Sermon Proof Christians — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Pulpit Series. It was recorded in the Sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge PO Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214 -963 -8626.

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Sermon-proof. Christians, let's find out if you're sermon-proof. That means gospel-hardened in another term. Gospel-hardened. And you'd be surprised where we're going to go with this message. You know, if I'm really going to preach on the anointing tonight, and if God's given me this, and the same with Brother Bob this morning, Gary and Don, all the pastors, if we're preaching on the anointing of the Holy Spirit and He's given it to us, it's going to make you think we're preaching right at you.

You'll get the idea. You'll go home if your husband and wife say, do you think he was talking about us? You'll stop us in the halls, like people have been stopping us in the halls, Brother, are you sure you weren't, do you get that once in a while, you sure you weren't speaking to me?

Well, I'll tell you what, almost every message I've preached, he's been speaking to me. And none of these pastors, including myself, we don't sit down and say, hey, how can I get at Brother so-and-so or Sister so-and-so?

How can I get at them? That's not a pastor. No, a pastor's heart is to see Jesus formed. And if any, I'll tell you what, if anybody comes to my mind when he's preparing a word for me and I thought, well, maybe that'll fit, the Lord always says, no, David, this is for you, it fits you.

And that's my comfort, that the Lord says, no, this is for you. Sermon, proof Christians believe it or not, God dealt with me on this, dealt with me very strongly about it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray for that unction, anointing of the Holy Spirit, that without, we can do nothing, we can say nothing, we can't get through to anybody.

Lord, I ask you for a pastor's heart tonight, for the tenderness of the Holy Spirit. And yet the unction, the anointing, as Pastor Bob was preaching this morning, that spirit of prophecy, O Lord, that is so necessary to preach it and also to hear it tonight.

Give us prophetic ears to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. God anoint me, we covet the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we covet, Lord, the preciousness of your word and those that are here for the first time, those that are coming regularly, all of us, Lord, tonight, speak to us corporately and, Lord, when the service is finished tonight, let us know that you have dealt with us as children, whom the Lord loves, he chastens and if you have to chasten us, do so, we receive it with joy tonight.

Lord, bless us as we worship together in the word, amen. Sermon-proof Christians, now, to be sermon-proof, oh, by the way, before I get to preaching, if you're not here Tuesday night, I don't, where have you been and why aren't you here?

Well, we're having communion, God's blessing, the word's going forth powerfully, and then the Thursday night Bible school from 6 .30 on and then Friday night intercession, we're really believing God to find every intercessor in New York that wants to pray, we'd like to see this house filled with praying people, intercessors, Friday night, from all, we call it all city prayer meeting, intercession Friday night.

Hearing the Word Without Obeying It

Now, to the message, sermon-proof Christians, now, to be sermon-proof is to hear God's word and you claim to love it, you claim you're going to obey it, but you never act on it, that's what I'm talking about tonight, to be sermon-proof is to become so hardened, the heart is no longer moved by the word of God, you can hear any kind of preaching you want, but you're totally unaffected by what is preached.

Now, it's been called in the past by our grandparents as being gospel-hardened. Now, I want you to think of all the Bible stories you know and all the Bible characters that you've heard ever since you were in Sunday school, who do you think was the most sermon-proof, the most hardened man or character in all the Bible?

Saul’s Rebellion Against God’s Command

Who was it that sat under the strongest, straightest preaching and was totally unaffected by it, in fact, hardened under the word of God? Well, it comes to mind right now, first of all, the name that comes to me is Saul.

Do you remember, this man received such a clear, powerful word from the Lord, go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, spare them not, slay both men, women, infant and suckling, ox, sheep, camel and ass.

And Saul disobeyed, he heard the word, it was a clear message, go, destroy Amalek. But Saul and the people spared the king Agag, king of the Malachites, alive, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good.

And suddenly Samuel appears, having already preached this sermon, go and slay Amalek. And here, way back over the hillside are all the sheep and the oxen, they're bleeding, you can hear the sheep and the goats and all the animals making the noises, and here comes Samuel and he says, Saul, what do I hear?

And Saul said, I have performed the commandment of the Lord, I've done everything the sermon said. But he was a liar, of course. Samuel was horrified because he could hear the bleeding of the sheep. And he said to Saul, why did you not obey the voice of the Lord?

Why didn't you hear the sermon, why didn't you obey it? Instead, you did evil in the sight of the Lord. Now, I ask you, is this man hardened already that he could, is he sermon proof that he could lie to a prophet of God, a man whose very words never fell to the ground, a godly meek man, how can this man lie to his face?

Saul said, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and I've gone the way the Lord sent me. And, you know, Samuel standing there, he's not believing, he can hear what his ears seem to be deceiving him.

How can this man lie with all of the evidence all around him? There stands King Agag, the king. He was to spare nothing, let alone the king, all the sheep, the oxen. And he said, I've done everything God told me.

And then when he got caught red-handed, he said, well, then what is the bleeding of the sheep? What does all this mean? Why King Agag standing here? Then he makes excuses, he contrives these incredible lies and excuses.

He said, well, the people did it. The people took the spoil. They took the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God. Samuel looked at that man, and he got right to the heart of the problem.

He knew he was sermon-proof, he knew he was hardened to the word of God. And he got right to the point, he knew that Saul was in bondage to witchcraft. He was under total control of demon powers. For rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.

This is Samuel speaking to Saul. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. And stubbornness is iniquity and idolatry. Because thou has rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you. Now, this man became so hardened to the word of God that he ends up consulting with the witch.

He says to the witch, God doesn't speak to me anymore. No prophet speaks to me. God is silent. And he goes to a witch, the witch of Endor. He winds up dying at an early young age, a decrepit old man in his spirit.

Totally bereft of the spirit of the living God. But I ask you, do you think he was the most sermon-proof man in the Bible? What about Jude and Israel? What about the children of God? God said to them, and these were backslidden people.

They're always backsliding. Israel was always backsliding. Moses said, ever since I've known you, you've had a backslidden heart. Speaking to Israel. God said, I sent unto you all my servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.

But you didn't listen. You didn't incline the ear to turn away from your wickedness. Therefore, my fury and anger was poured forth upon you. Do you know that the children of Israel had one illustrated sermon after another?

They had these prophets that would walk with nothing but loincloths. They would have the prophets that would smash jars. They had illustrated sermon after illustrated sermon. Ezekiel said of the children of Israel, this people come, saying, come, I pray you.

Let's go hear what the word is that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto you as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them. For with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their own covetousness.

In other words, they're going to do their own thing no matter what you preach. Oh, how they loved to come and hear the preacher. They loved to hear Ezekiel thunder against the sins of the land. They loved it.

They amened him all through it. They came because of his eloquence. They came because of the power of his words. Now, he was eloquent only because God's Spirit was upon him. Lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song.

And in the original Hebrew, you're like a popular singer to them. They're going to a concert, and one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument. That means you're a talented speaker.

For they hear the words, but they will not do them. These people became servant-proof to all the prophets, no matter what they said. Look at the people standing. Amen, preach it. They would gather all their friends.

Let's go hear what Ezekiel's saying. We have people just like that. They come to Times Square. Let's go down and hear what they... Let's go hear what they're thundering about next. And so they come, and they sit unchanged.

They walk out, and it sounds like, well, I've been to a good concert. I have heard a good message. And they walk out totally unaffected by the Word of God. Well, were these the most sermon-proof in the Bible?

Judas and the Rejection of Christ

Ah, what about Judas? Wouldn't you consider that this would be the most sermon-proof man of all times? Here's an apostle, one of the chosen twelve, called and anointed. He'd cast out devils. He'd heal the sick.

For three years, he sat under the ministry of Jesus. God in the flesh taught this man. God in the flesh called him aside and explained the deeper meanings of the teachings. And yet this man, though he had the Word explained very clearly to him, he ends up opening his very soul to the devil.

He betrays the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And I'm sure most of you would say, well, true, that has got to be it. Judas is the most sermon-proof, gospel-hardened man in all the Bible. Well, it's true that all these I've mentioned are sermon-proof.

They heard, yet they disobeyed. They pretended they loved the Word of God, but they never yielded to it. Ah, but there's another man. There's another character. And this one that I want to bring to your attention tonight is the most shocking in all the Word of God.

This story breaks me. I tremble over it. I've wept over it. I don't think there's any decay of any man in the Bible that has so shaken me as the story of this man. He started out so spiritual. He was so close to God, so blessed, so anointed.

It seems when you begin to read his life that it's incredible whether this man could ever take a fall, especially the depth of degradation that he fell to. His name is Solomon. And his story is shocking, to say the least.

Here's a man who starts out led of the Holy Spirit, a tender-hearted king, broken in spirit, a servant of the living God. But this man, I'm going to show you all the steps that he took. I'm going to open his life with the help of the Holy Spirit tonight and show you the steps that many people are taking today, just like this man.

He ends up a sermon-proof idolater. He ends up wallowing in sexual lust and perversion. And I'm going to warn you, up to now, most of you said very comfortable, and you said, well, thank God I'm not like Saul.

I'm not sermon-proof. I love the word. I'm not one of those two-faced children of Israel. I'm not a Judas. But we're going to see tonight that the most incredible examples of being sermon-proof or gospel-hardened and not out in the street, they're really not the Judas types or the Saul types at all.

No, rather they're usually inside the house of God. And like Solomon, there are people who start out right, and they're totally unaware. They're not even aware that they're becoming sermon-proof. They look at others and say, how could they do this?

How can they sit under such preaching? And I got to working on this message. And I said, now, God, that could not be me. I preach it. God said, be careful, David. Read it and look at it and examine yourself.

I'm telling you now, there's not a person here, not on the stage, not out here, that cannot identify what God's going to say to us tonight. And one way or another, God's going to speak to us about these incredible shocking steps to being sermon-hardened.

I want you to look at the downfall of King Solomon. But first, I've got to show you what God commanded through Moses about the kings of Israel. He was the king of Israel. Now, why don't you go with me to Deuteronomy 17.

Now, you did bring your Bible, didn't you? I said you brought your Bible. Deuteronomy 17. Now, I want to show you something. You have to get this in your mind before you can understand anything I'm about to say about this man.

I'm calling Solomon the number one sermon-proof man in the Bible. And I'm going to show you why. Deuteronomy 17, verse 14, beginning to read. When thou art come, this is Moses speaking, when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and you shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me like as all the nations that are about me, thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose, one from among thy brethren, shalt thou set king over thee, thou mayst not set a stranger over thee which is not thy brother.

Now, listen to this. Number one, he shall not multiply horses to himself. Will you say this with me? No horses. No horses out of Egypt. It's important now, folks. You know, I usually don't have people quote things after me, but this has to come down.

This king shall have no horses to himself, multiply horses, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should multiply horses. For as much as the Lord has said unto him, ye shall henceforth return no more that way.

Return no more to where? Otherwise, cut everything of Egypt, have nothing to do with Egypt. Egypt is the world, represents sin and the devil and the flesh. You've got nothing else to do with it, right?

Number two, verse 17, neither shall he multiply wives. Say, no harem. No harem. No horses, no harem. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away. Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

Say, no hoarding of gold. All right, there it is, three of them. No horses out of Egypt, no multiplying of wives, no harem, and no hoarding of gold and silver. And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is written before the priest and the Levites.

All right, Moses had also warned, and I'm just going to read it to you. For the Lord is a jealous God. Let's now make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods.

And you take of their daughters and their sons, and their daughters go a-whoring after their gods. In other words, Moses said it's a law of God, and he preached this sermon. Solomon knew it. And before David died, David looked at Solomon and said, I want you to heed all the words of the prophet Moses.

All the words of the prophet Moses. That was an explicit command. And King Solomon knew all of this. All right, let's get into the steps that lead to becoming gospel-hardened or sermon-proof. Step number one, a pocket of disobedience.

A Pocket of Disobedience

A pocket of disobedience. It could be a single besetting sin. Solomon loved the Lord, but he practiced things contrary to the word of God. Go to 1 Kings with me, please. 1 Kings. We're going to go through quite a few scriptures, but we're going to stay mostly in the first book of Kings.

First book of Kings, third chapter. 1 Kings, third chapter. Go to verse three. 1 Kings, third chapter, third verse. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statues of David, his father, only, what does it say in New American Standard?

Except. I like that even better. Except he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places. He said, this man loves the Lord. Except. Except. It's that exception we're going to talk about. Lord walking the statues of David, his father, except with this exception, he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.

Now, of course, that was strictly forbidden. He was to sacrifice only where God ordained it, and especially not in high places. Now, look at me, please. Solomon truly loved the Lord. He had a great respect for God's house.

This man, to this point, was morally clean. With this exception, this one exception, in certain areas, he had a weakness. Now, I want you to listen closely. I believe it's possible to really love the Lord with all your heart, to have a heart set for God.

You can spend time and money on the work of God. You can put God first. You can become very dedicated, but you can still hold one area of disobedience in your heart contrary to the clear word of God. One area.

With all his heart, Solomon, more than anything else, wanted divine wisdom. He wanted discernment to know between right and wrong, because when God appeared to him in a dream, God said to Solomon, What would you have me do for you?

And Solomon, in essence, says, All I want, Father, all I want is to know how to go out and come in among the people. I want to know the difference between right and wrong, pureness and evil. I want to know the difference between the holy and the profane.

An understanding heart was given to him, the Bible said, to discern between good and bad. But when God gave it to him, he also gave a warning. He said, If, if you will walk in my words, in my ways, if you will keep my statutes and my commandments as your father David did, then will I lengthen thy days.

In other words, then will I keep my hand upon you. Now, Solomon heard a divine sermon right from the very heart of God himself. God, in a dream, preached the sermon to him. David preached sermon after sermon to him.

He'd had an example of David's sin set before him and all the consequences of it. This man had the law. He had judges. He had the writings of Deborah, of Samuel, the prophet Nathan. This man had all the words of God had been printed and preached up to that very day.

And here's David's very warning. Take heed to all the statutes the Lord commanded Moses concerning Israel. Solomon knew the word. As a result, in fact, of all that God revealed to Solomon, he wrote 1 ,005, 1 ,005 Psalms.

He wrote 3 ,000 Proverbs. And do you know what some of those Proverbs said? Let me read one of them for you. And it's going to be very important. He warned about the evil power of strange women. He said, the strange woman, her end is bitter as wormwood.

It's sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell. Boy, this man could preach it to others. Boy, this man had the truth in his hand. He had so much revelation, he could write 3 ,000 Proverbs.

Oh, that I had that kind of revelation. Oh, that I had that kind of a pen. But this man had a pocket of disobedience, contrary to the word of God. There were areas in his life he totally ignored regarding the commandments of the Lord.

Now, do you remember these three things I told you? No horses out of Egypt. No harem. No hoarding of silver and gold. And Solomon broke all three of those commandments. I want you to go with me to the 10th chapter, 1 Kings, the 10th chapter.

Getting to read verse 28. Horses out of Egypt. Well, that's verse 26. And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. And he had 1 ,400 chariots, 12 ,000 horsemen. Whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots and with the king of Jerusalem.

And the king made silver. See, there was to be no silver gold. The king made silver to be in Jerusalem with stones. Look at verse 28. And Solomon had horses brought from where? Had horses brought out of Egypt and linen, yarn.

And the king's merchants received the linen yard at a price. And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150. And so for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria, did they bring them out of their means?

Now, look at me, please. This man had a commandment ringing in his head, in his heart. No horses out of Egypt. No trade with Egypt. No contact with Egypt. And this man opens up a trade route with Egypt.

And this man in absolute disobedience to the word of God. He heard it, but he disobeyed it. Horses multiplied wives. We're going to see that also. Number, in fact, let's go to 1 Kings 10, 21. Look at verse 21.

So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom. And all the earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. And they brought every man his present vessels of silver and vessels of gold.

In fact, look at verse 21. And all King Solomon's drinking vessels were gold. All the vessels of the house of the force of Lebanon were pure gold. None were silver. There was nothing accounted off in the days of Solomon.

Look at me, please. And mother, he brought so much gold. He so flooded Israel, Jerusalem with gold. They didn't even keep an account. And you remember what God said, you will not accumulate gold and silver.

Now, I want you to listen. I want you to see something. Let's go to 1 Kings 7. You say, well, God gave him all of that money. God only gives money to people. Whether you make 10 ,000 and he keeps increasing, increasing, increasing, you get to the place, it'll give you so much, you'll test you with it.

And this was a test for King Solomon to see if he would use it properly. But look at verse, look at 1 Kings, the sixth chapter and the last verse, verse 38. And the 11th year in the month bull, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof.

And according to all the facts of it. So he was, how many years in building it? Seven years. Look at verse one now. But Solomon was building his own house. How many years? So he spent seven years for God and 13 years on his own.

Boy, that hit me today. Oh, listen, I'm going to move on. I could preach a whole sermon there, but I just don't feel I can stop there. I've got to get right on down. Neither shall he multiply wise to himself.

Go to 1 Kings 11. 1 Kings 11. Did Solomon keep his word? Did he obey God's word? Look at, look at 1 Kings 11 chapter, verse one. Let's begin to read. But King Solomon loved, how many? Many. What kind of women?

Strange women. Together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidians and Hittites. Oh, what a harem he had. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, You shall not go into them, neither shall they come in unto you.

For surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon claimed unto these in love. He cherished them, in other words. And he had 700 wives, princesses and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his part.

For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after other gods. And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. Look at me, please.

God's sermon, God's message to Solomon was, Look, Solomon, you don't have, you don't have to make any compromises. You can be everything I want you to be. You can achieve anything that I want you to achieve in life without making a compromise to the world, the flesh or the devil.

And I'm telling you that right now, folks. God, without any compromise on our part, can bring us to the place he wants us to go. We don't have to make compromises to reach the goal. God said, if you'll trust me, I'll see you through.

But you see, this man, he breaks every one of these commandments. All of Solomon's compromises could be traced to one fatal flaw in his character. One fatal flaw. He refused to close the door on Egypt.

I'm going to say it again. He refused to close the door on Egypt like he'd been commanded. You know what the Egypt represents, don't you? It's the world and the spirit of the world. It was an attachment he still had in his heart.

First Kings 3, 1. Go to First Kings 3, verse 1. How many times did God say no? He said, leave Egypt, have nothing to do in Egypt. Look at verse 1, chapter 3, verse 1. And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh.

This was a marriage of convenience. And took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David. I'm going to stop right there. He brought her into the city of David. Now, look, God had already set up the kingdom.

Look at verse 2, chapter 2, verse 14. This is God's promise. And King Solomon shall be blessed. And the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever. So the king commanded Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, which went out and fell upon him and he died.

And the kingdom was what? Established in the hand of Solomon. He had not made any compromise yet. And God was already establishing him. The kingdom was being established in his hand. Oh, but something's about to come out of this man.

There's something there in his character. There is a flaw in his character. Up to this point, he had not compromised. Up to this point, there's no harem right now. There are no horses at this time. He's not hoarding silver and gold and accumulating it.

He didn't know that there's a lurching serpent within his heart. And I can hear him go to God and say, Oh God, all I want is you. I don't want riches. I don't want fame. I don't want acceptance. I don't want glory or reputation among men.

It means nothing to me. I just want to know what is right and wrong and know how to serve you and go in and out among this people. That's what he's saying with his heart and with his voice. But he doesn't know what is in his heart.

He doesn't know what's there. You may be sitting here tonight and you say, Well, but those are my words. I don't want anything in this world. I don't want anything. I don't want popularity. I've said that so many times.

Lord, there's nothing in this world that I want. I've said it sincerely, honestly, and as best I know my heart, I mean it. How many of us said that? There's nothing here that I want. But sometimes there's something lurking down so very, very deep inside our hearts.

And I promise God I would not put a guilt clip on you. I ask God to let me do this in tenderness tonight. But I want you to hear what God is saying. God knew there was something in this man, even though he's saying with his lips, God, all I want is you.

All I want is discernment. And God gave him that discernment. All I want is righteousness. But God knew because when he appeared to him the second time, God came forth with a powerful warning. He said, and it says, The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time and he said to him, If you shall at all turn from following me, you or your children, if you will not keep my commandments, you not obey my statutes which I've set before you, but you go and serve other gods and worship them, then I'll cut off Israel out of the land which I've given them.

And this house will I cast out of my sight. He said, I'll just drop it. I won't touch it if you will not obey my word. If you'll not deal with these areas of disobedience. There's a wise old preacher who wrote these words.

And I want you to listen. He said, men are rotting inside today. And the pillars of their character are crumbling and decaying. From the very same influences that brought down Solomon. The very same thing that brought down Solomon is bringing decay to the house of God among many Christians, even in the ministry.

Solomon took a single step of disobedience and it eventually ended up in becoming hardened. He became a lust driven man. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David. That was her holy place.

That's where the ark was. And I'm amused at the theologians. I looked at all the commentaries. I was amused at how the theologians tried to explain Solomon because they know that Solomon's a type of Christ in some aspects.

But they're trying to explain why Solomon was justified in bringing this woman into Zion. And they say, well, the only thing God forbid was marrying the Canaanite women, but not the Egyptian women. Another theologian, in fact, up to this time, I thought he was one of my best theologian writers.

Not anymore. You know, his explanation, Brother Bob, was he said, the daughter of Pharaoh represents the Gentiles and they're being brought into the covenant relationship. And so this represents the heathen being brought in to the covenant of grace.

This is a perfect example, he said, of God's grace. Nonsense. This was a heathen. This woman was forbidden. If God said you can't even bring a horse out of Egypt, how can he bring a wife? She's a strange, she's one of those strange women he's writing about.

Whose gates go to hell. You know who the daughter of Pharaoh represents in our life? A single cord that still holds you to something of this world. A single cord. A single besetting sin that's not surrendered.

That single compromise that you keep justifying. Now, can you picture this heathen queen coming into Zion? The gates are open and here she comes with the trumpets blaring and the people are lining the streets.

Now, she's got her retinue with her. She's got all her hairdressers out of Egypt and I can just see that great big beehive on her head and all the diamonds. Here she comes with her hairdressers and her maids and her housekeepers and her ungodly heathen priest with her.

And in her baggage she's loaded down with her little gods of gold and silver. The little mice out of Egypt that somehow the children of Israel love to worship. And here she comes marching in to Zion and I can see her looking around and because you see she comes from this very civilized society in Egypt and to her Zion, Jerusalem is just a frontier town.

And these are uneducated people and this is just an emerging nation and I can just see her looking in and she whispers to a priest, my temple goes right there. This is going to be easy. She marches in.

I wonder if there were any priests lining the streets that remembered what Moses wrote. I wonder if anyone turned to the other and said, no, this is wrong. This is the very thing Moses forbid. No contact with Egypt.

Not a horse, not a wife. There is the sense of conviction. Where is anybody that believes the word of God? This is wrong. This is sin. Was there nobody that stood up to Solomon? Did Solomon have no tinge of conviction at all?

When he sees this ungodly heathen woman coming right in to the holy place. Right into the holy place. Moses said, I want everything of Egypt severed from this day on. Never again in Israel's history will you have any contact with Egypt.

And I tell you, I believe Solomon could give you all kinds of excuses why he had to go through with it. You see, this is government policy. I'll tell you what, we've got Christians with policies. They have a policy to do what they think is right no matter what is preached.

They'll say to you right in your face, you can preach on the anointing of the Holy Ghost, give a dozen scriptures and they say, well, I don't see it that way. That's their policy. You see, this is policy.

And Solomon could have said, yeah, I know what the word says. Yes, I've heard all that Moses said in his sermons about mixture with the world in Egypt. But in no way is this going to affect my love for my God.

I'm going to win her to Jehovah. Oh, how many young women I've heard tell me that. I know he's an alcohol. I know he drinks. I know he smokes. I know he cursed. I'm going to get him saved. Oh, yes, dear, you're going to get him saved.

You spend the next 30 years trying and regretting every move you've made. Rather to save him, he's dragging you down. He would say to you, there are certain things that go with my job. They go with my job.

See, I'm king. I've got to be king to everybody. In no way is this going to hinder my work and dedication to the house of God. I'm on guard. I'm in control. This is strictly business. That's the same old excuse being used by compromisers in the church today, by those who love God and the world too.

They'll say, yeah, I know what the Bible says about separation, about not touching the unclean thing. Yeah, brother, I've heard all the sermons and all the yelling you've done about television and about theater and about separation.

But you see, this just goes with what I do. See, this is my livelihood. I've heard that from people in the theater. That's what I do. That's what my talent is. I'm in control. I don't see any conflict.