Street preacher sits down with Kirk Franklin, claims he is guilty of selling soul to devil
A street preacher who went viral for rebuking gospel music star Kirk Franklin for failing to represent the Gospel during a 3.5-minute performance at the recent BET Awards show, defended his position during a follow-up conversation and later argued that Franklin is guilty of selling his soul to the devil.
The preacher, who identifies himself as Ty from a ministry called Untamed Truth, did not immediately respond to queries from The Christian Post on Monday. He also did not include much of what the gospel star said in his video because he did not have permission from the artist to publish his comments.
Franklin brought him to the national spotlight a week ago when he shared on social media an approximately 4-minute long clip of Ty’s rebuke on Instagram. Ty told the singer ahead of one of his concerts in Jacksonville, Florida, that he had “a lot of blood” on his hands for using his performance time to sing what he called lullabies to the world instead of pointing them to repentance.
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During the rebuke, Franklin offered to meet with the preacher to discuss his concerns and on Friday, Ty published a video report of the meeting on YouTube. Franklin’s “spiritual father,” Tony Evans, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship and founder and president of The Urban Alternative, also joined the meeting by telephone.
In the meeting, Ty defended his position using Scripture while Franklin told him that he “humbly” disagrees with how he should have used his time at the BET Awards.
Ty told Franklin, "In the churches we’re telling people that it’s OK, every person that I meet nowadays tells me that 'God loves me, we’re all sinners.' That’s the worst doctrine in America right now because the real doctrine of Jesus Christ is that 1 John 3:9 says he who is born of God does not sin for God’s seed remains in him and he cannot sin.
"The problem that we have right now is that we’ve got a whole bunch of people thinking that they love God, thinking they know God and Paul said the antichrist doesn’t set up his kingdom until there’s a great fall in the way of the Church and I think that this thing is blinding a lot of eyes of the believers."
Ty also argued that Franklin should not have been present at the BET awards at all.
"I don’t believe that God would have you stand in the presence of the wicked," he contended. "I don’t think the Lord would have you sit at BET unless it was for such a time as this for you to raise up a standard and say repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is coming, we are in the last days."
The preacher explained in his commentary that he was not at Franklin’s concert to necessarily meet him, but had actually gone there as he has done at other gospel events to warn people.
At around the 10-minute mark of the video, he begins to explain the concern he had with entertainment and argued that Franklin had sold his soul to the devil the same way his friend, controversial rapper, Kanye West, confessed he has done.
“I’m really angry that different communities are controlled by different kinds of entertainment. The white community is controlled by the Taylor Swifts of this world and the African American community is controlled by the gospel artists that are fellowshipping with artists like Kanye West,” he said before showing a clip of West telling people at one of his concerts that he sold his soul to the devil.
Franklin, he then argued, is “guilty of doing” the same thing.
“He’s guilty of actually going after a person who is actually blaspheming Jesus right to His face,” Ty argued.
He then pointed to Franklin’s involvement with the inspirational singing competition “Sunday Best,” which premiered on BET on June 30, and dismissed it as a worldly pursuit.
“I know that this has nothing more than the world written all over it. I pray for him that he might be bold enough to make a comeback for Jesus Christ,” Ty argued.
While Ty did not publish Franklin's response, he noted that the artist and Pastor Evans disagreed with him.
They "said that I was way out of line and that I don't understand what it's like to become all things to all men," Ty recounted of his conversation, noting that Franklin and Evans said the BET event served as an opportunity to build bridges.
He took the time to explain a little bit of background and why he is warning Christians about how the secular-controlled entertainment industry is being used to lead Christians astray.
“I’m not a hater of Kirk Franklin, I actually loved his music back in the day but as I began reading my Bible and started to understand that the Bible says ‘what fellowship does light have in common with darkness, I started to realize the fake for what it was. I started to realize that many other artists, not just Kirk but many other artists in the gospel, Christian rap and Christian music industry,” he said.
“I myself had to get rid of many of my own albums to this day of which I’m still trying to chase down the ability of them to get taken off of certain stores all over the world because I too was singing songs just like Kirk Franklin,” he continued.
“I was a pastor of a church, people loved me, I was loved by everybody and I sang songs, I made albums, people bought those albums. I was traveling Florida. I was starting to become very well-known in the local industry here in Florida and I was up and coming,” he said, noting how he was also getting many invitations to speak.
Then one day, he said, the Lord spoke to him.
“One day I met the Lord in my living room and He said to me that I had a lot of blood on my hands. I too had to be woken up from my sleep and I hope that Kirk Franklin will wake up from his,” he said.
“I don’t hate Kirk Franklin, the Bible says open rebuke is better than secret love. If I hated kirk Franklin I wouldn’t have come and given him the message. I wouldn’t have entertained him or even rebuked him. Jesus says the ones I love ‘I rebuke and chasten.’ It’s important that we know that when there’s love, brothers that love one another are OK with just saying hey, you need to get this right. This is wrong in your life and I was not angry at Kirk. What I’m really angry with is how the BET Awards continues to push out the filth that they do over and over again, every single day, day in and day out,” he said.
