Saving Souls

I think what I hear you saying, Lindsay, is, begin to sow seed to God.  Watch Him multiply your time.  Watch Him bring miracles into your life like you’ve never seen before.  And, Lindsay, I see it happening.

LR: You know, people say-you know, I’ll never forget this, I’m just old enough to remember, you know, all the accusations of Oral Roberts, “Stealing money from the widows.”  And my cute little mother, my father died when I was twelve, so remember this.  And my father was a very wealthy car dealer. Everything was peaches and cream until my father died. And then you can’t believe what happens to some families when family members die.

Well, you know how they said, “They come out of the woodwork, and the vultures come?”  Well, that happened to our family.  Well, some very strange things happened, and there were some very strange turnarounds in our family.  And in the process of it, I watched my mother begin to sow seed.  And I would say, “Mother, we can’t afford to do that.”  And she said, “We can’t afford not to do that.  How do you think we’re doing what we’re doing?”  And I never got it.

And I remember being married to Richard, and they had put an article in the paper against Oral.  And they were griping and complaining against oral, “Stealing seed from the widow.”  And my mother gets out this sheet of paper, and she said, “Dear Oral Roberts, I was one of those widows.”

She said, “Now I own my own home.  My business is sold.  My is this.  Here’s the kind of car I drive.  This is what I wear, blah, blah, blah.”

And she said, “If this is the result of you receiving money from the widows,” she said, “tell every widow in America try it.”  And that’s my mother, because my mother kept us out of famine by seedtime and harvest.  I know she did.

And its proof that God everywhere in the Bible-do you know why He used a little widow woman?  Because He knew she had to have a harvest or she’d starve.  God finds people that have to have a harvest or you’ll go under.  And He teaches you to sow, not to take something from you, but to get something to you in Jesus” name.

M: And it’s sacrificial.

LR: It is.

M: Faith is a sacrifice.  It’s radical.  God is radical.  So until we get radical, we don’t get the radical overflow.

RR: I got a letter that I want to show you.  “Dear Richard and Lindsay, we are grateful that both of our children attended ORU and married wonderful mates.  We just installed Sky Angel,” which means they can get this program now, “and started receiving your program last week.  My spirit and my husband’s spirit bore witness to the word” now this came from Kenneth Copeland the other night” get my university out of debt.”  That’s what Kenneth Copeland said that the Lord had said to him.  “We love you both and are blessed.  God’s precious grace and mercy in you in Christ Jesus our Lord,” and then their name.

God wants to prosper you.  He said, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou shouldest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers.” Richard, this book is a knock-out.  It’s probably the best book your dad ever wrote.  It’s probably the best one.  I’ve got so many of his books in my library.

LR: You preached something to me out of Oral’s own ministry that he taught and he wrote a book on.  And even after I read the book, I never got it as clear as when you taught me about the Blessing-Pact Covenant.  And you said that is what literally turned your life, your mind, your thinking around, when you read that for the first time, Blessing-Pact Covenant, that God was a covenant maker and you could make a pact with God, and God would not come out of covenant with you for blessings.  As long as you did your part, God did His part.

BS: Well, Oral Roberts has been a blessing in my life for over forty years.  And this book is dynamite.  I’m telling you, this is dynamite stuff.  And it’s real easy to read.  This is the easiest book I ever read. I was over in a hotel just making some marks and saying, “Man, he does it like step one, step two, step three, and step four.”  It’s really easy.  But I want to tell you something, if you want to get God working right away, He said, “Prove me now, saith God, and I’ll open the windows of heaven.  I’ll pour you out a blessing you can’t contain.”  When I started in business, when your father came to Columbus, I had a little old used car lot. I had four or five; six used cars at a time on my little old lot.  I built one of the biggest automotive empires in America. I had five new car dealerships in Columbus, and out north I had another one.  But God helped me.  I asked God, I would say, “In Jesus” name, I want you to send me some customers today.”

And you don’t bribe God. You just obey God. You don’t bribe God.  That’s not what it is.  You obey God.  He says, “Prove me now, says God, I will open the windows and pour it out on you.”

RR: You’ve got to do your part.

BS: But you’ve got to take that step.  And the telephone number is on the screen.  There it is.  It’s on the screen.  Call and say, “Look, I’m pledging $2,000 or $50,000 or $500 or $100 or $50,” or whatever.  You know, whatever moves your faith.  You say, “Why would you want me to make a pledge of $2,000?”  It will move your faith.  And if it moves your faith, it will move God.

You know, it seems like God sometimes takes little hinges to swing big doors.  And that little hinge for me was that one dollar book I bought at Oral Roberts Ministry forty some years ago.

What did He tell them to do?  Something unusual, uncommon.  “God show you to the priest.”

In the natural they can’t do that.  If they walk into that city with leprosy, they can legally be stoned.  So if you need uncommon results, you have to be willing to do something uncommon.

You know, if what you make on your paycheck is not covering all of your liabilities, it’s not going to get you out of debt, and then you need uncommon harvest.  And the only way you can get an uncommon harvest is to sow an uncommon seed.  You’ve got to do something that goes beyond the norm.

And another thing that’s important about seedtime and harvest, it’s where you sow it.  If you remember the parable of Mark, chapter 4, where the farmer sowed

LR: The parable of the sower.

JS: If you look at that again, that seed fell on 4 different types of soil, but only one produced a harvest.  So it’s not just sowing alone; it’s where you sow it that produces harvest.

In other words, I don’t sow seed in works that are dead.  I don’t sow seed in something where somebody is telling me, “God’s my problem.  God will make me sick.  God will teach you by killing your children.”  As far as I’m concerned, that is not good ground.  I’m not sowing my seed. In fact, if you sow into something like that, you’re not sowing; you’re throwing.  You’re wasting seed.

LR: Whoo!  Whoo!

JS: You’re wasting seed. You’re just throwing seed. You’re scattering seed.

LR: See, I knew I’d get something to take from you, Jerry. I’m writing that one down.  You’re either sowing or throwing.

You know, your dad said to me one time, sitting in his office, he said, “God has instructed me to redirect my seed.”  I’ll never forget when he said that.  I thought then, “That’s the difference between throwing seed and sowing seed.”

LR: From then on he talks about aiming his seed

JS: That’s right.

LR: for a desired result.

RR: For a desired result.  That’s why I said so many people are calling and saying, “I’m planting this seed against the need that I’m facing, against my own debt.”  So many of them are doing that.

JS: This is supernatural, Richard.  And the fact that you haven’t mentioned this in the 2 1/2 years that you’ve been on the program, television, you’ve concentrated on what God said to minister healing to the people.

And then you get a word from the Lord that it’s time to get the campus, the university, out of debt. And God’s not just trying to get you out of debt; He’s trying to get every person who will sow out of debt.

RR: Jerry, I didn’t want to talk about it.

JS: I know it.

RR: The Lord said, “You have not because you ask not.”

I said, “Well, I know that’s in the Bible.”

He said, “No, you, Richard, you have not, the university has not, because you ask not.”

Actually, what I believe He was saying was, “You’re cheating people out of an opportunity to get blessed themselves by sowing a seed of their faith and seeing them get their needs met.”

He’s more interested in other people getting their needs met in addition to seeing the university get out of debt.

The Lord said He asked me this question. He said, “What are the 2 gifts that I gave man after creating him?”

I said, “Dominion and authority.”

He said, “No, dominion and authority was the first gift.” He said, “What was the second gift?”

I said, “Well, Lord, to be very honest with You, I’ve never thought of it in terms of gift number one and gift number two.”

He said, “Well, where did you find gift number one?”

I said, “Genesis 1:26-28.”

He said, “If you keep reading, do you suppose you might find gift number two?”

I said, “Yes.”

So I read Genesis 1:26-28, and then I got down to verse 29, and here is the second gift that God gave man after creating him. “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed.”

So the first thing God gave man was authority. The second thing God gave man was seed. And it says that the seed shall be for meat. And another translation says “provision.” So from the very beginning, God has intended for man to live by the seed that he sows. God gave man authority and He gave him seed, from day one.

And what the Word says to me was this. He said, “Son, when a man has a revelation that he has authority and seed, he can make it anywhere on this planet.”All you need is authority and seed and you can make it anywhere. I don’t care what nation. I started preaching the laws of prosperity in the nation of Kenya 25 years ago.

LR: And they said it wouldn’t work.

JS: They told me I couldn’t preach that message there. They said

RR: It won’t work in Africa.

JS: That’s right. They said, “This is a Third World country. These people are poor. You can’t preach prosperity here.”

I said, “It sounds like it to me where we need to preach it the most.”

I started teaching them these very principles. And by the way, I learned those principles from the Miracle of Seed Faith from your father’s book. And a lot

RR: Who got it from the Bible?

JS: Yes. And along with Kenneth Copeland, who came along and expounded upon it for me after he saw it work in your dad’s life.

LR: I have been reading for this for a long time because I have felt just a churning and a burning of what God is going to do. I just believe that this one is going to just explode something in the Spirit realm. And, I’m telling you, breaking the spirit of debt means breaking the spirit of lack. Whatever it is that is lacking, something has begun to break loose in this university, in this ministry, and I think it’s going to get on anybody who wants to get it on them when they get here.

DB: We want you to know that a twelve week old church, Fort Myers Christian Center, wants to invest in the debt retirement of this college. Early this morning, 4:30, as we were leaving to come here because we would never miss Lindsay’s conferences. We need to get under the spout where the glory comes out because we’re giving out down there.  We need to be able to give.

We’ve come with our sleeves rolled up; ready to be a support to this, to do whatever we have to do to help. But at 4:30 this morning Dawn said to me, “Mom, we’ve got to give something from Fort Myers Christian Center, sow into this ministry as we go. Shall I take a check?”  I said, “Yes, take it.”

So I want you to know that we believe in the sowing and reaping principle. We always have. We’ve been a part of this ministry for years and years, even when we were up in Boston ministering.  We were Golden Eagles, if you remember when dad was Just months after we sowed being a Golden Eagle, we then received air time and we went on TV in the greater Boston area.  So it’s reaping what we sowed. Though we sowed, not expecting that, that’s what came back on the water.

And something you said, Lindsay, about the devourer, I have seen it happen in this new babe of a church that people that have been attending have been sowing heartily. And they have been receiving a harvest of healing in their bodies, healing in their marriages, healing in relationships.

And I just would like to provoke the folks, primarily I’d like to target the greater Southwest part of Florida to sow heartily into this ministry because that which you are interceding for and praying for, the devourer will not be able to eat that part of your petition.