Removing the Stumbling Blocks — David Wilkerson

Idolatry and the Stumbling Blocks of Iniquity

Ezekiel 14 chapter, read the first eight verses with me, a message removing the stumbling blocks. Ezekiel 14 chapter, I'm going to read the first verse down to verse 8, follow me. Then came certain of the elders of Israel to me, and sat before me.

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. Should I be inquired of at all by them?

Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.

And I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are estranged from me through their idols. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God, Repent, and turn yourself from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

For every one of the house of Israel, of the house of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separated himself from me, and setteth up idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me, I the Lord will answer him by myself, and I will set my face against that man, and make him a sign in the prophet, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people.

Therefore you shall know that I am the Lord. Powerful passage of scripture. Referring to stumbling blocks. First of all, let me give you a definition of this term stumbling block. Stumbling block is any sin that hinders the flow of God's grace and goodness.

It is anything that you do to cause another Christian or someone innocent to trip up and fall. It's something you place in front of a young convert, a child, any other Christian, something you do that's graceful to the Lord that causes them to stumble or fall.

That's a stumbling block. I can illustrate it best by a letter I received on Friday from California. One of many thousands we received. I was just intrigued by this, and the Lord caused it to catch my eye.

This woman says here that in the court of California, an outstanding deliverance of a maiden girl who suffered greatly from being vexed with an unclean spirit. She was born again two years ago. She's had such a heart for God.

She truly was growing in salvation through the blood of the Lamb. But she's been harassed often by the same manifestations as those mentioned in Mark 5 through to 5. That's out at night, cutting herself, screaming, the demon power screaming out at her.

She has been with her parents living, and they too appeared to be very serious with the Lord. But no one was able to set that girl free. Keep in mind God's message this morning. Why couldn't we cast it out?

She was taken to a nominal believing church last Sunday. It was one, just as you wrote about in your latest article, The Fury of the Lord in the Latter-day Church. It was a celebrity gospel, and they had pomp and ceremony, and nothing but rock and roll.

The rock and roll triggered signs and behavior of demon possession in the meeting. They took her to another minister of the gospel who was unable to do anything, even in the name of Jesus. But her parents suddenly repented of ongoing rebellion and lingering in sin.

The girl was immediately delivered, and she appears today dressed in her own white mine and ready to go tell all her old friends what great things the Lord has done for her and the compassion he had on her.

These parents who began to read the letter, it infers that they've let everyone, everywhere, whether or not it's preachers and churches that didn't have the power, to set this daughter free. But all in all, they had caused a stumbling block when they saw that there was no other hope.

God, in a service, evidently, the word that was preached was convicted, got a hold of their hearts and showed them that they were the stumbling block, they were the cause. The moment they repented, the moment they got right with God, the girl was delivered instantly because the stumbling block had been removed.

The mother and the father were the cause of this girl's problem. Jesus said, roll unto the world because of offenses. The same word for stumbling block. Roll unto the world because of offenses or stumbling blocks or snares.

For it must be that these offenses will come. But woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. But whosoever shall offend, meaning trip up and cause to fall, one of these little ones, which believe in me, it's better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea.

You know, in the East River, the police in the past 50 years have dug out many bodies in the East River. That were tied or chained to a cement slab and they were thrown in either by the mafia or a hit man.

And they were drawn and cast into the East River. Many, many bodies have been dragged out of the East River and the Hudson River off the piers many times. And what the scripture is saying, better to have a cement slab tied around your neck and thrown into the ocean and thrown into the sea and buried than that you should be an offense or a stumbling block to an innocent child of mine.

That's how God deals with it. That's how God looks at this matter of the stumbling block. In fact, God said there's a day coming. And the Lord himself said there's a day coming that he's going to send his angels and they're going to remove the stumbling blocks.

They shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend. And there must be iniquity. And shall cast them into the lake of fire. There shall be wailing and yassing of teeth. I heard, I knew of a pastor evangelist who had an associate that traveled with him and worked with him for over ten years.

Hidden Sin and the Harm Done to Families

The pastor, the evangelist never once suspected that he was living a double life. Never. He was drinking on the sly and hooked on pornography. Addicted to pornography. When he traveled with the evangelist, unbeknownst to the evangelist, he would order drinks into his room.

And when he traveled alone on behalf of the evangelist, he would always check into Howard Johnson's or other places, where they had X-rated movies. And he would check in, order his movies and his alcohol and have a drink.

And then get his scriptures out. He carried with him a scripture card to memorize scripture all day long. The evangelist had no reason to doubt him because this boy would give the shirt off his back. He was loving, tender, kind.

Always looking back, the evangelist never was always carrying mints. He was trying to cover up his breath. Never once did that evangelist suspect that man. But you know, the Bible said, be sure your sinner finds you out.

Ten long years go by, not a hint of it. The man was clever. He'd sit under the thundering message of that evangelist. He'd see thousands being saved and race back to his home. Came out of his X-rated junk and get drunk.

And somehow get up in the morning ready to go with no sign. He was very, very clever. He would drink when he got home in his little barn. He had a barn. He had a hidden supply. Somehow his mother suspected it.

His children never suspected it. But one day, one day, a brother saw him stagger out of that barn. He got to his pickup truck and just held on. And the brother said, you're drunk. There's no answer. He said, look, you're drunk.

He sent him in the car, the pickup truck. And he said, what's going on? The man started to weep. He said, I have never really been delivered from alcohol. I was an alcoholic. I've been drinking for the past ten years.

I've been covering it up. The wife saw the commotion come out of the house. Went to the friend of the ministry there and said, what's going on? Said, I'm sorry, your husband's drunk. She turned and said, what's this all about?

What do you mean he's drunk? He's drunk. He's been drinking for ten years. He began to sob. And the wife stood there unconscious. It couldn't possibly be. The evangelist was informed. The man wept and cried and said, I'm so sorry.

And forgiveness is the easy part. The evangelist said, I'm sorry, but I just can't have you with me anymore. Exposure never cures anybody. Only the work of the Holy Ghost. Just because you've been exposed does not mean that you're clear.

You can cry and weep. You've been with us for ten years and the evangelist let him go. The only problem is that even though his wife wept and cried and forgave him, and his pastor evangelist friend forgave him, all that time there was a little 12-year-old boy behind a tree watching, shaking his head in disbelief because his real father stood right there in his earshot, in his home, and said, I've been covering, I've been drinking, I'm mixed up in pornography, I'm all messed up.

And there was that boy who looked up so much to his father. He thought that father was so spiritual, working with an evangelist traveling around the world. Well, his dad appears before him, drunk. Let me tell you, that was just probably two years ago.

Can you imagine what's happened? The little boy, he's high. There's no question that boy would probably go to drugs. Dad can't talk to him now. While he's weeping, crying, and praying, he calls his father.

His old father was a stumbling block, a stumbling block to that boy. He was a teenager. He never made it because of all the politicians that are good stumbling blocks in their way. Passing out condoms in our schools.

Our schools were a mess because of the adults who were passing the condoms. Kicking that prayer on the street. He'll never make it through school without some supernatural help, without becoming drug addicts, alcoholics, and apostates, with no moral values whatsoever.

Bitterness and the Spiritual Harm It Causes

I wonder how many are like the 15-year-old girl from Christian Home. I won't name the church. But those parents of that 15-year-old girl had bitterness in their heart toward the pastor. For three solid years, every Sunday, and every time they met together around the table, the whole discussion was how they had been mistreated by the church, by the pastor, and they'd shoot him up, they'd spit him out.

Full of venom and full of bitterness. Three solid years. Out of their heart. Anybody came along, our friends on the telephone, a little boy and the teenage daughter, listened to how this pastor was so inconsiderate, and they were spilling the hurt out of their hands.

This 15-year-old girl gets in trouble, and she is taken to delinquency court. Parents rush down. Pastor hears about it. Rushes down. And this woman there, who couldn't stand that pastor, and spit all kinds of venom about it, and said, She's a baby, pastor.

Go help her, please. She's just a baby. How could it happen to us? Pastor goes in the room, and she's waiting. He goes in. She turns his chair, her chair, away. Don't look at him. Don't talk to him. Can't get through to that girl.

He knows he can't walk out. That dead man burned that girl. They sent her to hell. Outside of America. Because they were stumbling blocks. Their gossip, their venomous tongue, against the pastor, against the church, against the Christians, all that was his bitterness, it poured out of them.

Just poured out. That girl can't do help. She hates the pastor. She hates the church. I've had, over the past ten years, hundreds of letters from teenagers and young people, who can't even stand that preacher dad, because dad was a phony living a devil life.

How many young people in this city going to hell because of the stumbling block of their dad and mother? Perhaps you've heard the radio commercial of the parents who find the teenage boy is taking crack, and dad says, where did you learn that?

And he says, from you, dad. From you, dad. You think it's innocent to sit in your house and just spew out what's in your heart at the sound of your children? One day you're going to stand before them and they'll point a finger in your face and say, dad, mom, it's that stuff that was in your heart.

It was that attitude that you showed. Poisons me. I've told you the pastor's son who admired his grandmother. She'd been a missionary for 50 years in China. Came home after her husband died from a bitterness.

Parked herself in front of a TV set every waking hour and wasted away. Lost the touch of God. And that young man, just before he left for college, grabbed a rocking chair, stopped it, looked them in the eyes and said, grandma, I don't even deal with your God anymore.

All my life I heard you tell how Jesus can keep you in your dying days, and here you sit wasting away. You don't even have Christ in you. I don't see Jesus in you. All you do is complain and talk about how God has left you in this condition.

And that family is offended by us. The boy is bitter. The mother is as they can find it over it. You see, this man that had lived for 10 years, a double life, stumbling block to his family and his children and all of his Christian friends.

Ezekiel's Warning About Secret Idols

He's like the elders that came to Ezekiel, sitting before him. They were in Babylon at the time. And they came before him, what their leaders say, what's the word of God concerning deliverance? Are we going back to Jerusalem?

Here they are sitting before him as if to say, tell us what is the mind of God. We're ready to listen. We're ready to hear. And they're sitting there with their arms, with their hearts reaching out, and God speaks to Ezekiel.

And He said, Ezekiel, take a look at these men in front of you. They're living a double life. They're stumbling. They've got idols in their heart, and they're secret idols. They're hidden in their hearts.

They came certainly, the elders of Israel, to me and sat before me. The word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face.

Should I be inquired of at all by them? There was something going on in their mind. Now outwardly they were not idolaters. They were not going up to some high place worshiping. They never bowed down before a statue.

Now in fact, these men would be shocked if we told them they had idolatry in their heart and that they were stumbling blocks to all of Israel. They would have never... You couldn't convince them any more than I can convince some of you here tonight that you have idolatry in your heart.

Even though you worship and praise the Lord, even though you don't see it, there may be a form of idolatry in you such as these men had. We're going to talk about it. So they set up idols in their hearts.

They put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. And then they come to the prophet to inquire of the Lord. Now you see, this man I told you about, his idolatry is very definable. You can see it.

It was alcohol. It was pornography. But you see, there's an idolatry that's hidden in the heart of so many that includes bitterness, grudges, unforgiveness. It includes judging other people. It's a blindness to our own faults, but a very clear vision of the faults of others.

And here's how it sounds. This kind of idolatry has a voice. And it's somebody who feels intimidated or hurt by a church, pastor, friend, or on the job, whoever it may be. Mostly if they're from the church there's something like this.

It's a husband and wife talking together and it sounds like this. How can they do the things they do and put up such a front in front of people? Is it that they're such phonies that they look so holy on the outside?

Now that's a judgment. You hear that all through Christendom. You hear it everywhere. That judges another manservant. To his own master he stands with halls where he shall be holding up for God is able to make him stand.

Why do you judge your brother? Why do you reduce to nothing your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. So that every one of us shall give an account of himself before God.

Let us therefore judge not one another any more. But judge this rather. If you're going to judge, do it this way. That no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. And what the scripture is saying to us now you don't have time to look at the facts of anybody else.

You've got so much to work with yourself. There's so much in you that's still hidden. Get your eyes off of your brother and if you're going to make any judgment of that, be a self-judgment, look at yourself, examine your heart and say, Oh God, is there anything I'm doing or saying in my life that's a stumbling block to my child, to my friends, to the body of Jesus Christ?

Am I a stumbling block anywhere? That's what the Lord's saying. If you're going to do anything, you check your own heart. Now, I don't think there's anything to be more dangerous than to become a stumbling block and offense to others.

To be holding on to a secret sin or a secret grudge or to become judgmental. God says very clearly, Shall I be inquired of at all by these? He said, they come to you, Ezekiel, and they want guidance. They want to know my mind.

And He said, since they have, they hold on to this idolatry, they've not listened to you, Ezekiel, everything you've preached, going in one ear and out the other. Now folks, please don't think I'm getting hard.

I'm not hard. I'm preaching this in love. I don't have anybody in mind except all of us. God said, I want you to hear me. They have no right to anything but my silence because they have not yet listened.

They have not obeyed what I've already lovingly and powerfully delivered through the mouth of my servants and prophets and in essence He's saying to Ezekiel, Do they even think and entertain the thought that they'll get direction, that God will speak to them because they have not yet dealt with that idolatry, that grudge that they carry, that spirit of unforgiveness, that hurt feeling, that inability to look another Christian in the eye and have to go down this aisle so a man can listen down that aisle.

Go out and eat with one another, can't talk to one another, can't be associated. It can be in the home, it can be in the job, it can be in the church, but you know, we talk about the sins of idolatry, gambling, sex and drugs, these great good sins that God is digging deeper.

He's digging down into their hearts. These men have something in their hearts. They're not what they appear. There's an idolatry inside their hearts that they've dealt with. And because that idolatry is there, no matter what I say is not going to count.

They have no right. Very clearly. Why should you inquire any further of the Lord? My Bible says they that come to Him must believe that He is and that He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

And if you come to Jesus with all your heart, and you say, Jesus, I want to walk in holiness. I want to please You with my whole life. If that's your heart cry, then you'll be rewarded. You'll be rewarded with a spirit of a forgiveness, of tenderness.

You'll be rewarded with a desire to go to every man that has hurt you and make things worse. Folks, I can't help it. For the last two, three weeks, I have been impressed to move in on this so that you and I, when we come into Times Square Church, there is nothing hindering.

There's no stumbling block. The stumbling block not only causes others to fall and be hurt, it hinders the flow of God's Holy Ghost. It hinders the flow of blessing. It blocks it out and dries you up.

So that then you're left to just go through the masses, there's no true amazing. Brother Bob told us this morning, if God's death is just waiting for a certain time or clock, something on the calendars, in other words, the set time would be God, in His eternal purpose, He said, next January 15th revival begins.

No, the set time is that time when we measure up to the Word of God. When we hear the sound of His thundering voice, when we hear prophets and pastors get up and do these things, that God speaks along this language because He's trying to do something for His body.

He said, I'm going to deal with sin so that they can open their hearts and there's nothing blocking it and I can be a God. They can be a people to me and I can be a God to them. It's a wonderful thing to have God with you.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to look heaven in the eye and say, oh God, if there's something there, show me, and then there's nothing there. It's all clear. Then the blessings begin to flow. The revelation of who Jesus Christ truly is.

The Judgment of Unforgiveness and Bitterness

The Bible said they're set up in their hearts. They're set. I've got to tell you, with all my heart, I believe that no matter how anointed any one of the pastors could be, no matter how powerfully the Spirit of the Lord would come down, no matter how powerfully the Word of God would go forth, there are some who are sitting here tonight will not let go under any conditions of that Spirit that has a hold of your heart, that unforgiving Spirit, and I press that very clearly tonight, that unforgiving Spirit, a heart Spirit that has got bitterness and it comes out in your talk.

It comes out in your walk. It's there. It's a form of idolatry and it's a stumbling block. The Bible said it has to be removed. God is so indignant at this sin, this kind of idolatry, He said, I, the Lord, will answer such a person according to the multitude of his idols.

First of all, He said, they're going to be separated from me through their idols. I will set my face against them. I will cut them off from the midst of my people. God said, I will not put up in my church.

We're talking about His body. God says, I will not endure. I will not put up with children week after week and month after month and year after year. Allow those judges to take root and fill up those idols and they set their country.

God said, no, I won't permit it. God said, I'll separate them from my body and I'll show you the three terrible curses that come upon those who will not wait down this kind of idolatry. God said, I will answer according to your idol.

Listen, if you have the secret sin in you, it may be adultery, fornication, it may be lust, it may be an unforgiving spirit, it may be bitterness toward some men, bitterness toward me, toward any of the pastors, staff.

Somebody at your church has said the wrong thing. I should look at you wrong. And I should growl at you. At first place, I don't believe I should growl. But you know, some people think it's a growl because a man may have a stomachache and pain on his face and he'll look at you with that pained look.

A lot of times I have that pained look. And I say, honey, it's just how I feel. It's on my face. When I get sick, it's on my face. But God says, I'll answer you personally. I'm going to answer your prayer.

But you know what that answer is? That answer is a delusion in itself. God says, I'll answer you according to the idolatry that's in your heart. In other words, I'm going to answer you the way you would answer it.

I'm going to answer you the way you want it to be. Because you've set your heart on it. I'm going to answer according to your idolatry. It goes something like this. This is a true story. And I won't tell you the statement of what happened.

And this pastor, who was married to a beautiful wife who had children, fell in love with a young lady. And they were having an affair. They were seeing one another. And they always prayed when they got together.

It wasn't an affair. Today it was prayer meeting. Prayer meeting. And my! The pastor said they would get blessed. But they got convicted too. And they agreed to separate for a while. And pray and fast to see what God said.

A few weeks later they got together. Don't you know they both got the same scripture? About God giving you the desires of your heart. Nice and fancy Jesus. Their prayer was answered. They heard just what they wanted to hear.

God said, I answered them according to their idolatry. I answered them all. I know a lot of people. And there's a sweet, still voice. The same one that came to bed and said, I'm going. And the angel said, no.

The donkey said, no. And finally, he twisted God's arm so to speak. And the angel said, go. That was a permissible go because he wanted to hear his heart was set on it. It's just what Jesus said to Judas.

Go, do what's in your heart. Go. That was the word of the Lord. Right from heaven. Right from Jesus. And listen. A lot of people are hearing the Lord. God's answering their prayer. Isn't that a dangerous answer it is?

What a delusion it is. I tell you, I have heard so many things that God is supposed to have said. And I thought, Lord, you couldn't be saying all that. I wonder if people aren't hearing God answering their own idolatry.

False Prophets and Stumbling-Block Churches

Understand that principle. There are two kinds of churches on the earth. That's the candlestick church that's a light to the world. I hope that's what we are truly becoming. Then there is the stumbling block churches.

Stumbling block churches are full of darkness. You know, there are true pastors and there are false pastors. There are true prophets and false prophets. But there are those that have been set up. In fact, from the very scripture, it says that God himself has deceived.

Verse 9. And if the prophet be deceived, then he has spoken a thing. I the Lord have deceived that prophet. And I will stretch out my hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

He said, I'm going to deceive that prophet because he's already deceived. He said his heart and his mind, otherwise he's closed. Nothing I say is ever going to change it. He wants to hear, I'm going to lead him on.

Hopefully God allows in his grace and mercy that he'll hit rock bottom. He's hopeful that they'll see the futility of it. And the lying spirits behind it and everything else. And quickly bring them to a crisis.

So that God in that crisis can speak to them. But he said, I myself, I the Lord have deceived that prophet. Do you understand there are prophets that have been deceived and they stand before people? Listen, if you've got a stumbling block, you've got hidden sin in your life.

You can't sit under too much preaching like this morning, or last Tuesday, or tonight. You can't sit under. So what you'll do if you don't want to deal with your problem, if you don't want to get rid of it and say, Holy Spirit, please, I want my heart open to you.

I want to be, I want clean hands and a pure heart to stand in your holy hill. If you're ever in a hunger and thirst after God, you'll let the Holy Spirit dig into you just as we're preaching right now.

But so Lord, could that be me? 95 of us, no doubt, said there could be no idolatry in me. I told the Lord that last week. I prayed, Lord, could it possibly be that I have some form of this idolatry in me?

And my immediate reaction was no, no way. Not a chance. Until suddenly God began to speak. He said, David, you don't remember how proud you've been almost all through your ministry. He said, remember that time of Dallas you preached that convention to 12 ,000 people?

And you came off that platform and you turned to me and said, boy, I hit it. And you felt so sorry for the speaker the next night, had to follow you. I went home and remember telling your wife, boy, he's going to have a hard time after tonight.

I said, well, did I say that? It all started coming back. He showed me service after service. He showed me a service in St. Louis. Well, the General Superintendent of the Assembly of God was here. It was the National Association of Broadcasters and I was the special speaker.

And I turned to one of my associates, remember the time you said you're going to tear the place apart? Where's that effect? When you preached and God blessed and you went to the hotel room but you said to your associate to mix with the crowd to hear what they were saying.

I said, did I do that, Lord? Yes, you did. Let me tell you, God showed me years of pride, horrible pride, stinking pride. And all the time, I tell you honestly, I thought I was one of the humblest preachers in America.

I thank God that I was humble. I was getting up saying, don't clap for me. Don't give me any glory. And let go home and exult in having hit a home run. And then he began to show me all the rest of the junk that was in there.

Well, not adultery, fornication, but things that are deeper than that. Go way down deep in the soul that we don't want to look at. The hidden grudges, the hidden fears, the hidden unbelief. These men, they had what I call insurance gods.

Self-Examination and “Insurance Gods”

Insurance gods. They knew God had power, but really they've been in bondage so long and God doesn't answer. And so they have to give God, I'm going to serve God, but I need a little insurance on the side.

So Ezekiel was taken by the hair of his head into an inner chamber and he saw the elders of Israel worshiping the sun. Oh, worship Jehovah, but just in case I need a little insurance. And that's what a lot of Christians are into now.

Oh yeah, I believe God can answer prayer, unless they've got a lucky charm. An insurance god. An insurance idol. Or they hear of something, somewhere God is doing, some form of it, and they go and depend on that form of God.

They're saying this man is, it's God, yes, but give him a little help. And it's called limiting the holy men of Israel. It's limiting God. These men limited God, they were giving up hope that God would deliver them.

So either the sun, God showed him all of these creeping things in their imagination. All of these things they were conjuring up. Not of God because God was not living on their time schedule. Now you, I told you the two kind of churches.

If you don't want to deal with sin, what will happen? You'll walk out, as some have, and you will be led right into a stumbling block church. With a stumbling block prophet and pastor evangelist. And you won't have to give up your sin there.

You won't have to deal with some of these deep hidden things in your heart, like unforgiveness. Or bitterness, or rebellion. You won't have to deal with it. Instead, you'll have a man up there feeding it.

He'll flatter you. Tell you that you can be a prophet. Teaching you how to prophesy, how to heal the sick. And the whole time, you have not dealt with a stumbling block in the heart. It's just whitewash.

And it doesn't work. Folks, I'm going to stand one day before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. Brother Bob will be there, Brother Don, myself. And I have an opening in my heart that every pastor is going to stand there while his flock is being judged.

We're going to stand there with Times Square Church. The whole flock of Times Square Church. And everybody who's been in here listening to us preach. He's judging us. And after we pass judgment, he's going to judge every one of us.

And we're going to stand there. And I want to be able to know that when your name is called. Brother Bob, Brother Don, and myself. We stand there with full assurance of faith. That we have delivered the land of Jesus Christ.

And we love you enough to dig down into the depths of your soul. And so you can't feed in the presence of God and not love your brother and sister. You can't have racial prejudice in your heart and be a man or woman of God.

Racial Prejudice as a Stumbling Block

The most tragic stumbling block in the church of Jesus Christ in the last day is going to be racial prejudice. This city is torn apart. I'm telling you prophetically that we're facing race wars in America.

Worse than anything in the history of our nation. We're in the brink of it right now. Not just New York City. It's all over the nation. We've got black pastors, white pastors, Korean pastors. They're becoming politicians and activists.

And they're standing in their carpets ripping up this kind of rebellion. Ripping up prejudice and hatred. And your biggest battle and mine in the last day is going to be this matter of loving one another.

And seeking out of our hearts any seed of prejudice. Racial prejudice. Beloved, Don and I grew up in a godly home. In a time when kids were taught childhood that Jesus loves everyone. Every race. Pray for Africa.

We learned to pray around the world. We sang, Jesus loves the little children in the world. Red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in his sight. We sang that every service. Then we had children's church.

Jesus loves all the children, all the races. And we were taught that way. But now in these last days, prejudice is even creeping into the church. By the way, who are the mongers, the hate mongers? Most of them are preachers.

They call him Reverend Al. They call him Reverend up in Detroit. But I'll tell you what. There are just as many white men standing in their carpets across America. Some of them secret members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Some of them that hate and bitterness I faced in South Africa years ago. And I saw what prejudice can do to a church. I saw what it could do to the house of God. We had stadiums in these horseshoe shaped stadiums all through South Africa.