The Touch of God - Slovakia Conference 2003 (Slovakian/english) — David Wilkerson

Because this is the best and the safest place, Lord.

We thank God for everything He has done during these few meetings.

The Touch of God in Daniel's Prayer

And so we want to immediately focus on the Word of God. Let's open the book of Daniel, chapter 10, please. And at the beginning we will read one verse, where we will again talk about God's touch. We came here to give what is in God's heart.

And we believe that even this afternoon you will be able to receive a deeper touch of God, as you have known so far. We will read from Daniel, chapter 10, verse 10. Then a hand touched me, and it helped me to rest on my knees and palms.

As I said, today we will talk about God's touch, about the touch of God's hand. So pay attention, let's listen to these words again, please. Then a hand touched me, and it helped me to rest on my knees and palms.

The man that God touches will be on his face. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, come down by your Holy Spirit in this meeting, and touch us with your Spirit.

Open our hearts. Oh God, by your Spirit.

Let it not be just words that come in from the bottom, and come out of our hearts. We need the supernatural work of your Spirit. Oh God, help us. Please help me to take these words from my heart and put them into the hearts and minds of everyone in this house.

I thank you for that. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Verse 16. Then a hand touched me, and it helped me to rest on my knees and palms. I will stop here and repeat again. Read it in the Bible. A man like this touched my feet, and I opened my mouth and spoke.

The question is this. Why does God want to touch some people? I mean men and women. Why do some people have such a strong urge to pray? Why do some people really seek God, and others don't? Some people go through their lives without even seeking God.

I studied it. God, why do you touch some people? Are they predestined for it? Are they some superheros? Or are there certain things in their lives that God sees? If you look at Daniel's life, you will see that God touched his supernatural life.

And when he touched me, I became a man of prayer. It was amazing. There were other good men who served God during his time. You know Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego?

You know them?

There were about 30 ,000 to 50 ,000 people.

Getting ready to go back into Jerusalem.

People who were getting ready to rebuild the city and the nation. There were many normal believers. Many normal servants of God living righteous lives, ministering to the people. Why did God put his hand on this one man?

Daniel's Vision and the Cost of God's Touch

I want us to listen carefully to these words. On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, I lifted up my eyes and looked to behold a certain man clothed in gold.

His face was like lightning, his eyes like a lamp of fire, his mouth like a tooth.

I, Daniel, saw the man, but the men who were with me did not see him, but they were very afraid, so they went away and hid. So I was left alone when I saw this great man. Listen carefully, please. It is the same man, the same vision that the apostle John had on the island of Patmos.

Jesus Christ appeared, and the man of the Bible says he was like lightning. And his voice was like thunder. Why did only one man hear this? Why did only Daniel have this vision? The Bible says there were other men present there.

They had to be righteous men. Daniel did not meet people who had something to do with the system of Babylon. They had to be good men. But the Bible says, Daniel says, it was like thunder. I saw his face, and only I saw and heard.

The others ran away. They knew that something was happening to Daniel. It is an extraordinary thing when God puts His hand on a man and changes him into another man. He is no longer a normal man. But sometimes He makes a decision that changes him forever.

And then He hears and sees things that other people do not hear and do not see. Again, I am telling you, he was not a superman. He was an ordinary man. But suddenly, God comes to this man. Jesus appears to him.

And He says, I myself, Daniel, saw this vision. Those who were with me did not see the vision. They were in great fear. And they fled and hid themselves. Why did they hide? There is only one reason. Some kind of hidden sin.

When the Spirit of the Lord appears to meet you, those who are in fear, those who want to run and hide, those who have sin in their hearts, and Daniel says, I myself saw the vision. It was like roar, it was like thunder.

Ending the Famine of God's Word

Now, here is what was happening. God was determined to end the famine of the Word. There had been a famine of the Word of God.

God was determined to end the famine of the Word of God. At that time, there was a famine of the Word of God. The people of God were in captivity. Throughout the history of Israel, there has never been a need to hear from God as there was now.

The church was cold and rejected.

It was influenced by the Babylonian system.

And God said, I need a man. I want to change things in this nation. I want to awaken my church. I want to bring renewal to the house of God. But I have to have a man. I have to have somebody who gives me an ear.

I don't speak to angels. I have a message. And I can only use men. I have to have a man. I want to speak to this nation. And I want to speak clearly. And I have to have a vessel. And so, God speaks to him.

Let me tell you why God spoke to him. Because Daniel consciously decided to seek God from the bottom of his heart. The second verse says, In those days I ate nothing for three weeks. I didn't eat any food.

I didn't eat any meat or wine. I didn't eat anything at all for three weeks. My heart cried, Oh God! We never needed to hear from God like we do now. The whole world is falling into immorality. It's affecting the body of Christ.

Never have we so needed men that have the Word of God.

Men who make a decision. A conscious decision.

This is not just God coming down and saying, I want you, I want you, I want you.

No, don't research the earth. Research it through Israel. All through the captivity. When you read the Bible, you see that God has always been searching for men. God has always been seeking those he can touch.

He touched men in every generation.

You can read it. He touched Moses.

He touched Ezra. All the prophets. Every time the church turned away. Every time nations got into chaos. God only had one solution. He didn't send some angelic army. He found a man. Who would mourn for the sins of the nation.

He found a man. He found a woman. In the Bible, we see some women that God called. And these are the people who touched God. They would set themselves up. They would get alone with God. And the Bible says they set their heart.

It says it with Jeremiah. It says it with David.

Becoming an Oracle Through Prayer and Repentance

This is the decision a man makes. I want to be an oracle of God. I don't want to be a preacher. I don't want to preach death. I'm tired of it. I'm sick of preaching sermons that don't move the hearts of men.

That doesn't change people. I have to hear from God.

Pastor, are you preaching sermons?

Do you stand in the pulpit? Do you speak something that God gave to you? And the people know it. And they hear a certain sound. He said we have sinned. We have sinned. We have sinned against God. Our nation has sinned.

Our people have sinned. Our pastors have sinned. I have sinned. And he began to seek God. And he began to mourn for the sins of the nation in his heart. And after three weeks of seeking God, then the scripture says of that third week, Christ appears to him and he said what I saw.

And he said, when I saw this vision, and it touched me, I fell on my knees with palms on the floor. And he said, God did this. You see, He made the decision. I will fast. I will pray. I will seek God.

Recovering a Life of Prayer

Every pastor who listens to me today must be a part of your life. Probably when you were younger. God called you to become a man of prayer. A woman of prayer. He said, if you will pray, I will use you.

I will touch your life. I will lay my hand on you. I will reveal you. I will use you mightily for a season. You prayed for a while. But you did not pay the price. You did not want to go on fasting. You did not want to get out of the line.

Somewhere along the line, in the emptiness, in the television, in the spirit of this world, something got a hold of your heart.

Something brought you away.

From this dark room of prayer. I would say that you are still a man of prayer. Perhaps you pray for half a day. Perhaps you meditate. Maybe you are trying to get a message. If you do not know what it is like anymore, to shut the blind eye to get away.

To spend a day. To spend hours seeking the face of God. To fast like Daniel did. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. And God is still looking for a man who will say, I do not want to play church.

I will not go to my church and preach to the same 15 or 100 people. I do not want to pray to be spiritually exhausted. And every week I just listen to a sermon.

I listen to another sermon. And I bury them and I bury them. I want more than that.

I want God's touch. I want God's hand on my life. I want to hear from heaven. Because we live in a day where we need to hear the voice from heaven. God is not looking for a high, intelligent personality.

He is looking for an ordinary pastor or an evangelist or a young man or a sister who will say, I want more than this. This is what happened to me years ago. I was a pastor of a small church in a small town.

There were 1800 people in the town. A small church. And we boasted that we were full of the Holy Spirit. And we had such a world-proud attitude. We called ourselves people full of evangelism. And it came out that the others only have a half of evangelism.

We have all the evangelism. That is pride. For five years I was a pastor of that church. We would sing and we would shout. We had a wonderful time praising God.

Occasionally, some people would come and betray you. But for five years,.

Having a nice, quiet pastorate,.

It was nice just having fellowship. Praising my family.

That is good. That is scriptural. But something bothered me. That this is Pentecost. The Bible Pentecost. This is the Holy Ghost Church. Why is nothing happening? Why are we not growing? Why are we just doing the same thing every Sunday?

I preached three times a week. I spent all my time trying to find a sermon.

Trying to find some new way to make people understand the Word.

And it was very comfortable. Because every Sunday night I closed the service. I went into my living room. I turned on the television. And watched three hours of television. And I worked hard all week.

I deserve some recreation. And I used to watch action movies. And one evening I was sitting there. It was an action scene. A lot of people were being killed. And then the Holy Spirit told me something.

Because of violence, I destroyed the earth many days ago. And here you are watching violence. And you call yourself a Holy Ghost preacher.

And every night you sit in front of your television.

One hour, two hours, sometimes three hours.

And you pray half an hour a day or one hour a day.

And you do it because you are obligated to do it. But there is no life in your prayer. And I would go to my church. And then I would go back to my church. And I got sick. My stomach. And I thought, this can't go on like this.

These are not churches. This is not the Holy Ghost. If this is the Holy Ghost, then I don't want it. We have young people in our city who go to hell. They don't go to church. And the only thing our people want is society.

They don't want people to be saved. And so I decided that if I can't do anything else, I'm going to go out every Saturday night and I'm going to hang out where the teenagers are and I'm going to start doing that and I'm going to start calling them to come to church.

And so I said to myself, if they are real sinners, they are going to be convicted of their sins. And we are not going to just sit around something that we like. You have to start with me. I am a pastor.

I can't get my congregation to go to church if I don't go to church myself. They are not going to come to a prayer meeting if I don't have a prayer ring myself. I'm tired of it. I can't play the game anymore.

I have to hear from God. I have to make a decision. I'm going to fast and pray. But first the Lord spoke to me. He said to me, sell your television set because you don't know how to do business with it.

Maybe other people know, but you don't. And so I talked to my wife and she said, it's up to you. I said, let's make a deal. I'm going to fast. And when someone announces in the first 15 minutes I'll know that's not speaking to me.

I really didn't want to sell it. Five minutes after it appeared.

The man called me and he sold it. He took it from my house. The Holy Spirit spoke to me. Now go pray. And all the hours you spent watching TV you will seek my face. If you become a man who gives himself up to prayer I'll do things with your life that you can't believe.

I'll use you. I'll put my hand on you. And everything that God said to Daniel nobody knew my name. I loved God. But I began to pray. And I went upstairs and I parked my car.

And I went out in the woods with a Bible.

I sat under a tree. And I told my wife if anyone needs to talk to the pastor tell them to come and gather in front of the forest and I'll go out. And for several months, every day for hours I was in the woods praying, reading my Bible from cover to cover side by side.

And I began to weep. And He gave me a burden for my souls. And I said, Oh God I want to be a man of heaven. My wife saw a change. And now when I got up to preach there was a fire. Something was burning in my soul.

And God gave me a vision of the world. I was sitting in the city. And God said to me, there are millions and I want to touch you. And when it got colder I was at home and I prayed. And my wife came into the room and she said, the Holy Ghost has pulled me here.

I can pray with you. Because there was a power in the house.

Brokenness, Calling, and Losing God's Touch

And after months of seeking God I was in church one night.

One morning, Sunday morning I tried to preach. But I could only weep. God gave me a broken heart. A broken spirit. And I began to see the sins of the church and the sins of the nation. And He gave me a grieving heart.

And I fell. And I began to weep. And I rolled under the table. I wept. My church thought I was nervous. I remember they took me back to the service room. And I prayed. And I went into my prayer room. I opened a magazine.

And in that magazine there were photos of seven boys in New York City. They were on trial for murder. They had murdered a cripple. A boy in a wheelchair. They had knifed him. And I began to weep. And I heard a voice.

A little, small voice. I told you I would change you. I was waiting to touch a man. Only one year of Bible school. Not a good preacher. Lazy. Spiritually lazy.

I wanted to visit more people in the church. One day. I said that's enough.

If I can't be a man of prayer. If I can't give myself to this. If I don't belong to the ministry. So I went to New York City. You read it in the Dick and the Cross. That was the beginning. And I want to tell you.

I am 72 years old now. I had to fight to keep this place in God. Prayer and brokenness. I became what you could call a famous evangelist. I traveled with a band. I preached to thousands. But in the process I got too busy.

And I lost God's touch. I remember a three year period in my life when my thing was gone. Multitudes. He's dead now. He handed me a book. By a Puritan. 300 years old. I said, who has time to read? 1200 pages.

Who wants to hear from a man who hasn't lived for 300 years? And I ignored it. And I prayed. I prayed. But it was the same systematic hour of prayer. God spoke to me. Go to your microbus. Go to your room.

Get that book. Read. I hadn't read for 30 years until I was on my face once again. I had to say. I wasn't in sin. I wasn't in sin. But I wasn't connected to God. I didn't have the Illusion Tape. And I said, God, I don't know this man.

And God used that prophet just like God is using me now. I never claimed to be a prophet. But I'm a watchman. And God sent me here. He sent Gary here. He sent us here for one purpose. It's that there are many today in the same state I was in then.

You had God's touch. I had God's promise that God will use me. But I came back to the old way of life. Too busy. I did too many things for God. And in the process, I lost God's time. And I was disturbed.

God Uses Local Believers to Awaken a Nation

God is trying to speak to the nation. He wants to speak to your country. And I want to tell you, God doesn't use an American evangelist. He doesn't use a German evangelist. He doesn't use someone from Switzerland or Sweden or another nation.

When God will be in this country, it will be something from a man from this country. An ordinary man who will say, God, I can't play games anymore. I'm sick of it. Oh God, I want your touch. I want your help.

I want to see souls saved. I don't want to be just a shepherd who comforts his people. I want to set an example for your touch. And for every young pastor, every young person here, I want to tell you, God doesn't love me a bit more than you do.

You can make a decision.

Oh God, I don't care how hard it is.

I want you to use me. I want you to use me. I want you to save this nation. I want you to use me. God doesn't make a difference between people. Daniel says, I've been confessing my sins, my people, my sins, the sins of my nation.

While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I saw at the beginning, flew swiftly to me, touched me. Some of you have lost God's touch. You have lost the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Some of you who are listening to me now are satisfied that you are doing your job.

You are afraid of what I am talking about. You are afraid of the cost. You are afraid of the price that it might take away from your family. It might send you to other nations. It might open such a wide field that you are afraid to face it.

You are afraid of what might happen if you shut everything else down and say, God, touch me again. Use me. Break me. Know me. I did not want to come to this meeting today when I was praying. I said, I do not want to go.

I do not want to go with anyone you do not break. Unless you use every word that I say, and unless you wake up every preacher, every pastor's wife, who is not seeking you anymore, every pastor's wife who is wounded, because you have lost the blessing of God's touch.

And he said, when I was looking for him, he touched me. And because I was praying these words, and as I prayed, he touched me. And someone like a son of man touched my feathers. And then I opened my mouth and said, I did not bring a message, and I did not even try to preach it anymore, until the Lord came and touched my lips.

The Dead Church and the Neglected Message of the Cross

I do not preach. Last night I did not preach, just God's love. But listen to the tongue of this man. Listen to the change that occurred in him. He is a busy man. The Bible says that he was busy because of the state of his nation.

But the Bible says that he was looking for a job, and then he continued to work in the kingdom. I have about 800 ,000 people on my list, and we do not know where I am sending my sermons, and that is only in the United States.

Millions of people read my sermons all over the world. We receive thousands of letters and e-mails every week. My wife and my family read thousands of these letters. And do you know what the biggest difficulty is?

My congregation is dead. I cannot find a congregation where I can hear a convincing message, where I can feel God's presence. That is the biggest difficulty of the whole world. The church is dead. I do not hear the Word that comes from the heart of God.

Every day, hundreds of letters, e-mail after e-mail, Do you know a congregation in my city? I do not know a congregation in my city. Can you send me an address of such a congregation? One man wrote to us, we were in every church in our city, and in one church, there is such charismatic madness, fun in some churches, madness, but no burning, flaming message from heaven.

This is what Daniel said. What I saw, it shook me. It shook my soul. I had to cry and be sad. But you know, today in the United States, the church is having fun. On the floor of the church,.

There is a McDonald's. You come into the lobby of the church, and there is Pepsi-Cola and donuts.

And you get your donuts and Pepsi-Cola, and you sit down. And when it takes 45 minutes, 45 minutes, 15 minute nap, 15 minute nap, a little nap, about how to be nice to your wife, about how to raise your kids, but not a word about sin, not a word about conviction.

And I see people who have thousands of people. The cross is never mentioned. The sin is never mentioned. And one day I imagine that he has to stand before the throne of God,.

Because I believe that through the church more people go to hell than through any other way.

It's not just dirty movies. It's not just pornography. It's that people come to God's house full of sin, burdened with sin. And we make them comfortable and calm, and we tell them that they are all right when you come to church.

And they feel good in their sin. We don't call evil more evil. And that has to tell me that the devil can be an honest man, but he has never been in the face of God. If you tell me that you are a man of prayer, I tell you that it will make you have the Lord's blessing.

You will be a holy prophet to the devil. And he will never be happy again if you only preach the sermon. Without knowing that God gave you the word from heaven. It's much more difficult because I end up saying what God wants me to say.

A Prophetic Call to Slovakia and Europe

This country, and I say it prophetically, is a key nation. It's a small country. In my city, New York, there are more people than in your whole country. I'm talking about a city with 17 million people.

But in view of what God wants to do in Europe, Slovakia is a key nation. And let me tell you what I experience from the Holy Spirit. From this gathering, from this meeting, during these two and a half days, I cry, and I look, and I call, and I look for people, I look for a man, a woman, young men, who will say, God, save this nation.

Let me be a part of it. Use me. Lord, take this laziness from my heart. Let me be upset. Make me feel miserable. Let me never accept things as they are. Use Daniel. Use me. God wants to use you and break you right now, and for months, God has been talking to you.

For months. One of the greatest outpourings of the Holy Spirit can be at the beginning of this service. Right now. Something that can spread throughout Europe. Because God says that He uses what is crazy in the eyes of the world to destroy what is wise.

He doesn't use the big powerful nation in America. He uses many small nations, like this one. I know that. I am sure of that. And some of you who are listening to me right now, God is going to put His hand on you.

He is going to do it today. I don't know what to do. I feel so strongly the Holy Spirit. So strongly. Send the Holy Spirit. Break us. Melt us. God, put your hand on those who are calling to you. Let them come out.

I know a man who is lying in the street. If you feel that it is from God, come and lay down in front of him. That is the only thing I know. That is the only thing I perceive. Even if my interpreter wants to.

If you feel the Holy Spirit, if you feel that the Holy Spirit is pressing you on your knees, and you feel that God is telling you, go to your face. You can come here. And lay down on your face in front of God.

No other way. Only when God is speaking to you.