Book Report on Beyond the Cross and the Switchblade

BEYOND THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE

By David Wilkerson

INTRODUCTION

Beyond the Cross and the Switchblade is the sequel to The Cross and the Switchblade and is focused on summarising the events of the first book and elaborates on what everyone was doing after the first book had been written.

BODY

The book began with the foreword about what happened after the first book, and how David Wilkerson’s four children have grown up over the years and two of them are now adults, with professions they are following. I found it intriguing to know this, as his children were mentioned in the original book, but weren’t really written about all that much.

The book in general was about his business he started up, Teen challenge, which is about taking young people off of the street that were in gangs, as well as being addicted to all sorts of alcohol and drugs, helping them kick their habit and allow them to know our Lord Saviour. Teen Challenge now has branches worldwide, mainly located in the Americas and Europe. At the time of this book being written, it had an 80% success rate which at the time, was the best rate worldwide, with many of the participants welcoming the Lord and becoming Christian. However, the amount of success they brought to people in the book almost seemed to me that it was unbelievable; it just shows how amazing the power of God is.

Although through all their success, there was proof that not everything always goes well, as David’s wife Gwen, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Fortunately Gwen survived, but for many months she had to withstand the gruelling pain of the cancer. Alongside that, David was later diagnosed with a duodenal ulcer, the same thing his father died from. This alarmed David immensely, so he changed his diet, and started exercising regularly.  He was also given the proper medication to contain the ulcer, so thankfully they both survived their ordeals thanks to the Lord. They did pray to God about this and when David wrote this book, he did write and quote a scripture verse that suited this very much, ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all’  Psalm 34:19  

What shocked me most about the book was the story of David’s brother, Jerry. I expected Jerry to be a strong, faithful man like David, but sadly he wasn’t. Before David managed to help him later in the book, Jerry was a alcoholic, who lost his children and wife because of his behaviour and alcohol. David managed to help him through his alcohol addiction through the Teen Challenge program, but several times Jerry relapsed and had to go through the program many times before breaking his habit and accepting the Lord, which changed his life and his future until this day. The thing that really made me happy was that his family forgave him for the choices he made, and accepted him back.