Street Preacher & Provocateur of the Flesh
Men walking in their own righteousness, presuming it to be God’s, are His greatest enemies. Saul of Tarsus was such a man, but the Lord turned him into a great friend. Ruben Chavez is such a man, but he has been hardened for destruction.
“They did not know the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their paths. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them shall not know peace” (Isaiah 59:8 MKJV).
As the result of a letter about Ruben Chavez (a.k.a. Ruben Israel, website: www.officialstreetpreachers.com) sent with a video of his street preaching, we wrote to him about his error and presumption:
Hi Ruben,
Someone recently wrote to our site (which consists of writings and letters the Lord Jesus Christ has given us), commenting on your ministry and approach to presumably preach the Gospel. Here is his letter:
Hi there, I’ve been doing some research of Ruben Israel, a street preacher, who has a lot of negative things to say about his way of preaching in the streets. In not one video have I seen him preaching the Gospel or about Jesus Christ nor encourage people to come to Christ and repent, but all he does is confront and condemn Muslims, Homosexuals, in other words, sinners with such hatred and evil, only to cause stir ups.
In a video, I saw him with his group, confronting a group of Muslims in a college campus, and one of Israel’s disciples just amazes me how hatred one can be, professing in the name of Christ. The video just speaks for itself. It just reminded me what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:1 of someone not having love is resembled as “sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eftrQOVqZ9g (Video has since been made private)
Love your website. God has surely blessed you.
Emmanuel
I replied:
Hi Emmanuel,
Looking at the video of Ruben Israel and his fellow street preacher, the following verses of Scripture express what I see and feel:
Romans 10:1-3 MKJV
(1) Brothers, truly my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is for it to be saved.
(2) For I bear record to them that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
(3) For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
As misguided as these people are in their doctrine and methods, they’re right that the Koran is a pack of lies from hell. Those who profess Christ and honor Muhammad as God’s prophet, by accepting Islam as the “religion of peace,” do the worst harm of all. See our section on Islam.
The Lord never threatened anyone to burn in hell forever, however. There is no such thing (read The State and Fate of Hell). If unalterable evil was the end of His creation, He would never have called it “good.” God is good. His character and nature leave no choice but the restoration and perfection of all things in harmony with Him and His will. That is the mission of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of all men. How glorious and great He is! (Read The Restitution of All Things.)
Thank you for writing us. Tell us more about yourself and your walk with the Lord, if you will.
What do you think, Ruben? Please don’t answer before reading at the links I gave Emmanuel and hearing the Gospel we preach.
Here for you in the Lord, by His grace made available to all sinners,
A fellow believer, Ronnie Tanner, wrote to Ruben at the same time, to let him know about the discussion going on at our forum about his street preaching to Muslims:
Hi Ruben and greetings!
A friend sent across a video from the ASU campus and some things were shared that I believe would be good for you to hear, Lord willing.
Here is a link to the forum where the discussion is being held:
https://www.thepathoftruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=331
Ronnie
Ronnie received the following reply:
Ruben gets 100’s of emails daily, can I ask what this is regarding before I pass this to him, if at all?
Ronnie answered:
Hello. You asked what my email was regarding. It has to do with life and death, and no less.
Particularly this video was brought to our attention that involves Ruben and The Lord’s subsequent response to him, specifically. Paul Cohen sent an email to you yesterday afternoon with his response.
I will again mention that there is an ongoing open discussion taking place here that includes others who have seen and heard the things preached at ASU and have commented.
I have carbon-copied Paul Cohen and Victor Hafichuk, who were originally forwarded the above-mentioned video.
Ronnie
Paul received the same form-mail-with-attitude as Ronnie:
Ruben gets 100’s of emails daily, can I ask what this is regarding before I pass this to him, if at all?
Paul answered:
It appears this is a canned response to filter incoming email. To whoever is reading now, my previous email informs of the relevance to Ruben. If you have specific questions, let me know.
However, if you’ve already passed along Ronnie Tanner’s email to Ruben, that provides the correspondence of interest.
The response from Ruben’s assistant (assuming there is such a person):
No email has been passed to Ruben, as said he gets 100’s daily from people who claim their way of preaching is right, their gospel is pure, their signs are anointed, their tracts are biblical. Sorry we have no time for slander and how ‘great thou art’ we are very busy doing what God has called us.
Never heard of Paul Cohen nor this path of truth.
We write back:
So let’s get this straight: Those who say they’ve got it together in the Lord and speak the truth are slanderous and presumptuous, but you, stand-in for Ruben, have it all together. Your way of preaching is right, your gospel pure, your signs are anointed, and your work Biblical. You are the right ones. Have at it, then. Why should you consider what Christ’s brothers have to say when you alone are right and everyone else can go to hell?
Victor
We received another reply from anonymous:
Glad I did not waste time and give your email to Brother Ruben.
I trust you don’t read the Bible like you read email.
I never mention that we preach the only way and everyone else can go to hell.
We believe the Body of Christ is large with many parts and we are faithful in our part.
If someone is moved to knock on doors, we support them.
If someone wishes to sing on the sidewalk for Jesus, we support that.
If someone wishes to pass out tracts and speak one on one, we support that.
If someone wishes to hold a gospel sign, we support that, NOT slander those parts in the Body of Christ.
You must have a new part in the body ‘slander and gossip for Jesus’
You can delete our contact info, we are much too busy to answer your endless questions
To which we now say, summarizing the matter:
Although our correspondent doesn’t identify him or herself, their antagonistic, self-righteous arrogance is certainly the same as Ruben’s.
Ruben’s email address, to which we sent our letters during this correspondence, is, “I rebuke you.” Doesn’t that say it all? One size fits all – Ruben rebukes everybody, even the Lord Jesus Christ and His servants.
Ruben and his fellows verbally assault Muslims, telling them they’ll burn in Hell for their error, and film the event to show what great heroes they are for Christ. But when one kindly tells them of their error, offering hope of the Truth and repentance, they scoff and revile. Because they do this, God sends an evil messenger their way, one who is not kind or who can be reasoned with.
Ruben and his fellows support any form of religion that agrees with them. In this they’re no different from the Muslims they condemn, except they’re worse because they’re hypocrites preaching the Light of All Men, which the Muslims aren’t doing. Therefore the Muslims will be their judges.