The story of Nicky Cruz may be known to some of you. His testimony is available on this website. His story, which ends in New York City, is remarkable. So is how he got there.
One day Nicky's mother told him, in no uncertain terms, something that would change him probably more than anything else he had ever heard before. She told him something so profound, and so deeply troubling, that it sent Nicky on a course of life that would take him into the deepest darkness and to the very edge of destruction.
She told him, one day, Nicky,
"I hate you."
She told him she hated him, and that he was not her son.
And it crushed him.
He left the home and ended up in New York City wandering the streets day and night because the pain was so great in his heart. Nothing and noone was able to give him relief. The pain drove him until he found a home amongst a violent street gang, of which he soon became a leader. And notorious for his violence.
He followed the course of life that his mother's message set him on and he followed it hard, until it nearly destroyed him. He would have followed it over that edge, except one day he heard another message. He met a pastor on the street that told him in no uncertain terms,
Nicky,
Jesus Loves you.
It rocked his world.
It dogged him as much as his mother's message had driven him. And it pursued him relentlessly untill one night, when he had approached that very edge of destruction, he surrendured to that message that Pastor Wilkerson had given him, and love won.
My question, if you have been reading thus far, and as you may already be familiar with that tremendous story, my question is: was Pastor Wilkerson a prophet to tell him such a thing?
Did it take Divine revelation in order for him to tell a man he did not know, Nicky, Jesus loves you.
Was it something special, something out of the ordinary, or did Pastor Wilkerson simply rely upon the truth of the scripture that God so loved the World. If it had been anything otherwise than simple faith in that truth, Pastor Wilkerson certainly could not have delivered that message to Nicky Cruz the way he did.
The other morning I heard a now infamous Bible teacher talking to a woman on his call-in radio program. He had a message to give that was not much disimilar to that message Nicky Cruz had heard from his mother so many years ago.
The woman had called in to tell him she had just happend to be able to hear his radio program now after some years and how much of an inspiration it had been before to her, and now, she just wanted to hear his explanation of John 3:16 again.
He told her how it was impossible for anyone to believe on the Lord Jesus, but that God must do the whole work, that they could do nothing of believing themselves. She assured him of how much she hoped that she would be saved and how uncertain she was and that she prayed very much. He encouraged her to pray, that he said, everyone could do, they could plead.
So far as I could tell, she went off into the night or the morning, whichever it may have been in the part of the World she was calling from, very much uncertain if God loved her or not or if she could be saved. Uncertain if the message For God so loved the World, was meant FOR HER.
I say that those two messages are similar, because uncertainty about God's love is as much as suspicion of His hate.
If a person can not be certain that their parents love them, they can not be certain that they do not hate them either.
Even more than what Nicky Cruz had heard from his mother, I can think of no more troubling message to hear for a human being that believes they were made by God, that there is no certainty that He loves them.
What a crushing message, how antithetical to faith, to hear from another human being, that God, Who is love, may not have ever loved you.
It could be enough to destroy them. Or keep them in a pattern of life, hoping and praying, that one day, they might, just possibly, maybe, believe.
You never know...
No, with that kind of a message, you don't.
Pastor Wilkerson was sure.
And now so is Nicky Cruz too.