The Window of Faith: Sermon by David Wilkerson
Over the past decade, God has spoken to me time and again through David Wilkerson’s messages. I received them via print subscription for years. Only last summer did I discover the vast wealth of audio and video sermons that exist online. Since that time, I keep them loaded in my car, my iPhone/iPod and my computer.
There is a rare honesty in the Times Square Church messages regarding Biblical truth and the state of the contemporary Church in America. Topics are addressed that no one else is even raising. On top of that, they make their messages available for free. Yes, for free! And they give ministries such as Shades of Grace permission to post and share them. Clearly, their heart is to help people and to let nothing, like cost, be a barrier.
If I am blogging for the sake of sharing helpful content, how can I not share what has been the most helpful to me personally? So over the coming weeks, I will post Times Square Church sermons that God has used to speak to me.
The message I want to share with you today is “The Window of Faith.” I first heard it in April. Since then, I’ve listened to it twenty or thirty times…and still each time God shows me new, deeper truths.
Immediately riveting was the statement that after God gives a promise, He sentences it to death. This is true! Look in scripture – there is precedent. This is what God does. I’ve lived it, but I’ve never heard it stated and supported in this exact way. When I was younger and launching out on faith in God’s personal promises, I knew I would have to hold fast my confession in the face of contradictory circumstances, but I don’t think I ever heard it stated so straight forward: God will sentence to death every human possibility of fulfillment.
Under the Death Sentence
When I first began to be ill, I sought God’s will. I read scripture with open eyes and ears to hear what God would say about His plans for my life. I wasn’t seeking a certain answer. I just needed direction as to what to do with my degree plan at Baylor and other aspects of life. I didn’t choose a scripture in advance of God speaking it to me, but waited and listened submissively to what He would say.
I Will Turn Back Your Captivity
One day in the summer of 1992, as I was reading Zephaniah 3, God spoke. As I read from verse 18 to 19, something changed. No longer was it my voice reading silently, the voice of the Holy Spirit began to read.
“…at that time, I will undo all that afflict thee…At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you…when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD” (Zeph. 3:19-20, KJV).
If you’ve listened to my testimony (Package of Pure Gold in the Media Center) you know that I made plans based upon God’s promise. I expected to complete my college degree and fulfill other future plans. Yet, less than three months after God spoke this word, illness forced to withdraw from college study entirely.
Captives of a Tyrant
My health continued to decline. A year later, I went back to God. I thought either I had missed Him or He’d never heard of a new device called a calendar. (When you are 21, a year is a LONG time to wait!). Again, I patiently waited and read scripture with an open eye and spiritual ear to hear what God would say. Early one morning in the summer of 1993, the sun was rising and I was reading Isaiah 49. God breathed upon the passage and quickened much of the chapter.
19 Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.
20 The generations born in exile shall return and say, ‘We need more room! It’s crowded here!’
21 Then you will think to yourself, ‘Who has given me all these? For most of my children were killed and the rest were carried away into exile, leaving me here alone. Who bore these? Who raised them for me?’ ”
24 Who can snatch the prey from the hands of a mighty man? Who can demand that a tyrant let his captives go?
25 But the Lord says, “Even the captives of the most mighty and most terrible shall all be freed; for I will fight those who fight you, and I will save your children.” (Isaiah 49:19-21, 24-25)
I couldn’t believe how clear and specific God was. (As the years passed, I would find out just precisely God had spoken.) At the time terribly crippling and/or fatal diagnoses were being considered. With this declaration that “even the captives of the most mighty would be freed,” I had total peace. No matter how mighty a tyrant this disease would prove to be, God would deliver my children – my health and abilities. (At the time, I could never have imagined how mighty a tyrant Lyme disease could be.)
This time I thought I would get on God’s schedule. He seemed to be working in intervals of a year. Though I was basically confined to the couch, my mom took me that day to buy a dress for a special occasion that was to occur the next Spring. I did this as a statement of faith that God would do what He said He would do. (Right idea. Wrong to set my time frame. Have since learned you can’t put a time frame on God’s fulfillment of a promise.)
Human Hope Gone
Six weeks later I had to use a wheelchair for the first time when outside the house. My health declined rapidly over the next five years. I became so weak I had to be carried through the house, bathed and fed. I experienced suffering beyond my ability to endure. The devastating illness confined me to bed – and then it literally stole my mind from me, leaving me unable to think or even speak coherently. On my worst days, it felt like I was literally being crushed by the overwhelming trial I faced.
What began with a flu, fatigue, stiffness, and pain had progressed until I was confined for over seven years in a wheelchair, a bed, and then within my mind, as the infectious disease caused severe cognitive destruction. I spent three years wailing and writhing from the mental torture caused by encephalitis.
I saw over 60 doctors seeking diagnosis alone. Once the correct diagnosis was made, I saw even more physicians for treatment. We tried treatments from the U.S. and around the world. Nothing brought improvement. Certainly nothing touched the brain agony and dysfunction. Medically, it was hopeless. My hope was in God alone.
God is Faithful
God is faithful! As you can see, He has largely fulfilled His promise. As stated, He has given back what was taken. I graduated from Baylor without taking another course. What was sentenced to death has been resurrected! There are a few lingering areas in my health that He is in the process of restoring, but this aspect of the promise regarding my health is no longer sentenced to death.
None Of Us Are Exempt
None of us, if we are truly moving forward with God, are exempt from this process. If we are making spiritual progress, there should always be promised ground we are believing God to possess. There should be a promise from God regarding an issue in our lives for which we are believing Him.
When God spoke in Isaiah 49 about my health, there was also much that He spoke about my future. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I can see God was speaking about ministry, about Shades of Grace…and about you, the spiritual fruit of the ministry. So I’m not out of the “death sentence” zone. I came out of it in some areas but re-entered it in others. There is MUCH I am believing God for…and therefore, many things are currently under the sentence of death.
If we are unaware of this aspect of God’s process, it makes us incredibly prone to discouragement. That’s why I believe this message is so valuable!
Sermon: The Window of Faith
Times Square Church Message Description:
The window of faith is not an opportune time but an inopportune time when everything looks hopeless. God allows death to roll over our promises and we stop telling God how to fix our problems. God is searching for a people who will fully trust Him when all hope and human possibility is gone. In these last days God is going to have a wholly dependent people who don’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Video:
Audio:
Question: How is your personal promise from God currently passing through the Window of Faith — an inopportune, hopeless time?
MORE BY DAVID WILKERSON:
- For more by David Wilkerson, see Recommended Listening.
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[…] the promises of God are spoken, they undergo a death sentence. Things worsen. God sentences to death every human mechanism of fulfillment. It looks completely […]