"Be Ye Ready" Is No Joking Matter

David Wilkerson        

"Lord, you spoke so clearly to me this past week in a dream.  You told me to preach this this afternoon, and I obey you..."

David Wilkerson

"Watch ye therefore for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the
thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to
be broken into.  Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming
at an hour you do not expect."    _{- Matthew 24:42-44}

I don't get many dreams, and I don't preach on my dreams because I'm a Bible preacher, and anything that does not conform to the word of God is to be rejected outright.  I'm just telling you how God awakened my soul, how I should preach this more often.  I want you to know this is not doctrine; it's not some "new revelation."  It's simply the Holy Spirit prompting me and speaking to me about His coming.  I don't want to build any doctrine about it, remember that.  I don't have much confidence in dreams.  Any dream, vision or revelation has to absolutely be framed in scripture.

Now having said that, let me share with you without trying to talk to you about doctrine or anything else, just the Holy Ghost talking to me.  In my dream I was suddenly awakened by the knowledge that I had been snatched, I had been caught up, and I was in some kind of conveyance.  I don't know if it was a chariot — I didn't see the conveyance — but I knew that there were others in it and that there was an angel of the Lord.  There was a sense of just racing swiftly through streets and into houses.  This conveyance knew no barriers and I had a sense that I was on my way home, I'm saved, the Lord has come.

I am being gathered by the angel of the Lord, the chariots of the Lord.  There are thousands upon thousands.  The coming of the Lord is as lightening is from the east to the west.  There was a sense of swiftness, but it was almost as if I were seeing it in slow motion, this lightning coming.  I was seeing it in slow motion. I didn't see a driver; I didn't see an angel.  I didn't see the conveyance, I just had a sense ... I knew I was being carried and taken and it was moving swiftly, and people were being snatched from homes and from the streets.

And I remember specifically going into a particular home and there were three people that I recognized, two were friends and one was a family member, and we went right by, and there was a sense, a sudden sense, "Oh God, they were being left behind," and the Lord allowed me, for a few fleeting moments, to sense the terror of what it would be like to be left behind when the angels of the Lord come and gather His elect from the four winds.

I was made to know at that time that even those who call themselves Christians — and were not really Christians, who despised the grace of God, went out and sinned and said, "I can easily confess," (never forsaking their sin) — there was a sense that even though they were sleeping they were aware.  There was an awareness that the Lord is coming and there is a sudden moment because I saw hands being raised, people reaching out and waving.

In fact, as we kept moving on there were people who were moving and trying to get the attention of this driver, this conveyance, and I was screaming and yelling get out in the open, as if I thought if they were out in the open they could be seen and get caught up but it went swiftly on.  There was a sense that I have never experienced in my life, even though all my life my father taught on the coming of the Lord, and my grandfather taught on the coming of the Lord.

The Bible says, "we shall all be changed ... in the twinkling of an eye."  Suddenly we're going to be changed.  The Bible says this corrupt body shall put on an incorruptible body just like His.  And the Bible says that we are to be prepared and ready, expecting.  The Bible says He is coming for those who look for His appearing, and those who are expecting.  Even though asleep they are going to be caught up, if it's in the middle of the night.

Now I'm not going to be get into the doctrine of the rapture, when this happens, before the tribulation, middle of the tribulation or after the tribulation.  I am just telling you I had a sense of the horror it's going to be for those who knew the gospel, who had one appeal after another, who knew the grace and the mercy of God and they were not ready.  They were not taken, they were not gathered in this, and I remember the swiftness of moving, and seeing the people left behind, the conveyance just passing by, and this terrible sense.  Lord I know I'm saved, I know I'm redeemed, I'm going home, but those two friends and that member of my family... and there was a terror.  Two shall be sleeping in a bed, one shall be taken and the other left...watch therefore He's coming as a thief in the night.  He's coming folks.

There was no sense of speed, there was no sense of traveling, but suddenly I was stepping with everyone around me, we were stepping as out of a cloud, out of a fog, out of time, into eternity, suddenly.  There was no sense of being carried out into a cosmos or anywhere else.

Suddenly we were ... home.

We were in eternity and I remember this sense of absolute serenity, as we stepped out into eternity through this cloud.  There was a sense of peace, and all I could see people around me who were feeling their bodies, feeling their hands, and caressing their faces.  There was no shouting.  I didn't see Jesus anywhere.  It was just a sense, it happened so quickly, it seemed to be a gathering place.  The Bible says, "He will ... gather together His elect from the four winds."

Suddenly I looked and there were my two friends, and my loved one coming through the cloud and into eternity.  Nobody was looking at each other.  There was no embracing; there was just a peace, an incredible peace, and I experienced it for a moment.  I am home; that earth that I was on is gone.  I am beyond the reach of Satan.  There is no sin.  There is no possibility of ever being lost.  I am eternally His.  He did what He said He would do.  He said He would come with His angels and He came with His angels.  He did everything I preached, everything I said.  It's true!  He's all-sufficient; He's everything that we need!

There was a peace and a serenity beyond anything I could imagine... and people were just awed, in silence, there was an awe, there was a peace that was absolutely indescribable, and the sense... it was a sense, it's all over, it's all over, it was all... it was all true.  That sense of reality and truth - that was not the real world, this is the real world, this is eternity, that's all passed away, it was just a dream, it was just grass — that's what the Bible says — the flesh is just grass, it comes up, it withers and it's gone.  Time is just a little piece, eternity is a great big realm.  God cut a little piece and He gave it to man, with His grace and mercy, saying, "Here is My grace, My mercy, My glory."  He gives you space and time to repent and trust in Him.

"But God wait a minute!  All of these who didn't come, all of those who were left behind, who thought they were prepared and thought they were ready ...  they are not here!  What about them, Lord?  They're lost." There was a sense in me, now folks that will not be there but I believe God was letting me feel the sense of this lostness of those who were gone, and suddenly as I was thinking about all those who had not been gathered, I woke up, I sat right up, and these words were like silent thunder in my head: "David, 'be ye ready' is no joking matter." And I lay back in my pillow and God said, "My people are not taking it seriously.  They talk about it but they are not taking it seriously, and many, many are going to be left behind.  They are not ready... the age of grace is about to end."

"Be Ye Ready" Is No Joking Matter by David Wilkerson, sermon audio.

IN MEMORIAM:

A Legacy of Love by Kim — I did not know David Wilkerson personally, but when I heard the news of his death, I cried as much at the loss of him as I have in the past when a family member has gone on.

Changing of the Watch by Joseph Herrin — Brother Wilkerson was much more than an inner city minister.  He became one of the chief prophetic voices God raised up to speak to America.

A Private Moment for Times Square Church by Carter Conlon — Remembering the death of David Wilkerson;  service at Times Square Church on Sunday, May 1, 2011.

Remembering David Wilkerson by Nancy French — His voice exuded the goodness of God for almost 70 years, boiling down abstract theological concepts into practical help for thousands of New Yorkers.

The Righteous Methuselah of Our Time by Michael Rich — The warnings have ended.  David Wilkerson?s death signals foreboding for our nation and the world.  The same year that righteous Methuselah died is when the flood came upon the earth.

Some Thoughts on David Wilkerson's Passing by Amy S. Trosen — David Wilkerson had to preach a distinctly prophetic word.  There seems to be a pattern in Scripture, however, that the visionary does not live to see the days actually come to pass; that "the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil."