Dear brothers,
Many believers have a question (sometimes unasked) as to how God could allow a faithful servant of His, like David Wilkerson, to leave this world through a car crash.
My answer is:
We do NOT know all the facts concerning the accident and so we must not judge by what our ears have heard or by what our eyes have read. Jesus Himself never did that (Isaiah 11:3).
We DO know however that David Wilkerson was a genuine, man of God. He was certainly the one I respected the most in the USA. We also know that "the death of godly men is precious in the sight of the Lord" (Psa.116:15).
In David Wilkerson's last blog (on the very day of the accident) he had written: "In that darkness you will hear the Father whisper, 'I am with you. I cannot tell you why right now, but one day it will all make sense. You will see it was all part of my plan. It was no accident. It was no failure on your part. Hold fast. Let me embrace you in your hour of pain.'"
Those words seem to be prophetic. I believe God embraced David Wilkerson in his hour of pain - and that (as he wrote there) this was "no accident" in God's eyes.
Godly people will always seek to put the best construction on events that they do not have full details about. And even when we think we have all the details about an event, we still may not know ALL the facts. We must all be humble enough to acknowledge that. So it is best to leave such matters with God. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God. Only the things that are revealed belong to us" (Deut.29:29).
We should all kill our curiosity about matters that are hidden and unknown.
David Wilkerson was a great evangelist and a prophet - a unique combination of gifts that is almost never seen in the church. He was a new-covenant prophet and not an old-covenant prophet. Many believers do not understand the difference between old covenant prophets and new covenant prophets. Old-covenant prophets were tested by whether EVERY ONE of their prophecies were fulfilled EXACTLY AS SPOKEN (Deut.18:22). New-covenant prophets however are given by the Lord to the church to equip the saints to build the Body of Christ. This is stated very clearly in Ephesians 4:11,12. So new-covenant prophets prophesy primarily to challenge people to repentance - exposing un-Christlike attitudes in their hearts (as we read in 1 Cor.14:24,25). If however such new-covenant prophets speak occasionally about future events, according to their understanding and discernment of certain situations, they may be mistaken, since we all "see through a glass darkly" (1 Cor.13:12). But that does not take away from the fact that they are still new-covenant prophets.
We should all thank God for the example of such a man as David Wilkerson - who lived a godly life until the very end, had such a uniquely anointed ministry, and who stood for the truth uncompromisingly until the very end of his life. Let us consider his example and follow him as he followed Christ (1 Cor.11:1).
"Remember your former leaders, who spoke God's message to you. Think back on how they lived and died, and imitate their faith." (Hebrews 13:7 - Today's English Version)
Your brother
Zac Poonen