Speaker 1: The following presentation is Del Marvis Studio's production.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Fact Hunter Radio Network.
Speaker 1: Here is your host, Stege Hobbs.
Speaker 2: Welcome back truth seekers from around the world. It's time
for another edition of our classic audio series, and today
we are revisiting David Wilkerson, author of the book The
Cross and the Switchblade, and his sermon entitled Last Days,
and it's one of his more popular sermons on YouTube.
I think it has well over three million views. And
it's really a sober warning that's drawn from scripture. You
know that the final period before Christ's return will be
marked not only by outward turmoil, but you know, he
mentions deep spiritual decline, deception, and lukewarm faith within the
church itself. It's really a powerful sermon. He speaks with
a lot of fire. He calls on Christians to remain
spiritually awake, grounded in God's word, committed to Christ, and
he stresses that the faithful remnant will endure right, And
I think you'll really enjoy it. And it's interesting. You know, again,
this was thirty years ago and it's just as important
today as it was thirty years ago. So I hope
you enjoyed this thirty minute clip. Looking forward to the
next podcast, we have a lot to talk about and
we have hopefully a very exciting interview for you here
in the next few weeks. God bless you. I have
a great day. Without any further ado, here is David Wilkerson.
Speaker 1: But whether they want to hear it or not, the
Lord always sends forth watchman to warn. He always does.
He never does anything till he warns. The Gospel of accommodation. Now,
to accommodate means to adapt. It means to make suitable
or acceptable. It also means to adjust, to make something
very convenient. It means to yield to the desires of others,
to placate them. Now you put that together, and I'm
talking about a gospel that's been invented in Hell and
now being propagated all of the United States. It's a suitable, acceptable, convenient,
a gospel that has yielded to the desires and the
weakness of sinful men. I call it the Gospel of
accommodation because it's adapting and adjusting the Gospel to appease
and attract sinners. This gospel accommodation is primarily an American
cultural invention to ease our lifestyle. It appeals primarily to
white America, rich and prosperous. It was invented out of itself.
This new gospel is sweeping the America and the nation
is influencing ministers of every denomination. It's giving birth to megachurches.
Some of the largest churches in the United States are
involved in this gospel. It's a non confronting, convenient gospel adapted.
It is spoon fed to the congregation by skits, humorous
skits and drama, short, non abrasive, twenty minute messages, and
it's all called seeker friendly, the seeker friendly churches. In
one of these days, there may be somebody move into
the city and try to bring one of these churches
right into New York City. They are springing up now
overnight and suddenly thousands of tens. This new gospel is
being propagated by bright, young, intelligent, talented ministers. They came
upon a formula by which you can go into the
city in any town and almost overnight build and make
a church. And as I understand this formula, you begin
by going into the community with your workers and you
pull the community to find out what the center found
offensive about attending church? Well, why don't you tend church?
And what was offensive about it? And what would it
or what would we have to do to bring you
back into the church, What would make you comfortable? What
would you like to see? You don't like choirs, will
do away with choirs, you don't like suits in church?
You come the way you choose, Just tell us what
you want, and they survey the community and then sit
in there with their computers and in their conference rooms,
and they design a program that will make it comfortable
for the center and make it friendly for if they
rather call it center friendly, they would call it seecret friendly,
and try to attract them to come into the House
of God. It's becoming the most prosperous, most flourishing of
all really religious movements in the history of America. The
churches are run like corporations. The pastors the CEO, chief
executive officer, and it's big business. And this formula has
now been cleverly packaged and it is now being pushed
in seminars all over the United States. It sounds good.
What they say sounds very good. It sounds spiritual in
its goals. It sounds like Jesus is a central theme.
And folks, I'm not gonna name any names because I'm
not talking about the character of these men. I'm talking
about the gospel that they preach. I am here to
remind you that Paul the Apostle warned of the coming
of another gospel which we have not preached. He said,
there is coming another gospel. There's going to preach another Jesus.
You'll hear his name. It'll sound sweet, but it's not
the Jesus that I preached. Paul's said, it's not the
true Jesus. Paul goes on or Paul was amazed. He
said that you were so removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ to another gospel. Folks,
listen to me. There is in the land right now,
with thousands of people sitting under another gospel, another Jesus
being preached by ministers who have lost the touch of
God and had been transformed into angels of light, to
common the decease, if possible, even the elect of God.
Paul goes to warn the church, it's really not another gospel,
but it's a perversion of the Gospel of Christ, which
is really not another Paul said, but there'd be some
that trouble you and pervert or change the Gospel of Christ.
He said, they're gonna change it. They're gonna accommodate the sinner.
They're gonna commodate their praisures, they're gonna accommodate all of
their needs, and they're gonna design a gospel with their
own Christ for their own doctrine. Then this awful warning
from Paul, But though we are an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you but that which we
preached unto you, let him be a cursed. Let him
be a cursed, folks. I didn't say that the apostle.
Paul said it. If anybody preach another gospel what you've heard,
If anyone preached anything but the crucified Christ, if anyone
preach anything that appeases man in his sin, that's not
the gospel heard from me, Paul said. And anyone preaches another,
let him be a cursed. When he said, it's going
to be dangerous because it's going to come from seemingly
pious sincere ministers. That's what made the doctrine called Antinomianism
so dangerous because it was in the hands. There's some
very fine, good living men, like doctor Christ, who was
one of the founders of that anti law movement back
during the Puritan Age. Anti law. They cast aside the
burden of the law, and the reason it was so
accepted because the men who preached it seemed to be
so pious. And I tremble when I hear Paul warn
us that Satan's gonna come right into the church disguised
as an angel of light. He's gonna infiltrate into the
church with his own ministers. They'll come angel like he said,
preaching a false gospel of righteousness. For such are false prophets,
false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ,
and no marvel. For Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. Therefore it's no great thing if his
ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose
then would be according to their works. Paul said, They're
gonna come, and they're gonna glory in the flesh. They're
gonna glory in their might, their money. They're gonna glory
in their bigness, their numbers, and they're going to glory
in the fact that they're so contemporary. They're gonna glory
in their acceptance by the world. Jesus warned, beware of
false prophets, come to you in sheets clothing. They're to
come like gentle sheet, sincere, intelligent, bright, but said inward,
they're ravening wolves and folks. Jesus gave it in the
context of his message. He said, because straight is the gate,
narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few
that be that find it. And the very next verse
he says, beware of false prophets. You are to common
seats clothing, but they're ravening wolves. It's Christ himself warning
us false prophets, false pastors, false evangelists posing as submissive
sheet going to come saying the way he's not that narrow,
the way is not that straight, and they're going to accommodate.
They're going to change the gospel to suit the needs
of the people. Jesus puts his finger on the mold.
Is behind him, ambition there at ravening here ravening wolves,
and the Greek mains star for recognition, at recognition and gratification.
Men are going to rise, starved, to make it. You
see it in the business world. You see it on
your job. People trying to claim the ladder and get
recognition quickly and focuss now in the ministry. Full blow,
young man so ambitious to be one of the big boys,
to have the biggest church, the biggest numbers, the biggest crowds.
He said, they're ravening wolves. Jesus left no doubt about
what he meant, and this is simply what he meant.
They're going to be struggling pastors in the land, and
they're going to look out and see all of the
striving and competition for numbers and recognition, and there's going
to be a growing, growing pressure to expand and be successful.
They see the measuring and success now by how big
the buildings are and how many people attend the church
on Sunday morning. And this struggling pastor, who has been
faithful up to now, she's struggling young He sees bright
young man come down the street nearby, and suddenly, overnight
he's pastoring thousands of people in a seeker friendly church.
A young man, less experienced, a young man who has
not paid his Jews. As far as this man is concerned,
he's still preaching an old fashioned, faithful gospel of the
Cross and his claims, and he's struggling because not many
people want to hear the cross. Jesus said, few they're
gonna be that find it. Why is the road leading destruction?
Narrow is the way, Jesus said, straight and narrow. And
Jesus is warning. He's saying to the pastor's brother, man
of God, watch out the moment you look out on
the competition, the moment that seat gets in your heart,
the devil's gonna pick one of these wolves, and she's
clothing right at your path. He's going to seduce you
into nongod, the ambition to compete and to be one
of these big boys. And he's going to tempt you
for church growth at any cost. Then he'll cost the
soul of the pastor.
Speaker 2: I read Paul's.
Speaker 1: Warning in tewod Corinthians eleventh chapter. But ministers being transformed
to dangels of light who believe they're preaching righteousness, but
they've been changed somehow into a tool of Satan. And
I say, God, can that be possible? Lord? Is that
really reasonable that a man who starts right can change
and become a tool of the devil in a puppet.
Am I to conclude that a man of God can
start right, be a true shepherd for season, preach a
true gospel, but something of Hall lays hold of his
heart and his spirits, something demonic, and he changes and
he becomes a minister of Satan. Folks, it's happening every day,
bring right here in New York City. When men become
dissatisfied with preaching a simple gospel and they get bored
and not praying, and they're not seeking God, and they
get their eyes on people and numbers, and they want
to be judged like everybody else. I want to be
a success. And so it comes out, and I hear
it everywhere I go. I hear a pastors say, I
saw it on television at watching in the apartment we
were renting on a vacation and it was a Sunday morning.
And you listen to these pastors. We have twenty five
hundred this year. My goal next year is forty five hundred,
and any cost, anyway to reach that goal. It's not
wrong to pray for growth, but if it's only to
feed human ambition, it'll change the man into a devil. Listen.
If you find the right formula, it said, you can
give success in any field of endeavor possible. This is
exactly what I'm talking about. Some young men have come
up with the formula how to build a church, a formula.
This formula based accommodating Gospel is contrary to everything in
the scripture. I read in Act thirteen of a gathering
of God, the Men and Antioch. They were not going
to send out some young ministers to establish churches and
priest the gospel to a darkened world. How does God
go about building churches? How does the Holy Ghost work?
Scripture said they gathered that they ministered to.
Speaker 2: The Lord and fasted.
Speaker 1: This was their planning session, worship, fasting, wading on the
Lord for direction till the Holy Ghost comes and tells
them exactly what to do. Number two, They prayed, no strategizing, working.
No one made a step until the Holy Ghost said
this is the way, walk in it. And then when
the Holy Ghost spoke, they laid hands on them and
sent them out. The Bible says, under the power and
the anointing of the Holy Ghost. You see, Paul had
lived his whole religious life under religious formulas. He'd lived
with these man made schemes. He had seen teachings that
commendated the weaknesses and the sinfulness of Baxliden Jews. He'd
had his stomach full of it. He said, I have
nothing to do with that. It attracts the multitudes. Yes,
but he said, one day Jesus came and revealed himself
in me. Paul put all of the formulas aside, his
dung as garbage. Paul, by his own confession, said, I'm
determined go for it. The fool he preached the Gospel
of Christ and power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost.
And unless the Gospel is priest and power and demonstration
the Holy Ghost, it's not the gospel. It's not the gospel.
And sadly, the multitudes in America don't even know what
the gospel is because they haven't heard it. Paul boasted, unashamedly,
we preached Christ crucified unto the Jews. Stumbleay, blocking under
the Greek's foolishness, Paul said, now, brother, and the Jews
and the Greeks, they're trying to make us accommodate our message.
Now the Jews want us to give them signs, and
the Greeks want wisdom. They want miracles over here and
over here. They just want ten steps on how to come.
They want wisdom. But Paul said, there will be no accommodating.
Let them call our preaching foolishness. Let them say it's
out of date, that it's not contemporary. He said, I'm
determined to preach nothing among you except Jesus Christ and
him crucified. This other gospel accommodates the sinner in many ways.
But there are three areas of commendation that the Holy
Ghost grieves over. In this I felt the grief of
God on these three areas of commendation where people where
ministers are changing the gospel to suit the crowd. Number
one the accommodation of man's love for pleasure. Know this
also that in the last days, perilous time shall come,
men shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
And the Greek word for pleasure here is sensuality, lust, voluptuousness,
in other words, exciting, gratifying, sensual pleasures. And all folks.
Speaker 2: Hears the danger.
Speaker 1: Those who are established these seekert friendly churches. They're prepared
to accommodate the crowd. The Bible says, they're going to have.
Speaker 2: To not preach.
Speaker 1: It's very very clear they cannot preach against sensuality because
the Apostle says, they're going to be lovers of pleasure
more than lovers of God. They're going to love their sports,
they're going to love their X rated movies. They're gonna
love their videos. They're gonna love their their computer sex.
They're gonna love these sensuous things. The Bible says they're
gonna love these things. They're gonna come into the House
of God, and if you're going to accommodate them, you're
not going to touch one of their lust. The inter
course say one word about it. They're gonna have to
be They're gonna have to be prepared to stand in their.
Speaker 2: Pulpit and wicked sin.
Speaker 1: Paul said, of these men, these resist the truth men
are corrupt minds, counterfeit regarding the faith, counterfeits. You know,
I watched in disbelief in the televised main service of
one of these secrephendy churches, one of the large sinner
or secrephony churches, and the pastor starts and start saying,
we're here to have fun tonight because tonight is David
Letterman night and the pastor said brazenly after service, we're
here not to offend, but to make it comfortable. How
long do you think that crowd was stay in that church?
And the pastor was shaken by the Holy Ghost, convicted
of entertaining people into hell. And he stood up one
Sunday night and he said, be sure your sins and
finds you out. Let me tell you what happened that church.
Those thousands who sit there, those who are hungry for
God and didn't know any better, they would weep and
break before God in a moment, and everyone else would
head for the doors and never come back. Well, they're
going to be pastors on Judgment Day. Here these awful words,
son of Man, I made the watchman. You were to
hear the word at my mouth and give them warnings
from me.
Speaker 2: You were to tell the wicked.
Speaker 1: Dow will surely die. He gave them no warning, nor
spake to warn the wicked from the wicked ways to
save their lives. These same wicked men will die. It
these same wicked men did die in their sins. But
now their blood I require from your hands. Accommodation Number two.
The accommodation of modern man's aversion to self denial. Number three,
the accommodating of men's offense of the cross. Behold, I
lay in Zion the stumbling stone, at a rock of offense.
Paul spoke of the offense of the cross. And we're
coming now to the heart of why God hates this
new doctrine, this new movement in America. This is why
God hates it, rejects it out right, and why he's
cursed it, and why God will put anathema on any
preacher who embraces it. God demands more than coming to
the cross. He demands going through the cross. And that's
the offense that it takes everything a man has and
owns and trust in. You see, the defense of the
sinner is most willing to come to the cross and
kneel before it. He's willing to take the claims by
a single confession of faith and just say yes, Lord,
I believe. He wants all of the benefits of the cross.
He wants to believe that Christ the sacrificed yes and
covered all his sins. Now, folks, that's being preached the cross.
Though all the phraseology is there, it's sweetly talked about
the cross. Come to the cross of Jesus and be forgiven.
There's not one word about saying going on with Christ
into the tomb and to die. There's not a word
about going down into the grave and coming out resurrected
and newness of life. It's coming to the cross, Neil,
say a prayer and go back to your sins.
Speaker 2: Go back, and no one say a word.
Speaker 1: You take it by faith. You are now the rights
of Christ, dying to sin, not being resurrected, newness of life.
Now that's the defense of the cross. Did you go
all the way? When you come? He demands full obedience.
He demands everything we have. And I'm afraid a majority
of people who claim to be Christians and saved in
these last days have been to the cost, but they've
never been through the cross. They've never been buried with Christ.
Paul said, I died with Christ, I was raised with Christ.
I was crucified with Christ. I not only came to
his cross, I picked up my cross. I went through
with him. We have another gospel now that tells men
what the cross did for him, but not what it
wants to take him to the gospel, folks is not
just forgiveness. It's not simply believe in get heaven someday.
It's not only the saving of the source of the
saving of the body, this flesh. God says, I want
your flesh. I want your body as a living sacrifice.
And that's the preaching of the cross. Folks, I don't
care if they if somebody could gather a crowd of
one hundred thousand people in that stadium and they could
turn to me and say, Pastor Dave, you're wrong. Look
one hundred thousand people that have come through my secret
friendly church, and here they are. They're all believers now.
And folks, I wanted to know something. If those hundred
thousand people have not been given the full gospel of
Jesus Christ, has not been priest fully, if the claims
of the Cross have not been laid there, and if
they've been coddled and comforted their sins, that one hundred
thousand have been made twice a child of hell, then
ever before, they're and worse safe, because the Bible says
they can come now and hear the words of the
curse even and bless himself and his heart, saying I
shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of
my heart, and add drunkenness to thirst, because a false
peace has been given to them, that they can live
in their sins, never be rebuked, never be reproved, never
see the claims of the Cross. Did he know that
he died to deliver man from from the heart oft
sin and the idea of sin, but the dominion of
sin in his own life. If the preaching of grace
doesn't have as its goal righteousness, it's another gospel for
the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to
all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly LUs,
we shall live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
I saw a televised interview of people that had joined
one America's most renowned secret on the churches, and this
man testified words, I'm as close, I believe as the
way I heard it. He said, I come here because
I've never made to feel uncomfortable about my life. I
can bring my Jewish friends, my business associates that never
be embarrassed. I don't have to be a fanatic. And
the preaching and the skits are really enjoyable and uplifting
and best of all church only last one hour. Contrast
that with Paul's preaching for godly sorrow works, repentance to salvation,
not to be repented off for your whole this self,
same thing that you sorrowed after godly sort. What carefulness
it wrought in you? Yea? What clearing of yourself?
Speaker 2: Indignation, fear?
Speaker 1: YEA? What vehement desire and zeal? What revenge? And all
things you approved yourself to be clear in this matter.
And Paul warns, if there's not that kind of preaching,
many will walk of whom I told you often, and
I'll tell you even weeping. They are enemies of the
costs of Christ, who's under destruction, whose God is their belly,
and whose glory is in their shame. Whom mind Dirkley things.
I came to New York City when age was plaguing Broadway.
People were dying left and right, Black Muslims in Times
Square spewing out hate, young blacks and young Puerto Ricans
feeling the world is left and behind, and angry intellectuals
cursing Christ liberal minds who say there's no hope, And
you tell me, I'm going to come in with the
fifteen minutes, skep, and I'm going to have a cute
little worship team giving little diddy pot songs to a
dying world. God help our blindness, folks. We started down
on crack Alley on forty first Street, in that rag
tag theater, and from the first time I stood in
the pulpit, I preached repentance. I preached the Cross. I said,
we are not here to comfort you and your sins.
We're here to confront you in your sins and to
believe that there's a savior will deliver you. And the
experts tell us that won't work. People don't want that.
Speaker 2: I talked to a man the other day.
Speaker 1: He was visiting one of these churches and they decided
they're going to break their church up in little groups
with prayer meetings. And he went to one of the
prayer meetings. And this is a secret friendly type church,
you know what. The permitting consisted of hot chocolate and donuts.
And then they brought all the games out, the board games,
and played games the rest of the evening. And they
are those people that are dying in their sins and
they're playing weedsy boards in all of his garbage. Do
you think for one moment we would ever stand for
the Carter, myself or any of our men. Where teachers
would stand in this pulpit where drug crazed people come
to visit, people half did, people crying and yearning for
just one word of hope. Do you think for one
minute I'm going to give a twenty minute sermonette to
ease their mind. No, I am so glad hold in
my heart one day, I'm so glad he revealed his
heart to me. And I can say, with Paul the Apostle,
he revealed his sale. He Christ revealed himself in me,
not to me, but in me, Hall Louis. And as
long I know, as long as this man is in
this church, as long as I'm in this pulpit, there
will never ever be in this pope an accommodating gospel, ever,
an accommodating gospel.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Fact Hunter Radio Network.
Speaker 1: Just the facts, mam