Hi Jim...
Have you heard [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=336&commentView=itemComments]Holy Ground[/url] by David Wilkerson?
This powerful message was preached by David Wilkerson at a Youth with a Mission (YWAM) conference in the mid-1980s. In this message, Brother Wilkerson indicates just what God may have meant when He asked Moses to take off his shoes because He was standing on “holy ground.” Holy ground, Wilkerson extrapolates, is not a [i]physical[/i] place – because the Kingdom of God is not in earthly things.
Wilkerson discusses several areas concerning how all believers can reach to a point of “holy ground.” He points to flaws in many of today’s modern churches which impede many believers from ever truly obtaining a place on "holy ground."
These are the "points" for which David Wilkerson preaches are resultant from standing on "holy ground":
1.\t Give up your rights (take off your shoes) in order stand upon holy ground
2.\tHidden sins (leprosy) are exposed by God on holy ground
3.\tHoly ground is a place of no reputation (so that God is not robbed of His glory)
4.\tHoly ground is a condition of freedom from materialism (Wilkerson equates materialism with the modern teaching of prosperity)
5.\tHoly ground is a place of “vision” – but not in the modern use of such a term. Vision, according to Wilkerson, is simply the seeing and knowing of Jesus Christ.
This easy-to-understand message had a profound effect upon my life. I had been raised in Church for most of my life – but I was agnostic until I met Christ while just starting high school. Immediately following my conversion, I was acutely aware of differences (in doctrine and practice) that I was seeing in the Church (both amongst local, fellow believers and believers on a national scale) from that which I was finding in the Word of God. I went to “Church” every time the doors were opened (and often, when they were closed and I was the only person there). The local Assembly of God fellowship that I attended was close – but not quite – a prosperity mega-church. However, the pastor had recently begun dabbling in the charismatic-prosperity message. I had even gone with many in the congregation to attend a “Benny Hinn crusade” that left me bitterly disappointed. I just couldn’t understand why most people didn’t see the things of God the way that I was seeing them – or take their faith as seriously as I was taking it.
When I heard this old message, it was the first time that someone “voiced” the message that was in my heart. Wilkerson was preaching a faith that was not just a lifestyle choice or a tradition of men. Rather, he was proclaiming that there was something more to our faith than what we hear from most pulpits and radio broadcasts and see on most TV screens. This was that “Helen Keller” moment – a personal epiphany – for which I discovered that I was correct in realizing that there was something more to Christianity than what was being seen and heard. Wilkerson mentions Leonard Ravenhill in this message, which caused me to purchase [i]Why Revival Tarries[/i] (which had a similar effect upon my life – enough to cause me to visit Brother Ravenhill in his home). In a nutshell, this message truly changed my life.
Prior to this message, David Wilkerson was a well known evangelist. My mom told me that Wilkerson was quite a very popular Christian figure during the 1970s and 1980s – with most of that popularity derived from his [i]Cross and the Switchblade[/i] experiences. He preached to huge congregations and stadiums and multitudes of people were being “saved.” But Wilkerson knew that something was missing. When he began preaching what God was laying on his heart, many large churches began to stop inviting him to preach. They only wanted to hear about gang members and drug addicts coming to the Lord. But there was much more to Wilkerson’s message than his work with gangs.
Brother Ravenhill had begun spending quite a bit of time with David Wilkerson, and Wilkerson was reevaluating his own life and ministry. He had recently given his [i]Twin Oaks[/i] ranch in Texas to YWAM (for the purpose of training evangelists for the mission field). David Wilkerson was at a crossroads. Immediately following this message, David Wilkerson took a sabbatical from public ministry. He stopped preaching for a year, and decided to spend that year seeking and fellowshipping with Christ. The David Wilkerson that we know today was a product of that fellowship.
I think that this message is certainly something to consider. It was the penultimate message in the public ministry of David Wilkerson. It was also the message that altered by perspective about true Christianity. I have listened to this message probably a dozen or more times. Each time, I feel a similar “leap” of my heart and that heartfelt cry of my spirit that we’ve come to sense from the messages of men like Leonard Ravenhill and A. W. Tozer.
:-)
