Fire By Night

         David Wilkerson was a Pentecostal preacher with the Assemblies of God who in 1958 saw a Life Magazine article about some brutal teenage gang members in New York city, this from his church in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, and was utterly compelled to go to the Big Apple to rescue, with the gospel of Jesus Christ, as many of these wayward teens as he could. Out of this passion came Teen Challenge, books, movies and decades of evangelistic outreaches around the world culminating in his pastoring Times Square Church on Broadway.
          That is about when he came into my life. I had been a Christian for only a few years when somehow, I can't remember exactly how, I became acquainted with his pulpit ministry from New York City and soon listened to and owned over 100 of his sermons. The cassettes are still in my basement today. David Wilkerson's and British evangelist Leonard Ravenhill's writings exposed me to something new. In my limited knowledge I knew it only to be related somehow to the English Puritans but I also new that there was something special there. In retrospect after reading a new biography on David Wilkerson by his son Gary  (David Wilkerson: The Cross, the Switchblade, and the Man Who Believed),, I think that he also was only on the distant periphery of the Puritans. I would disagree with most of his particular theology but that is not the point I'm trying to make here.
          I've written about Reverend Wilkerson before but he himself is not really the topic of this post either. That topic is more the....David Wilkersons....in life that we read about in books. Men, or women, who are so aggressive in their passions that they accomplish much where others sit and watch, possibly partake of or maybe even criticize. I've noticed something in these folks whether they be great generals or great anythings, which I'll refer to in a little bit. But back to Reverend Wilkerson. In the beginning of his ministry, he had only himself and his immediate family to worry about. He had entire control of his actions and was alone responsible for the outcome. This is fertile ground for genius. This was Stonewall Jackson in his Valley Campaign, and again in his brilliant flanking movement at Chancellorsville. This was Churchill as he strengthened the resolve of the British people while they were being bombed. This was Jefferson in the leading up to the American Revolution, this was Washington crossing the Delaware. This was Reagan as his pure patriotism lifted a nation.
         Charles Spurgeon, as great as he was, was actually censored by his denomination later in life, by others who could not keep up with him. The same could be said for the great intellect and Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen. Luther was at his finest when the battle was raging. Bunyan wrote his classic while in jail but Napoleon could not even win with a winning hand later in life at Waterloo. Robert E. Lee could not duplicate his previous magic at Gettysburg,  Ulysses S. Grant only had his moments when everything depended on it. It goes on and on....as I see it anyway.
         So I ponder what I have come to see over the years and am convinced that when that all-consuming passion is there, when nothing matters but doing what is right, when no one else will stand up, or has any vision, then it is your time. Fear not what man will say about you but fear what God will say when you have to answer for the 'talents' given you that molder in the ground.
         There's another lesson as I see it, and it must be almost impossible to see when you are in the midst of the battle, when the fire on deck and in your heart is raging. It seems that God calls most of these great individuals....for a time.....when they are needed most. To presume that one's 'genius' will last forever is to attempt to take God out of the equation. Did not Solomon himself do this? There are exceptions of course and none more obvious than the Apostle Paul, but to the rest....play the part given to you to the best of your ability, and if God should need you again, He has a way of making it very clear who is calling.

David Wilkerson   1931-2011
          As an interesting anecdote, it turns out that Reverend Wilkerson was raised in a small Western Pennsylvania town where I lived for`a summer with my Aunt's family after moving to Pittsburgh in 1962. His family home was one block away from my aunt's. His future wife was from a small town a few miles away that my mother and I soon moved to and where I grew up. I passed David Wilkerson's father's church dozens if not hundreds of times in those years.