The founder and CEO of Living Waters, Ray Comfort, is in the studio with guys from The Babylon Bee to talk about evangelism, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how he would have handled that Elon Musk interview a bit differently. Ray tells Kyle Mann and Adam Yenser all about his life's work of talking to strangers on the street and why you should never leave home without a stack of gospel tracts. Ray can be seen on Living Waters on YouTube and his TV show Way of the Master.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Today we're talking to Ray Comfort.
Wow, that banana fits in your hand really well.
It does fit in my hand quite nicely.
It's a good heft, a nice supple timber, and it's quite nice.
Whoever designed that must have been very intelligent.
That is true.
We are talking to Ray Comfort today, who's an evangelist.
He goes out in street preaches in Santa Monica and all over, and really interesting guy.
And it was awesome that he came out here to do this interview with us.
And he's a head of Living Waters.
So you can go to livingwaters.com to check out his ministry.
And they also have a Living Waters podcast on YouTube and all kinds of platforms.
What'd you think of Mr. Comfort?
Although he didn't want me to call him Mr. Comfort.
No, uh-uh.
Well, you know, it was fun to try to make comfort jokes that he'd never heard before.
And he said he heard them all.
But I like him.
He's very interesting.
It's fascinating to hear about his experience as a street preacher.
Yeah.
So here we go.
You want tips on evangelism and standing out there and telling people that they need Jesus as their savior?
And have you ever accidentally tried to get someone to come to the Lord and you just say, hey, can you do us a solid and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
Then this is the interview for you.
You give us some great advice on how not to do that.
Your evangelism skills will be increased.
So here we go.
get ready to get comforted.
Well, thanks for coming on.
Are we on?
We are on.
Yeah.
We're rolling.
This is it.
Thanks for being here.
It's good to be here.
Yeah.
So we wanted to warm you up with a few questions, just a few casual questions that we had.
Have you ever lied?
You know what to call me?
Have you been informed?
No.
Holiness.
That'll be it.
Your holiness?
Can you do that?
That's what we're supposed to call you.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Are you lying right now?
Yeah.
So he's already broken one command.
Yeah.
I have broken them all.
We're not off to a good start here.
What do you call someone who lies?
In your case, his holiness.
That's going to get me in trouble.
Yeah, yeah.
I've kind of heard this before.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, just a little.
Nothing new under the sun.
I thought this was a unique way to start this one.
Here's a joke I bet you've never heard before.
Are you comfortable?
That's really good.
First time I heard it today.
Yes.
So can we get you anything?
No, I'm fine.
I'm great.
I'm comfortable.
All right.
Thank you.
Let me just say, I said it before.
You guys are an oasis in a desert.
Really appreciate your humor.
And we get a lot of joy out of your ministry.
If it's a ministry.
You know, I get a little weird when people call it a ministry because I think we tell jokes on the internet, you know?
I see guys like you out there, you know, street preaching and stuff, open-air preaching.
And then it's weird to me that people call this a ministry.
But it does, you know, God created humor.
He does use it, I think, to encourage us and to point us to truth.
You use humor a lot.
Yes, I do.
In your style of evangelism.
Have you noticed?
Yeah, I have noticed.
That's great.
I have noticed.
Yeah, I think Charles Spurgeon said the use of humor in a sermon is like a flash of lightning on a dark night.
And you kind of look for the next one to come along.
And I think it's legitimate.
It does wake people up.
Yeah.
I love it.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, and that's kind of like the view that people have of street preaching is this angry person who's yelling at you, you know, the whole time, which may be sometimes.
But for you to kind of do it in this unique way of actually interacting with people and, you know, you get them to laugh at themselves a little bit.
And it kind of opens the door for them to consider the ideas that you're presenting.
Well, there's a stereotype of street preaching, and I try and stay away from it.
I think Christians should be loving and personable, and that's what I try to do in the public.
And, you know, the way I do you know how to gather a crowd?
How?
Give away money.
That's kind of unusual.
For a preacher to give away money, it's like kind of water running uphill.
It's unusual.
And so people stop.
And we just ask trivia.
And when people get the trivia, right?
An example of the trivia we ask is, what's the capital of France?
And some people know it.
It's Paris.
And we give them a dollar for it.
And people gather around to answer trivia.
And we say, okay, who wants to go for five bucks?
Do you think you're a good person?
Jump up on the box and let's see how you do.
And we go through the commandments and it creates good feeling.
And there's only two loves in this world: either you love God or you love money.
And so the way to get the attention of the world is to talk about money or give it away.
Well, you got something for everybody then.
The people who love money and the people who love God get something.
Yeah, it's been said, wisely said, that you can reach more people in a good open-air session than most churches do in 12 months because you're out there where the people are.
You've got as much chance of getting people to visit a church building as you have of criminals visiting a police station.
It's not a good place to go when you're guilty.
So the idea of evangelism is to do what Jesus said to do and go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
In fact, excuse me, tadpole in my throat trying to evolve into a frog.
I've studied the word go in the original Greek.
Do you know what it means?
Go.
That's actually what it means.
And when he said go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, that word all means all, and the word every means every.
So when Jesus said to go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, to be to the original Greek, he was saying actually to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
So that's what we do.
We take it seriously.
It seems like a lot of churches are focused on evangelism like from the pulpit.
You know, the sermons become more evangelistic.
Not that that's a bad thing, or maybe it is.
I don't know.
What's your opinion on that?
Well, it's preaching to the choir.
I'd encourage every pastor, obviously, preach the gospel in case unsaved people come into his congregation.
But if you don't explain to your congregation what you're doing, they're going to get tired of it.
You know, the repetitive nature of it.
So if I was pastoring, I'd say every week I'm going to give a short gospel message because I care that people are in our midst that might be unsaved.
One of the greatest catalysts for me to reach out to the lost is the existence of hell.
If hell didn't exist, I wouldn't have a ministry.
I wouldn't bother.
Who cares?
I'd be out surfing.
So you're very grateful for hell.
Well, I wouldn't say that, but I would say it gives incentive.
Wherefore, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
And one of the greatest crimes of our nation is idolatry.
We've got an image of God.
He's either a hairy old man on a cloud poking Adam's finger.
That's the image most people get.
Or he's a divine butler that we're supposed to click our fingers and he's going to come running.
It just doesn't work like that.
God is nothing like we imagine him, like we imagine him to be.
He's holy and he's going to have a day of judgment and that's a fearful thing.
I'd rather fall under the face of the sun than fall into the hands of the living and God in my sins.
It's a terrifying thing.
Death, this sounds nice for a humorous ministry.
Death is evidence that God is deadly serious about sin.
Why do we die?
Because the wages of sin is death.
God is paying us in death for our sins.
We think lightly of sin, but God certainly doesn't because he's holy.
And so that's the incentive for Christians to obey the great commission to take the gospel to every creature.
When you're out street preaching, and this is like the way of the master, is that still what you call the that's the name about our ministry, but it really isn't my method.
It really is.
I copied it from Jesus, Mark 10, verse 17, where the rich young ruler rounded Jesus, knelt down and said, good master.
And Jesus said, why do you call me good?
People don't have a right understanding of what the word good means.
It means moral perfection and thought, word, and deed.
And then he gave him five of the ten commandments.
In fact, he threw something in there that is kind of unusual.
He said, defraud not right in the middle of the commandments.
That's not a commandment.
Defraud not.
Saying that to the rich young ruler, why did he do that?
Perhaps it was because he gained his riches by fraud.
I don't know.
Could be.
And he went away sorrowful for he was rich.
He loved his money.
So when I meet sinners, I said, do you think you're a good person?
And they say, yeah, I am.
I'm a good person.
That's not unusual because people don't understand what the word good means.
So then I bring out the commandments and say, this is what God means by good.
And that's why we need a savior.
Now, what's your batting average?
You go out there and preach.
Do you convert like half the people you talk to?
Or do a lot of people go away sad, like the rich young ruler?
Well, I would say after open-air preaching for 40 years, I haven't converted a soul.
Not one.
God does the converting.
I just plant the seed.
He grows the tree and he brings forth the fruit.
I just do a little watering here and there.
So I don't have any success.
God's not wanting my success.
He just wants my faithfulness.
And so that's what I strive to do, be faithful.
I went to one of these big crusade type things, and I got a letter afterwards that said they converted 5,000 people over a day or whatever.
And I started to think about it, probably the churches in the area didn't gain 5,000 people after this crusade or whatever.
And I don't want to trash it or whatever.
I'm sure a lot of people did have.
I'm sure a lot of people did encounter the gospel for the first time or whatever.
But it did seem like it was very numbers focused.
Yeah, and what I would like to know is how do they have access to the book of life to know 5,000 people came to Christianity?
It was 5,072.
Exactly.
Right, 5,072.
Because when the gospel is preached, it falls on stony ground, thorny ground, good soil.
And you've got to wait for the fruit to come before you can say that person seems like he came to Christ.
So how do you share the gospel?
We just ask people if they want to do us a solid and accept Jesus.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's what I was thinking about when you were talking about, you know, the parable of the seed sower there.
I always wonder when people, what's that?
No, I didn't say anything.
Oh, I always think when people share the gospel, like when we ask people, kind of tongue-in-cheek, but the end of our interviews, if they'll accept Jesus, there's people who get mad in our comments and are like, well, why didn't you witness to him more?
Why didn't you kind of dive into it?
It seems like it isn't always, you want to kind of plant that seed.
I try to share the gospel with people throughout my life, but it seems like it's a process that takes place over time.
It's hard to just tell someone the good news and instantly know whether they've accepted or saved or have changed their life in any way.
Yeah, there is a way to share the gospel and the full gospel without offense.
And let me share with you what I do.
If I meet a complete stranger, I can bring up the gospel without bringing up the gospel.
All I do is ask one question.
And this has been absolutely life-changing.
I've done it for years.
I just say, do you think there's an afterlife?
I did it this morning, went to a local college, spoke to three young people.
What's your thoughts on the afterlife?
I didn't mention God, Jesus, heaven, hell, the Bible, sin, righteousness, judgment, any of those things that make them and us feel uncomfortable.
I just asked for their opinion.
And most people say, well, I do think there is an afterlife.
Is there heaven and hell?
And they say, well, I don't know.
I say, you're afraid of dying.
And they say, yeah, I'm terrified.
So that's very humble of you to admit that.
The Bible says every human being is haunted by the fear of death.
all their lifetime.
It's the book of Hebrews.
And that's something you and I can tap into because we're talking to somebody that's not an animal.
They're not a primate.
They're not a beast.
They're a human being.
God's placed eternity on their heart and there's something in them that says, oh, I don't want to die.
That's their God-given will to live.
And so when I ask someone that question, I know that there's something in them that's going to agree with what I'm saying.
You guys have got a YouTube channel.
We have learned that the key to any title is conflict and curiosity.
If you can get that in your title, you're going to get views.
For instance, we had a young lady that was on a soapbox once.
She has a soapbox.
I have a soapbox.
And she was mocking me to begin with.
And then she changed her mind and listened to the gospel.
And I said, have you stopped mocking me?
Are you taking this?
She said, yeah.
We could have titled that, Young Lady Changes Her Mind and Listens to the Gospel.
That would have got mediocre views.
But instead, we said, she mocked the preacher, and then this happened.
And it went to millions of views.
Why?
Because of conflict.
She mocked the preacher and curiosity.
Why did that happen?
You can see it in, ever seen House Hunters on television?
Yeah.
Yeah, you watch how they do that program.
It's always got conflict and curiosity.
They look at three different homes, and it starts off with her saying to him, you're not getting a man cave.
That immediately pulls you in emotionally.
You say, how could she say that?
She shouldn't handpick the guy, the poor guy.
And at the end, she says, honey, we've got a house with a man cave because I love you.
And that gives you the warm fuzzy.
So you say to your wife, that was just so nice.
I'm going to watch it next time.
Conflict and curiosity.
What house will they pick?
And so we can tap into that in our evangelism.
When I say to people, do you think there's an afterlife, you're afraid of dying, say, do you know the message of the Bible?
They say, no.
I say, let me give you a synopsis.
Old Testament, God promised to destroy death.
The New Testament tells us how he did it.
And what person who's got a fear of death in their heart, which every human being has got, isn't going to say, what did God do?
Did he really destroy death?
Because that's the claim of scripture.
Jesus Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
And the conflict is death.
So you've got curiosity and the conflict of death.
And both those things will work for you.
Take, for example, how a waitress approaches a table in a restaurant.
She sees three businessmen.
They're wearing three-piece suits.
They've got these little important cases.
They're wheeling and dealing millions of dollars.
Does she say, I can't approach these guys, they're important.
No, she just walks up and says, can I take your order?
Why is she bold?
Well, because she knows she has what they want.
They are there to eat food.
So she's bold.
And you and I have what this world wants.
They want to live.
They don't want death to consume them.
So we need to be bold.
Same with Jesus in John chapter 4.
Water at the well.
He said, if you knew who I was, you'd ask and I'd give you living water.
So we've got to realize that we have to be bold if we love sinners.
That's my motivation.
Love.
That's all it is.
I care about people and that's the motivation of every Christian.
That's why we should share the gospel.
And do it biblically because we don't want to fill the church with false converts.
We hire you to head up our social media department because it all sounds like search engine optimization.
He's just describing clickbait.
It is the most Christian explanation of clickbait I've ever seen.
We are very, very careful of clickbait.
It really is a deceitful thing to do to do it.
But it gets your views.
Well, we'd never do it because we've got godly men that are men of integrity, and we always look at it and say, this isn't going to work if it's clickbait, because we want to honor God.
And for those who don't know what clickbait is, it's saying something that isn't true.
It's being deceitful.
It's not in the article.
It's not in the media.
So we always make sure that we're legitimate and we're walking in integrity because we want to fear God first.
You ever put a good-looking girl in the thumbnail?
That always works.
It does sometimes.
But I've found, and this is deadly serious, I've found some of the most boring-looking people are the best interviews I get.
I go up to someone and there's this, yeah, yeah, this is true.
That's true.
No, I've got this, I'm a normal human being.
God looks on the heart, the man looks on the outward appearance.
So I make my judgments on the outward appearance.
This is going to be boring by the look of this person.
I shouldn't do it, but I do it because I'm human.
We all do it.
We make a summation when we see someone.
But I found just the opposite takes place.
Once the person begins talking, they're a deep thinker.
They're thinking about the issues of life and death.
They're humble of heart.
They may begin to weep as they hear about the cross, as we've had videos recently.
So I've learned never to be prejudiced and never think this is a good-looking person.
This is going to be a great interview.
But it does get views if we put someone like me on the craziest kind of violence or pushback that you've experienced when you're out there.
I got beat up by a woman.
That's clickbait right there.
No, it's not clickbait.
It's true.
Let me give you the details so you understand what happened.
I was open-air preaching in Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade and had a crowd of about 40, 50 people.
And this young lady started yelling out, describing me using the F word.
So I just looked at her and said, the F word.
Which is a filthy word.
The F word.
And I said, ma'am, can you watch your language?
There are ladies present.
And I shouldn't have said that because that got her mad.
She says, I'm a lady.
I said, madam, you may be a woman, but you're not a lady.
With that, she rushed at me like a bat out of heaven and began to beat me up.
And it was not the usual scratch, scratch poke, pull here.
She'd been, like Mike Tyson's sister.
And the team actually pulled her off, I was on the ground, pulled her off, and she said, let me get my handbag.
And they let her go and she got in a kidney punch.
She doubled the crowd so she can come back anytime, but it was my mouth that got me into trouble.
It took two weeks for the bruising to go.
But that's the only time after thousands of times of open-air preaching I've been beaten up.
And it's not as dangerous as you think.
People are actually not violent at heart if you treat them with respect, which we always try to do.
Now, you're sure she was a woman sometimes in Santa Monica.
She was definitely a woman.
It was the way she punched, I could tell you.
Spoken like someone.
Are there cities that you find or areas of cities that are better for street preaching?
Like, are there good cities where you're like, oh, this is a good spot to do it?
Or are there certain locations that you find are best?
Well, like Santa Monica, people aren't there to hear the gospel.
They're there to walk around and have fun, right?
That's true.
But we go there because we know we can get a crowd if we're gentle and use wisdom at the beginning.
And we let them know that we're Christians and that we're going to talk to them about the things of God.
And they're there of their own free will.
And that's the good thing about open-air preaching.
If you can gather a crowd, they're there of their own free will.
And you get to share the message of everlasting life with them.
Now, you're talking about the need to be bold in evangelism.
Are you naturally kind of a bold, outgoing person?
Or is that something that you kind of developed in yourself as?
No, I'm not bold.
Seriously.
I'm reasonably quiet and shy.
But let me ask you a question.
Could I ever get you to jump into a pond that's filled with chunks of ice that's so cold you would die in three minutes?
You'd say, No, no.
But if you saw.
You can't get out before.
If you were like, this is a new health trend and everyone in Norway is doing it, then you'd get a lot of people that would be like, let's do it.
Let's get in there.
Yeah, yeah.
No, don't ruin the analogy.
Of course, anyone with a brain would say, no, you'd never get me in a jump-dog pond that's going to kill me in three minutes.
However, if you saw a four-year-old boy fall into that pond and his feet weren't touching the bottom and he began to drown, you wouldn't hesitate.
You would jump in and grab him and pull him out.
You wouldn't worry about your flesh.
Love does that.
Love is very powerful.
And so the motivation for the Christian is one of love.
People are going to hell.
They're dying.
We've got everlasting life, so we have a moral obligation.
So if you have got a problem with fear when it comes to reaching out to the lost, don't pray for less fear, pray for more love.
Because that's the problem.
Perfect love casts out all fear.
So I have my fears.
Whenever I go to witness to someone, suddenly Zacchaeus turns into Goliath just in an instant in my mind.
I get these fears and concerns.
But I'm like a firefighter.
Any firefighter who arrives at a building that's on fire and people are up the top floor and they're screaming for help isn't going to turn around and go home because he wants to be with his wife and kids and watch TV because he's more get more out of that than doing this.
No, he's a firefighter.
He's committed to do that.
So he climbs the ladder despite his fears, reaches out and pulls them from that fire.
Why?
Because that's what firefighters do.
And if you and I are Christians, there should be a love in our heart that drives us to reach the lost.
Always, continually.
And so I'm horrified that people are going to hell.
I can't walk past a person on the street without being deeply concerned for them.
And I can't talk to everyone, but I can give them a gospel tract.
And that's what we should do as Christians if we profess to have the love of God within us.
And if you look at the book of Acts, that's what they're like.
Every corner.
Lives are in jeopardy.
Their own lives are in jeopardy, but they still preach the gospel because they cared for the lost.
Scripture uses an analogy on firefighter in the book of Jude.
It says, others making a difference, having compassion, pulling them from the fire, hating them with a garment spotted by the flesh.
I went for two weeks once without reaching out to the lost, and I felt ashamed, absolutely ashamed.
I was just caught up on other things.
And sadly, much of the church is caught up on other things when we should be doing what Jesus commanded us to do.
All the world, gospel to every creature.
Now, in your view, does that mean that everybody should be a street preacher?
Okay.
No, definitely not.
But everyone should have a concern for the lost.
Everyone.
I mean, we've got something in our hands that just the Apostle Paul would be green with envy.
I don't know why green, but he would be filled with righteous enviousness, if there's such a word.
I think it's just envy.
Because, thank you.
Social media.
You can get on social media and literally reach millions.
Our YouTube channel is just passing 200 million views.
We are in awe that we have this access to literally millions of people with a gospel that can bring them to everlasting life.
So anyone can get on the internet each day and just go in with a little gospel presentation and just drop it there and say, Love to know what you think of this.
Or if you're a mom and you go to the supermarket, just take a gospel tract and leave it with the teller or the person that's at the checkout stand and say, You might like to read this when you've got a minute.
Americans aren't anti-Christ.
They really aren't.
90% of Americans wanted Under God kept in the Pledge of Allegiance.
And so we've got this incredible liberty in this wonderful country and we need to take advantage of it while we still have it.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Did you see the new Batman movie?
Yeah, it's filled with blasphemy.
Did you watch it?
Can I get a change of shirt?
Yeah.
Why it started and get sweaty?
So you had this banana video and that you would talk about.
Yeah, it was a parody.
I would hold up a banana and say, this is the ACT.