised, which is absolutely true. Open air preachers do not sit down and write an exegetical sermon with bullet points. Open air is more from the heart, a natural plead for sinners to flee the wrath of God. It's not something you have to learn to do by reading a book, you just do it (Except the Bible of course).
I remember one guy coming up to me saying, "Tell Jesus to stay the *%^& out of Indianapolis" which proved my point that man hates God. You have to understand that when you go out to evangelize, hecklers make themselves targets for supporting your very preaching in front of your audience. If you're preaching a message of "God loves you, wants to give you nice things, wants to make your marriage better, etc" then mockers make absolutely no sense, because who doesn't want all those things? But if you're preaching the Biblical gospel, that man is so far gone that we hate God, we rebel against God, we will not come to God and that we are under His wrath, then mocking makes perfect sense because it reveals that your message exposes the darkness (John 3:19,20) and makes the lost sinner uncomfortable and hostile (Rom 8:7).
All these things I've mentioned about open air preaching has been learned from practice prior and at the Super Bowl Outreach. I thank God that He uses me to go out and preach the gospel. The final thing I want to say is this...the wrath of God is essential to the gospel. God's hatred is the core of the gospel, because without anger, justice, righteousness, holiness and wrath, then there is no need for good news. There then remains no need for a preacher to go out and preach, unless of course you're a prosperity preacher, but we're speaking of Biblical truths here.
So I urge you brethren, do not be ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1:16). Do not fear man and what men say to you. If you're so concerned about your popularity, social status, friends, family, etc then you are not worthy of Jesus Christ (Matt 10:37, Luke 14:26-35, Luke 9:23, Matt 16:24). If you're a professing believer and you have not heard this before, then I urge you to examine yourself to see if you are in the faith (2 Cor 13:5). This is the core of the gospel,
"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." Romans 5:9-11
This is the love of God, that He sent His Son to die for sinners,
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. " Romans 5:6-8
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. " Romans 5:6-8
Folks, this is the fundamental basic truth of the Christian faith, and if you do not believe this then you are not saved. So I will share the same message with you that I share to all men that do not know where they are headed. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. As my pastor always says, "Jesus will either be your Lord and Savior or your Lord and Executioner."
Also watch a compilation of preaching from the Super Bowl Outreach
