Dear Friends and Members of IBC,

In this current series of the ‘Word of the Week’, we are looking at the lives of some courageous, godly men and women whose testimonies vividly demonstrate God’s faithfulness and power. Last week we looked at the life of Nicky Cruz, whose powerful story is told in the bestselling book Run Baby Run. This week we will look at the same story, but from the position of David Wilkerson, who was the preacher who helped lead Nicky to Christ. David tells his story in his best-selling autobiography, The Cross and the Switchblade.

The book begins by describing David’s peaceful yet spiritually restless life as a pastor of a small parish in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. Within a few pages, it recalls an important turning point in his life, the day he decided to get rid of his television set and substitute the two hours of watching TV in the evenings to prayer instead. It was during one of these late-night prayer sessions that he found himself inextricably drawn to an article in the Life magazine that he had recently been reading. It was about a group of teenage gang members in New York, who were charged with brutally murdering a 15 years-old polio victim. As he looked at the article, he felt God saying to him, ‘Go to New York and help those boys’. And so together with his youth director, he soon found himself driving the 500km trip to New York to try and help some gang members he had never met before.

Sitting in the New York courtroom a few days later, he watched as the seven scared, skinny kids were brought handcuffed into the court proceedings, and after a morning of deliberations, taken out again. Surprised that everything was over so fast, and desperate to try and do something, he decided to approach the judge, yelling out ‘Your Honour’ and boldly striding forwards. However, security guards quickly apprehended him and escorted him out to the corridor, where a crowd of reporters were gathered. Eager for a news story, the journalists took his picture and he appeared in many newspapers the next day, the wild-eyed, country preacher who had bizarrely interrupted one of the nation’s biggest murder trials.

Back in Philipsburg, his congregation reacted kindly to his apparent foolish behaviour, and it appeared likely that things would quietly return to how they were before. Yet during his evening prayer sessions, he felt led to Romans 8:28, ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’, and most surprisingly, he felt God telling him to actually go back to New York. He dismissed the very idea, but over the next several evenings, the thought grew stronger, and although the very words ‘New York’ had become almost embarrassing to him, so persistent was the idea to return that he recruited his youth director once again, and together they drove back.

Finding themselves in Broadway, David had the feeling that they should stop and look around the area. He got out alone and within minutes he heard someone shout out to him, ‘Hey Davie, Preacher!’ He looked around and saw a gang of six teenagers leaning against the side of a building, with the leader sauntering after him. His name was Tommy, the leader of the ‘Rebels’ gang. He had recognised David from the newspaper. After talking to the gang for a while, explaining to them that he was interested in helping teenagers like themselves, the gang pronounced that he was one of them, based on the reasoning that the police didn’t like David, and they didn’t like them. The embarrassing courtroom scene was now being seen in a different light, God’s perfect timing was at work.

As David then attempts to find the parents of the teenage boys who were on trial, so that he can obtain their permission to visit their sons, one of the many miracles in the book is retold. As he only has the name of the gang’s leader, Luis Alvarez, he starts to call some of the 200 Alvarezs in the phone book, but doesn’t get a good response. Desperate and discouraged, he pleads for God’s help and begins to just drive aimlessly around New York. After a while, he reaches Spanish Harlem, where David suddenly has the urge to get out of the car. He sees a group of boys sitting on a porch and decides to ask them if they know a Luis Alvarez. They stare at him blankly and then another boy runs up to him and tells David that he is parked right outside Luis Alvarez’s house!

David manages to get the permission of Luis Alvarez’s father to see his son and God continues to providentially lead David to the other parents’ houses, yet he is finally blocked from actually seeing the young gang members by the prison chaplain. However, David realises that God truly wants to use him on the streets of New York and he embarks on a four-month-long walk through New York to clarify the work that he should begin doing. Slowly his evangelistic ministry to the gangs begins to take shape, as more gang members are open to listening to him due to his notorious courtroom incident. People begin to get converted and he faithfully commits himself to working with the gangs of New York.

The final chapters of The Cross and the Switchblade detail just how far that fledgling ministry grew, how God’s faithfulness and power meant that many hundreds of hopeless, addicted teenagers had their lives powerfully transformed, lives like Nicky Cruz. David and Nicky went on to work closely alongside each other, and remained friends until David’s death in 2011 at the age of 79. His life was lived outside of the TV comfort zone, on the edge, trusting that God would come through and expectedly rejoicing when He continually proved His faithfulness. David’s life should inspire us to also see what happens when we sacrificially start taking a few risks for God.

God bless you

James