A recent posting on the blog of Rev. David Wilkerson has caused a great stir among believers and non-believers alike. In his blog, Wilkerson warns of coming social unrest that will result in riots and fires. He attributes these to America being under the wrath of God. He tells us that "God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations. He is destroying the secular foundations."
Those who have responded to this blog have tended to fall into three camps. There are those who completely reject Wilkerson as having no credibility and write him off as a kook. I assure you, that is not the case. He actually has a bit of a track record in the prophecy arena.
Others have completely embraced his recent words almost uncritically. Wilkerson's words are taken almost as Gospel. This group would believe that Wilkerson is, after all, a man of God in touch with God. Thus, what he says must be accepted and we must be careful what we say against him because the Scripture says "Touch not the LORD's anointed or His prophets."
A third response is the "I don't know" approach. This, "I hope he's wrong but maybe he's right -- but I don't know so I'm going to freak out a bit" methodology probably is not that helpful. Certainly, there must be a more reasoned perspective.
Believe it or not, the Bible is very helpful in clarifying matters such as this. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 speaks to us as believers saying, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil." A few words of explanation and application are in order.
Quenching the Spirit means "to extinguish a flame." We should not be those who simply pour cold water on something someone says is Spirit-led just because we don't like it.
Despising prophecy means "to look down on or ridicule." We should not reject out of hand a message someone claims to be from God just because it doesn't jive with our thinking.
Testing all things means that we "examine or take out for a test drive" the claims. We should not accept claims uncritically. Our testing should involve what we know about God -- our God sense; what we know about the Scriptures -- our Bible sense; what we know about the person -- our people sense; and what we know about what's going on in the world -- our common sense.
Holding fast to the good means that I "make my own that which passes the test, and believe it." We should not throw away the proverbial baby with the bath water. We must eat the meat and spit out the bones.
With these verses in mind, what do we do with David Wilkinson's recent prophecy? We can't dismiss it, we can't mock it or ignore it. What we can do is test it, throwing anything out that fails the test and believing and acting on what is found to be trustworthy based on our knowledge of Scripture, our knowledge of God, what we know about the speaker, and what we know about current world events. In other words, we should take seriously that which passes the test.
Rev. Wilkerson is not like the Old Testament prophets who spoke "Thus says the LORD." If anything, he is like those of whom Paul says "for we know in part and we prophecy in part" and "we see in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:9 &.12) 1 Corinthians 14:29 says "let two or three prophets speak and let the others judge."
Because prophecy today is at best "in part" and at best, we see in glass dimly, it is necessary for what is prophesied to be judged, to be sifted through. Therefore we must follow through with the Biblical principles I have just outlined in evaluating Rev. Wilkinson's blog, as well as any others that may come our way.
Dave Watson
An Urban Christian
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