I headed directly to Pastor Dave’s office, which at the time was only a few blocks south and three blocks west of the doctor’s office. I told him exactly what the doctor said and concluded (with tears in my eyes), “I guess I need to find someone I can hand the South Bronx Church over to.”
“Charles, don’t ever make major decisions when you’re sick, depressed, or worn out, which pretty much describes your condition right now. Why don’t we fly you down to Tennessee and you can stay with your mom in Cleveland for a month or two? I can get some of our team to take over the work in the Bronx in the meantime.”
I nodded my head in agreement, silently wondering why the Lord hadn’t just healed me already, as I lowered my shame-filled eyes down to my feet.
In order to help me shake off the condemnation I felt over my predicament, Pastor Dave smiled and said, “Well, I guess you’re walking in my footsteps, for sure.” I looked up with bewilderment on my face as he continued: “When I first came to this city, I burned myself out trying to fix all the problems I saw. I became worn out and ended up getting mononucleosis. I had to be hospitalized for six weeks, and even then it took me a while to recover. I know how needy the South Bronx is. The need can indicate a call, but it is not to dictate the call.”
“Can you explain that a bit further, Pastor Dave?”
“Sure. OK, you’re called to start and pastor a church in the Bronx. But every need you see is not yours to try to fulfill. When did the prodigal son come to himself?”
“I guess when he was feeding the pigs?”
“The verse right before ‘And he came to himself ’ says, ‘no man gave to him.’ The prodigal son found himself in a place where no one helped him so he would look up to Heaven for help. We need to differentiate between our calling and the needs of the people around us. And no one is able to meet every need he sees. This needy city causes the best of us to overdo it, along with other impure motives that the Lord has to deal with us about.”
Three long days later, I walked from my old bedroom in Mom’s house in Cleveland, Tennessee, to go brush my teeth in the bathroom sink. I blacked out and fainted and somehow fell against the corner of the room, sliding down until I was sitting on top of the bathroom trashcan. I finally woke up, perhaps hours later, finding that I’d been thrown away!
“Well, Lord, why don’t You just dispose of me,” I joked out loud as I pried myself off the trashcan. “Maybe I should go toss myself headfirst into the large garbage can out in the backyard!”
Just as the doctor predicted, I could hardly move for the next month. I spent almost the entire time lying in bed, thinking and praying. I thought about the last service we had in the Bronx when my leadership team gathered around me and fervently prayed, once again, that I would be supernaturally healed so I wouldn’t have to take an untimely sabbatical. I thought about the guest speaker we had that day, the director of Teen Challenge in Ireland. When he prayed over me, he quoted the verse “…Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things…” (Matt. 25:23). What could that possibly mean? Was my time in the Bronx over? Where would I go if it was?
I faced the fact that one of the reasons why I worked too hard was that I was somehow trying to earn God’s smile by my efforts. I read in the Scriptures that Jesus had His Father’s approval and affirmation even before His ministry began. At His baptism, the Father audibly declared from Heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11; Matt. 3:17). Ministry should come from an overflow of gratitude for what Jesus has done for me instead of being a way to somehow prove to Him how hard I can work for God. I also saw that I worked too hard at trying to follow in the steps of Pastor Dave by building a Times Square Church in the Bronx. I realized that although we are all to follow in the faith-filled steps of Abraham, this does not mean that we must move to Canaan and become wandering patriarchs! I let the Lord deal with my motives, surrendered my life to Him afresh, and I heard His gentle whisper that my assignment in the Bronx was over. Then, quite suddenly, I was completely healed. My strength returned 100 percent. Praise God!
I flew back to New York and told Pastor Dave that I let the Lord deal with the roots of my workaholism and that God had spoken to me. My time in the Bronx was over, and I was completely well. My team in the Bronx told me they’d heard rumors that Brooklyn Tabernacle was considering planting a sister church in the South Bronx. Pastor Dave and Pastor Cymbala soon discussed the situation. The couple that was ready to plant the new church was willing to take over South Bronx Church, renaming it South Bronx Tabernacle. I then asked Pastor Dave if I could move back into my old cubbyhole room in the theater for a few months, or at least until I knew what my next assignment was. He was more than happy to consent. My congregation in the Bronx was perplexed that I left them without knowing what my next step was, and frankly, so was I.
A few weeks later, Pastor Dave came over to the church and asked one of the workers to let me know that he wanted to speak with me and would be waiting on the stage in the chair in which he sat during services. I quickly made my way down to the stage and joined him. “Charles, all of us pastors have been praying a lot for you.”
“Thank you so much,” I replied with sincere gratitude.
“And we all agree that we would like for you to come on the pastoral staff here as an associate pastor, as the pastor of prayer.”
“What?” I responded in total bewilderment. “But what about what happened in the South Bronx? I failed in the Bronx. I got too sick to continue. Why would you want to hire a failure?”
“You didn’t fail in the Bronx! You didn’t choose to get so sick that you had to step down! You worked hard in an impoverished neighborhood for two full years. You established a congregation and faithfully ministered God’s Word there.” By this time, he was almost yelling. “That’s not failure!” he exclaimed. I realized he was attacking the lies of the enemy and not attacking me personally. But I was still shocked, and I just stared at him as he waited for me to reply. He probably expected me to jump at the golden opportunity because when I gave him my answer, surprise then filled his face.
I said to him, “Pastor Dave, I’m honored, but I’ll have to pray about this.” We both stood up at the same time and quickly walked away, he to the office across the street and I back to my cubbyhole room.
Sometimes when Christians respond by saying, “I’ll pray about it,” it’s nothing more than a polite, “No, thanks.” But I meant it. I went to my little room and stayed on my knees for a long time, travailing in prayer. And the more I prayed, the more peace I felt. Then I felt tremendous joy—joy unspeakable and full of glory. I got up, walked over to my bookshelf, and randomly pulled a book off the shelf. I picked out one that I hadn’t begun reading yet. It was the book Revival God’s Way by Leonard Ravenhill. I opened it up in the middle, looked down, and read aloud:
Without exception, all true revivals of the past began after years of agonizing, hell-robbing, earthshaking, Heaven-sent intercession. The secret to true revival in our own day is still the same. But where, oh where, are the intercessors? Some of us older souls remember when whole nights were given to prayer in the church. There are churches with a Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor, Music Pastor, or Youth Pastor, but where, oh where, is there a church with a Pastor of Prayer?19
I was trembling with excitement. I literally ran across the street and into Pastor Dave’s office unannounced. (Never did that before, but I felt like a kid who had to share with his daddy right away. I just couldn’t help myself.) “Pastor Dave, Pastor Dave, the answer’s yes! Yes, I’ll be the pastor of prayer. The more I prayed about it, the more peace I felt. And then I pulled out this Ravenhill book and opened it up right to this page! Look at what it says!”
Pastor Dave read it out loud, laughed, and then carefully read it again to himself. “Charles, that’s great! Let’s start a Thursday night prayer meeting next week! Here’s a booklet I found in an old bookstore I
want you to have. I think it’s out of print so don’t lose it.” I looked down and read the title to myself: Daniel Nash, Prevailing Prince of Prayer. A congregation Daniel Nash deeply loved had voted him out of the pastorate. Soon afterward, he had a serious illness called inflamed eyes. For several weeks he had to be kept in a dark room, where he gave himself to prayer. He then began one of the greatest ministries of prayer evangelism recorded in history. He went out ahead of the revivalist Charles Finney and prayed down God’s blessings and power on his evangelistic efforts.
When I had been pastoring in the Bronx, many of those who helped me would also attend the Sunday evening services at Times Square Church. I was told over and over that my sermons in the afternoon were the same messages Pastor Dave preached later in the evening. When I began attending Sunday nights, amazingly two out of three times it would be the same message, with the same Scripture passages! Talk about a confidence booster! So I was excited and ready when Pastor Dave said the format of the Thursday evening services should include some worship, a twenty-minute sermon on prayer, and then intercession as the Spirit of God led.
He opened and led the first Thursday evening prayer service, and at the end, he introduced me as the new pastor of prayer and the one who would be leading those meetings from then on. They took place in the main sanctuary with the maroon stage curtain closed. I would stand in the middle of the altar and lead us in songs that everyone knew and then preach my heart out on prayer for twenty minutes. And then we prayed—really prayed. During the fourth or fifth prayer service, I was not aware that Pastor Dave was sitting in his seat on the stage behind the curtain, quietly listening to the service.
Right as I ended my little sermon, Pastor Dave got so excited that he came out from behind the curtain and told the surprised crowd, “Folks, what Pastor Charles just shared with you is exactly what God has been speaking to me all day long. It’s the Lord!”
A few weeks later, the very same thing happened, but even more dramatically. Pastor Dave came out, saying to the hundreds of people gathered there that my twenty-minute sermon was exactly what he was preaching the following Sunday. Same verses, same context. Those prayer meetings became, in Pastor Dave’s words, “the backbone of Times Square Church.” The very week they started, everyone noticed a difference as we experienced more of God’s presence, peace, and power in all the church services.
One Thursday afternoon while I was preparing for the evening prayer meeting, I heard the Lord speaking to me about taking authority. I guess I needed to teach on authority in prayer. God said to my waiting heart, “Not only are you to teach it; you need to put it into practice. When someone tries to disrupt the service this evening, rebuke him in My name and everything will be OK.” All afternoon I wondered how this warning would play out: Would radical Muslims or angry activists try to disrupt the service, like they sometimes did on Sundays? Everything seemed to be going smoothly for the first part of the service. I led the group of about three hundred faithful intercessors in a few well-known and simple choruses and then preached for about twenty minutes on how we have been given Jesus’s name and the authority of His name to use in our prayers. I was about to invite everyone to the front to call on the Lord together for the next hour. Suddenly, a strange-looking chubby man with a suitcase came walking, almost running, down one of the church’s aisles, heading straight toward me.
He yelled out, “I have a bomb, and I’m going to blow this place to pieces!”
Because of the earlier warning from the Holy Spirit, I was ready. I walked right up to that Goliath and said, “In the authority of Jesus’s name, I command you to turn around right now and walk out of here!” The man stopped, turned completely around, and obediently walked out of the church as though he had no choice in the matter—which he didn’t!
The congregation sat there shocked and then amazed at what had unfolded. I went right along with the meeting, not missing a beat. It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I thought, “Oh my! What if that suitcase really did have a bomb in it? It might have even been a dirty nuclear bomb!”
I read that Charles Spurgeon attributed the ten-year revival that his church in London experienced to the prayer meetings that took place in its basement during the services. How cool was that! We could do that! Soon a room opened up in the basement, directly underneath the main sanctuary, and we developed prayer teams to intercede for the people sitting in the seats directly above us. We worshiped in the main sanctuary, and then when the children were released to go to children’s church before the sermon began, we went down to the prayer room. We all noticed another increase of God’s presence as soon as those prayer meetings started. I taught the teams that our prayer time in that room was not for Aunt Sue or the people in China but specifically for the people attending the service right at that moment. The room could only hold about twenty people so we had a sign-up sheet that filled up a half hour before the services began!
We then started having prayer at the altar before each service. People came thirty to forty-five minutes early anyway (to get a good seat) so we decided that we might as well make use of that time. Hundreds of people joined me as we gathered up front and called upon God for His blessings on the service. We then started noonday prayer meetings for those who worked in the area. My life felt like one continuous, glorious prayer meeting!
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“This could destroy the calling on your life.”
WHILE LIVING AND PASTORING IN THE BRONX, THERE WAS A SISTER IN MY church I thought God was bringing my way to be my wife, but I was very wrong. One of the pastors at Brooklyn Tabernacle warned me that this particular sister had been in a mental hospital and was still not in her right mind and was not being honest with me. She didn’t tell me she had moved in (for a season) with one of the male doctors who were treating her. When I came on staff at Times Square Church as the pastor of prayer, Pastor Dave told me, “Charles, if you don’t hear clearly from the Lord whom to marry, this could destroy the calling on your life.”
One Sunday evening, Pastor Dave preached on our need to learn how to patiently wait on the Lord and sit in His presence. After the altar call was given and people went back to their seats, the presence of God was so strong that no one wanted to leave. I doubt if more than 20 people out of the capacity crowd of 1,500 got up and left. The choir sang another song, and another, and another. After the sixth extra song, Pastor Dave got up and addressed the congregation.
“Beloved, there are times when staying in God’s presence is more important than getting enough sleep, getting enough to eat, or getting enough of anything else. I need more of God so I’m going to sing to the Lord some more, and I encourage you to stay as long as God’s overwhelming presence stays upon this service.”
He sat down and we sang many more songs as the glory of the Lord filled the place. I will never forget that meeting. I stayed until the end of the very last song, partly because I lived in the back of the building! As the time approached 2:00 A.M. and I was peacefully floating to my room, I recalled Pastor Gary asking me to consider joining him on a mission trip to Poland and Romania that he was about to take. How I’d love to go with him. “Lord,” I said, with my spirits high and my faith soaring, “so many times in Your Word You spoke through dreams. Speak to me tonight in a dream.”20 I was hoping and expecting the Lord to give me a dream about going with Gary, or about not going with him, so I could give him a definite answer.
I awoke in the middle of the night, my room pitch black except for the red numbers on my clock radio. Three thirty-three, it read. I suddenly recalled the vivid dream I just had. It was about one of the sisters who often prayed beside me during our pre-service prayer meetings at the altar. In the dream, she and I were on our knees together in a living room, praying as husband and wife. “Oh, no. I think that sister’s married,” I said to myself. (She didn’t have that look across her face that so many Christian sisters have, the look that screams, “I’m single and available and desperate!”) No, she had th
e contented look of a happily married wife. “Lord, if this is an attack from the enemy, I’ll have nothing of it.” I turned on the bright overhead light and got out of bed and paced back and forth for the next hour, fervently praying against any attack from a spirit of adultery.
Suddenly, the same overwhelming presence from the service the night before invaded my little room. As the presence of God filled the place, I got on my knees in reverence and recalled a bit of advice Pastor Dave gave me one time: “Trust what you hear when you’re in God’s presence. Doubt what you hear when your heart is filled with fears and anxieties.” I quieted my soul and asked, “Lord, what is it?”
“Charles, this woman you dreamt about is going to be your wife. I’m going to tell you about her so you will know this is of Me. She’s in her mid-twenties and was saved in a Pentecostal church.” And then the presence lifted and I crawled back into bed.
At the Tuesday evening prayer meeting before the service, she was praying right beside me, along with hundreds of others who gathered at the front to pray. As the maroon curtain rose (signaling it was time to begin), we intercessors went back to our saved seats, mine being on the platform right behind Pastor Dave. I asked a sister on the way back, “Did you see the sister who was praying next to me tonight?”
“Yeah,” she said with a snicker. “Why do you ask?”
“What’s her name?”
“That’s Lynn.”
“Do you know how old she is?”
She smiled real big and said, “No, but I know someone who would know. You know Lois, the usher over there? You can ask her about Lynn. They’re friends.”
“Thanks,” I said as I hurried to the platform. Lois was ushering the aisle closest to the platform entrance. When I made my way down to the prayer room when the kids were dismissed, I stopped and said, “Hi, Lois. Can I talk with you for a moment after the service?”
Walking in the Footsteps of David Wilkerson Page 10