David Wilkerson's Vision
Robert C. Newman
March 1976
Introduction
The rise of the neo-Pentecostal movement in recent years hasonce again brought to the attention of Christians the question whether or notthere are or have been miraculous gifts in the church since the close of theapostolic period. Each time thisquestion has arisen, those claiming such gifts have tended to charge theiropponents with disobedience and lack of faith, whereas those rejecting thesegifts have either denied that they were miraculous, pointing to the generallyelusive nature of the more spectacular cases, or else admitted they weremiraculous and ascribed them to Satan.
Prophecy has usually formed (at least) a small but verysignificant class of the gifts claimed in such controversies, and this is noexception today. Now prophecy, inprinciple, has a somewhat more objective nature than either tongue-speaking orhealings usually do. That is, aprophecy may be published and thus widely disseminated in advance of itsfulfillment. In such a case, aninvestigator need not be present at the time of the prophecy, as would be thecase for healing or tongue-speaking, nor need he have specialized linguistic ormedical knowledge, nor direct information on the case history of the person whohas been healed. Instead, a personwith no special privileges of location or training may himself test variousclaims to a gift of prophecy, so long as (A) the prophecy is (1) published inadvance, (2) clear enough that a real fulfillment may be recognized, and (3)not totally dependent on a Biblical prophecy; and (B) the fulfillment is (1)public enough to be reported by others than the prophet and his partisans, (2)unusual, detailed and remote enough to rule out anything less than a fantasticguess, and (3) not directly fulfilled by the prophet or his friends.
In February of 1974, David Wilkerson, one of the best-knownPentecostal figures in this country, published a book entitled The Vision
Although a great deal of Wilkerson's material seems to bedrawn from the Bible (not, indeed, as Post- or A-millennialists wouldunderstand it!), The Vision should notbe viewed as a Pentecostal version of The Late, Great Planet Earth
I propose, therefore, to examine the question of miraculousgifts today in the light of this claimed prophetic revelation by an outstandingPentecostal leader. Naturally, ifit should appear that Wilkerson's claims do not stand careful scrutiny, itwould not follow that all such claimsare invalid. Yet it should serveto put both Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals on guard against credulity andpresumption, and to remind us of our responsibility to "test all things,holding fast to that which is good" (1 Thess 5:21).
Tests for a True Prophet
Because of the substantial authority which God gave to theOT prophets, there was a continual temptation for someone to pretend to such agift. Foreseeing this problem, Godestablished a death penalty for false prophecy in Deut 18:20.
The prophet must, first of all, agree with previous divinerevelation on the subjects he discusses. Thus Deut 13:1-5, for instance, warns against prophets who would seek tolead the believer to follow other gods. It should not be assumed that the prophet would necessarily tell youthat this is what he intends, for an entirely different religion may beconstructed around orthodox terminology. Recall that even when Israel worshiped the golden calf in thewilderness, Aaron sought to represent the action as "a feast to theLord" (Ex 32:5). In fact,Paul warns that even an apostle or angel should be considered hell-bent if hebrings a gospel that departs from God's provision of salvation by grace alone(Gal 1:8-9). This criterion placesa heavy responsibility on every believer to know God's word and to test allteaching by it.
Yet there is always the possibility that we havemisunderstood the Scripture at some point, so that a true prophet wouldnaturally disagree with us on this matter. We should, therefore, be willing to give such a fellow thesame sort of hearing we would like others to give us when we point out theirtheological errors! That is, weshould be willing to re-examine our own beliefs in the light of Scripture to seewhether our view or his best fits God's word. Obviously the Pharisees would have done well to give Jesussuch a hearing.
The second criterion for a true prophet is the fulfillmentof his predictions. Deut 18:22gives this test explicitly as God's answer to the people's question, "Howwill we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?"
That which the prophet speaks in thename of the Lord and the word does not happen nor come about, that is the wordwhich the Lord has not spoken. Theprophet has spoken it in presumption; you shall not be afraid of him.
Isaiah 44:24-28 shows us why this test will work.
Here, too, the Biblical criterion may not be as simple as itfirst appears. What about Jonah'sprophecy that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days (Jonah 3:4)?
Short-Range Prophecies in The Vision
As indicated above, all the prophecies in The Vision
É I see great riots coming to manymajor cities in South American. Inthe next decade, South America will become a powder keg, exploding in alldirections.[14]
Regarding the weather, Wilkerson says:
Nature will unleash its fury withincreasing intensity over the next decade. There will be short periods of relief, but almost every daymankind will witness the wrath of nature somewhere in the world.
After speaking of "floods, hurricanes, tornadoes,"bad flying conditions, "the most violent winters of all times,"earthquakes, and epidemics, he continues:
The drastic weather changes that arecoming in the next decade will bring with them violent hailstorms ofunbelievable proportions. Largechunks of ice will fall from the sky and cause much damage.
These events are quite explicit and should form an excellenttest for Wilkerson's Vision.
Another prophecy is to be fulfilled "soon."
Parts of this vision will come to passin the very near future. Some ofthe events are more distant. But Ibelieve all the events mentioned will happen in this generation!
– "soon" would seem to be within a few yearsor a decade. The prophecy inquestion is:
The United States is going toexperience, in the not-too-distant future, the most tragic earthquake in itshistory. One day soon this nationwill be reeling under the impact of the biggest news story of moderntimes. It will be coverage of thebiggest, most disastrous earthquake in history.
On the same page, Wilkerson says it will be far worse thanthe San Francisco earthquake, and it probably will not occur in California.
Other prophecies speak of events occurring in "the nextfew years." Since"few" means "not many," "a small number,"
Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, andhailstorms will occur more frequently. More than one-third of the United States will be designated a disasterarea within the next few years.
It is one of these "next few years" predictionsthat gives us the only passage in The Vision which can with some assurance be falsified already at the time ofwriting of this paper (March, 1976). In his first chapter, "Economic Confusion," Wilkerson titlesthe second section "A Few Good Years to Prepare."
In spite of all the danger signs aroundus of impending economic disaster, the next few years (from 1973) will be amongthe most prosperous in the history of mankind.
We have already examined the meaning of the adjective"few" above, but it is also important to consider the adverb"next" which here modifies "few." According to Webster's Dictionary, "next" means"in the time, place or order nearest or immediately succeeding."
The Economic Situation since April 1973
One of the most important economic indicators in our countryis the condition of prices on the stock exchange. There are several formulae which have been designed toreflect this condition. TheDow-Jones Industrial Average is one such formula, and it is given below (figure1) for the years 1934 through 1975.
Figure 1: Dow-Jones Industrial Average 1934-1975. Source: Moody's Handbook of Common Stocks (Winter, 1976), p 27a.
Notice that from the beginning of 1973 to the end of 1974,the Dow-Jones average fell further than it has ever fallen in its entirehistory, from well over 1000 to less than 600! It is true that the percentage decrease is not as severe asin the Great Depression, but there has been nothing comparable since then.
Of course, not everyone trades on the stock exchange, butproblems there usually mean bankruptcies and production cutbacks which affectthe wage-earner also.
Figure2: Wholesale Prices, Cost ofLiving Index, and Total Industrial Production on scale 1967 = 100.
As figure 2 indicates, industrial production since April,1973 has declined noticeably, while wholesale prices and the cost of livingindicate that inflation has begun to rise even more rapidly than in thepreceding years. This has resultedin a serious unemployment problem in 1974 and 1975, with more than twice asmany people out of work at the end of 1975 than at the end of 1973.
Even though the total personal income in the United Stateshas continued to rise steadily, and most persons with jobs are getting more paythan ever before, the combination of increasing population and rising cost ofliving mean that the income per person in real dollars has fallen offmeasurably since reaching a peak at the end of 1973. See figure 3.
Figure3: Per Capita Income Adjusted tothe Buying Power of the Dollar in 1967; Number of Persons Unemployed.
Thus, again, we find that the few years following 1973 haveso far been rather bad in terms of buying power.
Conclusions
We have examined several prophecies in Wilkerson's Vision
It is, of course, possible to avoid this conclusion by oneof several means. For instance,one may claim that the prophecy refers to the world as a whole rather than theUnited States in particular. Definite figures would then be much more difficult to obtain.
Alternatively, one may claim that our present economicsituation is still good enough to put us "among the most prosperous[years] in the history of mankind," even though we may be somewhat pastthe peak. This is certainly truefor the US, though it may not be so for Europe and the third world.
The number one temptation for the last[generation] Christian will be prosperity É. I see millions of Christians being deceived byprosperity. The last Christian isgoing to be afflicted by prosperity and tested by it more than through poverty.
These all sound as though the best years economically werethought by Wilkerson to be still ahead in 1973.
Perhaps, then, the word "few" should be understoodto mean "eight or ten," and 1973-75 is merely a little slump at thebeginning of "the next few years" which will not count when youaverage over the whole span. Thusthe next eight or ten years could still be "among the most prosperous inthe history of mankind." Butthat, indeed, remains to be seen.
There are, you see, several possible ways to escape theconclusion that David Wilkerson's Visionis not from God, yet at the present time, the prediction we have examined givesevery indication of being in error.
In stating this conclusion (and in writing this paper), I donot wish to give the impression that I consider David Wilkerson an unbeliever,or that I deny that God may have used him for important work in the inner city.
A Note AddedNovember, 2008
In the process of putting a number of my old papers inelectronic form for posting to the IBRI website, it is interesting to look backat this one from over thirty years later.
Wilkerson's prediction of prosperity for the years following1973 looks pretty good in the context of thirty years.
Wilkerson's other predictions, for "the nextdecade" (pages 3-4, above) have failed rather disastrously, in spite ofthe fact that the world has had a striking number of catastrophes in theclosing years of the 20th century and the opening years of thisone. See my discussions in"The Birth Pains of the Messiah" and "How Near is theEnd?" I don't intend tospeculate on how close the end is, but I will warn my readers that the God ofthe Bible does exist, and his offer of forgiveness will one day come to an end.