Dr. Michael Brown recently ruminated on whether or not a recently unearthed, possibly forged prophecy by none other than David Wilkerson could be a legitimate word of God.
If you’re not familiar with that name, Wilkerson was an American evangelist, pastor, and charismatic darling. He was best known for his book “The Cross And The Switchblade,” founding Teen Challenge, his “A Call to Anguish” sermons, and repeatedly giving cataclysmic, apocalyptic prophecies that have not been even occasionally semi-accurate.
It is with this context that on his Line of Fire show that Brown works through and wonders whether or not David Wilkerson prophecied about COVID-19 back in 1986.
The question comes up because a man named Mike Evans says that a note fell out of an old bible that he had scrawled back in 1986 after a meeting with Pastor Wilkerson. Wilkerson had apparently given a prophecy and Evans jotted down a summation of the prophecy. Here’s what Evans said David Wilkerson said back then:
I see a plague coming on the world, and the bars, churches, and government will shut down. The plague will hit New York City and shake it like it has never been shaken. The plague is going to force prayerless believers into radical prayer and into their Bibles, and repentance will be the cry from the man of God in the pulpit. And out of it will come a third Great Awakening that will sweep American and the world.
We have a couple of comments about that. When Dr. Brown first introduces Wilkerson to his audience, he says:
“If you had heard pastor Dave in the late 70s or early 80s, he was speaking a lot about coming judgment. Years after that he began to speak about those things, that was a major theme of his life and ministry calling for repentance. In his book, The Vision he did talk about calamitous times and some of the specific things he spoken of have comes to pass..”
Michael talks about the book in a way designed to bolster Wilkerson’s credibility and prophetic acumen, when in reality the book does the opposite. The vast majority of the things he prophecies in his book did not come to pass, such as unprecedented, enormous earthquakes that lay waste America.
Some of the general things that he spoke of did happen, as you might expect with a book written 50 years ago. When you have that much time to postulate about possible trends that might be seen “Teens will start watching more sexually explicit tv shows and x-rated content” and all that, eventually some of them will come to pass. If the Lord tarries another thousand years, you will see charismatics declaring “900 years ago…David Wilkeson prophecied this very thing…”
Although we know that in the scriptures the biblical standard for prophets is perfection in prophecy, if you are David Wilkerson, you are lucky if 1 out of 10 of your prophecies is even 10% accurate. It would be far more likely to speak of them as predictions and guesswork, rather than thus-sayeth-the-lord prophecies from Jesus himself.
After reading the prophecy and trying to analyze the veracity of it, Michael comments “Now, that absolutely sounds like something David Wilkerson could have said.”
Right. Because Wilkerson was also prophesying tanks in the streets and nuclear holocaust with uncontrolled fires burning cities down to the ground with the populace screaming in terror as their faces are melted off their skulls and their skin sloughs off their bodies. So yeah. We believe it sounds like him.
Dr. Brown further speculates that the note was written “perhaps for such a time as this and that the word was hidden, and now released. He urges Christians to look at it seriously, as he personally believes it could very well be accurate and a legitimate prophecy.
Some brief commentary:
1. For all that Dr. Brown lauds in Wilkerson’s prophetic soothsaying, it should be noted again that the man is supremely inaccurate and has been proven false many times. Dr. Brown recently issued his wager regarding Chuck Pierce. We ask that he feels free to apply that same standard to Wilkerson.
2. This is not a direct prophecy from Wilkerson but is a summary of what was said in a hand-written scrawl. We don’t know what comes after, or even before.
3. We find the timing very suspicious, and while Dr. Brown says he doesn’t believe Mike Evans created it as a forgery, we have no such assurances, given it was hidden away for 35 years and only now is coming to light. Previously unknown prophecies with impeccable timing should always raise some eyebrows.
4. The plague on the world has not shut the government down. Far from it, they have only increased in size and become more powerful. The government is the cockroach or tardigrade in this scenario – it will never die.
5. In many locations, bars are still open, with some countries declaring them “essential services” along with cannabis stores. In other locations where they were previously closed, they are beginning to open up again.
6. The fact that New York City is mentioned is irrelevant, as the majority of Wilkerson’s prophecies were about New York City. It is incidental to the prophecy, not specific to it.
7. We have little evidence that the plague has forced people into radical prayer, into their bibles, or that the man of God will be crying in his pulpit, as most pastors have voluntarily chosen to leave their pulpits. The only calls for repentance I see are from pastors who left the pulpit telling the ones who remain to repent of not going to online services.
8. I don’t know what great awakenings he is referring to, but as the curve is flattened and some states and countries have begun to open up again, so I don’t see a third great awakening emerging, particularly when then previous 7 points are true, and have not and will not come to pass.
