“Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest’” (Hebrews 3:8-11).
What reason is given for why God’s people were not able to enter his rest? Was it because of adultery, covetousness, drunkenness? No, it was because of unbelief alone. Here was a nation exposed to forty years of miracles, supernatural wonders that God worked on their behalf. In fact, no other people on earth had been so loved, so tenderly cared for.
They received revelation after revelation about the goodness of the Lord. They heard a fresh word preached regularly from Moses, their prophet leader, and yet, they never mixed that word with faith. Therefore, hearing it did them no good. In the midst of all those blessings, they still did not trust God to be faithful, and over time, unbelief set in.
Beloved, unbelief is the root cause behind all hardness of heart. The Scripture goes on, “Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?” (Hebrews 3:17). The people’s unbelief kindled God’s anger against them; moreover, it hardened them into a continual spiral of unbelief: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God … lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (3:12-13).
Unbelief is also the root of all bitterness, rebellion and coldness. That is why Hebrews 3 is addressed to believers. You can be saved, Spirit-filled, and walking holy before God and still be guilty of unbelief. It is so important that we accept his supernatural power by faith and say with confidence, “Do it again, Lord. And let your strength be made perfect in my weakness.”
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David Wilkerson (1931 – 2011)
Founder of Times Square Church in New York City with over 100 different languages spoken in the congregation. Wilkerson wrote many powerful books such as: The Vision and Cross and the Switchblade. His ministry was prophetic as God called him to be a watchman to the Church in North America. He gave clear messages on repentance to the Church.Wilkerson also founded Teen Challenge where there are hundreds of centres for Christ-centered drug recovery and addiction recovery. He also organized and spoke at pastors gatherings in many countries where he gave prophetic strong messages to encourage pastors and leaders.
Recommends these books by David Wilkerson:
The Vision and Beyond, Prophecies Fulfilled and Still to Come by David Wilkerson
Knowing God by Name: Names of God That Bring Hope and Healing by David Wilkerson
God's Plan to Protect His People in the Coming Depression by David Wilkerson
David Wilkerson is an American Christian evangelist, most well-known for his book The Cross and the Switchblade. He is also the founder of Times Square Church in New York, an interdenominational church.
Wilkerson is well-known for these early years of his ministry to young drug addicts and gang members in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. He co-authored a book about his work with the New York drug addicts, The Cross and the Switchblade, which became a best-seller, selling over 50 million copies in over thirty languages since it was published in 1963. The book was included among the 100 most important Christian books of the 20th century.
For over four decades, Wilkerson's ministry has included preaching, teaching and writing. He has authored over 30 books.
David Wilkerson is the founder and president of World Challenge, Inc., a nonprofit organization incorporated on September 22, 1971. Reverend Wilkerson, the author of over thirty inspirational books, is perhaps best known for his early days of ministry to young drug addicts and gang members in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. His story is told in The Cross and the Switchblade, a book he co-authored which became a best-seller. (The story has been read by over 50 million people in some thirty languages and 150 countries since 1963. In 1969, a motion picture of the same title was released.)
For over four decades, Reverend Wilkerson's evangelistic ministry has included preaching, teaching and writing. Throughout that time a distinctive characteristic of his work has been his direct efforts to reach the neediest members of the population with help for both body and soul. Even now, the almost 70 year-old minister often goes out alone or sometimes with an assistant to walk through the streets of New York City, along Broadway and Eighth Avenue or down 42nd Street and nearby "Crack Alley" on 41st Street. His mission is always to seek out the lost, the disoriented, and the addicted , to tell them of the power of the risen Christ to set them free.
David Wilkerson, born in Hammond, Indiana on May 19, 1931, was married in 1953 to Gwen Carosso. The Wilkersons' two sons are ministers, and their two daughters are married to ministers. They have 11 grandchildren. The Wilkersons served small pastorates in Scottsdale and Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, until Reverend Wilkerson saw a photograph in Life magazine of several New York City teenagers charged with murder. Moved with compassion he was drawn to the city in February 1959. It was at that time he began his street ministry to what one writer called "desperate, bewildered, addicted, often violent youth.