David Wilkerson Quotes

The Teen Challenge ministry was born out of those humble early days of ministry. It now includes over 500 drug and alcohol rehab centers around the world, even in Muslim countries. These include homes for girls and women addicts and alcoholics, all which are reaching many.

From the beginning, this has been a faith-based ministry.

Likewise today, some Christians are content to merely exist until they die. They don't want to risk anything, to believe God, to grow or mature. They refuse to believe his Word, and have become hardened in their unbelief. Now they're living just to die.

Everything you go through as a Christian is a training exercise behind which God has a divine purpose. He did not save you so that you could cruise into paradise on a luxury liner; He saved
you to prepare you to be of use in His kingdom. The moment you were born again, He enrolled you in His school of suffering. And every affliction, every trial, is another lesson in the curriculum.

Love is not only something you feel, it is something you do.

God uses people. God uses people to perform His work. He does not send angels. Angels weep over it, but God does not use angels to accomplish His purposes. He uses burdened broken-hearted weeping men and women.

A humble person is not one who thinks little of himself, hangs his head and says, "I'm nothing." Rather, he is one who depends wholly on the Lord for everything, in every circumstance.

'To die is gain!' That kind of talk is absolutely foreign to our modern, spiritual vocabularies. We have become such life worshippers, we have very little desire to depart to be with the Lord.

The greatest fear that haunts this city is a suitcase bomb, nuclear or germ. Many people carry small gas masks. The masses here seem to be resigned to the inevitable, believing an attack of major proportions will happen.

I am the Lord, I do not change" (Malachi 3:6).

Nicky Cruz: You come near me and I'll kill you!
David Wilkerson: Yeah, you could do that. You could cut me up into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece will still love you.

The church used to confess its sin, now it confesses its right.

Psalm 73:1: "Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart." Here the psalmist is speaking prophetically, distinguishing Israel as people whose hearts have been cleansed - which is possible only through the blood of Christ.

Riches and the things that are necessary in life are not evil in themselves. And all of us face cares and troubles in this life. The sin comes in the time and energy we spend in pursuing these things, at the expense of neglecting Christ.

When you strip it of everything else, Pentecost stands for power and life. That's what came into the church when the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost.

We are so busy working on God, we forget He is trying to work on us. That is what this life is all about: God at work on us, trying to remake us into vessels of glory. We are so busy praying to change things that we have little time to allow prayer to change us.

The Teen Challenge Training Center on Pennsylvania farmland houses over 200 men in rehab. Other farms and centers have been birthed out of this ministry all over the world.

After much prayer, careful study and reliance on the Holy Spirit, I have concluded this about Christ's intercession for us. Jesus died on the cross to purchase peace with God for me – and He is in heaven now to maintain that peace, for me and in me.

Jesus didn't save you so you could cruise to heaven in a luxury liner. He wants you to be useful in His kingdom! The moment you got saved, He enrolled you in His school the school of suffering and affliction.

I'm not about to put up a silly skit and preach a 15-minute message on 'how to cope' to a multitude of people who are dying and going to hell. I tremble at the thought.

Faith is taking God at what He says he is - because God is faithful!

Our ministry is supported entirely by faith, through the missions gifts of readers who receive my messages every three weeks. We seldom mention money, and we never burden supporters.

You may claim to love Jesus but your life proves you are still walking in darkness - confused, befuddled and foggy! When you are truly in love with Jesus, conversing with Him, He turns up the light. There is no darkness at all in His presence. The worst possible darkness to mankind is not in the hearts of God-hating Communist leaders or Christ-hating atheists. It is, rather, the horrible darkness that blinds so-called Christians who refuse to walk in the light.

To some Christians today, this world is not a sinking ship or a world reserved for fire. It is an international capitol building overrun with undesirables whom these believers plan to kick out. They will then take their place, renovating and governing it all themselves. Such thinking is symptomatic of a dying love for Jesus and a clinging to this world!

I am not officially involved now in the direction of the Teen Challenge ministry, but I rejoice that God permits me to be the father of these ministries.

The only part I can play in this war is to believe God will bring me, victorious, out of the battle.

You see, growing in grace doesn't mean doing more or greater things for God. True growth comes in doing the same things over and over, with more heart assurance that we're doing everything for Him.

A suburban pastor maintained services appropriate for his respected, professional parish. His father, an excitable traveling evangelist, visited and challenged the congregation to confront pride and sing out loudly with the windows open. The next day, the pastor's banker mentioned overhearing, and he was sheepish. The buttoned-up banker said, though, that the neighborhood had been WAITING TO HEAR the church live out the joy they claimed.

True freedom from fear consists of totally resigning one's life into the hands of the Lord.

The worst kind of blasphemy is to think God is behind all your hurt and pain, that it is the heavenly Father disciplining you,

The Bible tells us that in the last days Satan is going to pour out his wrath on the earth because he knows his time is short.

God has never, in the history of mankind, allowed his name to go long offended.

Don't worry about whether God is saying 'Yes' or 'No' to your (prayer) request. Don't be downcast when the answer is not in sight. Quick thinking of faith formulas and methods. Just commit every prayer to Jesus and go about your business with confidence that He will not be one moment early or late in answering. And, if the answer you seek is not forthcoming, say to your heart, 'He is all I need. If I need more, He will not withhold it. He will do it in His time, in His way; and, if He does not fulfill my request, He must have a perfect reason for not doing so. No mater what happens, I will always have faith in His faithfulness.' pg. 152.

My oldest son, Gary, is a seasoned minister and travels with me for ministers' conferences.

And they would go not with an eye to gaining converts but with an eye to meeting need. The conversions would take care of themselves.

Our ministry is debt free and we have not had to beg or plead for finances.

I weep when I see these videos that are sent to me from all over the country. Whole groups of bodies jerking out of control, falling on the floor, laughing hysterically, staggering around like drunkards Anything that cannot be found in Scripture has to be rejected outright - totally rejected,

Our ministry also supports orphanages in the U.S. and overseas, thousands of poor children in Latin America, drug centers for addicted men, and a drug center in Israel.

In these times, God's people must trust him for rest of body and soul.

Many of those who once were so passionately in love with Christ now run about pursuing their own interests. They're burdened down with stress and problems, chasing after riches and the things of this world.

You win over people just like you win over a dog. You see a dog passing down the street with an old bone in his mouth. You don't grab the bone from him and tell him it's not good for him. He'll growl at you. It's the only thing he has. But you throw a big fat lamb chop in front of him, and he's going to drop that bone and pick up the lamb chop, his tail wagging to beat the band. And you've got a friend. Instead of going around grabbing bones from people ... I'm going to throw them some lamb chops. Something with real meat and life in it. I'm going to tell them about New Beginnings.

Both of our daughters, Debbie and Bonnie, are also cancer survivors.

It follows that a tender heart that reaches for love and understanding is often the easiest to break. Hearts that are open and trusting are usually the ones that are wounded the most. This world is filed with men and woman who have rejected the love offered to them from a heart that is gentle and tender. Those strong, hard-shelled hearts that trust no one, hearts that give so little, hearts that demand love be constantly proved, hearts that are always calculating hearts that are always manipulating and self-serving, hearts that are afraid to risk are the ones that seldom get broken. They don't get wounded, because there is nothing to wound. They are too proud and self-centered to allow anyone else to make them suffer in any way. They go about breaking other hearts and trampling on the fragile souls who touch their lives, simply because they are so thick and dull at heart themselves, and they think everyone should be just as they are.

When you are deeply hurt, no person on this earth can shut out the innermost fears and deepest agonies. The best of friends cannot really understand the battle you are going through or the wounds inflicted on you. Only God can shut out the waves of depression and feelings of loneliness and failure that come over you. Faith in God's love alone can salvage the hurt mind. The bruised and broken heart that suffers in silence can be healed only by a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and nothing short of divine intervention really works.

What is it about tears that should be so terrifying? the touch of God is marked by tears ... deep, soul-shaking tears, weeping ... it comes when that last barrier is down and you surrender yourself to health and wholeness

Anything that effects our decisions besides that of the Glory of God and His Will Alone is an idol. Why are people so free to do as they please and make decisions off of pleasures, feelings or emotion? It is because they have not been taken captive by the Lord Jesus Christ and He alone does not rule in that life, there are rivals on the throne.

Faith is not to get you out of a hard place but to change your heart in the hard place.

I must accept my Father's loving help in resisting and overcoming. Sin is like an octopus with many tentacles trying to crush out my life. Seldom do all tentacles loosen their hold on me at once. It is one tentacle at a time. In this war against sin, it is a victory won through one soldier dying at a time. Seldom does the entire enemy army fall dead at a single blast. It is hand-to-hand combat. It is one small victory at a time. But God doesn't send me out to do battle without a war plan. He is my Commander; I will fight - inch by inch, hour by hour - under His direction. He dispatches the Holy Spirit to me, with clear directions on how to fight, when to run, where to strike next. This battle against principalities and powers is His

At its heart, legalism is a desire to appear holy. It is trying to be justified before men and not God.

God does not accept weak, boring, halfhearted worship!

When God calls you to something, He is not always calling you
to succeed, He's calling you to obey! The success of the calling is up to Him;the obedience is up to you.

How can you know when you are trusting in man rather than in God? If you fall apart when someone else lets you down, or if the actions of others affect your walk with God, then you know you are leaning on the arm of flesh!

We simply can't trust God's power fully until we experience it in the midst of our crisis.

Recently I prayed, "Lord, I want to know your peace at all costs. I won't listen to the devil's lies any longer. I know my salvation is not in my performance. No, Jesus, you alone plead my case. I rest in what you've done for me." Can you say the same by faith?

God not only loves his people but delights in each one of us. He takes great pleasure in us. He's actually blessed in keeping and delivering us. I see this kind of parental pleasure in my wife, Gwen, whenever one of our grandchildren calls. Gwen lights up like a Christmas tree when she has one of our dear little ones on the line. Nothing can get her off the phone. Even if I told her the President was at our door, she'd shoo me away and keep talking. How could I ever accuse my heavenly Father of delighting in me less than I do in my own offspring?

Eighteen years ago, the Holy Spirit led me to establish a church in the heart of Times Square.

I believe in walking in the Spirit.

A final word: I am not knowledgeable about the internet. I do not have a computer. I guess that at 74 years of age, I don't have the patience to learn.

Yet, tragically, many today still eat at the table of demons, serving their own lustful appetites, and then attempt to come to the Lord's table and feast with the righteous. This leads only to spiritual sickness and death because these deceived ones do not discern the true Bread of God.
These sickly sheep have become so spiritually weak and diseased by sin that they cannot eat strong meat. Instead, the prefer to nibble at the husks of ear-tickling teachings. They gravitate toward lightness and entertainment rather than the genuine Word. Their spiritual appetites have become dull as a result of eating too much junk food.

Our faith is not meant to get us out of a hard place or change our painful condition. Rather, it is meant to reveal God's faithfulness to us in the midst of our dire situation.

Most Christians never associate joy with repentance. But repentance is actually the mother of all joy in Jesus. Without it, there can be no joy. Yet, any believer who walks in repentance will be flooded with the joy of the Lord.

God does sometimes change our trying circumstances. But more often, He doesn't - because He wants to change us.

We humans can work hard for each other, and we should and we must work. But it is God, and only God, who heals. The Cross and the Switchblade, pg 90.

A watered down gospel is no gospel at all

The world is not looking for more doctrinal proof of the reality of God! It is not looking for greater proof of the resurrection or better arguments about creation. The world is looking for Christians who can stand up to every crisis, fear, trouble and difficulty and remain calm and at rest in the midst of it all. The world needs to see God's children trusting wholly in their Lord.

Christ died to save this lost world; he did not come to destroy, maim or pour out wrath.

The day you learn to be publically specific in your prayer, that is the day you will discover power.

If you are experiencing confusion, pain, and suffering, it may be that God is working things out for you in his own way. It is most often the sovereign work of our God unfolding a master plan known only to him.

I have no ghost writers. I personally write every message and every piece of published mail.

Beloved, God has never failed to act but in goodness and love. When all means fail-his love prevails. Hold fast to your faith. Stand fast in his Word. There is no other hope in this world.

When people quit talking to God, they quit talking to one another. And people who quit talking to God soon get very lonely and depressed. They are actually lonely for God, hungering for communion with Him, yearning for His close love and nearness; but instead of recognizing these needs as spiritual, they blame their lack of fulfillment on their husbands or wives.

As far as the Lord is concerned, the time to stand is in the darkest moment. It is when everything seems hopeless, when there appears no way out, when God alone can deliver.