RADICAL CHRISTIANITY

“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:49-50).

The traditional interpretation of these verses is that the word fire Jesus was speaking of means judgment. But the word fire is also used to refer to the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:3 at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we read, “And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.”

It is my opinion that in Luke 12 Jesus was speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The fire of the Holy Spirit would set hungry hearts ablaze and those “baptized in the fire of the Holy Spirit” disciples would become “radical.”

A short time after Pentecost, Peter and John were arrested and taken before the high priest and the rulers (Acts 4:1-6). Read what happened when the religious rulers encountered “the radicals” and wanted to condemn them for preaching about Christ and healing the sick in His name.

“When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition” (Acts 4:13-14).

These radicals were among the recipients of the fire the Lord cast on the earth and the baptism that He promised. The absolute beauty of what Jesus was saying in Luke 12 is that He is still “casting fire and still baptizing” and His fire-filled followers are still becoming “radicals.”

Before going further, let’s make sure we have a good definition of the word radical. When we use the term, people often think of someone or something weird . . . such as a person wearing a signboard and yelling, “The end of the world is coming!” That’s not really radical, it’s just weird. The word radical means to get back to the fundamentals, to get back to the root or source of something. Radical Christianity is actually normal Christianity. 

My first boss (if I can call him that) in the ministry was truly a radical Christian. David Wilkerson was a small-town country preacher whom God called to begin a ministry in New York City. In 1958 Wilkerson went to New York and the Teen Challenge ministry was begun.

In 1967 David Wilkerson asked Carol and me to move to New York and help him build a crusade ministry to reach young people all across America and Canada. What God led us to build was not the traditional crusade ministry of the time. We never had big budgets, we didn’t do high-priced advertising campaigns, and we never imported celebrities to draw crowds. What we did, instead, was pray and then go where the Lord sent us. And we believed Him for a harvest of souls.

I worked with and traveled with David Wilkerson for eight years. I could have stayed much longer but I’m kind of a radical too — a radical when it comes to doing what the Lord tells me to. And when He gives direction to me . . . I follow Him!

But let me share with you a few personal insights into the radicalization of David Wilkerson.

1.    He had an all-consuming passion for the Lord; he loved the Lord and passionately wanted to please Him!

2.    He had a powerful prayer life. He was not a five-minute pray-er.

Our first apartment in New York was right over his personal office. Often late at night we would hear him in his office and while we couldn’t make out his exact words, we could tell from the cadence of his speech that he was praying.

3.    He had a consuming hunger for the Word of God.

One day I was in David’s office and I saw his Bible lying open on his desk. I asked him if I could look at it and he nodded yes. As I thumbed through it, one thing struck me. Every page from Genesis 1 to Revelation 21 was covered with his personal notes in the margins, across the top and bottom, everywhere. He was a man who consumed the Word.

4.    David was not a highly educated man by the world’s standards.

He graduated from high school and had one semester of college. But what he did have was an education orchestrated from heaven, and he was filled with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Jesus had cast His fire and a heart had been set ablaze, the recipient of the baptism that Jesus spoke of. This is more valuable than a Ph.D.

5.    A willingness to step out in faith and do exploits for God.

When David Wilkerson died in 2011, his act of obedience of “foolishly” going to New York to witness to gang members in 1958 had opened the door to over fifty years of exploits for God (with over 1100 Teen Challenge Centers around the world; many best-selling books; a feature-length Hollywood movie; and a megachurch in New York City).

Sometimes the willingness to step out in faith brings criticism from the church world. Why? Because that willingness exposes their lack of faith, and the traditional church world is empty of faith and full of man-devised plans!

6.    A generous spirit—an almost overwhelming generosity.

When we moved the crusade office from New York, David gave me enough money to make a deposit on a home. We had been living in an apartment but now we had our first child and he wanted us to have a house. Sometime later we were again moving the crusade office and I sold our home and made a very nice profit. David took me aside and in a fatherly, mentoring moment, said, “Dallas and Linda Holm (Dallas was the soloist in our crusades) don’t have a home and I’d like you to give them enough out of the profit you made so they can buy.” He was teaching me one of the key elements of being a radical: Radicals are givers, they are generous!

We need more radicals!