Walking in the Footsteps of David Wilkerson by Charles Simpson

Author:Charles Simpson [Simpson, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

After a year and a half of ministering almost non-stop, my health began to break down. Pastor Dave’s bright and caring secretary noticed my deep cough and asked how long had it been since I had had a vacation.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“When’s the last time you had a full week off?”

“Since before I started in the Bronx. It seems a crisis in someone’s family occurs every week.” (It didn’t help that I didn’t have a wife to encourage me to slow down.)

“That’s what we thought. Pastor Dave would like to send you to Texas for a week for some rest. I’ll buy your ticket today and you can plan on being gone from next Monday to the following Monday. OK?”

“OK. Thank you.”

Pastor Dave’s World Challenge headquarters, located in Lindale, Texas, was a modest office with a warehouse attached and a small guesthouse located behind it. As I made plans to visit there, I thought about how Lindale must have been quite the place to be in the 1980s—a small east Texas town filled with genuine world changers. Leonard Ravenhill, author of the classic Why Revival Tarries and mentor to Pastor Dave, lived there. Down the street was one of the best Christian singing groups in the nation, the 2nd Chapter of Acts. Keith and Melody Green moved their Last Days Ministries there, and Winkie Pratney’s ministry was also located nearby. I was told that Pastor Dave, who hated flying, chose Lindale as his headquarters because it’s in the central part of the United States, making any domestic trip doable by way of car or bus.

Leonard Ravenhill seemed to know how life altering it would be when he handed Brother Dave the Puritan classic The Christian in Complete Armour, saying to him, “This book is going to revolutionize your life. It has had a profound effect on my life, and I believe you are prepared to receive its message now.” Pastor Dave was quoted as saying, “At first I put the book aside; it was too long, too wordy. Out of curiosity, I later scanned the first twenty-five pages. That is all it took to bring me to my knees. Gurnall, the pious Puritan, had touched something deep within me. His were such probing, scorching, searing words that they shook my inner man. I devoured the book with great zeal. I will forever bless the day it was placed in my hands.”

That book caused Pastor Dave to cut back on his evangelistic crusades and return with renewed passion and fervency to his prayer closet. And one day he reappeared in public ministry with a burning message on his heart entitled “Holy Ground.” After that, he went to New York for a series of meetings, and it was then that the Lord spoke to him about returning to the Big Apple to raise up a church in the Times Square section of Manhattan.

The only one that I knew for sure still living in Lindale was Leonard Ravenhill. Perhaps I could meet him while I was there.

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