                    [Times Square Church Pulpit Series]

                         The Death of Compassion!

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By David Wilkerson
February 3, 1997
__________

          A crack-addicted mother killed her own six-year-old
          daughter, Elisa, suffocating her with a pillow.

          Four-year-old Nadine starved to death in her mother's
          house in the Bronx. Police found the girl locked in a
          bedroom -- shriveled, emaciated, curled up in the fetal
          position. All her cries for help had gone unheeded by
          her crack-addicted mother.

          A twenty-year-old mother took her three children to the
          rooftop of their apartment complex. One by one,
          systematically, she pushed the three children screaming
          off the roof to their deaths. Then she jumped and fell
          to her death. New York's Daily News showed pictures of
          anguished onlookers wailing in unbelief at the sight of
          the mother and three children lying dead in the street.
          People were doubled up in agony at the sight.
          Terrified, they screamed, "What has happened to our
          country?"

          A sixteen-year-old girl jumped off the elevated train
          in Brooklyn and fell on a little boy who was rushing
          home to play with a new toy his mother had bought for
          him. As I write this, the boy is in a hospital, in a
          coma. The teenage girl died.

          A distraught mother laid her little girl on a bed,
          covered the child's head with a sweater, went to the
          kitchen, got a knife and began stabbing the little girl
          to death. Later, the mother could give no explanation
          for her action. And she didn't seem to have any sorrow
          over it.

          Another mother got stone drunk, loaded her two children
          into a car and began careening wildly down the road.
          She ran down two children, killing them instantly, and
          smashed the car into a divide, killing herself and her
          two children. Four children dead -- killed in an
          instant by a mother in a drunken stupor!

          I could go on and on, with one tragic story after
          another. These are just a few of the stories that have
          appeared in our New York City newspapers over the past
          few months. There seems to be no end to all the awful
          crimes committed against children. And they are
          happening all across the land.

          I believe it is all God can do to restrain himself from
          moving in before the end of time and putting an end to
          it all. I will never believe he is just some benign
          spirit who sits in heaven, unmoved by the horrible
          spirit of murder loose in this land. No -- he is a
          compassionate father who agonizes over his suffering
          children.

          During his time on the earth, Jesus was the embodiment
          of God's compassion. Scripture frequently says Christ
          was "moved with compassion" by the suffering of people.
          And if that was the case in the first century, what
          great grief there must be now in our Lord's heart!

          The Bible tells us "...his compassions fail not"
          (Lamentations 3:22). "Thou, O Lord, art a God full of
          compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous
          in mercy and truth" (Psalm 86:15).

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                           Most Christians Living
                         Today Would Like to Think
                         That, Like Jesus, They Are
                         "Moved With Compassion."

                      -------------------------------

          When I read stories like these from our newspapers, I
          also want to be moved with compassion. Even the worst
          sinners are "moved" when they hear of the suffering of
          children. I hear them speak in trembling voices on
          radio talk shows as I drive in my car. They say, "How
          awful, tragic, sad! What is our nation coming to? We
          ought to lock up all the drug-using mothers. We need to
          get tougher on crime." After taking several such calls,
          one radio announcer declared, "America is still full of
          compassion!"

          But compassion is not just pity or sympathy. It is more
          than being moved to tears or stirred up emotionally --
          more than speaking out about the evil behind such
          crimes. Compassion means pity and mercy accompanied by
          a desire to help change things. Truly compassionate
          feelings move us to do something!

          This is illustrated in the compassion Jesus showed in
          the gospels. At one point, he departed into the
          wilderness to pray. When the multitudes discovered his
          whereabouts, they followed him by foot from all the
          surrounding towns. In desperation, they brought him
          their lame, their blind, their dying, their demon-
          possessed.

          What did Jesus do? The Bible tells us: "And Jesus went
          forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with
          compassion toward them, and he healed their sick"
          (Matthew 14:14). That is compassion!

          Had Jesus been hampered by our modern thinking, he
          might have gathered his disciples for a committee
          meeting. He would have analyzed the problems and talked
          about the sins that had brought society to such a
          place. He would have pointed to the frothing demoniacs
          and tearfully said, "Look at what sin does to people.
          Isn't that tragic? See the wages of sin at work!"

          Or, he could have said, like so many sanctimonious
          people, "Look -- I'm very tired. I've worked hard
          ministering to you. But now I'm exhausted, and I need
          to talk to my father. You can be sure I feel your pain.
          I'll tell you what: I will call my disciples together,
          and we'll have an intercessory meeting. We'll agree in
          prayer for your needs. Now, go in peace."

          That is modern theology, in a nutshell. Everybody is
          willing to pray -- but few are willing to act!

          Matthew 9 says of Jesus, "When he saw the multitudes,
          he was moved with compassion on them, because they
          fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no
          shepherd" (9:36). The phrase "moved with compassion"
          here means "stirred to action." So, what did Jesus do
          about it?

          He didn't just talk. His heart was moved and stirred at
          what he saw -- and he had a consuming desire to change
          things! Did he have pity toward those people? Yes. Did
          he have sympathy? Yes. But those feelings moved him to
          action! He said, "I'll do all I can to make a
          difference!"

          "Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching
          in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the
          kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease
          among the people" (verse 35). This was not some vain
          theology. Jesus didn't just get alone with the father
          and say, "Lord, send labors into your harvest field."
          Jesus went himself! He laid hands on lepers. He got
          deeply, practically, intimately involved.

          In Matthew 15, we read of an incredible scene: "Great
          multitudes came unto him, having with them those that
          were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and
          cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them"
          (15:30).

          I don't think we can appreciate this scene today. Can
          you imagine it? All around Jesus, hundreds of afflicted
          people were sitting and lying on the ground -- the
          diseased, the despairing, little children too sick to
          sit up, people crying aloud for help, groaning in pain,
          fevered, demon-possessed.

          Jesus didn't turn them away. He performed miracles of
          healing and deliverance: The dumb spoke, the crippled
          leaped, the blind saw, the sick and diseased suddenly
          were made whole. And with every healing, the people
          pressed in even closer. I imagine the people picking up
          their sick children and pushing forward, with the
          disciples trying to keep some order.

          These people were out in the wilderness for three days
          without food. And now they were fainting from hunger.
          That's when Jesus said, "I have compassion on the
          multitudes. I will not send them away fasting, lest
          they faint in the way."

          I could stop right here and make that the focus of this
          message: "I have compassion -- and I will not send them
          away!" But the Lord wants to say to us much more:

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                      Our Once-Caring Nation Is Slowly
                       But Surely Losing Its Heart of
                    Compassion for the Poor and Needy!

                      -------------------------------

          America's compassion is dying! Here in the harbor of
          New York City stands a lady whose arms have been
          outstretched to the poor and needy for more than one
          hundred years. Yet now things are changing drastically.

          State governors compete with one another to see who can
          cut the most people from the welfare rolls. From the
          White House on down to cities and counties, there is a
          stampede to cut food stamps and wipe out welfare -- to
          give as little as possible. Just last month, President
          Clinton talked about the many thousands of people who
          no longer receive welfare benefits. And here in New
          York City, food distribution centers are quickly drying
          up. Funds for giving programs are dwindling.

          Now, I am not a politician. I do not want to get into a
          political discussion about the rights and wrongs of
          welfare for the poor. Yes, I know there has been a lot
          of cheating in the system. And I believe there should
          be changes -- that all able- bodied men should work,
          and that we must not pay mothers for adding more
          illegitimate babies to the welfare rolls.

          But what bothers me is that most of the rhetoric I hear
          on the subject is mean-spirited, cold, heartless.
          There's a hardness sweeping this country!

          I tell you, God will not stand by and allow the richest
          nation on earth to put mothers and children on the
          streets. He will not allow billions to be spent on
          space research while our cities' children go hungry.
          And rest assured -- we are just two years away from
          having hundreds of families on the streets in New York
          City!

          I know the feelings of many middle-class workers across
          the nation as they struggle to survive financially.
          Many suburban people hold good jobs but are being taxed
          to death. They can't even afford to have their children
          vaccinated or to give them health care -- yet they hear
          of ghetto mothers who get free clinical care. They can
          barely keep food on their tables, while free food
          stamps go to people on welfare. One hard-working mother
          said, "I might as well go on welfare. At least my kids
          would get medical attention."

          I understand all these economic pressures. But as
          Christians, we dare not allow our country's cold, hard
          spirit toward the poor to rob us of compassion!

          One former governor is pushing for a new law that would
          legalize euthanasia, the killing of the elderly infirm.
          He says the nation can no longer afford to "waste its
          resources" on them. He suggests that the best thing the
          elderly sick can do is to "die and save our medical
          resources for the young."

          This is shocking! We have become so hard and calloused
          that Jack Kevorkian -- "Doctor Death," the man who
          assists in planned suicides -- is looked upon as a
          hero. He is referred to as a "compassionate, caring
          doctor, helping people out of their misery." Yet what
          he does is just plain murder!

          Worse, euthanasia is now being allowed in cases not
          just of physical pain, but emotional pain as well. If
          you have a nervous breakdown and don't want to face
          life, you can call Doctor Death!

          One day soon, our nation will legalize euthanasia. We
          will cut off more and more food stamps to the poor. And
          our streets will begin to look like those in Third
          World countries -- full of beggars, children and
          homeless people.

          Yet what shocks me most is the lack of compassion I see
          spreading in the church of Jesus Christ. Many of God's
          people are growing cold-hearted and uncaring.
          Demoninations say their missions funds are dwindling.
          People simply are not giving toward foreign missions
          anymore.

          Recently, I sent out to our readers a simple report of
          our missions giving. I wrote, "I want you to know that
          at least ten percent of every dollar you send us is
          tithed to missions. We support child-care ministries
          around the world. We operate orphanages in Romania and
          Mozambique, and we give many thousands to Latin
          American child care."

          I thought people would be thankful for our ministry's
          commitment to giving. But I was shocked and dismayed by
          the numbers of irate letters we received from several
          readers. Here is what some of them said:

          "Take me off your mailing list. I did not give you
          permission to spend out of my offering to your
          ministries overseas. I want every dollar to stay here
          in the United States."

          "I do not want any of my money going to foreign
          missions. I'll support your ministry in New York, but
          nowhere else."

          I say to all who feel the way these people do: If you
          don't like the fact that we tithe your gifts, the best
          thing to do is to stop giving to us. I don't care if
          that costs us thousands of dollars. God will not endure
          that kind of attitude!

          Thank God, the majority of readers are thankful for our
          commitment to give out of compassion.

                      -------------------------------

                           Let Me Now Talk About
                          Us -- About Times Square
                           Church and Our Staff!

                      -------------------------------

          We minister in one of the most troubled, hurting cities
          in America -- both spiritually and, very soon,
          economically. It is a city where over two million
          people receive government assistance, many of them on
          welfare. This city is flooded with drug addiction,
          despair, homelessness.

          Matthew writes that multitudes came to Jesus, casting
          down at his feet the lame, blind, mute, maimed and
          crippled. And today I see this happening in New York
          with the church of Jesus Christ. The government has
          failed; all other institutions and systems have failed;
          so, what is the last hope for humankind? It is supposed
          to be the church of Jesus Christ! And very soon, we are
          going to have more hurting, more homeless, more
          helpless people cast at our feet. They will be brought
          right to our doorstep!

          What will we do then? Should we pray for revival, hold
          all- night prayer meetings -- and simply step over the
          homeless lying right outside our church doors? No --
          never! That is not compassion!

          A few Sunday nights ago, I could not sleep. My spirit
          was in turmoil, because I couldn't put out of my mind
          the mother I'd just met backstage. In one arm she held
          a five-day-old baby, and in her free hand she gripped
          the hand of her two-year-old. Her husband had lost his
          job and couldn't find work, and he'd left her.

          This young mother was now sleeping on the floor of a
          small apartment where ten other people lived. They
          wanted her out because her babies cried so much. She
          could not get welfare; she had no family, no place to
          go, not even money for milk. She told me, "I'm headed
          for the streets. There's no place for us to go!"

          I gave this pitiful young woman some money, and our
          helps ministry began working with her. But that wasn't
          the end. Another young mother who attends our church
          came to us in a similar situation. Her husband was on
          drugs and couldn't hold a job. She was unskilled and
          couldn't work. She also told me, "Pastor Dave, I'm just
          a week or two from being on the streets."

          Then I met two other dear women whose husbands beat
          them. They fear for their lives and for their
          children's safety. And all the city's "safe houses" are
          full, with long waiting lists.

          As I lay down that night to try to sleep, I couldn't
          shut my eyes. Was I moved? Yes. Full of pity? Yes. But
          something else was going on inside me. I prayed: "Lord,
          what do you want us to do about this? How can we change
          this tragic situation? I'm sixty-five, and I'm tired.
          I've spent enough time with drug addicts and
          alcoholics. Please -- not another program."

          But the image of the five-day-old baby kept coming to
          mind. I thought, "We're the church of Jesus Christ. We
          are to have compassion, and not send them away. What
          can we do?"

          I realized that in just two or three weeks, our Isaiah
          House would be open and operating in Times Square. And
          we would be moving our men's Timothy House into that
          facility.

          Suddenly, there it was, right before my eyes: The
          former Timothy House building would free up ten
          apartments. We could use the building as a living
          center for abandoned and abused mothers. We could only
          put two mothers and their children in a single
          apartment -- and that means helping only forty to fifty
          families a year. It is only a drop in the bucket. But
          something has to be done!

          Compassion cannot be only sympathy and pity. It must be
          feelings moved to action! It asks, "God, what do you
          want me to do?"

                      -------------------------------

                          Let Me Tell You the Kind
                         of Outpouring I'd Like to
                        See Here in New York City!

                      -------------------------------

          Our church has spent much time in prayer. We have just
          concluded a twenty-four-hour-a-day, thirty-day prayer
          chain. And in January we opened the year in prayer and
          fasting. But exactly what are we praying about? What
          are we looking for?

          The late Leonard Ravenhill, who wrote Why Revival
          Tarries, was a great man of God -- in my mind, a true
          prophet. I sat for hours listening to him talk of a
          coming great revival. He waited for it for more than
          sixty years, but he died without ever seeing it.

          When I grew up in the Pentecostal church, all my father
          and grandfather ever talked about was a coming great
          revival. Evangelists talked about it at camp meetings:
          "There's a revival coming. God is going to sweep
          multitudes into the kingdom!"

          Yet, at the heart of all this talk of revival was one
          basic thought: "We won't have to go out into the
          streets and get our hands dirty. We can just stay here
          and pray. The Holy Ghost will draw people in!"

          But the definition of revival is, "the awakening or
          resurrection of that which threatens to become a
          corpse." It means, "to wake up the dead church -- to
          revive it, resuscitate it, so the ungodly will be
          inclined to enter its doors."

          Beloved, the church is not supposed to have to be
          resurrected from the dead! We shouldn't have to be
          praying for some great revival. And while we all have
          been shut in, praying for revival, the following things
          have happened in our country:

          One-half of all our teenagers smoke pot. More than a
          third drink. Twelve-year-olds indulge in sex.
          Fourteen-year-old girls are having babies. We have lost
          an entire generation of young people to cynicism,
          hardness, disillusionment.

          Our cities are about to burst into flames. The nation
          is satiated with sex, pleasure, the idolatry of sports.
          One of every two marriages ends in divorce.

          The sobbing sounds of hungry, battered children now
          rise as thunder from our cities. Homosexuals demand
          marriage rights. Desperate fathers roam the streets by
          the hundreds, looking for work. Many black and hispanic
          men are unable even to get interviews for a job.

          As the year 2000 approaches, what is the church doing
          about these things? What has captured our attention and
          energies?

          Not long ago I received a letter from a woman who
          attends our church. She said, in effect, "Times Square
          Church needs healing lines, miracle meetings, signs and
          wonders -- like the things that happen on Brother
          So-and-so's TV show."

          I want to answer this woman's letter lovingly and
          publicly: "Dear Sister: Let me tell you how you can
          produce a mighty miracle, a great sign to all
          unbelievers.

          "There is a mother in our church who is about to be put
          into the streets with her children. She's single, and
          she's willing to work. Would you kindly take her in and
          give her your extra bedroom for three months? Or simply
          let her sleep on your couch? Would you feed her while
          she looks for an apartment? Would you minister to her?
          Would you lift her out of the pit of despair?"

          Would doing this constitute a miracle? Would it be
          considered a sign, a wonder? Yes -- absolutely! Every
          unbeliever who'd see it would say, "Now, that is what
          Christ is all about. And that is what Christianity
          ought to be about!"

          The Bible says that if we are meeting human needs -- if
          we are obeying the commandment to be compassionate to
          the world, and giving ourselves to the needs of others
          -- then we will be a well-watered garden! "If you deal
          your bread to the hungry...if you cover the naked...if
          you do not hide your face from the poor...if you draw
          out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the suffering
          soul...then the Lord shall guide you continually,
          satisfy your soul" (see Isaiah 58:5-12). "...thou shalt
          be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water,
          whose waters fail not" (verse 11).

          A minister acquaintance recently showed me a videotape
          of church meeting that is part of what is being called
          a great revival. Yet what I saw on that video were
          strange manifestations. At one point, the pastor
          leading the meeting said to a weeping man, "There is no
          crying here. This isn't a prayer meeting. It is time
          for laughter!" Then the leader knelt beside a man on
          the floor and began saying, "Pump up, old joy! Pump up,
          old joy!"

          I asked my minister friend to explain all this to me.
          In essence, he said, "Christians have become so
          defeated, dry and downcast that God is trying to
          resurrect joy. The Holy Spirit is trying to free people
          up through manifestations."

          No! The laughter we see today is not new. I had holy
          laughter when I was ten years old. I laughed for hours
          and then wept for hours -- all because of the
          conviction of the Holy Ghost. There is nothing new
          about that.

          I ask you: How did the church ever get to this low
          point of being downhearted, anyway? How did the church
          ever come to need such pumping up?

          It is because we have not dealt with Isaiah 58! That
          passage tells us very plainly and directly why
          Christians lose their joy, go dry and become bound up.
          It is because they have become engrossed in
          self-survival!

          Most Christians now hear only sermons about how to cope
          with life's problems, how to deal with emptiness. They
          no longer have a burden for missions, for people on the
          streets, for the poor. Instead, they sit around and
          complain about how their tax money is being spent. And
          these same Christians walk right past the poor and
          needy!

          Why aren't shepherds teaching their people to reach out
          to human needs, so that when the needy come to church
          they'll find a well-watered garden, a deep source
          springing up? The Lord said he would do provide that
          for anybody who was willing to give of himself!

          Almost three hundred years ago, the Moravians came to
          New York with the Dutch. As they established a church,
          they also set up an outreach to the poor. Today, all of
          their churches are gone -- but the Moravian ministry in
          New York still exists, as one of the great feeding
          programs in the city.

          Likewise, the Bowery Mission is still going on after
          one hundred and fifty years. And Jerry McCauley's
          ministry to the poor is still in operation after one
          hundred and sixty years. God is meeting the needs of
          the poor -- even though many churches have gone to
          dust!

          We should not have to travel any farther than our own
          neighborhood to have the greatest kind of revival
          imaginable. God says that if we will deal our bread to
          the hungry, bring the poor into our house, cover the
          naked and give of our own soul to the hungry and
          suffering, he will guide us and provide for us
          continually. We will be like a well-watered garden -- a
          spring of water whose waters never fail!

          God is telling us, "Focus on helping others! Reach out
          to the poor, the hurting. I will answer you, guide you,
          satisfy you. You will be a spring of life to others.
          Your blessings will never fail!"

          If you are not comfortable with this Old Testament
          teaching, listen to what Jesus said in the New
          Testament:

          "For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was
          thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and
          ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick,
          and in prison, and ye visited me not.

          "Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when
          saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or
          naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto
          thee?

          "Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto
          you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of
          these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away
          into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into
          life eternal" (Matthew 25:42-46).

          "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother
          have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion
          from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" (1 John
          3:17).

          At this point you may be saying, "I'd like to be
          compassionate, to help the needy. How can I make a
          change?"

          I can only tell you that God will answer this prayer:
          "Lord, I see all the human needs around me. And I know
          that the only Jesus my city may ever see is the one
          they'll see through me and my church. God, you're going
          to have to direct me. I'm ready with my wallet, my
          house, my time. Show me where to go, Lord!" Rest
          assured -- God will bring those needs to your doorstep!

          You may think, "But I have so many problems of my own.
          I can't spend time helping others." Let me ask you: Are
          you lonely? Volunteer to visit hurting people in a
          hospital or a rest home. You won't be lonely before
          that night is over! Do you need a friend? Go to the
          street, find a homeless person and ask, "Are you
          hungry? Let's go to McDonalds." Buy that hurting person
          a hamburger and talk to him about Jesus.

          God wants every one of us to be a part of his
          compassionate heart to the world. And if you're willing
          to do that, he will send the needs to your doorstep.

          So, present yourself to the Lord to be used. He will
          open all doors to you. Then you will truly know his
          heart of compassion!

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