SADNESS AND JOY

This has been an exhausting week. A little over a week ago, Carol and I received a phone call informing us of David Wilkerson’s death. Within the next couple of days we received calls from friends across the country and from as far away as Brazil, all asking the same question, “Is this true?” Their tone of disbelief conveyed, “Could this possibly be true?”

At first there definitely was a sense of disbelief that the man of God could be gone. When I first heard the news I was stunned, numb. I sat at my desk for a couple of hours trying to come to grips with the reality of the situation—and then came the sadness, sadness that an important voice had been silenced and profound sorrow that a treasured friend was gone.

But the sadness turned to joy as I began to reflect on the legacy of David Wilkerson, what his amazing faith and courage had brought forth—and there is a lot to that legacy. As my wife said, “This is a day of broken hearts…and joyful hope.”

On Monday, Carol, our daughters Barbara and Leslie, and I attended the private funeral of “Brother Dave” in Tyler, Texas, and it was truly a joyous time of tribute. Brother Dave would not have particularly liked the funeral service, I’m sure, because he would have been uncomfortable with all the nice things that were said about him.

It was so encouraging to hear Brother Dave’s sons, his sons-in-law, and grandsons share about the positive impact he had upon their lives.

Nicky Cruz gave a tribute to the man who led him to the Lord in 1958. Nicky’s blunt statement was, “If David Wilkerson had not come to New York and shared the love of Jesus with me, I would be in the pit of hell now.” But because Brother Dave did reach out, and Nicky responded to the love of God, Nicky went on to become one of the most effective evangelists of the last fifty years and conservatively speaking, hundreds of thousands of people have been brought into the kingdom of God through his witness.

It was not just the speakers on the platform but many sitting in the crowd that brought joy to the funeral. Victor Torres, one of the early converts of Teen Challenge who now pastors a church in Richmond, Virginia, was there. Likewise, Sonny Arguinzoni, the first heroin addict to be helped through Teen Challenge, who went from New York Teen Challenge to study at Bible college in California. He became the pastor/founder of the Victory Outreach movement that now has planted over 500 churches in troubled areas of big cities throughout the world. Sonny is a Christian leader today because David Wilkerson believed that God could set him free from heroin and stubbornly and compassionately would not give up on Sonny, even though he left Teen Challenge and went back to drugs several times before victory finally came. Not only is Teen Challenge reaching out around the world but so is Victory Outreach. Because Brother Dave reached out to Sonny, that ministry is reaching tens of thousands of ex-cons, drug addicts, gangbangers, prostitutes and street kids. Sonny’s ministry, Nicky’s ministry, Victor’s ministry and so many others all began because David Wilkerson listened to the voice of the Lord and obeyed. And because he obeyed, there was much celebration at the funeral.

A special moment for me at the service was listening to Dallas and Linda Holm as they led the congregation in worship. Toward the end of the service, with just his guitar accompanying him, Dallas sang his great song “Rise Again.”

This last week has been a time of sadness and joy but the sadness keeps getting pushed out of the way by the joy of knowing what one man with unlimited faith could accomplish.

On May 14 at 2:00 pm, a memorial service will be held at Times Square Church in New York City. People from all over the world will be coming for this service, so other sites are being secured in the city to accommodate the overflow. The service will be streamed live via the Internet. You can share in the service in your home, with friends, or perhaps have a viewing at your church. All you need to do is go to the Times Square Church website at www.tscnyc.org

Below is a photo of the original crusade team taken on Monday (May 2) after the funeral service. The handsome dude to the right is yours truly. I was the very first crusade team member in 1967. In the middle is Dallas Holm, who came to the team at the end of 1969. And on the left is Rich Schulz, who joined us in 1970 as our Business Administrator. We traveled many hundreds of thousands of miles together, laughed a lot, cried sometimes, and saw God’s power reach hundreds of thousands of souls all over the world.

As Brother David Wilkerson used to say, “The best is yet to come!”